by DaveKearns
"Excuse me," I said.
"Yeah?" the mechanic answered. A socket wrench and a set of spark plugs still in the wrappers lay on a rubber mat on the truck fender. I thought I smelled singed hair.
"I blew a tire out on the quarry road," I said. "I don't have a jack. I need help fixing the flat."
The mechanic was rail-thin, with bushy brown hair and a dagger tattoo on his right forearm. The name "Cal" was sewn above the breast pocket on his coveralls. He wiped his greasy hands onto a rag and sized me up through grubby glasses. His eyes looked huge through the lenses.
"It'll cost you a hundred for the tow and to fix the flat, if I can fix it. If your tire's too chewed up I'll use your spare. Fair enough?"
"Fine." I thought about having to wait for the car to be towed in and fixed. I didn't want to wait for it at the station. "Look, is there any chance I could get you to deliver the car to my hotel when you get it fixed?"
Cal screwed his face up behind the glasses. "Man, you gotta be kiddin'. You think this is a Cadillac dealership?"
"How about an extra fifty?" I said.
Cal thought about it for a second. "Which hotel?" he asked.
"Sunrise Inn across from the mall."
"Okay," Cal said. "I'll bring it by this evening and leave the keys at the front desk. What's your name?"
"Del Harper."
"All right. Soon as my help gets back, I'll get your car in here and straighten it out."
I dug three fifties out of my wallet and handed the money and my car keys to Cal. Cal stuffed the keys and cash into the pocket of his coveralls and went back to working on the truck as if I had never been there.
I walked out of the garage into the sunlight, where a buff-colored Jeep Wagoneer had parked at one of the pumps. The slender woman filling the tank was Dean Elliott's secretary, Michelle Villareal. She was wearing a scarlet short sleeved shirt and tight-fitting bleached jeans.
I watched Michelle pump gas for a couple of seconds, debating over whether or not to go over and talk to her. The nozzle jumped slightly in her hand to indicate the tank was full. She tossed her head a little, getting her long hair out of the way when she pulled the nozzle from the tank and hung it back on the pump.
She got her purse from the car and walked towards the cashier's office, towards where I stood. I put my hands into my pants pockets and gave her my most winning smile.
"Hi," Michelle said. "I thought that might be your car I passed."
I was flattered that she recognized me. I didn't think she had taken much notice of me when we were introduced at the quarry.
"Yeah. It's mine. How'd you guess?"
"The Oklahoma plates. Your brother told me he was an Okie." She paused. "I'm really sorry about what happened." A red pickup pulled up behind Michelle's Jeep, waiting to get at the pump.
I wondered if Alamogordo was big enough to have cabs. "Do you need a ride someplace?" she asked.
''Yeah," I said. "Definitely."
She laughed. "I thought so. I'll just pay for my gas." When she went inside I walked over to the Jeep and got into the passenger seat. I could feel the heat radiating off the vinyl seat. Michelle got in with a pair of cold bottles of root beer and handed me one.
She twisted the cap off her bottle and started up the engine. The air conditioner came on and spun a small crystal ball hanging from the rear-view mirror. I was aware of how dirty my hands were from handling the spare.
She pushed the clutch in and shifted into gear. "Where are you staying?" she asked.
"The Sunrise Inn over by the mall. All the best people stay there."
She gave me a sideways look like she thought I was a little crazy. "Okay," she said.
She drove to where the gas station entrance met the interstate. We sat there for a minute, waiting for a small convoy of camouflaged personnel carriers to pass. Then she hit her turn signal, pulled across the westbound lanes of the interstate, and headed for town. Traffic was heavier than it had been on my drive out to the quarry. I guessed that people were getting off their shifts at the air base or at the quarry.
"What did you think of the quarry?" she asked me.
"Overwhelming," I said. "I almost wish I hadn’t gone."
"Sorry," she said. "It was thoughtless of me to ask."
Wisps of her hair were blown about by the air conditioning, and I watched them dance in the cool breeze. Her hair wasn't brown like I had thought, it was auburn.
"The trucks look like toys at the bottom," I said. Dean had told me that Brick’s truck was upside down when they got to it. They had needed to use a blowtorch to cut him out of the wreck.
I took a deep breath. "Did you know Brick very well?" I asked.
She took her eyes off the road and looked at me for a moment.
"We were actually together for a while, but he broke it off," she said. She frowned and went back to watching the road. I wasn’t too surprised that Brick had found Michelle. He’d always been able to find companionship, wherever he was. His good looks, wisecracking attitude, and unwillingness to be attached to anyone made him a challenge for ladies from the time we were in high school. I guess he’d added Michelle to his list before he moved on. She was one of the prettiest of his girlfriends, though, and she seemed too special for things to have just been casual between them.
