Purgatory Road

by Samuel Parker

  “How soon till we can leave?”

  “Leave? You ready to go already? You just got here,” Boots said with a grin.

  “Yeah, just ready to get back, you know.”

  “I’ll get you back. Don’t worry. Takes some time, I have to make sure you’re ready.”

  Jack was about to lash back when Laura straightened up. “Your call, Boots. We are in your hands.” She smiled at Boots and gave a side glance to her husband. He sat there and fumed.

  “I guess you are. Naw, desert is a tough spot. Got to plan it right to get y’all home. Besides, can’t reckon you can walk more than ten steps before collapsing, Jack. You need to get your gumption up.”

  “Huh?”

  “Horse can’t carry us all. Seeing how it’s the two of you, you’re going to have to walk it out.”

  Jack looked out the front door that had failed to latch when Boots came in. It slowly swung open, revealing the rolling desert that stretched out before the cabin in unceasing waves. The heat rising from the rock and blurring the horizon. He looked back at his plate but had lost his appetite. He pushed it away as the food he had managed to eat attempted to force its way back up his throat. He had no strength in his body. It had taken all he had to move from the bed to the table. Boots was right. He wouldn’t make it ten steps.

  “I guess we’re your prisoners then,” Jack said, masking the truth of his words with a faint laugh.

  “If that is how you want it.”

  23

  The sheriff car pulled up to the gas station in Goodwell. The door opened and Red got out of the car and walked into the store. He took off his hat and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief from his pocket. He walked back to the cooler and grabbed a Coke off the top shelf.

  He popped the top as he made his way up to the counter. “How’s it going, Cole?”

  “Not bad, Red, how about you?”

  “Hot. Been a scorcher the past couple a days.”

  Colten kept flipping through the magazine on hand as the cop took another sip from the can, staring out the window through his Ray-Bans.

  A voice through static jumped out of the radio on Red’s belt. He responded and listened.

  “There ain’t nothing out here, boss.”

  “Where you boys at?”

  “Almost up to Sandy Valley. The boys are about ready to call it a day.”

  “All right.”

  Colten looked up from his reading. “You looking for something?”

  “Looks like bodies now.” Red put his radio back and took another swig of Coke.

  “How’s that?”

  “Found a car abandoned out by Shiloh. Nice one. Blue Mustang. Turned out to be a rental from Vegas. Couple from out east rented it a few days ago. James got some of the guys from over at Gladys’s to go looking for them.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, it seems some fool tried to off-road the sucker. Did a pretty good job of it. Got about fifteen miles off the nearest road.”

  “Now that don’t make much sense, does it, Red?”

  “Can’t make sense out of these folks, Cole. Probably lost his money in town and wanted to go out in style. Anyways, we’re out looking for ’em now. Not sure what we’re going to find though.”

  “Car was empty?”

  “Yeah, looks like they got it stuck and then decided to walk it out. Pretty long walk though.”

  “Well, one thing for sure, you get rid of a fool, three more to take his place.” Colten lit up a cigarette with a grin.

  “Yup. We’ll find ’em sooner or later. Ship ’em back home UPS and all. Anyway, coming from Vegas and ending up past Shiloh, they might have passed through here. You remember seeing folks like that come by?”

  “Naw, I don’t think so.”

  “All right,” Red said, putting the can down and placing a dollar on the counter. “I better head up there. Make sure them boys haven’t turned this into a party. If you think of anything, be sure and let me know.”

  “You got it, Red.”

  Colten eyed the police cruiser as it pulled onto the road away from the gas station. It always made him a bit uneasy whenever the cop came into the store, but he was a firm believer in keeping those most threatening close to the vest.

  He remembered the incident with Jack a few days before and smiled to himself. Guy like that, car like that . . . due a beatdown if I ever saw one. Well, can’t get much more beat down than dying of the heat in the Mojave.

  Colten took a toke from the cigarette and exhaled with deliberate pleasure.

  “I hope you died slow, Jack.”

  24

  They sat on the bed, Jack rubbing his head with both hands, Laura staring out the small window. He followed her gaze. She was looking at Boots, who was sitting silently on the front porch.

  “You could be nicer, Jack.”

  “Yeah.” He started rubbing his head again.

  She turned and studied him. “He did save us. At least try to be civil.”

  “All right.”

  “It’s just sometimes, you can be a little short—”

  “Got it!”

  Jack stood up. He hated everything in the world at that moment. The air in the bedroom became stifling, and he made for the door. Laura didn’t say anything more. He could sense her watching him through the window as he stumbled off the front porch and started walking around the house. He threw a quick glance back at Boots, whose eyes were following him with apathetic detachment.

  The cabin was as unremarkable outside as it was in. The yard was nothing as such. Rock and dirt trailed off into the horizon from every side. Out back, there was the pen where the mare loafed, taking turns at the water trough between saunters in the baking sun. Farther back was the post fence with weeds and cacti shooting up sporadically between intentionally placed stones. The cemetery. Jack walked up to the fence and looked out onto the field. A haunting filled his gut.

  He thought about the highway.

