Mojave Desert Sanctuary

by Gary J George

  In the low humidity of a summer day in the middle of the Mojave Desert, sweat doesn’t last long. By the time I crunched across the gravel of the lumber storage area and crossed the yard to the office, my shirt was nearly dry.

  Inside, the swamp cooler was blasting. Betsy Halverson had the piles of papers on her desk weighted down with river rocks.

  “Mrs. Halverson, do you have the invoice for the Stonebridge delivery?”

  She rifled through some papers under a large, round stone.

  “Here you go, Ade. Two copies. It was paid in advance, so just get his signature on our copy.”

  And before you go, Keith wants to talk to you. He’s out in the store.”

  Keith and Betsy Halverson were good people to work for. They treated me kindly and paid me double the one dollar minimum wage. At my age, I was lucky to have such a well-paying job. I worked hard to be worth my wages.

  Out in the store, an even bigger swamp cooler was blowing. The sliding glass door to the parking lot was open so the roof-mounted unit could move enough air through the building to keep it cool. The signs tacked to the walls for Black and Decker power tools, Briggs and Stratton Engines, Scott’s Fertilizer, and McCulloch chainsaws were curling at the edges. They rattled in the artificial breeze. The odors of coiled garden hoses, machine oil and pesticides mixed with the familiar, summer smell of wet cooler pads

  I found Mr. Halverson sorting bolts, nuts, washers and screws in metal bins. He looked up at me over his bifocals as I reached him.

  “Seems like I spend most of my days sorting this stuff. Customers mix them all up when they’re looking through them.”

  “Yessir, I’ve noticed that.

  Mr. Halverson, the truck’s all loaded. I’m ready to go. Mrs. Halverson said you wanted to see me before I left.”

  “That’s right. You’ve got a big load on the truck. Tied her down tight?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Stop and check everything now and then, okay? I know I should probably have you take this load in two trips, but with the cost of gas and all, I thought we’d better get it there in one. And you’ll be taking another overload up tomorrow. We’re really carrying four loads in two trips.

  I’m counting on you to get this stuff there safely. Those roads up where you’re going are pretty rough, so take it slow. It’d be real easy to bounce some of that stuff off in a wash or slide it off on a curve.”

  “Yessir. I’ll be careful.”

  “And you’re sure you know where the Stonebridge place is?”

  “I’ve been there a few times with my dad. Dad and Mr. Stonebridge are good friends.”

  “Got lots of water with you?”

  “I’ve got the two gallon desert bag hanging on the front of the truck.”

  “Good.

  You’ve got plenty of fuel. The gas tank is three quarters full, and the propane tank was just topped off. She climbs better on gasoline, but when you’re on level ground, switch her over to propane. It’s cheaper.

  Put your car in the back of the yard. If you get back after we’ve closed, just take the truck home with you tonight.

  Have a safe trip.”

  I drove my car to the back corner of the storage yard.

  When I got out, Will Bailey was ripping three-quarter-inch plywood into custom-sized pieces. The saw shrieked when it first bit into a sheet. Then the shriek turned to a low growl as the saw got deeper into the cut. The sweet scent of pinewood, blended with the sharp tang of the chemicals in the glue that held the laminated wood together, drifted across the yard on the hot wind.

  I climbed into the cab and started the engine, grateful I’d left the windows rolled down. I eased the truck out of the yard. I drove through the residential streets on the east side of town before joining Route 66 where the motels and gas stations began to line the road.

  Once I left the city limits, I caught glimpses of the Colorado River a quarter mile to the east through the mesquite thickets. Discarded beer cans and pieces of broken glass winked in the sun along the shoulder of the highway.

  At the place where 66 turned abruptly west to begin its long traverse to Barstow, I saw two girls from my high school class at the stop sign on River Road. They were waiting for a break in the 66 traffic. I gave the air horn a tap and waved, but they didn’t wave back. I suppose I couldn’t blame them. I was pretty unpopular with my classmates.

