The sound of tires over the gravel woke her.
The cops again? Maybe. Though it had been two days since she'd heard anything,
and pushed herself up to peek, her clothing soaked with the scent of soil. Even
the smell of her precious tomato plants had driven her crazy. Two days of
sneaking green tomatoes in from the garden. Waiting. Wondering when the cops
would return.
It was the thirst she couldn't cure and she
would have killed for a beer.
She saw nothing. The vehicle stopped on the
other side of the stairs, its weak engine putting out the sounds of something
dying. It was no police car.
"Hello?" a voice called out,
followed by a series of coughs. "Is anyone here?"
Chris pushed her eye closer to the crack as
boots sounded on the gravel near the steps.
"Where is everybody?" another voice
asked. A female voice which stiffened Chris.
Her?Here?Impossible!
And yet, it dripped of Detroit.
"Hello? Hell-o!" Mike yelled, his
nasally voice the last bit of proof Chris needed.
"I'm here!" she shouted, tearing at
the wooden covering and the sticky tomato leaves till she had clawed her way
into sunlight. Mike came around the edge of the stairs and stopped.
"Chris?" he said, half laughing at
her appearance. She looked down at herself, at the thick clumps of dirt clinging
to her. The shame flowed into her face. Nothing but a stupid savage.
"Keep your voice down," she said,
crouching behind the stair. "And keep your friends quiet."
Mike stared for a moment, looking unclear as
to whether he should laugh or not, then hissed towards the others. "Hey,
guys. Keep it down."
"What was that?" Dan asked, peering
down from the porch, flopping hat hiding his eyes.
"Shut up!" Chris said. "And for
God's sake get out of sight."
Dan ducked down behind the porch rail, his long
nose poking through the arms. "Good to see you again, Chris," he
said, as Mike settled beside her. "But what exactly are we hiding
from?"
"Unwanted eyes," Chris said.
"The cops raided the joint two days ago. Got everybody but me."
"You think they're still around?"
Mike asked, sniffing at the air.
Instinct. Not so different from Chris'.
"I can feel them out there
somewhere," Chris said.
"So can I," Mike mumbled. "Now.
We should have been more careful."
"Hard to be careful after what we've been
through," Dan said, his own voice thick.
Afraid?Of what?Something
unhealthy.
"You have any gas round about here?"
Dan asked. "We're just about tapped."
"Might be some in the shed," Chris
said, indicating the wobbly structure down the drive beyond the edge of the
building.
"Mikie?" Miss Detroit called from
the other direction. "Where are you Mikie?"
Something tightened in Chris' stomach.
The red hair and overly made up face came
around the steps like a movie queen, everything an exaggeration of what Chris
believed typical in the white man's world-- flamboyant enough to be seen for
miles.
"Your little hussy's going to get us
busted," Chris whispered.
"Over here, Marie," Mike called
softly.
"Oh?" Marie said, marching towards
them. "Why are you all..."
Mike yanked her down beside them.
"You're hurting me," she complained.
"Shut up," Chris growled and studied
the horizon for signs of rising dust or the sound of approaching cars.
"You? Here?" Marie
hissed.
"I live here," Chris said, enjoying
the girl's discomfort.
Marie glared at Mike as if betrayed. He
ignored her, his face taunt with other worries, worries over the lack of sound.
Not a bird. Not a jack rabbit. Only the movement of cars along the highway a
half mile west.
"Where are the others?" he asked.
"By the van," Marie mumbled, her
indignity shifting into something more manipulative. "Having some sort of
argument."
"Argument?" Mike asked.
"Lance doesn't want to go back to L.A.
Sarah does."
Mike sighed. "Well they can't stay here, that's
for sure." He looked up at Dan's face through the banister. "Go tell
them what's what, then get the gas. We're going to have to split."
Dan eased down the stairs in the direction of
the van.
"So the cops came," Mike said,
studying Chris' face intently. "What did they get besides the
people."
"A shipment of dope."
Dan stopped ten feet away and turned.
"From Denver?"
Chris nodded.
"Damn," he mumbled. "Then the
whole circuit's ruined?"
"I don't think so," Chris said. I
couldn't hear everything but Demetre said..."
"Demetre?" Mike hissed.
"Here?"
"He seemed to be head honcho."
"Shit!" Mike said, glancing out at
the horizon-- his flat face crinkling up as he squinted. "He's had time to
grill them. He's probably waiting out there for us to lead him on to the next
station in the circuit."
"So?" Chris asked.
"So we've got to lose him. I was counting
on this place being up and running. Now I've got to take the next step if I'm
going to find Buckingham."
"Buckingham?" Chris laughed.
"There's no such person."
"I have to find out," Mike said.
"Dan. Get the gas."
Dan moved, turning sharply around, his long
legs taking him down the path towards the shack.
"Mike?" Chris whispered.
"What?"
"Can I tag along?"
"NO!" Marie roared.
"Stop it, Marie," Mike said.
"We can't leave her here like this."
"She'll only cause trouble, Mikey!"
Marie pleaded. "Like she always does."
