Carnage

The sky was the color of shattered glass.  Low clouds racing in a constant wind.  The white Department of Highways pickup wound down into low gear as it exited the interstate on the road that looped around the old Spanish mission, the road that skirted the reservation before dead-ending in the desert.  Along the way, a stand of twisted saguaros stood like people talking at a party.  A jackrabbit dashed into the brush as the truck shivered to a stop behind a large paloverde.

The passenger door opened and Joe climbed out.  He wore a red bandana over his braided, black hair.  His denim jacket was as faded as his blue jeans.  In one brown hand he carried a lunch bag wrinkled from weeks of use.  In the other hand a silver thermos.  He walked along a narrow path between creosote bushes bending in the wind until he came to the clearing where he and his partner ate lunch every day.  He sat on a makeshift bench–a board across two rocks–and opened his thermos.  This was his favorite time of day, and in the moment before his co-worker arrived, he wished again that he was here alone, that there was no city to return to at day’s end, only desert, mountains, sky and clouds.  Even as a boy Joe had longed for solitude.  He had wanted escape.  From his family, his tribe, the reservation.  From himself.  He had always felt different than the others, though now–in his thirtieth year–he couldn’t say why.

The driver of the truck entered the clearing.  He was a thin, old man with a clean-shaven skeleton face and eyes like turquoise stones.  He wore a black watch cap, blue down vest over a red checked shirt, and neatly-pressed gray work pants.  He was already talking before he reached Joe.  Wayne was always talking.  “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear it was winter,” he said.  “Cold.  Scientists say ‘global warming,’ but it’s like we’re heading into another ice age.  What do you think about that, Joe?”  He sat on the bench next to Joe.

Joe didn’t know what to think, but he knew Wayne expected no answer.  Wayne never stopped talking long enough to listen.  He was already jabbering again, discussing climatic cycles, the tilt of the earth, the ozone layer–things he had read about in National Geographic.  Sometimes Joe thought Wayne filled his head with useless facts to avoid real conversation.

Joe stared into the desert, eating a baloney and cheese sandwich.  He took a sip of coffee.  He liked the way the coffee tasted, not too bitter, but strong enough to give a jolt.  If only he could enjoy it here alone.  But he was stuck with Wayne.  He had been stuck with him nearly every work day for the last two years, ever since they both had been hired.

The job was newly created then.  The highway department wanted two men to patrol the interstate between the city and the border, to pick up the dead animals that had been killed crossing the highway at night.  And for two years there had been plenty of carcasses–rabbits and skunks, birds and rodents.  But mostly there were coyotes, crushed by cars streaking through the night.  The headlights confused the animals, froze them in place.  Picking up the dead animals always bothered Joe, but the coyotes troubled him most.  The young one he had picked up this morning was especially disturbing.  Perhaps it had been running after its mother when it got hit.  In death it lay with its eyes opened wide, staring across the road.  When Joe threw the corpse into the back of the truck, he thought about the dog, Poco, he had loved as a child.

After Joe had crawled up into the truck, he made the mistake of telling Wayne about the coyote, how it made him feel.  Wayne shook his head, checking the side-view mirror before pulling out onto the highway.  “No use thinking like that,” Wayne had said.  “It’s the law of nature.  Some live, some die.  Nothing you can do about it.”

Though Joe never took issue with the things Wayne said, the dead coyote had affected him oddly.  “It’s people who kill them,” Joe said.  “People in cars.  The city.”

Wayne shifted into second gear, eyeing Joe curiously.  “Plenty die in the desert every day,” Wayne said.  “You just don’t see them.”

Joe let the subject drop, staring through the front windshield at the blue mountains on the horizon, the mountains that marked the border with Mexico.  Southwest of the border was the ocean, and that narrow strip of land jutting down almost to the tropics.  Meeting place of desert and sea.  He had never been to Baja, but in his mind it was paradise.  A man could live there with little money.