  The previous November, my best friend Johnny Quentin, his girlfriend Judy McPhearson and I accidentally burned down an abandoned house out in the river bottom: the legendary House of Three Murders. We were unaware there were two people inside. One was Sixto Morales, a local bad guy who had been shot in a robbery. The other was a young Mojave Indian man, Charlie Merriman, who had been hog tied by the wounded Morales.

  Charlie, who had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, was railroaded by an overzealous, politically ambitious prosecutor and a bigoted judge in Mohave County, Arizona. It looked like he was headed for a long prison term. But the evidence faltered after the death of the main witness. Charlie managed to trade a promise to join the army for having the charges dismissed and not going to trial. It was still a raw deal.

  Judy McPhearson’s father, a very rich man, had whisked his daughter out of the country to Switzerland so she wouldn’t have to testify. Johnny Quentin was heartbroken. He wanted out of Smoke Tree. He joined the Army on the buddy system with Charlie Merriman.

  With Johnny gone, I was besieged with relentless questions from my classmates about the whole affair. Did Judy’s dad get her out of the country because she was pregnant? Had Johnny left because he was afraid of Judy’s mysterious and powerful father, a man with reputed underworld ties? And exactly what had happened the night we burned down the house?

  My response was to withdraw. I kept to myself at school and refused to answer questions. As the months went by, I became more and more isolated. I spent all my weekends hiking in the mountains of the Eastern Mojave, trying to come to terms with what had happened. I didn’t even attend graduation with my classmates. I suppose that was the last straw.

  As I began the long climb to the west, I couldn’t get the heavily laden truck much over forty miles an hour. Switching from propane to gasoline helped a little, but not much. Before I had gone two miles, I could see the traffic piling up behind me. The big semis looked like railcars behind a slow-moving locomotive, but I couldn’t pull over onto the shoulder to let the traffic go by. During the daylight hours in June on Route 66, there wouldn’t be a long enough break in traffic to get the overloaded truck back on the highway.

  The Sacramento Mountains rose to the southwest. The Dead Mountains to the northwest. Directly to the north, the broad expanse of Paiute Wash spread out beyond the highway. It was filled with the ghostly white smoke trees that gave our town its name

  The highway began to rise even more steeply as I approached South Pass. My speed dropped lower. I knew I would have to shift to second gear if I stayed on 66. That would drop my speed into the thirties and create a longer line of frustrated travelers. I decided to take the highway 95 cut-off north to old highway 66, the mostly unused remnant of the original alignment of the Mother Road.

  Before I started the turn, the Mohave Valley of the Colorado River spread out behind me in my rear view mirror. I could see the large “X” formed by two old, mining roads crisscrossing on the flanks of the Black Mountains near Oatman, Arizona. Directly behind me, on the California side of the river, were miles and miles of low desert filled with creosote, white bursage, saltbush, and bitterbush.

  The river itself provided contrast with the sea of brown. There was a narrow swath of green edging the beautiful, blue waters of the Colorado. But in the Mojave, even green can be deceptive. This was the green of mesquites: dense, thorn-laden trees that dominated the river bottom.

  I took northbound 95 at the cut off and passed through Klinefelter, where an old motor court, abandoned after the highway 66 reroute in the 1930s, was collapsing in on itself
inside a circle of salt cedar trees. I came to Arrowhead Junction where the Santa Fe tracks crossed over highway 95. Just before the crossing, I turned west off 95 onto old 66. There was an ancient gas station at the intersection.

  As I passed the station, I looked for the owner, an old man who somehow eked out a living from the lightly-traveled highway. Early mornings, Mr. Stanton could often be found sitting on the enclosed porch directly behind the service island, watching the sun rise over the Dead Mountains. After sunup, he liked to sit on a wooden rocker beneath the overhang that shadowed the pumps.

  His rocker was empty. The only thing in front of the station was a bundle of rags. As I completed the turn, I realized it was no bundle of rags I had seen. It was Mr. Stanton!

