Desert Crossing

by Elise Broach

  A blue truck.

  My breath caught in my throat. Okay, I thought. There must be a lot of blue trucks.

  But she said he lived around here. She said he came to the diner every day.

  I looked behind me. The road was deserted. All around me, dry grasses hummed and whispered. I was alone.

  The truck was getting closer. There wasn’t time to do anything. I stepped off the road onto the sand. This is stupid, I thought. It’s just somebody going to Kilmore.

  But the truck was slowing down.

  It braked noisily and pulled onto the shoulder about twenty yards ahead of me, its metal grillwork flashing in the sun. My heart thumped in my chest. I could see the dark silhouette of the driver, but not his face. I stood still, watching. I didn’t know what to do. It was too late to run away or hide. I squeezed my hands into fists and waited.

  The driver’s door swung open. “You need a ride?”

  The voice was flat but oddly high-pitched, like it should have belonged to someone smaller than the man who got out of the truck. He was tall and heavy, with short graying hair and a black net trucker’s hat shadowing his face. I couldn’t see his eyes.

  “Where you going?” He stood next to the truck, one hand resting on the door.

  I swallowed. “I was just walking.”

  I watched his hand slide off the door, casual but deliberate. He took a step toward me. “Too hot for walking.”

  “It’s not so bad,” I said quickly. The banging of my heart filled my ears. I stepped backward.

  He glanced behind him, then squinted over my shoulder. “What are you doing out here?”

  “Just walking,” I said again. “I’m … I’m turning around now anyway.”

  “Going back to Kilmore?”

  I nodded.

  “That’s where I’m heading. I’ll give you a ride.” He gestured toward the truck and I stepped backward, not knowing what to do.

  “No, that’s okay. I’d rather walk.”

  He was close to me now, a few arm’s lengths away. I looked up into his face and his eyes were small and pale, a milky blue. I could hear the low, steady rumble of the truck’s engine. He smiled, but the smile never reached his eyes. “Come on,” he said. “Don’t you want a ride?”

  Suddenly, I saw the girl’s face, wet with the rain. Help me, I thought.

  And then the man’s expression changed. He frowned, looking past me. I turned and saw a car coming, small in the distance but getting larger, a familiar bronze color that almost matched the dirt.

  Kit.

  “That’s my boyfriend,” I said quickly, turning away from him. I started to run, my feet pounding the gravel, half expecting him to come after me, even though I knew that he wouldn’t, not with Kit there.

  “Kit!” I yelled, waving my arms. “Kit!”

  Kit slowed down in the opposite lane and rolled down his window. “Are you talking to me now?”

  I ran across the road, lunged at the passenger door and grabbed the handle.

  Kit was looking at the man. “Hey,” he said.

  “How you doing?” the man said in his flat voice. “It’s too hot for her to be walking. You can’t do that around here when the weather’s like this. People get heatstroke, you know. Die from it.”

  “Really?” Kit looked over at me, scanning my face, his eyes questioning. “I’ll tell her to be more careful.” He shrugged. “But it’s not like she listens to me.”

  “They never do,” the man said, his mouth twisting. He walked back to the truck.

  Kit turned to me. “You okay?”

  I nodded, blinking back tears. My arms were shaking so hard I had to press them against my stomach to hold them still.

  “What happened?” His voice was worried. “Did that guy do something?”

  I shook my head.

  The truck pulled back into the road, and the man looked straight at me as he drove by. His pale eyes showed no expression at all.

  “Huh,” Kit said. “Blue truck.”

  27

  “It was him, it was him, it was him.” I rocked back and forth in the seat, hugging myself.

  Kit put his hand on my shoulder. I flinched, not wanting him to touch me, but at the same time wanting it more than anything. The weight of his hand steadied me. I tried to stop shaking.

  “Hey,” he said. “It’s okay. What happened back there?”

  I swallowed. “He asked me if I wanted a ride.”

  “Well, it’s hot out.”