Wayne said, “The way I look at it is, if it wasn’t for the city, we wouldn’t have jobs.  No jobs, no money.  No money, no place to live.  Sure, the city creates problems, but no worse than what nature creates.”

Ahead, at the berm of the highway, was another dead animal.  Wayne edged the truck off the road and waited while Joe got out to retrieve the corpse.  It was a skunk that had been welded to the pavement by the force of impact.  Joe had had to use the blade of the shovel to scrape the black fur away from the asphalt.

* * *

Now, at the clearing in the desert, Joe poured his last cup of coffee, thinking about how many skunks he had seen on his trips into the wild, how gentle they were, how stinky when provoked.  Wayne had finished his lunch and was sitting on the earth, finally silenced by the immensity of the land.  Joe felt alone in the quiet, and for a moment everything seemed right.  The desert had a voice of its own:  the rustle of the paloverdes, the crackle of the catclaw, the wind whistling at owl holes in the giant saguaros.  Cloud shadows rode the backs of the high mountains.

Wayne sucked vigorously at the food lodged between his teeth, nodding his head.  “See that mountain over there?” he said, pointing at the horizon.  “That mountain was once a volcano.  It’s made of igneous rock.  Know why it has that funny shape?  It’s what scientists call a caldera.  That whole plateau collapsed in on itself before it had a chance to form.”

The mountain Wayne referred to stood on the south side of the reservation.  It was one of the sacred landmarks in the tribe’s mythology.  According to legend, Joe’s people had come from the north in search of the mountain–the place Elder Brother had told them to live.

Joe stared at the mountain for a moment, wondering whether to speak.  Finally, he said, “That mountain is sacred to my people.”

“Sacred?” Wayne said, his eyes narrowing into slits.  “How so?”

Joe repeated what his father had often told him, though he didn’t believe in the mountain spirits himself.

“What kind of mountain spirits?” Wayne said.

“The ones that teach you how to live.  How to use the land.  How to die with dignity.”

 “What do these spirits look like?  You ever see one?”

“No.”

Joe wished he hadn’t brought the subject up.  Even though he didn’t believe, he resented the tone in Wayne’s voice.  It was always the same with Wayne.  He had a scientific opinion about everything.  Like the other morning in the garage, when Wayne had caught Joe freeing a moth from a spider web.  “It doesn’t pay to set the weak loose in the world,” Wayne had said.  “Don’t you know anything about survival of the fittest?”

That night Joe had had the dream.  In the dream, he drove his old black Cadillac up the interstate.  It was a hot desert night, and he had all the windows rolled down.  He was near the reservation when a coyote ran out of the darkness at the side of the road and froze in the glare of the high beams, his yellow eyes wide in terror.  The car bucked twice as the animal went under the wheels.  Joe hit the brakes.  The car skidded to a stop.  He backed up and climbed out to get a look at the carcass, but when he bent to examine the animal, he saw that it was Wayne, a wide tire track across his forehead, his teeth grinning in death.

In the desert clearing, Wayne was talking, had been talking, while Joe remembered the dream.  “Of course, even scientists say belief is a powerful thing,” Wayne was saying.

Joe stood up.

“Where’re you going?”

“To take a leak,” Joe said.

 He walked back along the path until he could see the outline of the white truck through the paloverde tree.  While he relieved himself in the bushes, he daydreamed about going to the truck and climbing in behind the wheel.  The keys were in the ignition where Wayne always left them.  Before turning the key, Joe would depress the clutch pedal and slip the gearshift into first.  He’d have the truck zipping along the dirt road before Wayne knew what to think.  Joe would get the truck out on the highway, drive straight down across the border, all the way to Los Mochis.  He’d sell the pickup there, take the ferry across to Baja.  It would be easy to find an isolated spot to live.

Joe thought about the dog-eared book on the old coffee table in his apartment.  Baja was the name, and it had color pictures–“plates” they called them–of that beautiful, desolate land.  Every day Joe looked at those pictures, imagining himself living there.  Not living “in the old way”–just living.  By himself.