  I pulled the truck onto the shoulder, careful not to shift the load in the soft sand, and started running back to the station. I began calling his name. He did not respond. When I reached him, he was lying face down in the dirt, his long-billed, green cap beside him.

  I turned him onto his side.

  Mr. Stanton was part Chickasaw Indian, but his usually brown face was almost colorless. I put my fingers to his throat to search for a pulse. His skin felt cold and clammy. I found a heartbeat, but it was light and irregular.

  I realized in all the years I had known him, I had never seen him without his cap. Even though he was over eighty five years old, he had a full head of thick, black hair. There was dirt and gravel stuck to the side of his face and spittle on his chin. His eyes were open, but he didn’t seem to see me. I had no idea how long he had been lying in the direct noonday sun, but buzzards were already circling high overhead.

  I had to get him into the shade. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to lift him without injuring him, but he was as light as a burlap sack of small sticks. I carried him across the driveway. When I took him carefully up the wooden steps, I could feel the cool air from his swamp cooler blowing through the screen door. I pushed through it and onto the porch.

  The big, glass display case was filled with candy, cheap cigars and cigarettes. Everything was covered in a light coat of dust. An old-fashioned cash register sat on top of the display case. Tacked to the wall behind the register was a Santa Fe calendar from 1944, with a picture of a steam locomotive pulling into the depot at Gallup, New Mexico. I could hear the compressor laboring in the ancient Coke machine in the corner. I carried Mr. Stanton behind the display case, through the open door, and into his living quarters.

  I had never been in his house. It smelled of coffee, bacon grease, pipe tobacco and desiccated wood. The walls were bare and painted the mustard yellow of a Santa Fe reefer car. There was a couch covered with some kind of badly-faded, stiff brocade pushed against one wall. One of the legs on the couch had been replaced by a brick. On the other side of the room, I saw a large, console radio with a-walnut cabinet. Next to the radio was an overstuffed chair.

  I eased Mr. Stanton into the chair. As I let go of him and stepped back, he stirred and moaned softly. His eyes were still open, and by the way they suddenly widened in surprise, I could tell he was seeing me.

  “Hello, Mr. Stanton.”

  He tried to speak, but his words were so badly garbled I had no idea what he was saying. He tried again, but I still couldn’t understand him.

  “I’ll be right back Mr. Stanton.”

  I hurried through an open doorway into his small kitchen. On one wall was a metal sink with the plumbing visible beneath it, a two burner stove of a design I had never seen before, and an old refrigerator. There was a black skillet full of congealed grease on one of the burners and a coffee pot on the other. A wooden table and one chair were against the other wall. An oilcloth cover had been tacked to the top of the table. A phone book and a heavy, black telephone sat on the oilcloth.

  There was an empty glass in the sink. I filled it with water and took it in to him.

  “Can you drink some of this, Mr. Stanton?”

  He seemed to think about it for a long time. Then he nodded his head slowly.

  As I held the glass to his lips, he opened his mouth. He made no attempt to lift his hands and hold the glass himself. I tilted the glass. Some of the water ran down his chin, but some of it went into his mouth. He got it down without choking. After he swallowed, he nodded his head slightly. I tilted the glass again and he began to take small sips, all the time keeping his eyes fixed on me as if he were trying to parse my identity.

  It took almost five minutes, but he kept sipping until the glass was empty. When I pulled it away, he sat with his mouth open, still staring at me. With his black eyes and open mouth he looked like a baby bird.

  “Can you tell me what happened?”

  He tried to say something but was unable to talk. He shook his head slowly.

  I went to the kitchen table, opened the phone book and found the number for the Sheriff’s Department. Someone answered on the first ring.

  “Smoke Tree Sheriff’s station.”

  “My name is Aeden Snow. I’m calling from Arrowhead Junction. The man who owns the service station here has had some kind of an accident. I found him laying in the dirt. I brought him inside and asked him what’s wrong, but he can’t talk.”