  How close to death had they been? How close had their bones been from being whitewashed in the desert wind’s sandblaster? The day out on the blacktop still lingered as a hung-over mystery. He could see it in his mind like snapshots: the road, the water bottle on the floorboard, a horse in a rearview mirror, blackness.

  It was the blackness that gnawed at the back of his neck. Hallucination, that’s what it must have been. The effects of dehydration. Blindness. But this pit in his stomach suggested that deep down inside, it was something more. He had seen something out there on the highway. Something that flayed him open and exposed all the worst parts of him.

  His mind searched like a defragging hard drive, attempting to put the files back together. Just then he heard footsteps approaching behind him and the recall ceased.

  “You sure you’re fit to be out here? Should be inside resting yourself.”

  Jack stared off, acknowledging Boots’s presence with a slight glance, but not saying a word.

  “Not too many folk in there worth the time for talk,” Boots said as he stepped beside Jack and nodded toward the grave markers.

  Jack looked at him. Was this desert monk a serial killer hoping to add the two of them to his macabre collection of bones? The old man was crazy, Jack was sure of that, but he didn’t feel that Boots was that crazy.

  “Some of them been there a long time. Longer than I’ve been here. Some I know from way back. No use carrying them way off for the coyotes to get. People knew to keep them close by.”

  “You kill them yourself?”

  “Ha . . . that’s a good one, Jack. Naw, ain’t no one there by my hand. Different story most of them got. Some caught fever. Others just walked out after eating and gave up the ghost. Only one thing the same in this life. We all end up there.”

  “How many?”

  “Not sure. Some stones ain’t got no mark. Some do. Ain’t been added to for a long time. People who come out here nowadays die on their own. Sometimes no one finds them. Sometimes they get found. Bones at least. Bones
don’t tell you much, just that they’re alone.”

  “Sort of insane, isn’t it? Having this right next to your house?”

  “Naw, ain’t insane. Don’t get much company out here. And they don’t eat much.” Boots chuckled. “But like I say, they ain’t good at talking.”

  They stood in silence as the wind picked up and blew heat into their faces.

  “What are you two chatting about?” Laura asked as she walked up tentatively to the two men, her hair flowing back behind her, and a subtle bead of sweat sauntered down her temple. Boots’s face lit up in the same annoying way that the gas station clerk’s had when they stopped in Goodwell.

  “Not much, just showing Jack the family album.”

  25

  “What you got going on here, James?” Red asked as he approached the abandoned car, its blue steel reflecting in the daytime blaze.

  James stood stumped. The doors were opened as well as the trunk. Two NHP officers were walking through the brush about a half mile off, searching for any clues about the missing occupants of the vehicle.

  “Not much, Red. Car is pretty much empty. A couple empty water bottles is about it. A purse and some cell phones.”

  “They work?”

  “Naw. Dead. Car is dead too. Won’t turn over.”

  Red walked around the vehicle, squatted down, and looked underneath. “Well, it’s not hung up. Doesn’t look to be stuck on anything. Out of gas?”

  “Gauge says three quarters. I opened the tank and could still smell fumes. Just no battery power looks like.”

  “Strange.”

  “That it is, Red. The boys over there have been out walking for a while. Ain’t found anything. We saw a set of footprints heading back a ways, up that ridge there, but they just double back to the car.”

  “Any other sign of heading out?”

  “Naw,” James said as he motioned toward the front of the Mustang, “wind looks like it swept the valley clean, right up to the car. We didn’t find any footprints that way.”

  “But the ones in back were still there?”

  “Yup.”

  “Huh, convenient place for the wind to stop, don’t you think?”

  “I guess so . . . didn’t really think about it, but yeah, strange.”

  Red sat down in the driver’s seat of the Mustang. The heat from the seat seared his backside as the steering wheel melted into his palms. He looked through the windshield toward the mountains. A long, smooth stretch of desert rolled out before him, disappearing into a haze of distorted air. He imagined who had sat there before him, looking out across the great expanse. Why had he come out here? Was it a suicide? A crazy man? A drunk?

  “So what do you think, James?”

  “I don’t know. We called the rental company and ran the driver’s license they had. Guy from Chicago. Nothing came up. No history, no tickets. Nothing.”

  “And the purse?” Red asked

  “Looks to be the wife’s. Same last name on the ID, same address.”

  “Hmm.”

  “So a guy just decides to get a car one day, drive it out in the desert, and walk off?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “I just don’t get some folk,” James said

  “Yeah, sometimes it looks like the world’s gone crazy.”

  Red started to get back out of the car. As he placed his foot on the ground, he noticed something. A skid mark in the dust in front of the back wheel, as if the car had been pushed back with the wheels locked. He knelt down to examine it closer. Putting his finger on the mark, he looked up at his deputy. “You ever see wind move a car?”

  “I seen it on TV when they show the hurricanes and stuff.”

  “Yup.” Red stood and scanned the horizon. The heat was starting to subside as evening came on, but it was still intolerable.

  “What you thinking, Red?”

  “Best call the boys in. I doubt they’re going to find anything. And get a tow truck up here. I’m sure the rental place wants their car back.”

  “What you suppose happened?”