"I can help," Chris said. "I
know ways to Phoenix the cops
won't."
Mike looked around, his gaze a little lost.
The way Chris knew him back in the old days, before he'd become too
sophisticated.
"They'll follow us," he mumbled.
"We're riding in a Goddamn advertisement."
"I can still help," she said.
"We can part ways again after we're out of here."
"All right," he said. "Get your
things.
Chris grinned. "Thanks, Mike! You're
still a sweetheart!" She bounded up the stairs and into the house.
"Just hurry up," Mike shouted after
her. "This place gives me the creeps."
***********
Albuquerque looked pale. The
usual wind had ceased, allowing a yellowish haze to settle over the
accumulation of low buildings, making it look like Denver or L.A.-- the stench
of its rush hour traffic and petrol refineries reminding Chris of Detroit. Only
hotter. And flat. With only the distant blue ridge to the Northeast and West
saying there were mountains at all.
They drove straight through the city. No
use trying to be clever now, she'd told the others. Head west for the
mountains. We'll lose them there.
Them? Chris didn't know who. But they were
there. Floating behind in a variety of vehicles. Sometimes a camper. Sometimes
a sports car. Mike noticed them, too. His sharp gaze shifting back from time to
time. He said nothing. The others didn't need to know.
"Where west?" Dan demanded, as they
came to the far side of the city.
"Gallup for now."
"What about gas?"
"We can get some up ahead. I just want to
get clear of this place."
It had stained her. She'd never be able to
come back again after what had happened.
Mike sat tight against the passenger door with
Marie slumped against him, her red nails digging into his denim jacket like a
claws, glaring back at Chris from time to time. The other two continued to
bicker in the back, neither taking notice of her or her bags when they climbed
aboard.
"I was going to turn south," Dan
said, breaking the heavy mood hanging over the interior of the van.
"For where?" Chris asked.
"Las Cruces and Route 10. It's
the way we came."
"Too dangerous," Chris said.
"Demetre would expect that route."
"But the van's not good at mountain
climbing," Dan said. "We had a hell of a time coming over the Raton
this time. She might just give out half way up."
Dan turned into a Chevron station. The
sun-beaten round-topped pumps part of a forgotten era, one only remembered
here. Yellowed newspaper stuck up on the inside of the station glass with
decades old headlines.
The hick eyed the van and the people inside,
but took Dan's order without comment, poking the hose nozzle into the tank. The
hum of the gas vibrating the whole vehicle.
"We'll make it," Chris said. "I
wasn't thinking of anything difficult."
Though in truth she couldn't quite recall the
route. It had been years since she'd been through the reservation. She recalled
only the dust and worn tee-pees and tourists taking pictures.
"But we're going to lead them right to
the next stop on the circuit," Dan complained.
"Maybe," Chris said. "But I was
thinking about losing them in the hills."
"Where will that get us?" Mike
asked. "They have to know where we're headed."
"Do they?" Chris asked.
Mike turned, his father's hard irish eyes
staring at her. "Where else would they think we went?"
"You know."
Yeah he knew. She could read the memory on his
face as the muscles tightened and the eyes closed, and he turned back towards
the window. She had pleaded with him to go there.
No cop'll come after us in Mexico,
she'd said. We can raise the baby there.
But he knew Mexico and said they
could build no future there.
It's the end of the world there, Chris,
he'd said. Nothing but a dust bowl for slaves.
He'd seen the factories billowing black poison
into the air and the half-starved tan-skinned natives crawling to work each
day, sweating themselves to death for a few cheap U.S. dollars. No unions to
worry over their health. No benefits. Often no money even for their funerals
when they fell dead on the job.
Mike had always come back fuming from his
jaunts across the boarder. They sit and take it, Chris! They let us
push them around when they should be buying guns.
And maybe he might have become a Mexican Ho
Chi Minh had they gone south. But he might well have been dead as well, finding
himself on the wrong side of the government where killing was a matter of
habit.
"If they think we're trying to get away,
they'll expect us to go south," Chris said. "They won't expect Phoenix."
Mike stared out at the dilapidated gas
station. The attendant wiped the windows slowly, pausing over the small round
hole at one corner. Dan snorted in obvious disbelief. "You don't know the Denver crowd," he
mumbled. "They were waiting for us at Trinadad."
"You didn't have me then," Chris
said. "Well, Mike?"
Mike shrugged, ignoring Marie's whispered
protests. "I don't see as we have a choice," he mumbled.
***********
Dan's hands sweated. The sun had shifted as he
road into it, the flap of his hat shielding his eyes. Mountains rose up before
them, dirty brown mountains without snow caps or sense of grace. Signs for
Indian country popped up at intervals with the dull black and white warnings
against trespass.
"I don't like it," Dan said,
stirring Mike awake from a slumped sleep against the passenger door-- Marie
sprawled across him with arms spread and bright red nails dug into the fabric
of his denim jacket.
"What don't you like?" Mike asked,
squinting at Dan across the cab.
"All of it. This route. The cop Demetre
if that's who really is behind us. I've got an ugly feeling about why she chose
this way."
