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.