  “They walked off west, I suppose. Why, is anyone’s guess. In this heat they probably didn’t make it too far.” Red started walking back to his cruiser, James following a few steps behind. “Lonely way to go if you ask me, but like you said, you just don’t get some folk.”

  “Shouldn’t we go looking for them?” James asked.

  “Car’s been out here for a while. In this heat, if they walked off, most likely dead by now. I’ll call Carl to get up in the chopper and do a sweep through here. But I doubt he’ll have much luck either. If people don’t want to be found, not much you can do about it.”

  “Guess you’re right.”

  “Go on now, get the boys back home and buy ’em a beer on me.”

  “All right.”

  The blast from the air conditioner hit his face, sending a chill down Red’s spine as he got into his police car. He looked at the scene—abandoned vehicle, windswept ground, vanishing people. It could be something out of The X-Files. He had seen it before where people got lost out in the desert, their bodies found baked in the sun, but this had a different feeling to it. Ominous. Creepy. Perhaps the occupants had been snatched up by aliens. There were plenty of people out in these parts who would assume that was the case, even swear their lives on it if they caught a whiff of the story. Red wasn’t one of them. He lived more by what his eyes told him. No, more than likely these were just some nut jobs who walked off quietly to meet their Maker.

  The wind kicked up and blew dust across his line of sight. A good gust, short and quick. The Mustang didn’t flinch.

  His gaze turned west toward the mountains looming on the horizon. He felt like he was being watched, as if the rock shadows were observing the men walking through the brush back to their vehicles. The desert can play tricks on the mind, that is for sure, he thought. You can’t judge a man who let it get to him. Even if he wanders off to die.

  26

  That night, Jack lay in bed unable to sleep. Laura had moved off the couch and now slept beside him. Though the bed was small, she only occupied a small sliver of space, a mile away from him. Periodically he could hear Boots move about the cabin, small shuffling sounds in the dark. It seemed like the guy never slept, but crept around in the night from room to porch and back again.

  He wondered about this man living by himself out on the edges. Only a crazy man would. Isolated, alone. No stimulation for the mind. Either that or a man hiding from something. Some dark secret that he wished no one to see. Perhaps he kept that cemetery out back as a memento of all things evil. His past buried beneath the rock. Jack thought about it, but assumed that if he was a homicidal maniac, there would be slim pickings out here in the boondocks to fulfill his desire to kill. No, he was not of that sort, he thought. He was just a misfit. An outcast. Someone who could not hack it in normal life.

  Jack thought about how he had gotten there, how he found himself lying in a stranger’s bed, with his wife curled up next to him. Four days had passed since the highway, or so his wife had told him. They were due back home now. He should be walking into his office tomorrow morning and getting back to work. But instead he was out here. Wherever out here was.

  The highway. He would close his eyes and he could see the stretch of road in his mind. The dotted center line unfurling in the distance. Total hopelessness. The waiting. He wasn’t sure if he would ever lose that feeling whenever he would get back behind the wheel.

  Do we get to the places in life by one choice? One grand stroke of decision that points us on our way? Or is it a series of small, inconsequential steps that go unnoticed until we look up and see that we are far away from anything we ever wanted? Jack thought back to renting the car, to buying the airline ticket, back to scheduling the vacation on his calendar. So many small steps to end up here.

  Laura sighed and turned in her sleep. Jack looked over at his wife. Her slow steady breaths causing her rib cage to rise and fall under her folded arms
. So close to him and yet a universe away.

  They had been close once. Their marriage had started that way, but now they were distant. Two separate beings occupying the same small spaces. In his mind, he could picture snapshots of happiness, but he couldn’t see the slow steps of detachment. Each little thing that accumulated through the years that now forced a wedge between them. He wished at times that there had been one sweeping moment of change. One moment that they could look at, isolate, define, work away. But there wasn’t. There were a hundred small glances, short words, curt comments. Too many to recall and sift through.

  Jack heard Boots’s footsteps walk back across the floor, up to the door of the bedroom, and then back again. Maybe the old man would come crashing through the door with an axe in his hand. Maybe Jack would leap up and beat the life out of the old man, saving his wife from dismemberment, and saving the day. They would ride off on horseback, she with her arms around his waist, in love again with her brave hero.

  Either that or he would be chopped to bits while Laura cowered in the corner waiting her turn, a look of shame on her face as she realized she had cast her lot with such a horrible protector.

  He thought of her sleeping in the passenger seat of the rental car, slowly wasting away.

  Jack rubbed this throat with his hand. It was still raw as he sat up and took a drink of water. The water had warmed up to room temperature, but he didn’t feel like walking to the hand pump to get a fresh glass. The idea of meeting Boots in the dark didn’t fill him so much with dread as abhorrence. Better to sit back and be content with warm water.

  He fought for sleep and won no prize. The back of his eyelids danced with the image of the highway. The heat rising.

  The foreboding.

  The blackness.

  The shadows taking shape and racing toward him. It makes no sense, he said to himself as he thought about this last memory. The evil wind, racing down the highway toward the car, wrapping around him like a blanket and constricting his bones. No, better to rationalize it out of existence as the last throws of an overheated brain.