  I looked at him. “It wasn’t like that. He wanted me to get in the truck.” I shivered, and Kit slid his hand down my arm, cupping his fingers under my elbow.

  “Luce,” he said gently. “Maybe he was just offering you a ride. You heard what he said. People get heatstroke.”

  “No. It wasn’t like that.”

  “How do you know?”

  I took his hand off my arm and sat straighter, willing myself to be still. “I could feel it.”

  Kit didn’t say anything for a minute. “Everybody has a pickup truck around here. There must be plenty of blue ones.”

  I turned in the seat to look at him. “Kit, it was him. I know it.”

  Kit kept his eyes on the road. He let out a long breath and then nodded slowly. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.” He put his hand on my shoulder again, rubbing his fingers over the back of my neck.

  “You can’t do that,” I said, shrugging free. “I mean it.”

  He took his hand away, but the imprint of it tingled.

  “So what do you want to do?” he said. “Call the police?”

  I bit my lip. “What would we say?”

  We were nearing Kilmore again, passing the diner. I jolted forward. The blue truck was parked in front. “Look! He’s right there.” I turned to Kit. “Quick, pull in.”

  Kit veered into the parking lot and slowed the car. “Okay, Luce. Now what?” He looked over at me, shaking his head. “Suppose it is the guy. How are you ever going to prove that? Do you think you can just walk up and ask him?”

  I pulled my feet onto the seat and rested my face against my knees. He was right. How could we prove anything? And what had the guy done, anyway? He’d left the girl on the road, but she was already dead. Was that even a crime? It had to be.

  I remembered his voice: Don’t you want a ride? Is that what he’d said to her, too?

  I rubbed my forehead. “Listen, I know it’s him. We just need some reason for the police to … you know … question him.” I stared at the blue truck. If the girl had ridden in it, maybe she’d left something behind. “Let’s look in his truck.”

  Kit raised his eyebrows. “Look for what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Just walk over there and search his truck?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That is a really dumb idea. And probably illegal.”

  I frowned at him. “Then you should be happy. Didn’t you say everything fun is illegal?”

  “Okay, well, I was wrong. Because that is not fun, and probably illegal, and totally pointless.”

  I kept looking at the truck. She’d been inside it, I knew it. Maybe it was the last place she’d been alive. “I’m going to do it.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Are you coming?”

  “No.”

  I got out of the car and slammed the door. The diner windows faced the gas pumps at an angle. You could see this part of the parking lot from the corner tables, but not easily. I shielded my eyes with one hand and tried to see who was sitting there. But the sun was too bright. The windows reflected the image of the road, the motel on the other side, the giant cactus.

  I walked toward the blue truck. Part of me couldn’t believe I was doing this. What if it was locked? But no, when I tried the handle, the passenger door opened easily. I looked around to make sure no one was watching, then climbed inside.

  The cab had a stale, old-food smell. The carpet was dark with stains and littered with junk: two beer bottles, a crumpled Coke can, a
half-empty bag of potato chips. I kept checking the door of the diner. No one went in or out. The parking lot was quiet, baking in the sun.

  I got up on my knees and peered between the seats: a ballpoint pen, some change, a folded newspaper. I flipped down the visors. A pair of sunglasses.

  What was I looking for? I didn’t even know. Some sign the girl had been here, sitting on this very seat the day she died. But it was all so ordinary. This was the kind of stuff in anybody’s car.

  I opened the glove compartment and took out the sheaf of papers inside. Car stuff mostly, the manual for the truck, an insurance card. An insurance card. It had his name on it. And an address. Wesley Wicker, R.R. #7, 4420 Brick Road, Castle, NM.

  “Hi.” I heard Kit’s voice in the parking lot, sounding unusually loud. I jerked around and saw the man—the man!—coming out of the diner. I ducked down in the seat and tried to shove the papers back into the glove compartment, my fingers fumbling and almost dropping them.

  “Did you see my friend in there?” Kit said. “I lost her again.”

  Holding my breath, I pushed the door open, an inch at a time. I squeezed out, crouching next to the truck.

