Dirt Bikes, Drones, and Other Ways to Fly

by Conrad Wesselhoeft

  Saddle up. Kick it.

  Grind!

  Hear the strong thump-thump-thump of the four-stroke.

  GRIND!

  Feel the mustangs running up my spine.

  I’m about to gallop off when there’s a knock on my helmet.

  “Hello in there.”

  I ease off the throttle. Angle my head because all I can see is a silhouette. Slide down my shades. It’s Lee Fields. The girl from Seattle and the book of Genesis. She who talks of Berbers and Hopi.

  “Can I ask you about your motorcycle?”

  Two kinds of energy flow out of Lee: beautiful-girl energy and snaky, Garden-of-Eden energy. At least, that’s how I see her now, standing with Tinaja Mesa on her shoulder. I don’t kill the engine.

  “Yeah, what about it?”

  “Know where I can find one?”

  Motorcycles are another thing. I can talk about them with anybody, from fools to smiling rattlers. So I kill the motor. Tug off my helmet.

  “Clay’s a boneyard,” I say. “If you want a decent bike, check out Raton or Trinidad. Better yet, check out Santa Fe or Albuquerque, wherever there’s online ads or newspapers. There sure’s no newspaper here in Clay.”

  “Your dad was the editor, wasn’t he?”

  “Was,” I sniff.

  Lee hunkers down for a better view of my bike. Up close, Lee Fields isn’t all that scary. Or perfect. There’s a strawberry welt on her neck. Damn, does she have a boyfriend already? But those pink Pumas. Not a smudge or speck of dirt. How can anybody keep their shoes that clean?

  “Word of mouth,” I say, “is best. But I can tell you, from my own mouth, Clay’s dead—not just dying, dead. I know every bike in the county, from the fattest hog to the skinniest Honda. How much you wanna spend?”

  Lee thinks a moment. “Hmm, I don’t know.”

  I’m pondering whether to say the next thing, because I haven’t thought it through. But before I can make up my mind, I hear myself say:

  “I got another bike, a Yamaha YZ 125. Been saving it for my little sister, but—”

  Lee waves off my thought. “Oh, definitely. You should save it for her.”

  “She’s not too interested these days,” I say. “So it might be for sale.”

  Lee perks up. “What’s the condition?”

  “Scratched and nicked,” I say. “All the paint’s basically worn off. She’s definitely broken in. Got a wet clutch.”

  “Wet clutch?”

  “An oil drip that keeps everything running smooth,” I say. “You can’t find a better bike in all northeast New Mexico. Plus, she’s lucky. Never wiped out or bit the dust. And she’s a high flier. Kind of a minor genius on the bumps. This one’s a major genius.” I pat my 250 four-stroke.

  Lee moves around, studying my machine. “Think I should get a dirt bike or a road bike?” she asks.

  “No offense,” I say, “but that’s a tragic question. Do you wanna stay stuck on asphalt all your life? Or . . .” I sweep my hand from the Spanish Peaks to Tinaja Mesa—180 degrees, north to south. “Or do you wanna ride all this? ’Cuz that’s northeast New Mexico. On a dirt bike, it’s all yours. Every square mile.”

  Lee nods. “I see your point.”

  “Always—always—go with the dirt,” I say. “Give your bike all the rein it wants, and it’ll love you right back. You got miles of good dirt up in Chicorica Canyon—all those arroyos and washes.”

  Lee looks off in the direction of the canyon. “We’ve got horses for the arroyos and washes,” she says.

  “Nah,” I say. “A horse has a mind of its own. A dirt bike is an extension of your mind. All the speed and freedom of a wild mustang, with none of the orneriness.”

  “You seem to have a strong opinion about this,” Lee says.

  “Hey, if you really want to know what I think—”

  Lee plants a hand on her hip. “Yes, what do you think, Arlo Santiago?”

  It’s a nice shift—a sweet torque, halfway between righteous mom and jutting runway model. I smile. Despite myself.