When Joe returned to the clearing, Wayne was sitting with his back against a rock, staring across the vast expanse of desert.  The wind kicked up a small dust devil, a tiny tornado that whipped against an old mesquite.  When Joe sat on the bench, Wayne said, “That mountain you were talking about–do you know how to get there?”

“The sacred mountain?”

Wayne nodded.

“There’s an old dirt road that leads to the foothills.”

“You ever been on that mountain?”

“Once–when I was a kid.”

“Will you show me the way?”

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“What about work?”

“We can take off the rest of the day,” Wayne said.  “There aren’t many animals left to pick up.”

Joe thought for a moment.  He shrugged.  “Why not?”

When they got to the truck, Wayne went to the passenger side.  “You drive,” he said.

Joe had only driven the truck twice before, once when Wayne’s wife was sick and he hadn’t come in to work, and once when Mr. Sanders had assigned Wayne to work in the yard.  Joe liked the feel of the pickup.  He started it, slipped the gearshift into first, and eased the clutch out.  Then he turned back toward the mission until he found the road that led to the mountain.  It took them little more than half an hour to reach the foothills.  Wayne was strangely silent during the ride, but when Joe stopped the truck in a clearing where the road dead-ended, Wayne said, “You know the way up?”

“Yes.”

Wayne opened his door and climbed out.  “Show me,” he said.

* * *

It took them nearly forty minutes to reach the crest, scrambling up an ancient trail, around house-sized boulders, under trees that crowded the path.  But when they reached the top, they were greeted by a breathtaking view.  In every direction the desert spread away from them, the brown skin of some prehistoric animal.  Wayne seemed particularly stunned by the panorama, turning slowly in a complete circle.  “Look, Joe,” he said, “you can see the spot where we eat lunch–and beyond it, the mission.”

The wind whistled through the boulders.  If felt colder up here.  Joe snapped the collar button on his jacket.  Wayne sat on a flat rock, looking back toward the city.  After a while he reached into his rear pocket and pulled out his wrinkled wallet.  Thumbing through the plastic windows in the picture section, he took out a faded black and white photo, which he held up for Joe to see.  “My wife when she was twenty,” Wayne said.  He stared at the picture for a while, shaking his head.  After a moment, he said, “Who could have known how she’d end up?  Just like Rita Hayworth.  You don’t remember Rita Hayworth, do you, Joe?”

Joe remembered the one time he’d been to Wayne’s house, the time Wayne’s car was in the shop and Joe had to drive him to work.  It was a red brick house in the old part of town, with a neatly-trimmed yard, an ornamental orange tree on either side of the front walk.  Inside, on one living room wall, a crucifix hung–a healthy Jesus on a mahogany cross.  On the wall above the couch was a painting of Indian children, cherubic brown kids with blank faces.  A silver-framed photograph of a young soldier sat on an end table next to a pile of National Geographic magazines.  While Joe waited for Wayne to come out of the kitchen, he walked over and picked the picture up.  The blue eyes were familiar.

“Our son, Thad,” Wayne had said from behind him.  “He was killed in the war.”

Joe turned to find Wayne standing with his wife, a thin woman with close-cropped cotton hair.  She wore a white blouse, jeans, blue tennis shoes.  Joe could tell by her expression that she wasn’t there.  “Paula,” Wayne said, “this is Joe.”

Joe said, “Pleased to meet you.”

 Paula’s expression never changed.

“You take it easy today,” Wayne said to her, as if speaking to a child.  “Watch television.  I left some lunch on the top shelf in the refrigerator.  I’ll be home before you know it.”  He kissed her gently on the cheek.

They left her sitting on the couch, in front of a morning TV show, but Joe knew from her eyes that she wasn’t seeing it.  Why did Wayne leave her like that, Joe wondered.  Couldn’t anybody stay with her?  Why didn’t Wayne take her someplace to be with other people?