We had hit the outskirts of Alamogordo. The economy seemed to consist solely of motels, restaurants, and gas stations, and I wondered where the houses were. The people had to live somewhere. "Was he happy here?" I asked.
"I think so," she said. "He liked driving the trucks, being outdoors. He loved the desert."
We drove in silence for a minute. We were hitting green lights and flowing along with the traffic. I thought that if Brick had been happy in this moonscape and had let this beautiful woman get away from him, then I didn't understand how his mind had worked. Not sure I ever did.
She downshifted and nosed the Jeep into the motel parking lot. Most of the parking spaces were empty, but she pulled under the awning at the front of the motel so I could get out in the shade. Sturdy, bleached cactus sprouted from white barrels on either side of the lobby doors.
"Where's a good place to eat that's close?" I asked.
She pursed her lips, thinking about it. "I'm hungry, too," she said. "Why don't you get cleaned up and I'll pick you up in about thirty minutes? I have a couple of errands to run, and then I’ll come back."
"It's a deal," I said. "I'm in room 214. Here in front."
As bad as I felt, I almost smiled as I went up the stairs that led to the second floor. I walked along the balcony to my room, opened the door, and stood in the doorway. The door of my room faced west, offering a pretty good view of the interstate. If I looked past the traffic, I could see the San Andres Mountains. They looked as hard and barren as an anvil.
The message light was flashing on my phone when I went inside. I ignored it, deciding to take a shower before I dealt with any more problems. I cranked the knob on the air conditioner to high, stripped off my clothes, and tossed them into a corner. I had worn them during the drive in from Oklahoma City the night before, and they felt sticky and stiff with sweat.
I turned the shower on as hot as I could stand it, and then stepped under the spray. After I washed off the sand and sweat, I turned the hot water down until the stream went cool. I stood there for a while until I felt my body temperature coming down and some energy coming back.
I toweled off and went to the phone to check the message. The front desk told me that I had a call from Dean Elliott requesting that I call him back at a number they read to me. I dialed the number and sat on the bed listening to the phone ring on the other end.
"Dean Elliott speaking."
"Dean, this is Del Harper returning your call."
"Hi, Del. Hey, I'm sorry to bother you, but there's a couple of things I needed to talk to you about."
"Okay. Shoot."
"Well sir, I went to clean out your brother's locker for you a few minutes ago
and it looks like someone ripped the door off with a crowbar."
"What?"
"Yeah, I'm sorry about that. I don't know if they got anything or not. It was empty when I got there."
"Is that what usually happens when someone dies at the quarry, Dean? They scavenge his locker? You have parasites working there?"
Dean didn't say anything for a few seconds.
"No. Look. Most of the people who work here are good people, but every barrel has a few bad apples in it. It’s a big company, and there are a few bad ones. I’m sorry…I didn’t have to tell you. Have mercy, okay?"
I was looking through the drapes at the motel parking lot and trying to pick my car out among the other cars in the lot. I wanted to drive back to the quarry and kick someone's ass. Then I remembered my car was over at Cal's garage.
"Anything else?" I asked. A semi truck geared down on the highway, rattling the room with noise.
"Oh yeah, security told me that your brother's car is still here in the parking lot. I don't know what you want to do with it."
I hadn't thought about Brick's car before then. I glanced at the night stand where Brick's car keys, wallet, and wristwatch lay in a pile beside my own. I'd picked them up at the hospital when I went to see Brick. I had planned on being there when he came out of surgery, but when I made it to the hospital he was already gone. A nurse offered his wallet and jewelry to me in a plastic bowl.
I wondered if he was still driving the hot rod we'd built up together one summer when we were in college. I hadn't been over to Brick's house yet, either, and I dreaded going through his belongings.
"Del, you there?" Dean asked.
"Yeah, I'm here," I said. "I'll be out for the car tomorrow afternoon." After I got off the phone I realized that I had no use for two cars, even if I could find a way to get the car back to Brick's house or to my hotel.
I put on clean jeans and a short-sleeved dress shirt. I had just finished shaving when I heard a knock at the door. I wiped the traces of shaving cream from my face with a towel before answering the door. Michelle was waiting outside with a hand on one hip. She had applied fresh red lipstick and brushed her hair back over her shoulders. She checked me out through oversize dark sunglasses with tortoise shell rims.
"Well," she said, "You look much better."
"I'll take that as a compliment," I said. "Come on in."
She sat down in the chair by the door and took her sunglasses off. I pulled a pair of loafers out of my carry-on bag and slipped them on. Then I went into the bathroom to finish cleaning up. I ran a comb through my damp hair and looked at myself in the mirror. I had gray crescents under my eyes from lack of sleep.
"I'm almost ready," I said.
"Take your time," she replied. I saw her stand from her chair and go across to where several pictures of mountains hung on the wall over the bed. Michelle got close to the one nearest to the door, scrutinizing it.
