Heavy on the Dead

by G. M. Ford

  The sun was halfway over the eastern horizon when it began to prick at my skin like nettles. Felt as if insects were crawling over me. I bowed my neck and trudged on. I have no idea how much ground we’d covered by the time I next looked at anything but my own scuffling feet.

  When I finally looked up again, my first thought was that it had to be a mirage. Some trick my mind was playing on me. What looked like a mound of boulders spread out over the desert floor like dice. Or more likely something pushed to the surface by geothermal forces eons ago and left to bake in the desert sun.

  I stopped walking. Gabe kept going for half a dozen steps before grinding to a halt and looking back my way. I tried to wet my throat to speak, but wet was out to lunch, so I pointed. Gabe’s eyes swung that way.

  “You see it?” I finally managed to rasp. Felt like I was gargling gravel.

  Gabe nodded and then turned and led the way forward.

  The boulders were bigger than they appeared from a distance. On the side opposite the rising sun, about six feet of shade soothed the desert floor. We plopped down onto the sand and leaned back against the nearest boulder. Must have been ten degrees cooler in the shade. A sudden shudder ripped through my body. I shivered violently. Hugged myself for a long time before it finally stopped. When I dropped my hands back into my lap, I noticed how the skin on the backs of my hands was suddenly loose and sloppy. Almost as if my hide had somehow separated itself and was now merely the bag my body came in. Another series of shudders racked me.

  Took an intense effort to swallow. Felt sharp and dry, like I was swallowing pushpins. My head felt enormous, like if I didn’t pay attention to keeping it straight, it might fall off and go rolling across the sand. I looked over at Gabe.

  Gabe hawked several times. Managed a swallow or two. “This is it, man,” Gabe growled. “This is as far as I go. My legs are done.”

  I started to say something, but Gabe waved me off. “We pulled off a lot of shit together, man . . . but this . . . this . . .” At which point Gabe ran out of words. I waited and allowed the silence of the desert morning to engulf me.

  Gabe’s throat rippled again. Looked to be swallowing barbed wire.

  “If I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die in the shade,” Gabe said.

  “I’m glad we were together,” I croaked.

  Gabe looked over. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  All I could do was to nod my agreement.

  I closed my eyes and leaned my head back on the rock. I couldn’t tell you how long it was before I heard the buzz for the first time. All I knew for sure was that, by that time, the lower half of my body was in the sun. That’s when the first whirring sound bored its way into my skull. Sounded like a giant bug was stuck in my ear. I suddenly recalled summer nights long ago when Joey Ortega and I had used BIC lighters and aerosol cans to fashion makeshift flamethrowers with which we had terrorized the local june bug population. My most vivid sensory recollection was the ungodly smell they emitted as they curled into ashes.

  I cracked open my burning eyes. My vision was crisp but twirling like a merry-go-round. My first thought was that a dragonfly was buzzing around in front of my face. My second thought was that the damn fly ought to show a little respect for the dying, so I swatted at it. Missed by an acre or so.

  That’s when I realized I was no longer operating in real time. That there was a serious lag in my responses to sound and movement. The bug rose straight up into the ruthless sky. Took me a minute to haul my eyes up and find it again. Hovering there, staring at us with its buggy eyes . . . and those wings . . . no . . . no . . . not wings. I blinked several times. Four wings. Wailing away at the sky . . . propellers . . . four propellers. The bug dropped down to the level of my face and hovered there. And then, for a moment, my vision reassembled itself and I could see it was a drone, not a bug. Black and plastic.

  I looked over at Gabe. “Hey,” I croaked. “Hey. You see this?”

  But nothing. Gabe was out of the office.

  Instinctively I reached out toward the sound. The bug backed off a bit. The whirring filled my ears.

  I waved hello. The drone rose straight up into the desert sky, maybe fifty feet or so off the ground, and then buzzed off in the direction we’d been walking in.

