Mojave Desert Sanctuary

by Gary J George

  “The first day I came to the ranch I told you I was late because I had stopped to help someone. The old man who lives at that station was the person I stopped to help. Mr. Stanton was lying in the gravel in front of the station. Turned out he’d had a stroke.”

  “He’s lucky you came by. Doesn’t look like the kind of place where a lot of people would stop.”

  As we drove on, a broad desert tableau stretched around us. It was in the transition zone to low desert: filled with creosote, burroweed, bayonet yucca, rock, sand and sky. Inhospitable. Forbidding. Unforgiving. Beautiful.

  When we reached a dirt road that stretched away to the northeast, I turned off the highway. After a few miles, we entered Nevada. There was no sign marking the border between the two states. To our north, the Newberry Mountains rose over five thousand feet above Lake Mojave and the Colorado River. The dirt road turned to blacktop just before we reached Davis Dam. By the time we drove across the dam into Arizona, we were in low desert. The heat was worse. We turned south on the blacktop paralleling the river.

  Kiko stared at the river as we drove.

  “This is only the third time I’ve even seen the Colorado. I saw it when we arrived in Parker and never saw it again until we left Poston after the war.”

  As we approached the service station and liquor store, the only two commercial buildings in Bullhead, I asked Kiko if she’d like a soda pop. She quickly answered, “No. Please, just keep going.”

  We drove past the buildings toward the low, rolling hills. Before we had gone too far, I turned off onto a faint track that wound through the mesquite trees and westward toward the river. The fine silt of the river bottom, the product of a million years of deposits laid down when the river had roamed all over the valley before it was dammed, blossomed into a cloud that ballooned up behind us.

  The heat in the stillness of the mesquites was incredible: dense, palpable, an almost living presence. The thorny mesquites scraped the faded paint on my clunker as we approached the Colorado. The steadily increasing humidity made it feel like a steam bath inside the car.

  When we broke out of the thicket, I turned south on the dike road the Bureau of Reclamation created after trapping the Colorado in a narrow channel. After half a bone-jarring mile, I pulled onto one of the revetments that jutted into the river, put in place to keep the river from eating its way out of confinement.

  Below us lay a perfect, private beach. I turned off the engine. In the sudden stillness, the only sounds were the gurgle of the river as it swirled around the revetment and the high-pitched shrilling of millions of heat-crazed Apache cicadas calling from the mesquites bordering the dike road.

  “What’s that sound?”

  “Cicadas, but everyone out here calls them locusts. The hotter it gets, the louder they get.”

  We carried our picnic basket and our towels down to the secluded beach that stretched between two promontories. The promontories and the riverbank itself behind the sandy beach were lined with a dense stand of tamarisk. Before I went back to the car to change into my swim trunks, I asked Kiko what kind of a swimmer she was.

  “Okay. Not great. I used to swim in the ocean and Monterey Bay now and then.”

  “The current is very strong. Maybe you should wait until I get back before you jump in.”

  “Okay. But hurry! I’m dying to cool off.”

  As soon as I changed and climbed back down to the beach, Kiko took off her cap and waded into the river wearing her cut-offs and T-shirt. She turned and looked back at me.

  “I didn’t know it would be this cold.”

  She waded out a little farther. The river dropped off sharply and took her off her feet. She yelped in surprise.

  I walked rapidly along the beach beside her, ready to jump in if she got too far out into the river, but she turned and swam to shore before she reached the next revetment.

  She was laughing as she got out.

  “That feels wonderful! It’s so cold I’ve got goose bumps.”

  “You’re gonna want to jump in again after a few minutes. You’ll be burning up again. We call it ‘ins and outs’.”

  “I could get used to that.”

  She peeled off her T-shirt. She had a modest halter top underneath.

  I couldn’t help wishing she’d worn the bikini. I was sure she’d look better in it than any fourteen year old girl.

  She spread out a towel and sat down. I put the other towel down and sat beside her.

  After a few minutes, she said, “I see what you mean about getting hot again so quick.”

  She ran and jumped back in the river. I dove in behind her. We floated to the end of the beach, got out and walked back to our towels.

  After ten or twelve ins and outs, we were walking back up the beach when we heard a boat approaching from downriver. We couldn’t see it yet. Kiko hurried back to her towel, pulled on the T-shirt, jammed on her cap and lowered her head as the boat came into view out in the middle of the channel.

  There were two couples in the boat. They waved and I waved back. Kiko didn’t raise her head until the boat sounded far away.

  “What do you think those people are doing?”

  “Looked like a ski boat. Big Mercury on the back.”

  Kiko seemed to be fine once the boat was gone.

  “Hot already.”

  She took off her shirt and hat and we started ins and outs again, setting the tempo so we never got too hot or too cold. We were climbing out of the water when we heard the boat coming back. It sounded like it was moving very fast.

  Kiko reacted the same way she had before.

  The boat came into view, towing a skier on a single ski. The driver pulled her in circles in front of us. She was a very good skier and put on quite a show, jumping wakes and leaning over so far her pony tail touched the water.

