Don’t let anyone tell you I can’t be every bit as nostalgic as the next guy.
I came across the chief’s cruiser by accident. He was turning onto the main drag from the north as I was coming in from the east. I followed him all the way to the station and pulled into the gravel lot beside him. He sat in his car, staring at me through the window for several long moments with an expression I couldn’t interpret on his face. It took me a minute to realize he was waiting for the dust to settle so he didn’t get a big mouthful of grit. By the time we got out of our cars, a filthy skein had settled on my windshield that I was more than grateful not to have in my lungs. It made me wonder how much had already accumulated in there over just the last twenty-four hours. I tried not to think about the fact that people died in sandstorms not from being pelted by grains or buried under dunes, but by drowning. Technically, asphyxiation by sand. As an Air Force brat, I learned all sorts of interesting trivia that would probably never do me much good as a game show contestant. Unsurprisingly, most of it seemed to have something to do with strange and unique ways to die. I guess when you’re in the business of killing, it pays to learn a little about the craft.
Heat stroke, for example, is a nasty way to go, especially considering you remain cognizant of your ultimate fate the entire time. In a nutshell, your body sweats to lower your internal body temperature in essentially the same manner as an evaporative cooler, but that sweat costs you fluids, and there’s a finite reservoir from which to draw. Once that reservoir is exhausted, your body starts to wring it out of you at the cellular level. The blood keeps it as long as possible in an effort to maintain the flow to your brain, largely at the expense of your limbs and viscera. You stop forming urine, but continue to amass toxic byproducts your kidneys can no longer filter. You stop producing saliva, so you can no longer swallow or even wet your tongue, which begins to swell inside your mouth. You stop generating tears, so there’s nothing to cleanse the dust from your eyes or lubricate your lids enough to blink. The sun burns your eyes, causing a ghostly reddish-white cataract to form, robbing you of sight. Your lips blacken and split, letting you keep the pain, but not the blood. Consciousness comes in waves. There are the hallucinations and then there is death, either of which is vastly preferable to the searing pain that exists in between. Eventually, your body can no longer combat the external forces, allowing your core temperature to rise beyond your physical threshold. Past 102. Past 104. Past 106. Your body ceases to function. Whatever control you once held over your physical vessel fades into memory. Some people have been known to peel off their clothes, fold them neatly, and fall dead mere steps away. Others try to swim down into the ground in search of water or cooler sand and end up half-burying themselves. Still others are found with their mouths sealed shut by cactus needles from attempting to eat the pads in a misguided effort to steal the moisture they were designed to hoard. And there are some whose momentum just carries them forward until they’re dead before they hit the ground.
The distance from my car to the front door of the station was only fifteen feet, but all of those thoughts went through my head during the walk. I didn’t care if the water came out of the tap orange with rust, I was going to drink the hell out of it at the first opportunity. Maybe I could spontaneously evolve some sort of hump to contain a little extra while I was at it.
The expression on my face must have been common around these parts, because I could definitely tell Antone was enjoying a good smirk at my expense.
Deciphering that expression wasn’t a victory to write home about, but it was a small victory nonetheless.
“You look thirsty enough to drink piss,” he said. “There’s a water cooler in the back office.”
I looked squarely at him and tried to divine exactly what he meant by that, what he knew. And just like that I was back to square one.
“Okay, okay,” he said. “So we refill the container from the tap, but at least it’s cold. Do you have any idea how much it costs to get a Deep Rock delivery all the way out here?”
“Surely any driver would be thrilled to make the trip, if only for the scenery.”
I ducked into the office and filled one of the plastic cups stacked on the desk by the cooler. The others had names scribbled on them in black marker. Apparently, these weren’t designated single-use. Or maybe Louis and Olivia just really liked their cups. The tank made a blurping sound as it filled the cup. I pounded the first one and took the second back out with me.
“Looks like you enjoyed some of the scenery last night yourself.” Antone was leaning over one of the desks with his back to me, but I could hear the smile in his voice. I glanced down. My pants looked like they’d been attacked by some great quilled creature. Loose threads dangled from a hundred different puckers in the fabric and there were several small tears through which you could see the scabs on my skin.
“Let me guess...you found another one of our friend’s smiley faces, am I right?” He peered back at me with one eyebrow cocked. “I assume my phone number must have slipped your mind. It’s kind of hard to remember, what with one nine and two ones and all.”
“Your powers of observation are impressive. You must have a great mind for details.”
He stepped away from the desk, which apparently belonged to my eco-friendly, water-drinking pal Officer Louis Abispo. I guess when your entire existence is predicated upon land that’s been hotly contested for centuries, it pays to head off any potential confusion. Even the fax machine had Louis’s name on it. The curled fax Antone had just torn off the heat printer didn’t. It had a lot of blurry words and a series of photographs of the canyon wall at which I had been staring in person only a few hours ago.
“We have an arrangement with Ajo Station,” he said.
“And here I thought you’d tapped into some mystical shamanistic powers.”
I watched the anger flare in his eyes. Just a quick spark, but it was something. I figured a dig at his heritage would expose the chink in his armor. That infuriating smirk was back on his face a heartbeat later.
“Let’s take a ride,” he said. “There’s something I want to show you.”
FOURTEEN
Don’t let anyone tell you I can’t adapt on the fly. I learned from yesterday’s mistakes. After taking a few minutes to change into a pair of jeans and hiking boots, I donned my blue FBI windbreaker and matching ball cap, and got into my car before the chief could object. I had that air conditioner cranked up so high I had to put on my sunglasses just to be able to keep my eyes open against the ferocious arctic winds blowing from my dashboard. I had loaded my hump and had the plastic cup I had reappropriated from the station half-full in the cup holder. I was ready for whatever the morning might bring.
“Turn right up here,” Antone said. He was sitting in the seat beside me with his eyes closed, seemingly perfectly at peace with the world. His jowls jiggled as the car jounced from the pink asphalt onto the gravel road. “Now just keep going straight.”
We were heading due south with the mountains lording over us to the left. I could see Baboquivari Peak at the furthest extent of my vision to the southeast and thought about that mischievous creator god of ours leading the Hohokam up from the underworld. I imagined crawling through dark tunnels from the heart of the earth, emerging to find myself in this almost Apocalyptic desert wasteland, and then turning right back around again.