by Susan Dunlap
“Like you said, it’s three in the morning. Even in Frisco you’d be drinking swill.”
“Maybe on the way? It won’t be three o’clock forever.” Coffee shop or any other place I could use as a landmark?
“Just get in, honey-love.”
“I’ll follow you.”
He glanced at the rental. “Not in that. We’re not talking pavement out there.”
I climbed into his truck. Most of the time when I’m in the death seat, I’m alert for every danger a nonprofessional driver’s going to miss—the belch of pavement that can flip a fast-moving car, the hidden slicks on the road, the kids and bikes shooting out from between cars, idiots chatting away on cell phones and pulling into traffic without a glance. But Blink was making rent doing car gags. The truck was dark and warm, the suspension good. And it had been how long since I’d slept? I was so tempted. But not enough to be riding into the dark and not map the route as we drove. If things went bad, I needed to know if the nearest town was San Bernardino or Calexico. “Okay, you’re right. Coffee first. No matter how bad, it’ll be better than nothing.”
That was untrue, as I realized when I woke in a panic hours later at sunrise in the high desert.
How could I have let myself sleep?
Now I had no idea what direction we’d come or where we were. Blink could have driven in circles for all I knew. Now—oh, shit! My eyes were crusted shut and I had a headache, maybe from sleeping funny, or could it have been something added to that revolting coffee? Was I really safe with this guy? “Where are we?” I said, trying to keep the panic from my voice.
“Almost there.”
“What’re we near?”
“Nothing.”
That was the truth. Flat and tan in all directions. “What’s the last—”
We shot over a hill and off into air. I grabbed for the door moments before the wheels hit road. We weren’t going straight down, but close to it. I braced my feet. Ahead was scrub brush. The “road” was a path with sharp turns. “No wonder no one comes here on their own.”
“Getting out’s worse.”
“Great.”
Dust blasted through the window, but I wasn’t about to let go to press the button to raise it. On one side was the hill, on the other a drop. The truck hit a rock and bounced so close to the edge there was only sky out my window. “Slow down!”
“Don’t dare.”
I knew what he meant. On runs like this you’ve got to focus on things as they are. A change—any change—will throw you. Literally.
The truck bounced against the hillside, slammed into the track, skidded right. The front wheel was off the track. It was spinning in air. Ease left! Don’t pull hard. Just ease it! I kept quiet. Any change . . . I was desperate to slide to the window, stare out, find a spot out there to jump to, to start my tumble down into nothingness.
Instead, I did the smart thing and slid tight against Blink, shifting the balance in the truck. The wheels grabbed. Neither of us sighed, not yet.
Ahead was air. Blink pulled hard left around an outcropping.
“Goat trail,” I muttered.
He made a sound that could have been anything.
The air was hotter; the bright morning sun glinted off the hood ornament. Hood ornament! What a stupid—
He hit the hillside, using it to slow the truck. Then I saw why. The path shot straight down. The hillside gave way. The wheels were on the edge on both sides. It was like driving on a rope. I eased back midway to the window, my hand braced as close to the handle as I dared. If the truck went off, it would go where Blink couldn’t see the edge, on my side. There’d be no time to aim, only to slam the door open, leap, and try for a controlled slide.
Something scraped the sides. Cactus. I risked a glance out the window. Barrel cactus was growing up over the edge. The truck was slowing.
“Look ahead, Darcy.”
“Omigod!” Under an awning of anorexic desert trees were cabins, alongside what looked like an adobe lodge and a barn. A hundred yards to the side were three tall cylinders. Bud vases for prehistoric flowers? But straight ahead, out in the open, was the thing that caught my eye. “That’s what I heard about this place.”
It looked like a thin jumble of wires. Like a high-wire setup gone mad. Wires curved and turned, like the scariest of roller-coaster tracks. But there were no comforting support beams; only the air seemed to be holding them up. It took me a minute to spot the platform forty feet in the air and make out a girl standing on the edge, one hand reaching behind to what had to be a carabiner attaching her to the wires, the other hand over her heart as if she were praying.