  Kiko kept her head down and saw none of this. After a few more circles, the boat sped off down river, the Mercury screaming at full throttle.

  Kiko looked up as the boat receded but didn’t take off her cap and shirt until the sound had died away completely.

  “How about some lunch?”

  While we were eating, Kiko said, “Aeden, you were going to tell me about your boring life. I’m very curious to know why you’re off in the mountains every weekend and not back in town or at this wonderful river with your friends.

  Don’t you have a girlfriend?”

  “Did once. Don’t anymore.”

  Kiko laughed and punched my shoulder.

  “Listen to you! You’ve been working with Joe so long you’re starting to sound like him. Come on, spill it, what happened with your girl?”

  “She’s a year older than me. She went off to college last year and met someone new. Didn’t tell me about it. Just stood me up for Homecoming. I had to hear about her new guy from her mother.”

  “That must have been hard for you.”

  I thought about it.

  “It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I guess it wasn’t that serious to begin with.”

  “Why didn’t you find another one? You’re a healthy, good lookin’ boy. Must be girls who would go out with you.”

  “That’s not the problem.”

  “Then what is?”

  “It’s a long story. You sure you want to hear about a bunch of teenagers in Smoke Tree?”

  “Please, tell me. It can’t be any worse than a bunch of teenagers in Salinas.”

  “Okay. Across the river there, way back in those mesquite thickets, there was an old place called the House of Three Murders. Some people were shot to death there a long, long time ago and the house was abandoned. Me, my best friend, Johnny and his girlfriend, Judy, ended up there one night last fall when we were supposed to be somewhere else.”

  I paused.

  “You really want to hear this?”

  “Don’t stop now! You had me hooked at the name of the house.”

  So, I told Kiko about burning down the House of Three Murders and what happe
ned after we did it. When I was done, Kiko didn’t say anything for a while. I could tell she was thinking things through.

  “Okay. Your best friend and this Charlie person joined the army. I’m sure you miss your friend, but that doesn’t explain why you’re off in the desert all the time.”

  “It didn’t happen all at once. It really started even before that night. See, when my girlfriend went off to college I didn’t want to date anyone else. I thought it was important to be loyal.

  Linda and I and Judy and Johnny used to do stuff together, but after Linda left, it wasn’t the same. I didn’t want to tag along behind Johnny and Judy.”

  “Three’s a crowd, huh?”

  “That was part of it, but not all of it. Watching those two together was like waiting for an ax to fall.

  As soon as Johnny fell for Judy, I knew he was in trouble. She was beautiful and smart and rich, but she was never, ever in love with my friend, and she was never going to be. She was only marking time until she could get out of Smoke Tree. She just wanted to have the guy all the other girls in school wanted. To prove she could.

  He just wasn’t the same after he found out what she was really like.”

  “Young love, huh?”

  “That’s what my dad said.

  You probably think it’s just some dopey kid talking, but I don’t think Johnny will ever love anyone again.”

  She was quiet again for a while.

  “I don’t think you’re dopey. But there’s more to the story, right?”

  “Yeah. Like I said, I was already off on my own a lot. I was spending my weekends over at Lee’s Camp, and I could feel myself just peeling away from everybody else. Then, after Johnny left, everybody kept asking all the wrong questions.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like were Johnny and Judy having sex? Was that why Judy’s dad sent her away? Was Judy pregnant? Like that.”

  “So, the questions bothered you and you didn’t want to talk about what had happened?”

  “The worst thing was the question nobody asked. Nobody asked about Charlie Merriman. He was just a good guy in the wrong place at the wrong time, but he ended up in a trial on this side of the river because the robbery where Sixto got shot was at that liquor store we passed back in Bullhead. If it hadn’t been for Lieutenant Caballo and a smart lawyer who took the case for next to nothing, he would’ve spent years in prison.

  But nobody cared. They didn’t care because he’s Mojave. People in Smoke Tree don’t care about the Mojaves.”

  “I can see why that would bother you. But at least he got to join the Army instead of going to jail.”

  “And my best friend thought it was so wrong he joined with him on the buddy system. Or at least that’s why he told me he did it. I think Johnny just wanted out of Smoke Tree.”

  “So you’re unhappy with your classmates.”

  “Yes.”

  She turned toward me.

  “You’re too hard on people, Aeden. You might think about cutting them a little slack.

  Did you ever try to explain any of this to them?”

  “No.”

  “So you just turned your back on everyone.”

  “I guess so.

  Then I lucked into this good job at the lumber yard right before the school year ended. I had to go straight to work right after school every day, so I couldn’t go to graduation practice. The rule at Smoke Tree is: no graduation practice, no graduation ceremony. So I didn’t go to graduation. That iced it.”

  “I can see how it would.”

  By the time we finished lunch, the sun was directly overhead. We were being broiled. We did ins and outs for a long time, enjoying the cold water. When we were sitting on our towels again, I said, “I told you my story. Your turn.

  I know about Poston. I know you have a degree from Cal. I know you went to New York, but there’s a lot I don’t know.”

  “Maybe you know enough.”

  “No fair!”

