by Andrew Smith
I took the gun from the shirt-sling around my waist and tucked it down into the pack. I didn’t change clothes; the only other pants I could wear were still wet from the rainstorm the day before, anyway. But I found a dry tee shirt of Simon’s and pulled it on over my head.
It smelled like Simon. It smelled like cigarettes, too.
I ached.
I wanted to cry, to scream, to run down that road as fast as I could, to find Mitch and put a bullet in him, to save Simon, to save Lilly, but I just sat down in the dirt by my pack and rearranged the contents to spare Matthew’s letters from the dampness.
Then I took out the map and drew in that short trip I’d taken from the bridge and the walk back on the other side of the river.
I was so tired. For the first time, I realized that I thought we’d never make it to where we wanted to go. I thought I’d never see my brother again.
I decided I’d sat there long enough. As I put my things away and stood up on shaking and tired legs, I heard the sound of a car on the road. So I hurried to sling the pack over my arm and moved quickly out to the roadside, hoping to catch a ride with anyone who might be traveling along that abandoned stretch of highway.
The noise came from a Volkswagen Beetle, painted a dull sand color with rust spots on its skin. It so naturally blended in with the terrain of the desert that it almost disappeared against the background of the river gorge.
The storage rack on the top of the car was loaded with bundles of what looked like canvas and several wooden posts, all lashed down tightly with rust-stained ropes.
It pulled into the same turnout where Mitch had parked the Lincoln earlier.
The driver stuck his arm out the side window and waved.
His face was hidden behind goggles, and he wore a cap the same color as the car he was driving, with what looked like a square towel or rag tucked into it, hanging down over the back of his neck. When I noticed there was no glass where the windshield should have been, I understood why he was wearing those goggles.
So I waved back.
I thought about how Simon had stuck his thumb out to get Mitch and Lilly to stop for us. Dread rose from my stomach.
The driver was alone.
He opened the door and stood beside the idling car. He pulled his goggles and hat away and I could see he was just a boy, probably no older than I was. He smiled. He looked friendly.
“Did you fall out of an airplane or something?” he said. “ ’Cause I never seen anyone just appear out here all alone.”
“I guess I’m lost,” I said. “I got stuck out here.”
“Are you okay?” Now the boy looked concerned. I noticed he was looking at my wet jeans, and the water dripping from my hair.
I didn’t answer. I didn’t know if I was okay or not.
“Well, can I help you or something? Do you need a ride?”
“I think I do. Yeah.”
“Where to?”
I thought. “I don’t know. Arizona.”
“Are you high or something?”
“No.”
“Well, I can’t take you to Arizona right now. I got things to drop off to my dad. And Arizona’s a long way. I’d have to ask my mom and dad if it was okay. But I’ll give you a ride. Sure. Are you hungry?”
“Yeah.”
The boy scratched his head. His hair was very short and dark, and just the way his eyes studied me, so relaxed, almost smiling, made me feel he was honest and sincere.
“I’ll take you to my place, if you want. It’s a few miles across the river. We can get you something to eat and you can tell them about how you need to get to Arizona. And where you came from. I bet it’s a good story.”
The boy replaced his cap and goggles and sat down behind the wheel.
I just stood there. I looked back down the road where Mitch would have gone with Simon and Lilly.
“Are you going to stay here or get in? It really doesn’t matter to me if you don’t want to.”
I shrugged and stepped around to the opposite side of the VW. I put the pack down on the floor between my feet and the car took off, heading out across the sagging bridge.
The bridge creaked and swayed as we drove across it. The boy looked at me.
“Scared?”
I guess he noticed I’d tensed up. “Yeah.”
I wasn’t thinking about the bridge, or the water, though. I was thinking about Simon and Lilly.
And then I said, “I would never think this bridge could hold up a car like this.”
“It’s never let me down so far. I’ve driven across this bridge at least a thousand times. Here. Sorry it’s such a mess.”
He reached behind my seat and pulled another pair of plastic goggles out from the piles of papers and cans, shoes and clothing.
“These will help for the dust. And bugs, too. Only they’re not so bad now as they get in spring.”
I pulled on the scratched and hazy glasses. I turned around and looked at all the things haphazardly piled in back.
“I’m pretty disorganized,” he said. “My dad says I’m a clown. My mom just says I’m a mess. Living out here, I guess neither one is an insult.”
The VW lurched and pitched as its wheels hit the dirt road on the opposite side of the river. The boy pushed his foot down and the car sped forward.
“No one ever just falls in the river,” he said. “And, besides, your pack’s dry. Were you trying to kill yourself or something?”
“No,” I said. “It was a mistake. I did something stupid.”
“Now that sounds like a good story,” he said. He shifted gears and stuck a dirty hand out to me. “My name’s Dalton.”
I shook his hand.
“That’s a weird name.”
“I know.”
“My name’s Jonah.”
Dalton burst out laughing and slapped his palm down on the steering wheel.
“Now that’s a weird name, Jonah!”
“I know.”
I slipped my wet feet, still wearing Simon’s socks, from my shoes. The floorboards of the VW were warm, hot even, and it felt good.
