The Desert King: A Jack Trexlor Novel

by T. F. Torrey

  The Desert King

  A Jack Trexlor Novel

  T.F. Torrey

  The Desert King: A Jack Trexlor Novel by T.F. Torrey

  2015-06-03 15:26:20

  In 1985, Jack reconnects with old friends and an enigmatic Navajo man, who leads them on a terrifying, high-speed adventure in the Arizona desert.

  Copyright © 2007 by T.F. Torrey. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Front Matter Copyright Page

  Contents

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Part 1 Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Part 2 Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Part 3 Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Part 4 Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Back Matter What’s Next

  About The Author

  One Last Thing

  Dedication

  Dedicated to Frank Hiralez and Duane Bennett,

  the real desert kings.

  Epigraph

  The silence, the power, the solitude, and the greatness of the desert dwarf petty concerns, refreshment for the soul.

  —Mark Johnson, The Ultimate Desert Handbook

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  No good adventure ever began with a no. On the Friday night everything started, though, that’s exactly what I was trying to say. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to spend time with my old friend Macy, or that I wasn’t open to adventure. It wasn’t even that I was scared—well, not that scared. I was just trying to stay out of trouble.

  That was soon after I had stopped driving to work. Without my car, I wouldn’t be able to drive around after work and get lost; I’d pretty much have to go straight home. I wouldn’t be able to give drunk girls a ride home; I’d have to call them a taxi. Walking to and from work, I thought I could just tend bar and keep my nose clean and stay away from trouble. That’s what I thought.

  But I was wrong.

  My old friend Macy Barnes showed up that night at one a.m. as I was closing down the bar. He gave me a ride home, and we drank a couple of beers. Then his friend, John Lupo, whom I did not know, showed up. They began talking about playing some game involving the police and shooting guns. Then they wanted me to play, and they wanted to leave now.

  They swallowed the last of their beers and stood up. John took a small revolver from his pocket and popped out the cylinder to make sure it was loaded. He looked at it, smiled, snapped the cylinder back in, and put it back in his pocket.

  Macy turned to me. “Are you comin’?”

  Trouble had found me.

  My old friend Macy was a California native and looked the stereotype with his blond hair trimmed short, shiny blue eyes, and stylish mustache. Macy was about five feet, nine inches tall, and at that time he was twenty-two years old. John Lupo, on the other hand, looked to be an American Indian of one sort or another. He seemed to be quite a bit older than Macy; I guessed about thirty, but I couldn’t tell for sure. John was a couple inches shorter than Macy, but they were both built lean and firm, the way people get not from working out in a gym but from working hard for a living. They both looked like they could take care of themselves.

  I was a few inches taller and a year older than Macy, but I did not work hard for a living, and I felt soft. “No,” I said. “I can’t go.”

  “Why not?” Macy asked.

  “Oh.” I thought quickly. “It’s too hot tonight.”

  “This is Phoenix. Almost July. It’s hot every night.”

  “This night feels hotter than usual,” I lied. It could have been forty below and I still would have been sweating. I didn’t like the police, and I hated guns.

  “That’s because it’s more humid than usual,” he explained. “Monsoon’s coming.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “What time is it?”

  “A little after two.”

  “Whew!” I yawned a little. “I’m getting tired.”

  “Once things get rolling and your adrenaline starts flowing, you’ll be wide awake. I guarantee it.”

  He didn’t have to. It already was. “But it’s so hot ….”

  “You won’t even notice. Besides, you can crank up the air and this little apartment will be nice and cool by the time we get back.”

  “What if we get caught?”

  “We won’t get caught. John and I have done this lots of times. Even if the police were to catch us, we’d just say we didn’t know anything. They couldn’t prove it was us. And besides, they won’t even have a crime to arrest anybody for.”

  I thought about it. If we got questioned I would have the best alibi. I could just say I’d gone for a walk after work, that I had heard the shots but hadn’t seen anything. It wouldn’t have been the first time I’d lied to the police. And they probably got lied to all the time, anyway.

  “Well?” Macy asked, smiling broadly now that he could see he had me hooked. “You coming?”

  I stood up from the couch and picked up my beer. I paced over to the wall and back, swallowed the last of the beer, and studied the empty bottle. Ah, sweet alcohol, sweet maker of tough choices. I chose to look at the whole thing as a learning experience. Besides, no good adventure ever began with a no.

  “Let me change my clothes.”

  ***

  My studio apartment was on the corner of 18th Avenue and West Devonshire, two minor streets without even sidewalks. Trees along the streets held out the light from the moon, and the streetlights were spotty and dim through the leaves and branches.

  We walked south on 18th Avenue and quickly reached Indian School Road. One of the arterial streets of Phoenix, Indian School was five lanes wide, with no trees to block out the moon and the streetlights. John turned left. Macy and I followed in silence. No one else was on the sidewalks anywhere. The traffic was extremely light, even for this time of night.