On the way to work Joe had the feeling Wayne wanted to say something–something about his wife–but he didn’t mention it.  Instead, he did a lot of staring at the desert, finally looking around at the inside of Joe’s old Cadillac.

“This must have been some car when it was new,” Wayne said.  “How much did you pay for it?”

“I didn’t.  A man gave it to me for doing a job.”

“What kind of job?”

“I butchered a hog for him.”

“No kidding?  Why didn’t he do it himself?”

“Squeamish,” Joe said.  “He couldn’t stand to hear the squeal.”

“I couldn’t stand that myself,” Wayne said.  “I’ve never killed anything.”

* * *

The dog, Poco, had gone crazy in old age, walking in circles, bumping into things.  He panted nonstop, but wouldn’t drink water.  One day Joe’s father said to Joe, “Take the dog behind the house.”  This was at the old place on the reservation.  Joe led the dog back and waited for his father, who came around with a shovel.  Handing it to Joe, he said, “Put him out of his misery.”  Joe clubbed the dog once over the head.  Then Joe and his father built a fire, poured gas on the corpse, and burned it.  Days later, Joe sifted through the ashes, found the bones, put them in a small paper bag and brought them here to this mountain, where he buried them.  He could still remember the place.

He thought about looking for the spot now, but Wayne was talking.  And even though Wayne was talking to himself, Joe had to listen.

“Paula and I moved here from Iowa.  I went to work in the copper mines then, and she taught high school.  I never knew anybody with more patience.  She helped students whenever she could.  They respected her, too.  Sometimes they’d come out to the house–mostly the girls, but once in a while a boy or two.

“We lived in a different place then, that old adobe on Sixth Street by the school.  It had a small gazebo in the back, and at night, in the summer, we’d sit out there talking.  Thad loved that gazebo.  He was a good boy–graduated high school and enlisted in the army.  He was going to come home from the war and go to college on the G.I. Bill.  I don’t think Paula ever got over losing him.  We had to move out of there because of the memories.  We’ve been in the other place ever since.

 “Never thought we’d like living in another house, but after a while, we adjusted.  Funny how you get used to things.  Take living with Paula, for instance.  We always had one of these relationships where we did a lot of talking to each other.  Talk for hours about anything.  Both of us had the gift of gab, I guess you could say.  She hasn’t said a word now for two years.  If somebody had told me years ago that Paula and I could get along without talk, I’d have said they were crazy.

“The hardest part is leaving her alone.  But I can’t bear to have her committed, and I can’t afford a nurse to come in.  She wandered off last week, left the front door wide open.  When I came home, I got my neighbors to help me look, and we found her in the small park down the block.  She was sitting on one end of a teeter-totter, smiling up at the sky.”

When Wayne stopped, he looked at Joe.  Joe had never heard Wayne talk this way.

The wind stirred the scrub oak trees that grew among the tortured boulders behind the two men.  Because of the angle of the sun, the rock shadows had grown long, giving a surreal look to the land.  Eerie forms and figures lurked everywhere.  Perhaps these were the spirits the people saw in the mountains, Joe thought.

Wayne said, “Ever dream about something you know can’t come true, Joe?”

The rapid change of subject caught Joe off guard, and he shrugged.  “Sure,” he said.

“Like what?”

Joe shrugged again, reluctant to share anything with Wayne.  Joe wasn’t sure what Wayne would make of his dream.  After all, the men were different.  Wayne believed in hard work, personal commitment, responsibility.  He believed in science.  Joe was a man in limbo–caught between two cultures.  He wasn’t lazy, but he didn’t value the white man’s world.  Civilization.  He loved freedom more than anything.

But Wayne pressed him.  “What do you dream about, Joe?”

“Going down to Baja, living somewhere close to the sea.”

 “Someplace where there are no other people,” Wayne said.  “A place where you could be alone with the land.”

“Yes,” Joe said, surprised by Wayne’s insight.