I saw Dalton look down at my muddy feet.
“Man, you are really drenched.”
“I don’t have anything to put on. All my clothes are wet after last night.”
“It really came down last night,” Dalton said. “This wash up here must have been under a good seven foot of water. You were outside last night?”
I thought about being in that car, sitting in the muddy lot outside the motel.
“For a while.”
“I wasn’t at my camp. I just got back from Los Alamos today.”
“You live in a camp?”
Dalton shrugged. “Kind of. We own this land, and we plan on building a regular house on it, but for now it’s just a camp. There’s a few old Indian ruins on it, part of a pueblo, and when my dad found it . . . well, he’s kind of obsessed with digging around in it. But he’s obsessed with a lot of things. My dad’s an artist. He paints.”
“What does he paint?”
“You’ll see,” Dalton said. “Pictures. Crazy stuff, but some people like it, I guess. We lived all over. Mostly in Mexico. You know where the Yucatán is?”
“No.”
“Well, we lived there ever since I was about eleven, but about six months ago we all packed up and came up here. Mom, Dad, me, and my sister.”
“Oh. It must be nice, living with your whole family together like that. Do you like it where you’re at now?”
Dalton bit his lip. “I liked Mexico better, but it’s okay living out here, too, I guess. I know you’re probably thinking we’re hippies or something, but it’s not like that at all. That’s why I keep my hair so short. So no one will wonder.”
“I wasn’t thinking that,” I said. “And anyway, me and Simon can’t afford a haircut. That’s why my hair’s so long, in case you were wondering if I’m a hippie. ’Cause I’m not.”
“Simon?”
“My little b
rother.”
Dalton laughed. “I could give you a haircut.”
“Maybe.”
“Won’t cost you anything.”
“What if my brother doesn’t recognize me?”
What if I never saw him again, anyway?
“Amazing, isn’t it?” Dalton pointed his hand through the open space where the windshield should have been, at a narrow opening in a red slickrock canyon far ahead in the distance. “That’s where we’re going. Chavez Canyon.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“For what?”
“For helping me out.”
I felt better.
Then I told Dalton our story, as he drove along that rutted and uneven dirt track. I explained everything that had happened to Simon and me since we left Los Rogues; how our horse had fallen dead, the night we spent in the derelict trailer, meeting Mitch and Lilly, the strange old car, and riding across the state in the backseat beside Don Quixote. And I told him about my fight with Simon, and how Mitch threatened to kill him, and that I believed him, that I was scared.
And I even told him how I’d slept with Lilly the night before, and how Mitch and Simon were both so jealous, and that was how I ended up adrift in that river, and soaking wet on the side of the road.
“Damn,” Dalton grinned. “You had sex with a girl you just met the day before?”
And then he cleared his throat. “I hope whatever you got rubs off on me. How old are you, anyway?”
I said, “Sixteen.”
“Damn. And I’m eighteen and never got nowhere with a girl. Of course, there’s no girls besides my sister within a hundred miles of Chavez Canyon.”
“I wasn’t looking for it,” I said. “Like I said, I never even wanted to get into that car in the first place.”
“So are you in love with her now? Or just . . . you know . . .”
“I think so. I don’t know.” I sighed.
“Well, I don’t know exactly how you should handle telling my folks this story,” Dalton said. “I mean, I never lie to them, and they’re really cool. But I don’t think my dad would want me to drive you out to Arizona if he thinks we’re chasing after some psychopath or something. And you should definitely leave the sex part out when you tell my mom, with my little sister around.”
“I’ll remember that.”
Dalton was calm and confident, skinny like me, with sun-brown skin and a faint black peach fuzz mustache over his lip. He was dressed all in tan, the kind of clothes you’d almost expect an archaeologist to wear, his cotton pants tucked into the tops of dusty, laced-up boots.
And he listened attentively, just saying, “Wow,” from time to time, as I told him the whole story, even about Matthew and how I was afraid we wouldn’t ever see him again.
“Crazy, man,” he said when I finished talking.
And I shifted, uncomfortable in my wet clothes, and saw I’d made a dark spot where I’d soaked the seat.
“Oh. Sorry,” I said, seeing that Dalton had noticed, too.
He just laughed. “Oh yeah, this car never gets dirty or rained on.”
I suddenly felt anxious and guilty for riding along with Dalton, heading in the opposite direction from Simon.
“So that’s why I really need to get on the road and try to get my brother back. And Lilly. I think something bad’s gonna happen.”
“Let’s just think about this, Jonah. I mean, I’m all for helping you out. But there’s nothing out here, you know? We got no telephone or radio or nothing, so it’s not like we can call the state troopers out or something.”
“I’ve got money,” I offered. “I can pay you if you take me to get my brother. Please.”
“Look,” he said, “I really want to help you if I can, believe me. But it’s getting late, and my dad’s expecting me back today with this stuff.”
He pointed a thumb up at the roof. “And it’s nice of you to offer money, but if I was going to give you a hand, I wouldn’t do it expecting to get paid.”