  As we walked, I considered how we must have looked to any observers. Anyone seeing us walking down the street in the middle of the night would probably assume we were three young troublemakers. And they’d be right. Very nice.

  Looking at Macy and John, I became acutely aware of how conspicuously I had dressed. All of us wore jeans. Macy and I wore running shoes; John wore moccasins. Macy wore a dark green T-shirt. John wore a dark blue flannel shirt with the sleeves ripped off at the shoulders, half buttoned up and tucked in. Here’s the killer: I wore the first shirt I’d found in my closet, a button-down neon Hawaiian jobbie. It was suitable for tending bar, but it would be easily visible and memorable to any witnesses. Great.

  John wore his brown outback hat, with his black hair hanging out the back down between his shoulder blades. Lots of people wore casual baseball caps, or sometimes cowboy hats, but the hat John wore was different—rugged yet sophisticated. It wasn’t typical, but somehow it seemed to fit him just right.

  Something else worried me, though. While my hair was dark brown, Macy’s was pure blond. Without a hat, his sun-bleached mop glowed
like a nightlight.

  Great. If we were hiding and the police shot at the bright neon bull’s-eye they’d get me. If they shot at the brightest white thing they could see, they’d take the top of Macy’s head clean off.

  That was it.

  “We can’t go,” I said.

  Macy sighed.

  John Lupo looked darkly at me. “Why not?” he asked calmly, not slowing at all.

  “We’re sitting ducks,” I said.

  “Let’s take a south here,” Macy suggested as we came to 15th Avenue. “I don’t want to go across Central.”

  We crossed at the corner. Apparently my comments were ignored.

  Back then I had no sense of direction, and I got lost rather easily, so I used this term of silence to imprint our route into my mind. After a moment I continued. “Look at my shirt,” I said.

  “It’s not that bad,” John said, glancing quickly at it.

  “It practically glows in the dark,” I said.

  “Hardly anybody’s awake.”

  “They’ll wake up when the shooting starts.”

  “That’s okay. I don’t think anybody’ll laugh at you.”

  “I’m not worried about anyone laughing at me.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “The police, or some neighborhood hero, won’t be able to miss me. An hour from now I’ll be in jail, or worse.”

  John sighed. “Relax,” he said. “We’ll be out of the area by the time anybody wakes up, and we’ll be back at your place while the police are still taking statements from the neighbors.”

  I tried to think of another argument and couldn’t. This was their game. They were the experts.

  Just then I tripped over something on the sidewalk. I felt that tingling sensation you get in your stomach when you know your feet aren’t under you. My hands shot out involuntarily, but somehow I managed to keep from falling down, merely stumbling off the sidewalk into the grass.

  John kept walking. Macy frowned over at me. I looked to see what had tripped me. “What’s a broken broomstick doing on the sidewalk?” I asked, anxiety quavering my voice slightly.

  “It’s just lying there,” John said without looking back.

  “I think it’s an omen,” I said, sensing opportunity.

  “What do you mean?” Macy asked.

  “I think it symbolizes that I’m going down tonight.”

  Suddenly John stopped and turned on me. “Are you just talking to keep your mind occupied, or are you really scared?” he asked.

  I paused. It was a tough question.

  “If you’re really scared,” he continued, “just go home. Macy and I will be back in a little while.”

  “He’s just a little nervous, that’s all,” Macy said. “Let’s go.” They started walking again.

  “That broomstick will probably be the worst thing you run into tonight,” John said as they walked away.

  “Or the best,” I muttered under my breath.

  When I caught up to them in a few steps I couldn’t believe myself: a perfect chance to back out and I’d turned it down. What a jerk! Too scared to go and too proud to stay. I thought about it, and the only conclusion I could come to was that my dignity must be just slightly larger than my common sense.

  We walked hastily down 15th Avenue, soon crossing Osborn Road and continuing past Phoenix College. Across the street on the left lay the Phoenix College stadium, the dark hulk of the bleachers rising straight up from the edge of the sidewalk.

  From somewhere beyond the stadium, a screaming police siren cut through the balmy air. In Phoenix that was not alarming. In Phoenix, a siren blaring was anything but unusual. Instead, I found it rather comforting.

  “That’s reassuring,” I said.

  “What is?” Macy asked.

  “The siren.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, at least I know that some of the police are already occupied. That’s two who won’t get to shoot at me.”

  John shot me an irritated glance but didn’t say anything. The sun-darkened skin of his face absorbed the light and deepened the shadows under the brim of his hat, but the aggravation shone clearly in his eyes.

  Macy didn’t say anything back and the sirens died down as the stadium fell away behind us and we approached Thomas Road, another of the arterial streets. I was briefly disappointed, but my mood brightened slightly as another siren picked up off in the western distance. I kept my mind occupied judging its distance as we walked. It was south of us … and west of us … and getting closer …. I gave up. It was quite a ways away, but that was all I could tell.