"Me, too," Mike said, lips pursed as
they passed another warning sign posting Indian country. "This region's
called Four Corners. Its disputed. Lots of trouble between mining companies
and the local tribes."
"Which means?"
Mike shrugged. "This part of the country
is particularly sacred to some tribes," he said. "Up in those
mountains somewhere there's a lake. A holy place for the Pueblo indians. Though
the Navahos claim it, too. I've seen it once. A long time ago. Covered with
beer cans and dead deer. Careless white hunters come and go in and out of
season. A few don't make it home from time to time."
"Oh wonderful!" Dan moaned. "As
if we didn't have enough trouble."
"Oh don't worry. We probably won't come
within miles of it. Though I'd really like to see it again. I remember the
water looking turquoise from a distance. Like a jewel carved right out of the
tip of a mountain."
Mike's gaze frosted over in some dream of his
own. Dan didn't disturb it, reaching into his shirt for another cigarette. A
Winston! Yuk. But it was all the station had. And stale. Yet it helped curb the
constant pang deep in his throat and lungs, killing the urge to cough.
Chris stirred in the rear, pushing herself
free of the others on the bed. She stumbled to the seat behind Dan.
"How's it going?" she asked.
"Considering I don't know where I'm going,
I guess okay."
"Are we still being followed?"
Dan glanced into the driver's side mirror. A
dark sedan floated behind them. "Yes," he said.
"It won't be there long," Chris
said. "Not with the ways I have planned."
Dan's fingers tightened on the steering wheel.
"Let's not make a big thing out of it," he said. "This van won't
handle rough country."
"It'll do fine, Dan," Chris assured
him with a pat on his shoulder. "We'll just have to climb a little. That's
all."
"Climb where?" Lance asked,
appearing beside Chris, his face wrinkled from using one of the sleeping bags
as a pillow.
"Up there," Chris pointed. Lance
stared, eyes growing wide with the vision.
"Into the mountains? I thought we were
through with them."
"Hardly," Dan said. "But
they're not as high along route 10. We might not make it."
"Where, Chris?" Mike asked.
"What part of those mountains did you have in mind?"
Some note in Mike's voice made Dan look over,
the tight flat face seemed angry.
"Back roads," Chris said.
"Roads only the indians know."
"Chris!" Mike growled and
turned in the seat to face her. "What exactly are you up to?"
"Up to? Why do I have to be up to
anything?"
"Because I know you," Mike said.
"And all this has the elaborate makings of some scheme of yours."
"Scheme?" Chris roared. "And I
suppose I've made up the car behind us, too?"
Mike squinted back through the rear window,
his face tight and mouth grim. Dan had seen the expression before in New York after their failed
heroin deal. "You didn't have to invent them. We brought them with us from
Colorado."
"We're not sure about that, Mike,"
Dan put in. "We thought we lost them after Raton."
"Maybe we did, and maybe they found us
again. All that makes more sense than this talk about Demetre."
"But it's true, Michael!" Chris
protested. "Demetre was at the house."
"So you say."
Chris sagged. "You never give up, do
you, Michael? You push and push until you break people. I'm not making up any
stories. I was stuck at that house. You saw me."
"It could have been an act."
"For who? I didn't even know you people
were coming until you showed up!"
Mike pondered this for a moment, then nodded.
"All right. Let's just say for argument it's all true. Demetre doesn't
give up on things. He wouldn't have let us come and go without a damned good
reason."
"I know," Chris said.
"And if he was following us, we sure
wouldn't know about it," Mike went on. "He's slick. Slicker than
these people have been."
"Agreed."
"And still you want to take us through a
fucking reservation to lose them?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because maybe they aren't the only ones
following us," Chris said. "Maybe there is a Demetre behind us
somewhere, watching us to see what develops."
Mike sighed. "Let me go look," he said,
pushing the sleeping Marie up as he struggled over the back of the seat.
"What highway is this?"
"Route 40," Chris said. "It
runs between Albuquerque and Flagstaff."
Mike crawled onto the bed and peeked out the
rear window. "Which car is it?"
"The silver Ford," Dan said. "A
late model, a `69 or `70. It's hard to see its been staying back a-ways."
"I got it," Mike said. "Dented
right fender?"
Sharp, Dan thought. "Right."
Chris crawled back beside Mike, waking Lance
and Sarah in the process. "There's two people in the car," Chris
said.
"There were three," Dan said.
"One must be sleeping in the back seat. I saw his head earlier."
"Damn," Mike mumbled.
"Is it the cops?" Chris asked.
"Can't tell," Mike said, crawling
forward again. "But it doesn't feel like Demetre.
"So what do I do?" Dan asked.
"How far are we from Gallup?" Chris
asked.
"Ten miles, maybe," Dan said. He'd
seen a sign a few miles back which had said twelve.
"When we get to gallup, there'll be a
highway south. Take it. Route 32."
"Right through the heart of the Navaho
Reservation," Mike said, meeting Dan's knowing glance in the rear view
mirror.