by Boston Teran
Bob turns and passes the lieutenant on his way out.
The lieutenant stops him. “Hightower … You gonna answer me?”
Bob has no answer for the lieutenant, and walks away.
THE CUP AND THE SPEAR
70
In central Arizona, along the Mogollon Rim, at a truck stop packed with the dinner crowd, Case sits alone having coffee. She stares out the window, past a great line of rigs and into a country of deep eskers raked by a burning sunset. Gorges chiseled by the primitive artifacts of time are now cast so red it seems the ground itself is bleeding. This is the country once called by Coronado el despoblado, “the howling wilderness.”
Behind the milk of her headlights, pounding through the dark swerves of midnight, in the clutches of that massive silent heath, windows open to crank in the air, waiting for the perfect turn that never comes, she can hear Cyrus in the radio’s voice: “He blew his mind out in a car …”
Nothing abides alone. Not evil, not good. Yet she can’t seem to rise past her privations. Every phone tempts her, but she is afraid to make the call. So she tries to drive her need into the ground. The thorn short a lily, the lily short a thorn.
In October, there are fires from Malibu to the Ventura Hills. The ground burns again in an act of creation and change. Bob sits on his kitchen steps, the last Saturday of the month. He looks up into a full moon that drips white blood across the channel of the sky to its partnered earth.
He drinks tequila and smokes. The phone rings but he doesn’t bother with it. He sets his teeth against the dark inside him. But the ringing doesn’t stop.
Don’t make it be like all the other times, he thinks. Some reporter who wants a little quick one-liner. Or the crawling night-freaks who want to talk murder or guns or Christianity or the Left-Handed Path or …
He would have changed the phone number, but he is still stumbling through the heart of tonight’s and tomorrow’s and next week’s and next year’s wishes.
He moves with the cautious motion of a spider across the kitchen toward the phone. There is a second of silence after he answers, and he would swear he can hear the drone of the highway in the emptiness of that moment.
The dry California winds that bred the fires burn up through his nose as he takes a long deep breath. “Case?”
Seconds waste by.
“Hello, Coyote,” she says.
In the winter Sam’s and Sarah’s graves are desecrated. The headstone is spray-painted with the letter C pierced by a lightning bolt. The same sign appears on the doors and walls of the Via Princessa house, which still sits empty on the bluff above the Antelope Freeway.
Some say it’s the work of punk vandals. Others say it is a cult warning.
A reporter calls Bob’s house to snag a comment, but she finds the number has been changed. She takes a quick drive out to the place only to discover from the family now living there that Bob and Gabi have moved and left no forwarding address. She then contacts Arthur and Maureen, but neither knows where Bob and Gabi have gone.
—TO MY MOTHER AND FATHER—
One died before the beginning.
One fell along the way.
I am always us.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is the sum total of many lives. With that in mind and heart, I would like to walk through a short list of thank yous for those who helped nurture, shape, and polish this manuscript, and also my being.
First, to Sonny Mehta, who stands firmly at the center of this experience. It was he who set this book on its course, and who gave freely of his experience, talent, and commitment. To Sarah McGrath, who worked more than her fair share of judicious editorial hours carrying this manuscript to completion. To the Knopf executives Patricia Johnson, Paul Bogaards, Paul Kozlowski, and Bill Loverd, for their sincere and dedicated stewardship. To Jenny Minton, for a helpful push in the right direction.
On a personal note: To Deirdre Stefanie and the late, great Brutarian … to Deaf Eddie … to G.G. and L.S.… to my friends who are still in hiding … to Felis Andrews-Pope … to the Ferryman, who guided me through many, many miles of uncharted American life, from those shape-shifting corners of the California desert to the forgotten camposantos of Mexico … and finally, to my friend and agent, David Hale Smith, who always does more than he says he will and does it with the utmost care for my work. An ethical workhorse and dedicated family man, he has my deepest respect and admiration. A special thanks goes to him and to Shelly Lewis and Seth Robertson, his associates at DHS Literary, Inc. I will always define my good fortune in meeting David as kismet times seven.
Also by Boston Teran
NEVER COUNT OUT THE DEAD