  “Okay, I’m gonna give you my little speech on life here in Orphan County,” I say. “This is what the Chamber of Commerce won’t tell you, so listen up.”

  Lee makes a serious face. “I’m listening.”

  “Here it is,” I say. “In this neck of the desert, everybody—everybody!—needs three things: more money, more water, and better shocks. There you go, that’s my little speech. That’s everything you need to know about Orphan County, New Mexico, boiled down to the grit.”

  “Well, we sure need more water,” Lee says.

  “Hey, I know all about that,” I say. “My sister and I used to swim up at your aunt’s ranch, in the part of the creek called the Punch Bowl.”

  “It’s barely a trickle now,” Lee says.

  “Yeah, well, your Aunt Lupita got seriously robbed.”

  Which is true. Chicorica Creek used to tumble across Lupita Fields’s property and then down to the ranches below, watering their land and herds. That was the natural flow of Chicorica Creek. Then the Town of Clay Allison started tinkering around with the law.

  “What they did was unconscionable,” Lee says.

  “Wait,” I say. “You’re in New Mexico now. Just say what they did was wrong.”

  Lee shrugs. “It was wrong.”

  And she’s right. The town—in its infinite greed—hired a Denver lawyer, and they built a concrete dam across the creek on Lupita’s property. Now her water supply funnels into a copper pipe, elbows ninety degrees, and rushes down the canyon into the town reservoir.

  Everybody below in Clay Allison gets more water and better water pressure. We’re all singing in the shower and whistling when we flush our toilets. The only problem is, we stole the water from Lupita Fields and her rancher neighbors.

  “Where I come from, you can’t take something and call it your own,” Lee says.

  “Maybe not up in Seattle,” I say. “But you’re in the Land of Enchantment now. The Crotch of the West.”

  “The Crotch of the—” Lee laughs. “I don’t remember seeing that on the license plates.”

  “Yeah, well, people here do what they like,” I say. “It’s a tradition. When you pack a gun in your pickup, you can pretty much do anything. That’s the beauty and truth of it.”

  Lee shakes her head. “That’s the ugliness and lies of it. They definitely don’t know my aunt.”

  “Well, we sure know her,” I say. “My mom and her were best friends. Going back to, like, kindergarten. But that dam is here to stay. Concrete is concrete.”

  Lee checks her watch. “Will you be at the game tomorrow night?” she asks.

  “I’m always at the game,” I say.

  “What position do you play?”

  “Hot dog salesman.”

  She blinks. “Any veggie dogs?”

  “Veggie!” I sneer. “You’d better get that foreign word out of your vocabulary. You’re in prime beef and hog-gut country now.”

  “I wouldn’t touch one of your hot dogs,” Lee says.

  “Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”

  “The fat and sodium,” she says. “Then there’s the nitrates. And the nitrites. And the—”

  The second-period bell rings. Lee glances back, then quirks a smile at me. “Hey, can you bring your YZ 125 to the game?” she asks. “I’d like to check it out.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  The fact that I’m even talking about selling my 125 staggers me. Because I love that bike.

  “See you tomorrow night,” Lee says.

  She pivots on her Pumas and walks away, the ends of her red-gold hair whisking back and forth.

  Shimmering.

  Chapter 9

  I’M FLOPPED ON MY BED sucking an orange and watching the four o’clock news—the BBC World Update. I don’t usually watch the news—and never the British Broadcasting Corporation news—but Lee’s such a big fan, why not have a look?

  “We go now to Pakistan’s North-West Fron
tier, where correspondent Ethan Shackleton has filed this report.”

  The North-West Frontier—a good start.

  A dark-haired dude appears on screen. He’s probably late twenties, but if you count the mileage on his face, he’s more like mid-thirties. He’s decked out in a safari jacket with a BBC logo. He’s got that three-day-beard thing going.

  “The question persists—where is Caracal? We have an abundance of speculation and theory, but no definite answer.”