  “Nope, didn’t see her.” A short nasal laugh. “You better keep an eye on that one.” As quietly as I could, I pressed the door shut.

  “Yeah, well, thanks anyway.”

  Still crouching, I ran in front of the two other cars and around the corner of the building. Wicker, 7, 4420, Brick, Castle, I kept whispering to myself.

  I stood with my back against the wall, breathing hard. A minute later, Kit rounded the corner, swearing.

  “Sorry,” I said miserably.

  “Are we done now? Because, you know what, that guy is creepy as hell and I’d just as soon not run into him again.”

  “I got his address,” I said.

  “That’s great. You can send him a card. Can we leave?”

  “I want to go to his house.”

  Kit grabbed my shoulders and pulled me away from the wall. “No way! No! Luce, listen to me. We’re not going to his house. I don’t know what his deal is. Maybe he’s the guy who dumped that girl, maybe he’s not. But there’s something weird about him. We’re not doing it.”

  I slid out from under his hands and started to walk back to the car. “Listen, you’re right, I have to be more careful,” I said. “I shouldn’t have looked in his truck like that, not when he could walk out and see me.”

  I stopped to wait for him, but he was still standing there scowling. “Kit, please. Listen a second. The police didn’t find any ID on her, remember? No purse, no wallet. So somebody probably took it. Somebody stole it. And if that guy was the last person with her—the last person to see her alive—maybe he’s the one.”

  “Maybe he is. And guess what? Maybe we’ll never know.”

  I nodded slowly. “But we have to try to find out. At least, I do.”

  “Why?”

  I walked back and stood in front of him, looking into his eyes. “I don’t know. I just do.”

  He stared down at me, his forehead creased with frustration. Then his face changed, and in a careful way, he took a strand of my hair and tucked it behind my ear. “I don’t get why this is so important to you.”

  I turned away. “Well, I don’t get why it was so important for you to kiss me if you were going out with Lara Fitzpatrick.”

  “I wasn’t the only one doing the kissing. If you remember.”

  “I’m trying not to.”

  I walked toward the car, then hesitated, my fingers on the handle. “So will you take me? To his house, I mean?”

  Kit opened the door and climbed inside. He sat with his hands on the steering wheel, looking out at the dusty lot. “What if it’s locked?”

  “It won’t be,” I said. “The truck wasn’t.”

  “You didn’t find anything in the truck.”

  “No.”

  “What makes you think you’ll find something in the house?”

  I didn’t answer. I watched his profile. His jaw tensed, softened, tensed again.

  “If we go to his house, that’s it,” he said. “Whatever happens. If we find something, we tell the police. If we don’t, the whole thing stops. Okay? We go back to Beth’s.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “I mean it.”

  “I said okay.”

  I lifted my sketch pad from the back seat and tore out a page. Across the top I wrote Wicker, R.R. #7, 4420 Brick Road, Castle, NM.

  28

  “So where are we going?” Kit asked.

  “The town is called Castle,” I said. I fished the map out of the side pocket of the door and spread it across my lap. This part of the state was an empty yellow square crossed by a half dozen thin lines, the only roads. Castle had to be near one of those. I squinted at the town names. Tucumcari. Conchas. Mosquero. It might have been a foreign country.

  “Here it is,” I told Kit. “East of here. About twenty miles.”

  We turned onto another highway. Kilmore disappeared behind us. The flamboyant cactus sign looked cheap and brittle in the distance. We passed a trailer with laundry hanging limply from a clothesline. We passed a house with a weathered chicken coop and four gray hens scratching the dry ground.

  “Do you think this is still Kilmore?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Kit said. “The suburbs.”

  Then we were surrounded by nothing.

  It didn’t take much time to cover twenty miles, especially compared with the long drive that morning. Soon we were approaching a gas station. The sign said “Castle Gas and Service.”

  “What’s the name of the road?” Kit asked, pulling up to the pumps. A stooped old man in blue coveralls came out of the tiny building and walked over to Kit’s window.