“Look, she’s going to shoot the wires! Wow, this really is a great place!”
“Yeah,” Blink agreed. His tone reminded me he was a car guy, not someone who did high falls or leaps. He wasn’t looking with envy as I was.
The girl was dead still, like she was doing a run-through in her mind, picturing herself pushing off hard enough to take the first loop. She reached around her hips to check the lower carabiner behind her sacrum.
The truck was barely moving now, and Blink was watching her, too. I realized he’d shut off the motor lest he spook her. People like us are trained to deal with sudden noise, but a distraction’s a distraction. He eased to a halt.
When I looked up, she was rechecking her shoulder harness. I followed her gaze down to the safety net, a thick, wide cocoon that could haul in a rhino. There was no wind at all. My arm out the window already felt hot from the sun. Perfect conditions. “She’s not going to get buffeted.”
“Nope,” Blink whispered.
Now she double-checked her butt harness. She had blonde hair, long and tied in a knot in back to keep it from cutting into her field of vision. For a moment I thought she was naked but quickly made out her beige unitard. “That’s the fourth time she’s checked the harness. Must be her first try on this.”
“There she goes!”
She pushed off. Hands out, feet together, she looked like she was flying straight out, picking up speed, holding form. I forgot the harness and went with the illusion. The wire curved left and she sailed around it, now straight again, faster. She shot up a loop, momentum carrying her over the wire now and around. Suddenly her feet dropped, her momentum died, and she skidded back to a low point on the wire, suspended there like a sack. It was a moment before she managed to rock back and forth enough to reach the wire with her hands and then her feet and to start inching back toward the platform.
“Bad form break.”
Blink nodded noncommittally.
“Bitch to get back. Still, not bad for a first try.”
He said nothing and I had the sense that he was waiting for me to make a move. I eyed the wire one last time. This trek was taking way more time than I had. Still I couldn’t resist. “I’ve got to try that!”
“Big surprise! But don’t count on Zahra letting you. This isn’t Disneyland.”
“I can ask.” I opened the door and eyed the lodge, beyond the aerial setup. There were no other vehicles around. Did Zahra Raintree take a mule train out of here to get groceries? Driving the path we’d come in on would get old fast. During rainy season folks would be eating roots and tubers.
I could have asked Blink. Instead, I tried for surprise. “Where’ll I find Ryan Hammond?”
“Hammond? What makes you think he’d be here, with Zahra?”
“Have you seen him here?”
“How many times do I have to tell you, I don’t know the guy. Don’t know where he is, where he’s been. He could be dead for all I know.”
“It’s Guthrie who’s dead. And could be Ryan Hammond’s been using his house to store his Oscar. Guthrie’s idea, or Hammond taking advantage of his absence?”
He jumped down from the cab and slammed the door so hard the glove compartment door sprang open. I leapt out and got in his face. “So what’s the deal with Hammond?”
“Jesus, I can’t tell you how sorry I am I answered
the phone. I do you one favor after another and this is—”
“Oh, please! I like you, Blink, I really do. But I don’t fool myself that you’re any altruist. You didn’t survive this long without watching your ass. You drove me here because you knew I’d hunt this place down. And if I did, you wanted to be here for . . .” For what? “Cut to the chase and just tell me where to find Hammond here.”
“Hey, I’m the one with the wheels. I can leave you—”
“Not likely. Because, Blink, you know I will spread the word—”
“I don’t think so.”
“Think again.”
He rested a hand on my shoulder, and not in a friendly way. “Stunt guys have come and gone from this place and no one has ever sold it out. Including Guthrie, your boyfriend. He didn’t even let on to you. Make you wonder? Trust me, you’re not going to rat it out either. And so,” he released my shoulder, “you got nothing to pressure me with. Better do what you’re going to do and get back here before it’s too hot to breathe.”
“So why’d you bring me?”
“I’m an altruist.”