  Caracal—that’s twice in one day.

  “He remains the quintessential shadow warrior. Let us review . . .”

  I tug off my boots, stack some pillows, and settle back with my orange.

  “Caracal takes his name from the elusive Asian mountain lion. Like his feline counterpart, he is intensely secretive and fiercely territorial.

  “He is best known as the architect of terrorist attacks that have killed thousands on three continents. Today, he is believed to be the insurgency’s top commander on the North-West Frontier.”

  The camera pulls back, and Ethan starts to mosey along a riverbank, all the while talking to his TV audience. Below him, the river flows frothy and fast. On the far horizon stand snowy mountains. I recognize them as the Hindu Kush. The tallest peak—the one that looks like a shark’s fin—is more than twenty-five thousand feet high. I know all this from Drone Pilot.

  “For several years, Caracal has remained invisible to our eyes. We received reports last year that he was killed in a drone strike outside Peshawar. However, follow-up reports suggested that he was alive and well—or at least sufficiently recovered from his wounds to commit further acts against Western personnel and interests.”

  They cut to an old photo of Caracal. He looks like a college professor, lean and serious.

  “What do we know about this man? He was born in a tribal village on the North-West Frontier and moved at age twelve to England, where he was educated at top private schools. At Cambridge University, he excelled in chemistry and philosophy. Here he became affiliated with the ‘Sixth Pillar,’ an organization fueled by the idea of ‘holy war,’ which it defined as ‘the internal and external struggle to defend the faith.’

  “During two years of graduate study in Washington, DC, he wrote a dissertation on the relationship between religion and terrorism, which he later expanded and published under the title A Declaration of War Against All Oppressors. Today, this volume is regarded by sympathizers as the insurgency’s strongest statement advocating the use of violence and terror as a means to an end.

  “Although he inherited family wealth, he lives simply and modestly, adhering to the strictures of his faith.

  “Former teachers, classmates, and neighbors paint a divergent portrait. Some remember him as ‘polite and soft-spoken,’ others as ‘brilliant,’ and still others as ‘ideologically inflexible’ and ‘clearly a bad man.’ While he is known to have ordered the execution of enemy prisoners, he is also a provider of food, medicine, and other forms of aid to war-torn villages on the North-West Frontier.”

  A photo pops up showing Caracal with his wife and three kids. His expression is a mix of pride, love, and deer-in-headlights bewilderment. I’ve seen family pictures of Dad looking pretty much the same.

  “He was widowed one year ago as the result of the same targeted drone strike that was thought to have killed him. He has three children—a seven-year-old son and twin daughters, age three.

  “But where is he? Assuming he is alive—and most intelligence experts I’ve spoken with do assume that—he is in deep hiding. He likely limits his movements to keep out of sight of even the most discerning surveillance craft. When he moves, it is thought to be with the help of a support network, including loyal tribal leaders.

  “Recent reports suggest that he is based at an outpost in the Hindu Kush mountains that rise out of the Swat Valley. It’s possible that he moves between outposts under cover of night. From here, he likely executes his tactical program of assault on Western personnel while plotting the next strategic strike on foreign soil.

  “Caracal has always been fixated on the United States and its global interests. It is widely believed within the intelligence community that he is planning to launch a large-scale attack on Western interests in the near future.

  “This is Ethan Shackleton, BBC World Update, reporting from Pakistan’s North-West Frontier.”

  IT’S MIDNIGHT. I’M STRIPPED TO my boxers, brushing my teeth, shaking my ass to Kenya Man’s “Kaleidoscope Mirror” . . .

  “Chrome is the color

  of my mouth and mind.

  I’m black like a storm,

  Blue like a chime . . .”

  . . . when my laptop pings. It’s an e-mail from Colonel Kincaid.

  Arlo, The attached memo contains a reference to you. Have a look.

  I pop open the memo. Most of it is blotted out—or redacted, as they say in various anally retentive circles. I turn down Kenya Man and read:

  Date sent: (redacted)

  From: (redacted)

  To: (redacted).

