“I know, dear, but Mr Woods might not have heard of Elstree.”
“I always wanted to see England,” I said. “Just never seem to find the time.”
“You should.”
Delauney finally saw that merely willing it wasn’t going to get the engine to cool any faster and came to join us. “Where you headed?” I asked him.
“Not far, by the look of things. Can you recommend anywhere close by?”
“About an hour’s drive will get you to the resort village at Stovepipe Wells.” I don’t know why I didn’t mention the Inn at Furnace Creek, which was closer.
The girl piped up. “Do they have a swimming pool?”
I nodded. “Sure do.”
Sophie drank some water. She wiped her hand across her mouth and said, “Do you ever get used to this heat?”
“Breathe lightly,” I said. “It won’t hurt so much.”
After quarter of an hour, I told Delauney to try it again. The engine turned over and cut out. He tried again and this time it caught. “There you go,” I said. “You should be okay now — just keep an eye on the temp gauge.”
“Thanks for your help, Officer Woods,” Sophie said. “It’s much appreciated.”
“It’s what I’m here for.”
They got in the vehicle. “Thanks again,” Sophie said. I watched as they drove off, the girl hanging out the window, her mother too, staring back at me. Alone in the ruins of Greenwater, I tried to imagine what she saw, wondering if she had seen something in my eyes that I didn’t know was there.
I paid rent to the government for the bungalow I occupied near Stovepipe Wells. It was small but even after six years I didn’t seem to have accumulated enough belongings to fill the available space. Rae Hannafin said it looked unlived in, said if I hated it that much I should ask to be rehoused. She thought I was stuck in a rut, that I had been in the Valley too long and that I should apply for a transfer. But I didn’t hate Death Valley or even the bungalow. Though I used to imagine that one day I would move on, over the years I’ve come to realize that I had reached the place I’d always been heading towards. It’s not just the solitariness — it’s the Valley itself that gets under your skin.
I sat in Arcan’s Bar drinking Mexican beer. It was quiet, a dozen or so people, mostly couples, a few regulars shooting pool, half a dozen familiar faces perched on stools at the counter. Kenny Rogers, someone like that, on the jukebox. The young Hispanic behind the counter made small talk with a couple of girls. I caught his eye, he fetched another beer, set it down in front of me, gave me a scowl and went back to work his charm on the senoritas. Jaime had been working there nearly two years and still complained about the customers treating him like shit. Just because he was Mexican, he told me one time. No, I said, it’s because you’re an outsider.
“That ‘sposed to make me feel better, man?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Because we’re all outsiders here.”
That was about the most I’d ever talked to him at one time. I’m not good at small talk. As a rule I only talk when I have something to say. This is probably a failing on my part. Hannafin says that talk is a social lubricant, that it’s part of what makes us human, even when it doesn’t mean anything. I’m not convinced. Everything we say means something, even if it’s not what we intended. But I had to admit that it worked for her. She seemed to be able to get through to people, make them understand her meaning without spelling it out. Maybe that was what made her such a good ranger, why she would maybe one day make Assistant Chief.
I took a pull on my beer and stared in the mirror behind the counter, looking for something to take me out of myself. It was getting to be a habit. I’d watch other people and imagine their conversations or what they were feeling, see if that made me feel any more human. Sometimes I’d see other men just like me, that same soft hunger in their eyes as they searched for someone or something to help them discover meaning in their lives.
“Hey, ranger.”
I came out of my reverie and stared at the guy who’d spoken.
“I was right.” It was the guy whose SUV had overheated. “I said to Sophie it was you.”
I saw her sitting at a table by the window with her daughter. The kid waved. “You’re staying in the motel?”
“You recommended it,” Delauney said. “Look, ah, let me buy you a drink.”
I was about to decline when I looked at Sophie Delauney again and saw her smile. “Sure,” I said. “I’ll have another beer.”
While he ordered drinks I’ walked over to the table. “Ranger Woods, what a surprise,” Sophie said, and asked me to take a seat. “You live in the resort?”
“ ‘Bout a mile away.”
“Where’s your hat?” the girl said.
“That’s for keeping the sun off my head, not the stars.”
“You look different but I knew it was you. Daddy thought you were someone else.”
“You must have what we call the eagle eye.”
“What is that?”
“It means you see too much,” Sophie said, as she stroked the girl’s hair. I wondered what she meant, what were the things the kid saw that she shouldn’t have seen. “Since you’re off duty, is it okay if we call you Henry?”
I told her it was fine. Delauney came over with two bottles of Dos Equis, a glass of red wine and a juice for the kid. I still felt a little awkward but something about Sophie made it easy to be in her company. She steered the conversation so that I didn’t have to say too much, mostly listen as they talked about their own lives back in England. She taught history in high school, Delauney was an architect. They’d made their first trip to America nine years ago, when they got married and spent a week in New York. Now, with their daughter, they’d come to see the West. They’d flown to LA, spent four days down there, doing the “Disneyland thing” and the “ Hollywood thing”, which was the way Delauney put it, rolling his eyes. They’d driven up to Las Vegas, had two nights there, before rolling into the Valley this afternoon along highway 178. The Greenwater detour had seemed like a good idea at the time. Sophie’s charm made me feel something like a normal human being. Sometimes I lost sight of that and I was grateful to her for reminding me who I was.
I got another round of drinks and when I returned Delauney asked me about the Valley. “What are the best places to see?”
“How much time you got?”
“A day.”
“Don’t try to squeeze in too much.”
“He won’t listen,” Sophie said. “Paul has to turn everything into a major expedition.”
He laughed. “Okay, tell me what I can’t afford to miss.”
I thought about it a while. “When you start to look closely,” I said, “you’ll notice all the things that aren’t there.” I wondered if Sophie understood, if she was capable of seeing what was missing.
She started to say something but Delauney talked across her. “I’ll stick with what is here. Like Badwater, and maybe a ghost town.”
I nodded. “ Chloride City ’s an old silver-mining town about a half-hour north-east of here. Not a whole lot left up there but there’s a cliff above the town that will give you some great views of the Valley.”
The girl said, “Ask about the rocks.”
“The rocks.”
“Daddy said they move.”
Delauney seemed a little embarrassed. “Guide book said that rocks get blown by high winds across the surface of a dry lake.” He sounded sceptical but also willing to be persuaded. “Said they leave trails across the surface.”
I took a sip of my beer. “I’ve heard that, too.”
“Have you seen them move?” the girl asked.
“Never have.”
“I still want to see them, anyway,” she said.