"I don't know what mountain this is," Michelle said. "But it isn't anything around here. Looks like it might be Colorado." I turned the light off in the bathroom and went over to take a look at the picture.
"How can you tell?" I asked.
"The mountains in this area are very old," she said. "They don't have sharp peaks. The color is wrong, too. You won't find much gray in the rock around here. Mostly red or brown."
"I'll ask the manager for a refund on the room," I said. She checked my expression for a second to see if I was kidding. I gave her a small smile and she returned it.
I picked up my wallet and room key off the night stand. Brick's wristwatch looked like a chronograph that a scuba diver would wear, with a heavy metal wristband and several stopwatch dials on the face. I resisted the urge to pick it up and put my own on instead.
"Let's go," I said.
We got back into Michelle's Wagoneer and drove north on I-70 towards Tularosa. It was still hot, but with all the windows down it didn't seem unbearable. We went past Alameda Park Zoo, Alameda Park, the Toy Train Depot, and an enclosed shopping mall. The sun was still visible over the San Andres mountain range west of town, but the light had softened and gave the mountains a reddish cast. High strips of clouds glowed orange in the evening sky. I pulled off my sunglasses to see if the lenses were causing the odd color. Michelle glanced over at me.
"What's the matter, Del?"
"The light here is remarkable in the evening. I don't know how to describe it. Soft-looking."
"It's pretty, isn't it?"
"Is the scenery why you stay here?"
"That's part of it. I live with my family up in Cloudcroft. You probably drove through there on your way in."
"Yeah. It was dark, but I remember seeing a sign. It didn’t seem like much of a town."
She frowned at me. "It's small, but there's no crime and people like living there. My mom is a cook at the hotel."
"Isn't there supposed to be a golf course up there?" I asked.
She laughed. "Yeah. And it’s a beautiful course, too."
We had left Alamogordo behind us, and all that seemed to lie ahead was bleached, baked desert. I wondered if she was taking me to a road house on the interstate, or on to Tularosa, but she slowed and turned the car across the road, nosing the Jeep down a gentle embankment onto a dirt road. We were heading west, straight towards the mountains and White Sands. I didn't ask where we were going. Her presence was enough for me, and I was happy to be along for the ride.
She drove the Jeep slowly along the sandy road past sagebrush, small cactus, and bleached grass. We bumped over ruts, and once she pulled partially off the road to avoid running over a snake sunning itself in the last of the evening sun. Small dunes began to encroach from the right. Michelle stopped the car and turned off the engine.
The sudden silence in the car seemed intense. I felt my emotions coming loose from where I had held them in check, and for a second I wished that I were back in my hotel room alone, where I could drink all night.
"I wanted you to see this," she said.
I didn't say anything. The only sound was a whisper of a breeze through the open windows of the car.
"I know you think this is isn’t much of a place to live," she said. There was kindness in her voice, like a patient teacher's. "C'mon," she said. "I'll show you something."
We got out of the car and Michelle came around to my side of the Jeep. She took my hand in hers, and we walked along the road for a hundred yards in silence. Her palm felt cool and smooth against mine. She gave my hand a squeeze and pointed off to the right. A small trail led north into taller dunes.
The path appeared to be a game trail. Flattened, bleached grass meandered past scrubby-looking bushes that looked like good candidates for future tumbleweeds before leading into powder-white sand dunes. We followed the trail in silence for a little while, weaving between dunes and sagebrush.
I kept thinking about seeing Brick's face at the hospital. The doctor had said Brick's death was probably due to internal injuries, but there had been an ugly gash across his forehead from hitting the steering wheel. Seeing him like that shook me to the core, and after signing a few papers I left the hospital in a daze. On my way out of the lobby I stopped at the pay phone to call our relatives to tell them that Brick was gone. I stood there shaking with the phone in my hand when I realized that there was no one left to call.
Michelle and I stopped in an open space nearly surrounded by tall dunes. It was perfectly silent with no wind to stir sounds from the desert grasses. The sun had nearly set, and the high clouds glowed like molten iron. I was still thinking about Brick, and even in Michelle's presence I felt truly alone. Then I felt the pressure start to rise in my chest and I bent over and put my hands on my knees. Michelle's hand stroked my back gently while I tried to choke back the tears. When I stood up again she put her arms around me, consoling me.
Chapter Three
I tried to clear my mind. I could hear subtle sounds of the desert awakening in the coming darkness. Soft winds rose and blew through
the dunes. A few birds called to each other in thin, sharp notes.
"It's nearly dark," she said. "We'd better go." I wanted to stand there until I understood how things happen, how Brick could disappear when I wasn't there. But I nodded anyway and we set off for the car, holding hands and occasionally bumping hips on the trail. We climbed back into the Jeep, and Michelle started the engine and hit the headlights. Cacti, sage, and the dirt road were all painted in stark white light.