“A problem shared is a problem halved.”
“There is no problem.”
“I forgot,” she said. “You don’t have problems, ever.” She bit her lower lip, I guess to stop from saying anything else. I didn’t know what she might have wanted to say and I didn’t care. I felt empty inside, empty and lifeless as the salt flats.
I drained my coffee and set the mug down. “None I lose sleep over.”
“I think you should talk to someone.”
“I talk to people all the time.”
“No, you don’t, Henry. If you did you wouldn’t be losing touch.”
“I’ll be seeing you, Rae,” I said, leaving the office. Hannafin was my friend but that didn’t mean she knew all there was to know about me. It was never that simple.
At first I saw nothing on the road. I drove past the Grandstand on my left and headed south another mile before pulling over, somewhat confused. I picked up the radio, intending to give HQ a piece of my mind. But before anyone could respond, I’d got out of the vehicle and was watching the small dust cloud that had appeared away to the south. I grabbed the binoculars from the dash. Between my position and the cloud a vehicle had stopped in the middle of the dirt road. The dust cloud seemed to be moving further south, as if marking the trail of some other vehicle, one I hadn’t seen. Dry heat rippled across the exposed skin of my arms, sucked all the moisture from my mouth. As I stared at the dust cloud it was pulled apart by a wind I didn’t feel.
Nothing moved around the SUV. I scrambled up the slope to my right, moving south-west towards a patch of creosote bush. From there I looked down at the road, first at my own vehicle, then at the other, half a mile, maybe less, from where I stood. I squatted down in the scrub, removed the Sig Sauer 9mm from my holster and laid it on the ground. The sun was falling slowly towards the mountain behind me, but its heat seemed to have intensified. A sudden movement caught my eye. I watched through the binoculars as a man got out of the SUV and walked to the edge of the dirt road. He just stood there gazing out at the playa like it was a picture of beauty rather than heat and desolation. Two other people joined him, standing either side. I tried to see what they were looking at but nothing moved out there, not even the goddam rocks. The mountain’s shadow bruised the edge of the Racetrack.
A fourth person had arrived. I watched his lips moving as he pointed across the dry lake. Sound travels a fair distance in this stillness, but I didn’t hear a word. There was something unsettling about the way he held himself, thumb looped into the belt at his waist, that made me feel numb and disconnected. After a few moments the first three set out walking, heading east across the playa. The last guy stood there a while, till they were two or three hundred yards out, then he followed them, taking his time, keeping his distance. A redtail circled above him and when he stopped to glance at it the bird flew off to the north. A line of thin ragged clouds chased each other away across the valley, as if anxious not to intrude. Beads of sweat dribbled from beneath the straw hat and down my face as I worked to fill the silence with the imagined sound of their footsteps crunching across the Racetrack.
Nothing made sense.
Long, thin shadows followed them, clawing the dry mud like the fingers of a man dying of thirst. The figures grew smaller as they receded into the distance. I clambered down the slope to the Expedition and drove south until I reached their vehicle. I thought about calling Rydell but wasn’t sure what to tell him. All I’d seen was some folks setting out across the Racetrack on foot, same as countless visitors had done before them. But if there was no mystery, then why was my heart racing so fast? Why couldn’t I shake off the feeling that this was all wrong?
I stood by the side of the road, no longer able to see any of them, accepting that I had no choice but to follow. Strange, disorienting sensations flowed through my body, setting flares off behind my eyes and thrumming in my ears. I began to walk. The ground was hard and bone dry but, even so, I found a trail of footprints. They were quite distinct but what disturbed me was that there was only one pair, not four. I tried to ignore this and figured how long it would take me to catch up with the group. After thirty minutes, I should have been able to see them but nothing moved out there. I quickened my pace. The mountains to the north and west punctured the sky, opening wounds that bled over the horizon and down onto the playa. Ten minutes later I stopped and listened. Nothing: no birds, no wind, no voices. I unholstered the 9mm again, held it up and fired two shots. And was appalled when I heard nothing. My hand shook as I stared at the pistol. I’d felt the recoil and the smell of cordite on the breezeless air contradicted the silence. I checked the magazine and saw that two rounds had been discharged. It was just the sound that had been lost, a realization that made my isolation more complete. If sound couldn’t exist here, then what could? When I stared at the mountains enclosing both sides of the valley, I knew that even memories were not real in this place. I felt more alone than anyone had ever been, without even the company of the dead. With the light fading, I took a bearing on a western peak and set off towards Racetrack Road.
It took me the best part of an hour to find my vehicle and by then night had settled on the valley. I stared up, overwhelmed by the immense darkness. There was no moon, and the night seemed blacker than usual, as if half the stars were missing from the sky. It seemed the only way to account for the intensity of the night. I sat in the cab, radio in hand. I wanted to speak to someone, hear some familiar voice but I was stopped by a doubt that I couldn’t explain. The feeling of wrongness persisted and had grown stronger in my head. It didn’t make sense at first, not until I’d grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler, turned the key in the ignition and flicked on my headlights. The road in front of me was empty and I was alone with the fallen stars.
I sat in the Expedition in the parking lot, feeling a deep weariness in my bones, the sort that can hold you for hours on end. My hand was on the door but I couldn’t move. I watched cars come and go, people walking by, like this was normal, like nothing at all had changed. I even saw Sophie Delauney walking across the parking lot, hand in hand with her daughter. She stopped halfway across the lot, turned, smiled and waved at me. She seemed unaware of the people around her and I felt my mind melting, my sense of being fading away in her presence. I thought that maybe there were things she wanted to say, words she’d left unspoken. I felt the wrongness of letting her go without talking to her again, at least one more time.
But before I could go to her, Delauney himself walked past, though he appeared not to see me. He carried two large suitcases, which he stowed in the back of the Rav4. A vein began to throb in my temple. Drops of sweat stood out on my brow though the sun was low in the sky and the air-con was blowing. He got in the driver’s seat and started the Toyota. Sophie stood by the passenger door and glanced my way again. She looked right at me but I knew she wasn’t seeing me at all. Whatever look she had on her face, it didn’t mean anything. By the time I got out of the Expedition, she’d climbed in beside Delauney and they were pulling out of the lot.
Later I sat in Arcan’s, nursing a beer. Troubled by what I’d seen, I tried to cloak the strangeness in reason but I couldn’t make it fit. The feeling that I was thinking about someone else had taken root in my brain. That I had no control of my own life nor any clear idea where I was heading. Maybe I’d spent too long in the Valley. Maybe it was time to leave. Only I wasn’t sure I could.