Shit! What was it the man did not want me to find? It was still not quite 7:00, but the place seemed oddly empty. No one was out watching the girl on the wire. Beyond the final support pole for the wires was the barn. What went on in there?
A screen door opened in the lodge across the dirt parking area. Before I could make out a figure, it shut. “Hello?” I called, running toward it.
The metal door was sturdy and new, at odds with the sod building. “Hello?”
I knocked. No response. I waited, then tried the door. Locked. “Hello!” I peered in around the edge of a drawn shade. The room was dark and looked empty by now.
Where were all the people this place was set up to serve? I ran across the hard ground to the big aluminum barn. Not the best for a desert that’s baking in summer and bone-chilling in winter. If you were inside in the rain, it’d be akin to an artillery attack.
The narrow end had a roll-up garage door and a small door with a window. Both locked. I went through the knock and holler routine again, to the same end. Blink sauntered up but offered no help. I couldn’t tell whether he was just waiting me out or what.
“Does that girl on the wire live here alone?” I asked in exasperation.
“She’s not Zahra.”
“I can see that. Zahra Raintree must be sixty. She was doubling before I was born. But where’s everyone else?”
Blink shrugged.
“Who was here the last time you were?”
“I never said—”
“Oh, come on! You found a road a vulture would have missed.”
“I’ve seen the road, not the ranch.”
“Who took you?”
He looked up, but not as if he was expecting the answer from the wire or the sky. He was concocting.
Goddamn you! “Never mind.”
I strode back to the lodge door and pounded. “I know you’re there. Save us both time.”
Nothing. I pounded harder.
“Go away!” It was a female voice.
“Zahra?” I said.
“Leave!”
“Or what? You’ll call the sheriff to come bouncing down your road? Look, I’m just here to ask about Damon Guthrie.”
“I don’t know any Damon Guthrie.”
“Sure you do. Stunt guy. Little older than me. Balding, ponytail. Genius with truck gags.”
She hesitated just the way Blink had. “Nope.” She was standing a couple feet behind the screen door, backlit in the dark room. Her hair was cropped and I could see the outline of muscles in her lean body. She looked like she could still handle any stunt I could. She looked like she could handle me. I wished I could see her face, to read her and get a clue how to play this.
I went with the truth, sort of. “Damon Guthrie was my guy. We’re both in the business and we weren’t together much—really not much—but suddenly things popped for us, you know? And then he died. And I realized I know nothing about him, except that once when we were doing a truck-and-drop sequence near 29 Palms, we’d talked about finding you after. That was ten years ago.” I paused, trying to assess the sound of her breathing.
Was she wary, suspicious, or, like Blink, concocting?
“Back then he had hair on top. Short, then. He did high falls—you’ve got to have seen him. The long slide down the cliff in Red Rock? The leap over the ravine in Cayenne Bramble? Now he’s got this eighteen-wheeler he modified so it slices left and right. I’m sure you’ve seen it, I mean in gags, not coming down your road here. He did the gags in Drag Shot, both the truck one and the high fall.”
I thought I heard her murmur appreciatively but wasn’t sure.
“Now he’s dead. And I don’t even know who he was.”
“Well, honey-love, ain’t that always the way?”
Honey-love! The term had a sweetness when Blink used it, but it was all acid coming from her. I’d never, ever heard it from anyone other than these two, who Blink insisted had never met. Yeah, right! “Zahra, I—”
She stepped out of my line of vision and walked away.
She could simply stay inside there. But I’d be damned if she was going to scoot out the rear. I ran to the end of the lodge, around the side to the back. No sign of her. Blink was nowhere in sight. If he was smart, he’d be sitting back in the truck with the air conditioning on.
What held my attention, however, was the trio of junk cars at the bottom of a narrow dirt path. Three of them, all so rusted it would take forensics to figure out their original color. They could have been parked there yesterday or in 1977.