He turned the VW across a creek in a wash, spraying fans of water out from the wheels. I looked across, into the canyon. It really was an incredible place of sheer, slick walls rippled by seasons of weather, cottonwoods and willows springing up from the floor where the water would rush in torrents when the rains came.
“Just come to the camp with me. I mean, there’s nothing you can do now, anyway. You got in the car and we’re going,” he said. “I’ll get you something to eat. Then we’ll see.”
I sighed and rubbed my eyes.
I could tell Dalton sensed my indecision.
“Do you want me to turn around and bring you back to the road, then?” he asked.
I thought about it.
“No.”
“Cool,” he said. “I know my folks won’t mind having a visitor. We don’t get a chance to talk to any other people too often. Just remember, you don’t have to tell them everything. Okay?”
“Okay. I’ll remember.”
“You want some of my dry clothes?” He pointed at the stuff in piles behind me.
“Sure.”
Dalton stopped the car right in the middle of the road, got out, and pulled his seat back forward. Then he began picking out unsorted articles of clothing from between and beneath the books and papers in the little car.
“Here.” And he began handing things over to me. “I think these will fit you okay. I know they make us look like we’re Maoists, even though we’re Indian.”
“You are?”
“Well, my dad’s white. But my mom’s Indian.”
“Does it make a difference?”
“Well, you know how some white guys are. In New Mexico, I mean.”
Dalton laughed.
He gave me a set of dry clothes and boots to wear, and it felt so good to get out of my wet things, the clothes I had been carrying around for days, and change into something different. And even though Dalton was just a bit shorter than me, his things fit me better than Matthew’s ever did. So when I had finished changing, it almost looked like we were both in the same Army or something; I had on the same loose khaki pants, which I tucked into the tops of the boots he’d given me, and a dry tee shirt that actually fit me and was newer, probably, than anything Simon and I ever owned. He even dug a cap, tan, like his, out from a cardboard box full of canned green beans.
So when I got back into that car, clean and dry, and Dalton started driving again, I tried to tell myself that everything would work out, that things would get better.
But I couldn’t stop worrying about Simon.
I couldn’t get Lilly off my mind, either.
“Now all you need’s the haircut and you’ll look like one of us,” he said.
I may not have felt sure about what I was doing, but I did get into that car with Dalton, and I was very hungry, so I decided to try to relax and just see where I’d end up from this ride. I sat back in my seat and watched the canyon walls stretching taller as he drove us along the creek toward his camp.
“How far is it?” I asked. I felt myself almost falling to sleep.
“We have a way,” Dalton said. “The camp’s eighteen miles in from the bridge, and we can’t go very fast on this road.”
“Eighteen miles,” I sighed, calculating the distance between me and my brother drifting away in that Lincoln, and then cursing myself because I thought that counting those miles seemed too much like something Mitch would do. Anyway, I thought, trying to erase any numbers from my head, here I am and there’s nothing else I can do about it now.
“You said it was just a few miles.”
Dalton smiled. “Eighteen is a few. To me.”
The camp sat in a wide clearing along the creek where a large canvas tent stood beside a truck with a rusting camper shell. There was one table and some chairs sitting beside the tent, a cooking area, and a fire ring with a blackened coffeepot resting atop a rock at its edge. One crooked willow tree extended its branches above the tent, and several yards back, a still, green pool of water f
ormed where the creek backed up against the bend of red rock in the shade of the canyon’s sheer face. I could see where there were stones piled, forming walls and storage bins, part of the remains of a ruined pueblo near the bottom of the canyon.
“This is where I live,” Dalton said as he opened his door. He peeled off his goggles and cap.
I took my goggles off. I was sweating where they’d been cupped against my skin.
“It’s pretty primitive,” he said, pointing to the green pond. “There’s our bathtub. And up behind those rocks is where our toilet is, currently.”
“Where’s your parents?”
“They’re probably digging around in the caves or working on the house. Or Dad’s doing one of his things. We’ll go find them in a minute.”
I wondered what he meant about his father doing one of his “things.”
“You mean there’s more to it than this?” I asked. I looked over at the rock walls I had seen when we pulled up, the little black openings on the rounded storage bins at the base of the canyon.
“This is nothing,” Dalton said. “You’ll see.”
pueblo
Jones,
I know I haven’t gotten all your letters you wrote to me. They keep moving us around. Don’t worry, they’ll catch up to me one day.
You know, I never thought a person could get as depressed as I am. I’m always tense and can never seem to relax. You should see me trying to keep my hand steady as I write this letter. It’s pretty sad.
Now that the monsoons are over, all kinds of stuff is starting to happen.
About a week ago, one of our positions got a ground attack and the Duster crew there hopped on a truck to take off. A mortar round hit the truck and killed 2. The other 3 are going up for a court-martial for desertion in the face of the enemy. You just can’t win at all over here.
A couple nights ago we had a small ground attack. We captured 2 VC and killed a woman, and a sniper killed one of the guys on my crew. The RVNs got the two prisoners and when they were finished with them the prisoners were wishing they were dead, too.