  “Is he conscious?”

  “Yessir, he’s sitting in a chair, and he drank some water.”

  “Good. Is he there by the telephone?”

  “Nossir. He’s in the other room.”

  “I want you to put down the phone and do something for me. Go ask him if he can lift both arms over his head.”

  I went back to the chair.

  “Mr. Stanton, I don’t know if you can hear me. But if you can, would you lift both arms up over your head?”

  For a moment, he continued to sit motionless. Then it seemed like he gathered his energy. He started lifting his arms. The right arm went all the way up, but the left one barely rose at all.

  “Thank you, Mr. Stanton. I’ll be right back.”

  I went back to the kitchen and picked up the phone.

  “One arm went up, but the other one hardly moved.”

  A different voice came over the phone.

  “Aeden, this is Lieutenant Caballo. The dispatcher is sending a car out your way. Shouldn’t be too long before it gets there. I’ll be right behind him.”

  Just hearing Lieutenant Caballo’s voice calmed me down.

  “It sounds like Mr. Stanton has had a stroke. I don’t know how severe it is, but it’s a good sign that he can understand you and tried to do what you asked.

  I need you to stay with him until my deputy and I get there. Can you do that?”

  “Yessir.

  Is there anything else I should do?”

  “Try to keep him comfortable, and try to get him to talk if he can.

  I’ll see you soon.”

  “Please, hurry.”

  I took the kitchen chair into the sitting room and put it beside him.

  “Someone is on the way, Mr. Stanton.”

  He did not respond.

  We sat there side by side for a long time. Every now and then I said something to him, but he did not speak. His eyes were open, and he was staring straight ahead at a bare wall. I had the feeling he wasn’t seeing the wall, but whatever he was seeing demanded his full attention. I didn’t think it was something pleasant.

  Suddenly, he shook his head and sat up straighter. He turned to me, blinking rapidly.

  “Aeden. Aeden Snow. What are you doing here?”

  “I was driving by the station a while ago and saw you laying on the ground in front of the pumps. I brought you inside.”

  “Why was I out there?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Stanton.”

  “I remember I was sittin’ in my rocker, and all of a sudden I didn’t feel good.”

  He struggled to get to his feet.

  I stood up and put my hand on his shoulder.

  “Maybe you’d better sit here a bit. Help is on the way.”

  “Help? What kind of help?”


  “I called the sheriff’s department. A deputy is coming, and Lieutenant Caballo is too.”

  “Horse is coming out here?”

  “Yessir. Should be here soon.”

  Then, as abruptly as he had started talking, he stopped. He turned his head away from me and closed his eyes, sinking back into his chair. He sat motionless for another few minutes, then sat up straight again, raised his right hand to his head and turned to me.

  “Ade, I’ve lost my cap.”

  “It’s okay, sir, your cap is outside.”

  “Don’t want to lose it. Them long billed caps is hard to find. Have to order them special from Monkey Ward.”

  He sat silently for a few more minutes before he spoke again.

  “You say I was layin’ in the dirt when you come by?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Boy, howdy, I surely don’t remember that.”

  I heard the wail of a siren rising and falling in the distance. I got up and walked outside.

  A San Bernardino County Sheriff’s car pulled off the highway and onto the apron in front of the station, raising a cloud of dust as it slid to a stop. The siren died.

  A deputy got out.

  “Aeden?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Deputy Chesney. Where is he?”

  “Inside.”

  “How’s he doing?”

  “Better. He’s talking now.”

  The deputy hurried past the pumps, up the steps and through the screen door.

  I noticed the wind had blown Mr. Stanton’s cap over to the edge of the lot. I went and picked it up. I looked into the sky. The buzzards were gone. I followed the deputy inside.

  Mr. Stanton was talking to Deputy Chesney.

  I heard another car pull up outside. A moment later, Lieutenant Caballo came into the room.

  “Hello, Mr. Stanton. How are you feeling?”