  I struggled to my feet. I watched the drone for maybe half a minute before it became too small to see. I wanted to yell at it. To tell it not to go, but I just couldn’t hack anything out in time. I stood there with my arms atop the nearest rock. I locked my knees so I wouldn’t sink back to the ground. The sun was sautéing the top of my head.

  Just as I started to sink back into the remaining shade, I saw what I first took to be a dust devil, twirling a ringlet of sand and dirt into the molten sky. I ran a hand over my burning face and looked again. It was closer. I closed my eyes and started over. Even closer now . . . no doubt about it.

  It’s difficult to describe the degree of exultation that washed over me like a rogue wave. I wanted to run toward it, squealing like a Jeopardy! winner, but I wasn’t up to the task. Wanted to call out but wasn’t able to do that either, so I just stood there waving my arm like a signal flag as the brown swirling cloud moved steadily in our direction.

  Wasn’t till the dust settled back to the desert floor that I could make out that it was a pickup truck. Mostly army green except for the passenger door and the right front fender, both of which were the color of flat red primer. Something old, the make and model of which I didn’t recognize.

  There were two of them—a man and a boy of about ten. Dressed alike. Jeans; loose, once-white linen shirts; and big straw hats. The man was carrying a gallon jug filled with water. If I’d been able to muster the moisture, I think I may have broken into tears right then and there. The man stopped at my side. The kid ran over to Gabe. From the corner of my eye I could see the boy shaking Gabe’s shoulder.

  “You guys all right?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  The boy yelled, “Papa.” Called with his arm.

  The man looked at me. I gestured with my head for him to go and tend to Gabe. He got the message. I watched that jug of water leave the way a rottweiler watches a dropped rump roast. I spit but nothing came out.

  Took both of them to roll Gabe over and prop the wide back against the nearest rock. I watched as the guy unscrewed the top and poured some of the water over Gabe’s head. When Gabe coughed twice and then reached up to wipe away the water, it felt like a Subaru had been lifted from my chest. At that point I must have made some noise or other, because all three of them looked over at me.

  I slid down the rough side of the boulder and plopped on the ground. Turned out Bobby and Carlos were father and son, although it was hard to see how. The kid was of obvious Hispanic descent. The guy was about as Hispanic as I was, but I wasn’t in any position to ask questions at that point, so I just let it go.

  Bobby went back and forth to the truck a couple of times. Came back with a big blue plastic tarp, a bunch of old rope, and a pair of metal fence posts from whence he rigged us up a rudimentary shelter from the elements. In the meantime, the boy kept ferrying the jug back and forth between Gabe and me, letting us have a little at a time, pulling it away before either of us could guzzle more water than our systems could handle. When the first jug was empty, the kid ran back to the truck and came back with a fresh one.

  Once we were able to at least partially walk, they manhandled us one at a time over to the shelter and made us comfortable.

  “Whatchu doin’ out here wid no water?” Bobby asked us after we’d begun to come around a bit.

  “It’s a long story,” Gabe said.

  “You could die out here,” Carlos added.

  “Darn near did,” Bobby said.

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  “This is the Mojave National Preserve.”

  “Where’s the nearest town?” Gabe asked.

  “Baker,” Carlos chirped. “That’s where we live.”

  “
What day is it?” I asked.

  “Tuesday,” Bobby said. “Had them a teacher’s in-service day at his school today, so we figured we’d come out here and fly the drone a bit.”

  For some reason, knowing what day it was made me feel better. I closed my eyes. Felt like there was sand in them. I’ll just rest them for a couple of minutes, I told myself. Next thing I remember was waking up just before nightfall, needing to take a bladder buster of a leak. I crawled out from under the tarp and pushed myself to my feet. Either the world was still spinning or I was. It was hard to tell. I had a headache that would have stopped a rhino. My legs were weak and wobbly as I shuffled around the far edge of the rock pile to relieve myself. My throat felt like I’d swallowed a handful of thumbtacks. Other than that, things were just peachy.

  When I turned around to leave, Bobby was standing behind me.

  “You guys ready to leave?” he asked. “We gotta get back. Carlos got school tomorrow.”