  “How far are we going?” I asked John, who seemed to be in control of the evening.

  “Another half mile or so,” he said. “Just past Encanto.”

  Encanto Boulevard was a residential street a half mile ahead of us. Encanto Park, a large municipal park with big trees, rolling hills, and artificial streams, stretched ahead of us on the left to a few streets past Encanto Boulevard. The Encanto Golf Course, on the other hand, briefly touched 15th Avenue a little ahead of us on the right. As we reached the green light at Thomas Road, I wondered which Encanto he meant.

  The police car whose siren I’d been judging suddenly hurled across the intersection, ignoring the traffic light, as we stepped into the street. As we crossed I watched him to our left. He switched off his lights and siren and turned up 11th Avenue out of sight. That didn’t help my nerves any.

  Past Thomas Road, Macy and John struck up a conversation about their last river trip, and I walked in silence. Before long the golf course appeared on our right, lush and cool in the night. Here the streetlights were planted farther apart, and the palm trees cast darkness everywhere, and I started thinking about Macy’s hair again. Seen from a distance, I knew it must be shining as bright as the moon.

  Just as I opened my mouth to say something about it, the dog nailed me.

  Preoccupied with our thoughts and conversation, we hadn’t heard him coming at all. Just before he struck me, I heard his claws in the grass and whirled. He hit me square in the chest. I felt his teeth hard against my skin through my shirt. He knocked me backward against John. Before anyone could do anything, he was gone again, darting back into the expanse of the golf course.

  “What was that?” Macy asked, whirling and half-ducking into a defensive position.

  “Dog,” I said, panting suddenly.

  “Big dog?” he asked.

  “Big enough,” I said.

  “I didn’t even see him,” Macy said.

  “He’s all black,” I said. We stood still, straining to look for the dog in the darkness of golf course. John, I noticed, stood casually calm.

  “Why didn’t we hear him?” Macy asked tensely.

  “We wouldn’t when he’s on the grass,” John said.

  “There he is!” Macy hissed suddenly, ducking and pointing.

  And there he was, bounding across the grass toward us for another strike. I still stood closest. There was no time to run, even if there had been a place to run.

  “Stand still,” John said quickly.

  The dog leapt right at me, going for my chest or maybe my throat. I threw an arm up reflexively. But this time the dog didn’t make it.

  In a lightning move, John stepped forward, right arm outstretched, and caught the dog by the throat just inches from my forearm. The dog let out a mushy yelp and kicked his hind legs, catching only air. John hauled the dog’s face up to his own.

  “Leave, dog,” he said quietly. He threw the dog backward. With a yelp the dog landed on its back and scrambled to its feet. Instantly he turned and ran away behind us to the north. At the corner of a side street, under a streetlight, he stopped and looked back. He and John stared at each other for a moment, then the dog barked once and trotted down the street and out of sight.

  “Wow,” Macy said.

  “I hate dogs,” I said.

  “I don’t like black dogs at night,” John said. “They’re too hard to s
ee.”

  Then we were walking again. My adrenaline was really pumping good now. My mind was racing, and I could feel my body wanting to race with it.

  We walked in silence—even the sirens had died down. I wondered where the dog had come from, where he’d gone off to, and if he planned on coming back. Every movement in the corners of my eyes became the dog, lunging for another attack.

  I didn’t really think he’d be back, though. When John had intercepted the dog and told him to leave, I had been keenly aware of some strange chemistry there. John hadn’t even gotten excited. It was like he just knew he was going to make it through this without a scratch. And somehow I could sense that the dog had known, too.

  But whatever John’s awesome self-confidence was, it wasn’t contagious. I wasn’t sure what Macy had been doing for the past few years, but I was suddenly aware that my own lifestyle had been severely sedentary. John could take care of himself. I could feel it. Macy acted like he could take care of himself. Maybe he even thought he could. And maybe that was enough. But I wasn’t accustomed to a struggle to survive. I wondered about my physical ability to do so. I wondered if maybe it would come down to whether I wanted to survive more than whatever wanted to stop me.

  I especially wondered if the desire to survive was enough. I doubted it. Do the mice want to survive any less than the cat?

  I figured it was best to stick close to John and Macy.

  By this time we had left the golf course behind and Encanto Park slowly scrolled past to the left of us. On our right a string of old houses ran along the road, lit with frequent streetlights and shaded with palm trees.

  But I hardly noticed the buildings at all. My attention was firmly focused on the overweight jogger in gray sweat clothes loping toward us.

  “What’s he doing?” I asked, my voice low and urgent.

  “It’s a jogger. He’s running,” Macy said.

  “No,” John said. “It’s a runner. He’s jogging.”