  “Could you fill it up with unleaded?” Kit said. “And we’re looking for a road—” He turned to me.

  “Brick Road,” I said. “And it says something else. R.R. 7. Do you know what that means?”

  The man shuffled to the pump, ignoring me. When he came back to the window he tugged on his bottom lip, showing a crooked jumble of yellow teeth. “Rural Route 7. Brick Road. Same thing. It’s the next right.”

  “Thanks,” Kit said, paying him.

  “It’s not paved,” he called as we drove away.

  The next right was miles farther along, and it turned out to be a bumpy dirt track winding down a slope.

  Kit shook his head. “Look at this place. Castle. Where’s the castle? Where’s the frigging run-down shack? There’s nothing here.”

  “The house number is 4420.”

  “Something tells me you can’t miss it,” Kit said.

  We jolted over the road, churning up clouds of dust.

  “What if he was on his way home?” Kit asked. “He left the diner. He could be there right now.”

  “Yeah,” I said, staring at my lap.

  There was a house up ahead, a trailer. I leaned forward. “There, look, that’s it.” But it wasn’t; it was 4460. “So we’re close.” I glanced at Kit. His brow furrowed in annoyance.

  We passed three more houses in a little pocket, then another dull stretch of road. Far away, on a rise, I could see a white house flanked by outbuildings: a shed, some kind of garage. “That’s it,” I said. No blue truck. A metal mailbox leaned crookedly on a pole, with the numbers 4420 on it. Kit pulled onto the dirt driveway.

  * * *

  Kit shut off the engine and we sat for a minute, looking around.

  “See, there’s no sign of him,” I said.

  “Oh yeah? You’re sure of that? What about the garage?”

  I shook my head. “It’s just got some kind of machinery in it. He’s not here.”

  “Okay, but we’re not staying long. Do you understand?”

  “Stop treating me like I’m six years old,” I snapped at him.

  “I will, when you start showing more sense than that.”

  We climbed the steps to the front door. I reached for the knob
, but Kit stopped me. “You’d better knock,” he said. “What if somebody else is here?”

  I hadn’t even thought of that. What if he didn’t live alone? And then what would we say? “We’ll ask for directions,” Kit said, before I could open my mouth.

  “You sound like you’ve done this before,” I said. I knocked on the door. We waited, listening to the silence.

  “Okay,” Kit said. “I’ll park behind that shed. In case he comes back. And listen: no messing around. We’re in and out of this place. If we can even get in.” He walked back to the car, calling over his shoulder, “Is it open?”

  I tried the doorknob. It was locked.

  “Yeah,” I lied. “Just give me a second.” I scanned the front of the house. The windows were all closed. Now what? I heard Kit start the car as I jumped off the porch and ran around to the side, breathing a sigh of relief when I saw a small window cracked four or five inches. It was above a propane tank, so I had something to climb on. I scrambled on top of the tank and pushed up the screen, opening the window all the way. Inside was a bathroom with soap-scummed blue tile.

  I squeezed through the window, scraping my ribs against the frame and half climbing, half falling onto the toilet seat. Then I ran to open the front door.

  “So it was locked,” Kit said smugly.

  I didn’t say anything.

  He looked at his watch. “You’ve got fifteen minutes. That’s all. Then we’re leaving.”

  “That may not be enough time.”

  “It’ll have to be. He could be on his way back. So get moving.”

  I surveyed the house. It was small and messy, but strangely impersonal. There were no pictures on the walls, nothing on the coffee table but old newspapers and a half-filled drinking glass. The living room was cluttered with big, ugly furniture, a sofa and armchair covered in rust-colored velour. A crumpled T-shirt lay on the floor, a pair of wadded-up socks beneath the footstool.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Kit said.

  “I’m not stupid, you know.”

  “Thirteen minutes,” Kit said.

  “Help me, then,” I said. “You look, too.”

  “What are we looking for?”

  I shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. A purse or a wallet, credit cards. Something of hers. Look in the kitchen. I’ll check in the back.”