  In the semidarkness, Gabe limped around both of us, all the way to the far side of the rock formation. Then Carlos walked fifty feet out into the desert and relieved himself onto the desert floor.

  Took us a half an hour to take down the makeshift tent and stow everything back in the truck. Bobby got the motor started. Gabe and I crawled up into the bed and settled in and around the rest of the cargo.

  Carlos went back to the campsite to make sure we’d left no sign that we’d ever been there. I was pulling a fence post out from under my ass and thinking about what a nice sense of preserving nature Carlos had, when a high-pitched scream filled the air.

  Some noises don’t require interpretation or translation. They’re just the wordless expressions of disaster. Of terror. Of fear. The three of us were out of the truck in a flash. I felt like I was going to come apart at the joints. On my right Gabe was stiff-legging forward like Boris Karloff playing the Mummy.

  “Carlos!” Bobby cried as he broke into a full sprint.

  When I rounded the corner of the rock pile, the first thing my eyes lit upon was Carlos. Bug-eyed, writhing on the ground. Scooting along on one hip while holding his ankle and screaming his head off. That’s when I saw the snake. Worse yet, that’s when I heard the dry rattle of its tail hissing in the air. It stopped me cold.

  “Oh Jesus,” fell out of my mouth unbidden. The snake, having detected the presence of Gabe and me, suddenly was heading back toward Carlos. I started forward to intervene somehow, but Bobby streaked in front of me in a full sprint.

  He grabbed his son by the ankles and started to drag him out of harm’s way. Carlos was still shrieking like a jay when Bobby tripped over a rock and went down in a twisted heap. I watched as he hopped back up to his knees and threw a hand out onto the ground to help lever himself to his feet.

  The snake ran his tongue in and out several times and then struck at the hand. My mouth was hanging open as the rattler recoiled from the bite and turned and swerved off in the other direction. Bobby was cradling his hand and rocking on his butt like a hobbyhorse. Carlos was starting to hyperventilate.

  Gabe and I got there at the same time. Gabe grabbed Bobby by the shoulders and hoisted him to his feet. “Where’s the nearest hospital?”

  “We got us an urgent care facility in Baker,” Bobby said through clenched teeth.

  I had Carlos in my arms and was hurrying toward the truck. As I passed Gabe and Bobby I said, “Gabe, you drive. Bobby, ride up front with Gabe. Show him the way outta here.” I stumbled but kept loping along with the boy in my arms. When I looked back over my shoulder, Bobby was cradling his arm like a baby as Gabe hurried him across the sand.

  The truck was still running as Gabe climbed into the driver’s seat. I lifted Carlos into the truck bed and climbed in after him. I grabbed the blue tarp, fluffed it up as much as I could, and put Carlos down onto it. He was breathing like a freight train. I leaned down and put my face right up into his. “Carlos . . . listen to me,” I said. “I need you to calm down. The more excited you are, the more of that snake juice you’re going to pump into your system. What you need to do is get real quiet here. Inside and out. Just real quiet. You understand what I’m saying to you?”

  He nodded and started to cry.

  “Close your eyes and count your breaths.”

  When he did it, I leaned out over the edge of the truck bed and shouted in Gabe’s ear. “Take it easy, man. Nothing crazy,” I said. “We break an axle out here and all of us are dead. Just get us there in one piece.”

  Gabe grunted. “Long time since I drove a stick.”

  The clutch chattered like hell at first, but we swung in a wide arc, a rooster tail of dust following in our wake like a filthy cape.

  I had Carlos’s head in my lap as we bounced across the jagged terrain. His ankle was starting to swell and turn the color of an eggplant. I kept telling him to take it easy, to relax as much as he could. I hugged the boy close to me, trying to cushion him from the bumps. I could feel his breathing getting shallow. Feel his body having contractions. I hugged him harder.