Wayne was quiet for a long while, staring across the desert at the city.  “My dream is to go back in time,” he said, “to have things the way they were when Paula and I were young.  But all the money in the world can’t make my dream come true.  Your dream–now that’s another story.  Even I could make your dream come true.”

A gust of wind rattled the trees behind them, bringing Wayne back to reality.  He looked at his watch.  “I guess we’d better get going, Joe.  I didn’t realize how late it was.”

They hiked quickly down the mountain, saying nothing.  Joe was alone with his thoughts, and he felt odd about the conversation with Wayne.  Wayne never asked about his feelings.  And what had Wayne meant about making his dream come true?

When they reached the olive-colored foothills, an animal flashed across the trail, startling them.  It stopped in a clearing–a full-grown male coyote, its orange-brown coat glossy in the setting sun.  There was something about the animal, the way it stood staring at them.  Joe could see intelligence in its amber eyes.  The animal grew nervous under the scrutiny and put more distance between them, stopping near a bush to watch the men.

 They continued down the trail.  When they reached the truck, they heard something in back.  Going around to investigate, they found another coyote in the truck bed, a smaller one.  A female.  Startled, she turned to show them her blood-covered face, red from the carrion she had been eating.  She ran right at them, leaping into the air above their heads.  Instinctively they ducked, turning in time to see her scramble up the mountain toward her waiting mate.  Then both animals disappeared into the foothill shadows.

“That’s the damnedest thing I ever saw,” Wayne said, standing with his hands on his hips.  “Isn’t that the damnedest thing you ever saw?”  Without waiting for a reply, Wayne went to the driver’s door, climbed in and started the truck.  Joe got in the passenger side.  The ride back to the city took extra long because Wayne drove slowly, explaining in detail how Joe’s dream could come true.

* * *

When Joe walked into the maintenance yard the following morning, Mr. Sanders, the yard foreman, met him near the garage.  Sanders was a burly man with a graying beard and a gravelly voice.  Normally calm, he said excitedly, “You won’t believe what happened, Joe.  I saw it on the morning news.  Wayne was arrested for killing his wife.  It showed the cops taking him into custody.  Apparently, he killed her last night, then called the cops to turn himself in.  Can you believe that?”

Joe turned his eyes to the ground.

“You think you know somebody,” Mr. Sanders said, “then a thing like this happens.”  The yard foreman gave himself a moment to ruminate over the incident.  But Mr. Sanders wasn’t one to waste time.  “You’ll have to take the truck out by yourself, Joe, until we can find a replacement for Wayne.”

Joe kicked at the earth beneath his foot.

Mr. Sanders said, “What is it, Joe?”

 Joe shrugged, not meeting his boss’s gaze.  “It’s just—I guess I don’t want to work this job anymore.  Too depressing.  Nothing but death every day.  And now this thing with Wayne.”

“You’re quitting on me?” Sanders said.  “You’re quitting on me the day Wayne gets arrested?”

“I’m sorry,” Joe said, turning to walk away.

After stopping at payroll to tell them to send his last check to the old place on the reservation, Joe drove his Cadillac onto the access road alongside the freeway.  There he pulled over and stopped the car.  Reaching into the glove compartment he took out a fat, white envelope.  Inside was a wad of green bills.  He stared at the money for a moment before closing the envelope and returning it to the glove box.

On the highway he admired the scenery, the blue sky above barren brown hills.  The rising sun edged over a stationary cloud, bathing the desert in celestial light.  He figured it wouldn’t take long to reach his destination.  He could probably make Los Mochis by day’s end.  In the morning he would sell the car, ride the ferry from Topolobampo to La Paz–place names he had memorized from his book.

Before he’d driven even a mile, Joe saw the sacred mountain at the edge of the reservation.  He recalled the strange journey he and Wayne had taken yesterday.  The coyotes they’d encountered on the way down the mountain.  Suddenly, Joe had the strangest urge to see his co-worker again, to ask him to explain everything one last time.