  Kiko sat staring at the river for a long time before she seemed to come to a decision. She stood up quickly.

  “Let me take another dip before I tell you. It may take a while.”

  She dove into the river and stayed underwater until she popped up at the far end of the beach. She walked back very slowly, as if she were turning something over in her mind.

  “I hesitate to tell you this. I’m afraid you’ll think less of me after you hear my story.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Okay, here goes.

  At Cal, I was dating a guy who was in his third year at law school when I was a senior. Like your friend’s girl, he was from a wealthy family. We dated all year. I thought we were getting very serious.”

  She pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them.

  “Here comes the hard part.

  You have to understand, Aeden, this was before the pill. Birth control wasn’t even close to a hundred percent effective.

  We got physical. One of us wasn’t careful enough

  About a month before graduation, I found out I was pregnant.

  I didn’t know what to do. I don’t know what I expected when I told Danny. I mean, I know I was a senior in college. And I was a biology major for heaven’s sake. But in a way I was still naive girl from a very strict home in a small town.”

  “What did this guy say when you told him?”

  “I’ll never forget it. These were his exact words: ‘A stiff dick has no conscience’.”

  I had never in my life heard language like that from a girl or a woman, but I wasn’t embarrassed. I just felt bad for Kiko.

  “I was stunned. I thought we were both in love. I was hoping he’d say, ‘Let’s get married’.

  But the worst part was what he said next. ‘You’ve got to get rid of it’.

  ‘Get rid of it!’ Not, ‘let’s talk about this and decide what to do’. Just, ‘Get rid of it! As if it were a piece of meat that had gone bad or a faulty appliance.

  I was such a fool.

  I went home to ask Mother for advice, but of course, she told Father, and all hell broke loose.”

  “Did you ask her not to tell your father?”

  “Yes, but that just shows how stupid I was.

  My mother is a very traditional, obedient little Japanese wife, submissive and self-effacing. There was no way she was going to keep her daughter’s secret.

  If the father had been a Japanese boy, and we were going to get married before the baby was born, I think Father would secretly have been pleased. You see, he had been hoping I would get married right after high school to a Japanese boy I was dating.

  Father never wanted me to go to college. Said it was not right. I was supposed to get married and be a dutiful Japanese wife and have babies. Preferably boy babies. My parents never contributed a penny toward my education. I worked on campus so I could buy my books and have a little spending money.”

  “So, the big problem was this guy wouldn’t marry you?”

  “No. That was the little problem. The big problem was this guy was a Haku-jin.”

  “Which means?”

  Kiko smiled a brief smile.

  “White boy.

  Because of that, my father disowned me. Said I had brought shame on the family. Told me he didn’t have a daughter anymore.”

  “What did your mother say?”

  “She apologized to my father for raising such an unworthy daughter.

  So, I left. There was nothing else to do. I went back to school and took my finals and graduated. And I told Danny I would get an abortion but he’d have to pay for it. When he gave me the money, it was more than I would need for the abortion, and he knew it. And I knew it. It was buy-off money from his family. I was just an unfortunate, best-forgotten bump on the road to Danny’s successful life.

  But I took the money and went to New York with Allison.”

  We sat without speaking. The water swirled and gurgled around the end of the revetment, churning up sand that r
ose to the surface before it was pulled downstream in the current.

  After a while, I broke the silence.

  “Aren’t abortions very dangerous? I mean, I’ve heard stories of women dying.”

  “I suppose they are, but I never for one minute intended to have one!

  Allison and I rented a tiny place in New York and started taking dance classes and looking for work in a show. Any show. On or off Broadway.”

  She looked straight up into the sky.

  “If I’m honest, I suppose I have to admit I was hoping all the hard training would take the problem out of my hands. If something had happened naturally, I suppose I would have been relieved.

  But it didn’t.

  By the time I began to show, I was almost out of money, and there weren’t going to be anymore dance lessons or auditions. I got a job as a waitress. When I got too far along to work, I went to what was euphemistically called a home for unwed mothers. An adoption mill, really.

  I gave birth there.”

  “A boy or a girl?”

  “I don’t know. They took the baby out of the room as soon as they cut the cord. I never saw the child. The new parents picked the baby up a few hours later.”

  She looked out over the river.

  “Somewhere out there is a little person, six years old now. A little person I think about every day, but one I’ll never know.

  But I hope that little person is a boy.”

  “Why?”

  “If he was adopted by a Japanese couple, he will be pampered and spoiled and fussed over all his life. But if she’s a girl adopted by that same couple, she’ll be treated like a servant.

  Even if she’s adopted by a white couple, her life will not be as good as it would be if she were a boy.

  I’m convinced that’s true.”

  I felt like an insensitive clod. Here I had been going on and on about my stupid, teenage troubles to a woman who had experienced things that were ten times worse.

  Still, I felt I had to say something.

  “Kiko, I’m sure someday you’ll get married and have children. And you’ll be a wonderful mother.”

  “No,” she said. “I will never have children.”

  I stumbled ahead when I should have kept my mouth shut.

  “You might change your mind someday.”