  The deeply ribbed bed of the truck was pureeing my tailbone as we raced along. Bobby kept leaning out the passenger window screaming into the wind, wanting to know how Carlos was doing. At least that’s what I imagined he was asking. Frankly, I couldn’t make out a word he was saying. I kept nodding at him like a bobblehead doll. Finally, I bent my head down onto Carlos’s chest and ignored him.

  My senses came alive again the second we bounced up onto the paved road. I craned up and looked around. Two-lane blacktop. Yellow line down the middle.

  Gabe had the shifting thing down. We were making some time now. More wind generators out in the distance; their massive white blades seemed to be motioning us forward, as if to say hurry up, c’mon, man, move your ass.

  I looked through the dust-streaked back window of the truck. Gabe was holding the steering wheel like it was a life ring. Looked like Bobby had finally run out of gas. His snake-bitten hand was the size of a shovel. It hung loose, bumping against the front of the seat as the truck rocketed along. He’d keeled over onto Gabe’s shoulder, his limp body rocking slightly to the tune of the truck.

  I was about to sit back down when a sudden jolt shook the truck like we’d run over a boulder or something. I saw Gabe flinch hard. Flinching was one thing. The flames licking out from the engine compartment were something else. Gabe looked back at me through the window. Jaw set like a bass, eyes hard as bullets.

  I leaned out around the corner of the cab and shouted in Gabe’s ear.

  “Drive till the fucker dies!”

  Gabe nodded. Readjusted the hands on the wheel and stomped the gas pedal hard.

  I told myself we’d get there, no doubt about it, yes sir, not to worry, and sat down next to Carlos. I picked him up by the shoulders and put the top half of him in my lap. Two things immediately became apparent. The boy was shaking like a palsy patient, and the truck was, little by little, slowing down. I took a deep breath and held it.

  “Sergeant Saunders, I assure you we’re doing everything we are able to do. The law is clear. We are obliged to give seventy-two hours’ notice prior to entering anyone’s house. We’ve given official notice and are scheduled to arrive for an interview on Friday morning.”

  She’d said her name was Marcia Grant. She was the honcho for elder abuse complaints. “Couldn’t we . . .” Carolyn stopped herself. Blew out a chestful of air.

  Marcia Grant seemed to feel her frustration. “The only other recourse would be a search warrant executed by the police. Perhaps you should discuss your concerns with your own department. Assuming you have probable cause, or as I’m sure you are aware, if there’s exigent circumstances—”

  “Yes,” Carolyn stammered. “Thank you . . . I . . . thank you.”

  Carolyn broke the connection. She snatched her keys from her kitchen table and hurried for the door. She didn’t have a plan. Nobody was giving her a search warrant for Florence Haller’s home without a truckload of probable cause. That
wasn’t going to happen. Besides which she was presently on administrative leave and not assigned to anything remotely connected to the case.

  She backed her car out onto Rosecrans and rolled south all the way to Cañon, veered right at the light, and started up over the hill to Ocean Beach. All she could think of was to run by both apartments and see if maybe they’d come back sometime during the night.

  She stopped at the new apartment first. Let herself in. Everything was just as she’d left it yesterday. Broken chair and all. She went through the rest of the apartment in a combat stance. Nothing. She returned her weapon to its holster, silently cursed, and headed downstairs to her car.

  As usual there was no place to park on Del Monte Avenue, so she swung around into the alley behind the building, slid the car as far to the right as possible, threw the OFFICIAL POLICE VEHICLE sign on the dash, and got out.

  She hustled up the concrete stairs two at a time. Same deal here. Everything as it had been the day before. Nobody around. She kicked the security door in frustration.

  Back in the narrow courtyard, she walked to the back and knocked hard on Kevin’s door. Once. Twice. Before the inner door opened.

  He was wearing a pair of sweatpants and a gray sports jersey of some kind. Number twenty-three. It was 11:20 in the morning. The guy looked like he’d gone to bed about an hour ago.

  “You seen either of those two?” she blurted before he’d stopped blinking.

  “Nah,” he said, running a hand over his yawning face. “They ain’t been back.” He scratched his belly. “You wanna get in?” he asked around another yawn.