The only person visible still was the girl on the wire. Still on the wire, inching back from her failed try. I swiped my arm across my forehead, hoping my T-shirt arm would mop the sweat. Then I pulled up the shirt and used the front. Even with that, the effect was momentary. How bad was it up there, hanging from the wire in the direct sun?
I eyed the truck to make sure that’s where Blink was. Then I strode over to the upright that anchored the wires, a wooden utility pole with metal rungs sticking out on both sides. Above, the blonde was a yard from the platform. She was in no danger of anything greater than frustration. I could sure share that one with her. I moved quickly up the pole, the metal hot on my hands.
Spotting me, she stared; her face tightened with fear. Her hands went slack. She dropped and slid. If she hadn’t been hooked on, she’d have fallen to the ground.
20
“YOU OKAY?” I double-timed it up the pole, onto the ledge. “Swing your legs up so I can grab them and reel you in.”
She didn’t move.
“You’re not going to fall. You’re harnessed on in two spots. Swing your legs over here.” Still no shift. This was fear. Logic was useless. But there was one sure way to cut through and get action. “Guess your glutes are so out of shape you can’t lift those tree trunks of legs.”
Her legs shot up. I grabbed an ankle and guided her onto the platform beside me. She shifted into a squat, head on knees, panting.
A crack came from below. I just about dived for the net. But it wasn’t a gunshot, only the lodge door opening. No one came out, but the door had been opened for a reason, probably not to bring me lemonade. Blink must have seen it, too; he turned on the truck’s engine. Ready to cut and run? Him, maybe; me, no. I had too many questions. This place was like stunt camp. But why the secrecy? With one ad or even word of mouth, Zahra’d be turning people away. Stars would be paying big-time; studios would underwrite a pool, sauna, and masseuse, whatever Zahra wanted.
The blonde lifted her head. “You didn’t do me any favor.”
“Wasn’t my intent. I’m here about Guthrie.”
“Who?”
“Damon Guthrie. The best truck wrangler in the business. About fifty, balding, ponytail.”
“What was he in?”
I reeled off a couple of chase flicks in which he had truck gags and the high falls I’d
mentioned to Zahra.
“Never heard of ’em.”
“Ah, stunt work. The industry’s way to maintain our anonymity.”
Her eyes twitched, suggesting she’d heard that line before.
So you are in the business. “How’d you wind up here?”
She shook her head stiffly.
“Just curious.”
She grabbed the pole looking uncertain. “Who are you?”
“Darcy Lott. Just did a power slide on a set in the Port of Oakland—bike under truck. You?”
For the first time she really looked at me, looked me over. “Wow! How’d it go?”
“There was a minor timing problem. Nothing, really. I saved it. Just minor burns on my hands.” I held one out to show its recovery.
“So why are you here now?”
“Like I said, I’m looking for Damon Guthrie. Do you want me to describe him again?”
“What was his problem?”
I was beginning to get the picture. “Don’t know. But it’s an unusual name.”
“We don’t use names here.”
Below, metal scraped. She jolted, clasping the pole tighter. I shot a glance at the lodge. Had a door opened and shut again?
“You say you’ve done gags,” she said. “Prove it.”
“You’re on.” I wrapped my arms around her ribs, clasped my elbows, and pushed off. Still harnessed to the wire, she shot off the platform with me on her back. We hit the first turn fast, flipped up and over the loop and down—me hanging below. My legs were taut, my feet outside hers, forcing her into position. We swung left, halfway up a loop, but there was no way to work the wire from my position. Our weight was too much. We slowed to a stop around the same spot she had before.
“Here’s your proof.” I let go and dropped into the net, stretching wide to spread my weight and deaden the bounce. The air felt good in the second it took to hit the net. I bounced up, ran to the edge, and climbed back up the pole. When I reached the platform, she was hauling herself back along the wire. I might have convinced her I was a stunt double, but I sure didn’t make a friend.
No one was coming toward us. Were we alone out here in the middle of the desert, just us, the woman behind the screen door in the lodge, and Blink in his climate-controlled truck?