  The first three pages are completely redacted. However, at the bottom of the last page is a single buck-naked sentence:

  The pilot is a seventeen-year-old American citizen remarkable for his ability to handle a diverse range of drone aircraft in extreme terrain and erratic atmospheric conditions, and for his extensive knowledge of the North-West Frontier.

  I read this again.

  Then I crank Kenya Man and shake my ass.

  But after a while, I start wondering. How does he know I’m “remarkable”? Because I’ve never actually flown a drone—unless you count the game—in which case, I’ve flown a million.

  If Colonel Kincaid is right, and Drone Pilot truly “replicates” the act of flying a real drone, then White Sands could be profound.

  I flop on my bed, redact the light, and grin at the night.

  Chapter 10

  DAD AND I ARE PACKING the pickup, getting ready for tonight’s game—Clay Allison (the Outlaws, 9–0) vs. Jeopardy (the Saints, 8–1). The rivalry between Clay and Jeopardy is famous and bitter. Dating back to the stone ages.

  Dad adjusts his Snack Shack ball cap. Studies his checklist.

  “Tamales—four dozen—check. Hot dogs—ten dozen—check. Candy . . . hmm . . . Arlo, where the hell’re my Gummi Bears?”

  “Under the Styrofoam cups.”

  “Check.”

  On and on until we get everything packed in the pickup and bungeed under a plastic sheet.

  Each time I open the door of the truck, El Guapo jumps in. No matter how carefully I guard the door, he makes it into the driver’s seat. I grab his collar, drag him out. But he jumps back in.

  This goes on and on, one of his little games. Drives me crazy. Which is why he loves it.

  Finally, I give up and leave that humping shag carpet right where he wants to be, sitting behind the wheel, ready to drive off.

  Dad turns toward the porch, snaps, “C’mon, Siouxsie!”

  He closes his eyes, regretting his tone. Wills the hurry out of his bones. Sets down his clipboard and goes up the porch steps into the kitchen. He comes out carrying Siouxsie in his arms.

  “Hey, I can walk,” she says.

  “Not fast enough,” Dad grumbles.

  She slams a fist into his shoulder.

  Dad sucks it in.

  El Guapo sees all this and jumps out of the pickup to make way for them. Dad sets Siouxsie in the passenger seat.

  Under her breath, she says, “Just for the record, I don’t want to be here.”

  “Duly noted,” Dad says. “But just for the record, I’m not leaving you alone.”

  I look at my sister, getting worse one molecule at a time. God knows what Huntington’s has crushed today. Will crush tomorrow.

  “You boys ride in back,” Dad says.

  “Guapo too?” I ask.

  “Why the hell not.”

  I grab Guapo, hoist him, and place him in back. Then I glance over
at the shed.

  “Hey, Dad! Hold up a sec.”

  I duck into the shed and wheel out my YZ 125, into which I’ve poured miles and hills beyond counting. You can barely make out “Yamaha” on the front shock guard. Mom bought me the bike for my tenth birthday. Grinding the throttle that first time—whoa! And when I hit my first bump—damn!

  I didn’t know it then, but I was knocking on the door of the Drone Zone.

  Why I’m even thinking of selling my old YZ is beyond me, because I love her. Right now more than ever.

  I love her like a sister, and I shouldn’t be selling any member of my family when there are so few of us left.

  Even so, I fetch a plank and run her up into the bed of the pickup.

  Dad gives me a what-the-hell? look.

  “Might be sellin’,” I say.

  “Selling! I don’t believe it. But if it’s true, it’s the best idea you’ve had all year.”

  We peel out. The cold and wind stab through my jeans jacket. El Guapo presses against me for warmth. Drops his head in my lap. I forgive him for everything, for all his sins of mud rolling, skunk chasing, and humping disobedience, because he’s basically a great dog. The best standard poodle in all northeast New Mexico.