by John Brandon
They were in the bed of the truck, cozy under the topper. Arn had given himself the night off—a personal night, he called it. There had to be stars out, but Dannie couldn’t see them. Tomorrow she and Arn would go and find a place to live together, a new place. Dannie had had enough of the condo. Arn had pieces of poetry for her, from the book inside. There was a kinsman took up pen and paper, to write our history, whereat he perished, calling for water and the holy wafer, who had, till then, resisted much persuasion.
“I want to learn how to drive stick tomorrow,” Dannie said. “I used to know how.”
“You still know how. It’s one of those deals like riding a bike.”
“Is it?” Dannie said. “I like things like that. Things you can’t lose even if you try to.”
Dannie gripped Arn by his forearm. She would tell him about the baby in the morning. She wasn’t afraid to tell him; she was excited to. But she wanted all his attention tonight. She shouldn’t have to share him tonight.
CECELIA
She was the only person in the parking lot. She felt exposed. She was in physical danger, an immediate physical danger that any lone girl would be subject to in this part of town, and also she was in spiritual danger, because the fact that her stubbornness had won out didn’t mean she was tougher than the other vigilers. It probably meant she was weaker. She’d wanted this boy to be better than the world because she hadn’t wanted to deal with the world, hadn’t wanted to deal with Reggie’s death, but Soren was the same thing Reggie was, a young person who’d run into bad luck. People had talents. What both Reggie and Soren should have had a talent for was sticking around. They hadn’t been so talented at avoiding comas and car accidents.
Cecelia shuddered. She looked up at Soren’s window, which was dim but not as dark as the windows on either side. She hadn’t brought enough clothing. Spring was arriving, but Cecelia had never been cold like this. The blacktop felt like a sheet of ice under her legs. She was too aware of her position in the universe. She was sitting in the shadow cast by the planet she lived on. She was in the center of a wilderness on that planet. Cecelia didn’t know how to stop vigiling. She would be here next week, she knew. She was not authorized to give herself permission to quit. Better or worse, right or wrong, she’d be here next week. Danger or no danger.
No one was breathing near Cecelia, no one shifting on their haunches. The clinic was dead, no one coming in or out, no lights turning on or off. The few cars in the lot must’ve belonged to the nurses. There wasn’t even any wind. The vigils were always quiet, but this was different. There were no trucks roaring by up on the interstate, no lizards scratching about. Cecelia began to hear all the songs Reggie had written since he’d died. She wasn’t hearing them one at a time. Her mind was gathering them up like a shepherd after a storm, calling the songs to her. The old man diving for the girl’s little shoes. The young man digging the river. The birth of clouds. The streets that could be terrifying one day and cozy the next. Foreign countries and outer space. The fast tender songs and the slow mean ones. Cecelia had only ever thought of herself missing Reggie, but Reggie had been missing her exactly as much. He’d been figuring his way out of his own trouble. He had not been trying to help Cecelia with these songs, she saw. He’d just been missing her more than he missed anything else. He would miss her always. Cecelia heard all the songs at once and heard them each clearly, until one by one they reached their ends and by degrees the quiet returned.
THE WOLF
The wolf stood in the shadows of one of the ghost towns. All the windows of the buildings were gone, but there was no broken glass. The glass had become part of the desert. The wolf had lost much of his fur and more than one tooth. The skin of his belly was loose. He had tried everything except nothing, so he stayed at the ghost town through a night and then another. And here came the third night—the gray-pink of evening. The wolf had inhabited this old settlement.
It didn’t matter if the wolf was wise to weather, if his senses were keen, if his instincts brought him safety or threat. His story was lingering, weighting the air, not blowing as it should to far-off places. The desert smelled like the inside of a bottle and sounded like nothing. The wolf craved a sign, a call to act. He wanted to taste something new. He wanted to know where he was going before he moved away from the ghost town.
He came out of the shadows, his paws ruined and his heart in a constant weak spasm, and watched a buzzard soar, its course uncertain. The wolf wanted the bird to lead him somewhere. He watched the buzzard as the darkness took over. He watched the buzzard until he saw that its course was not indeterminate, that the creature was flying in vast circles that had begun to tighten.
THE GAS STATION OWNER
He didn’t know whether he was resting or quitting. He knew he should be looking for food and water, but when he surveyed the nothingness in every direction he could not get himself moving. His stomach had stopped growling. He held his arm up above his head to make sure he could, then let it fall limp. The sun could no longer burn him. He and the sun had been locked in a petty disagreement since the day he departed Lofte, and they’d grown bored with each other. It was around noon, around what would have been lunchtime if he’d been sitting in the station on his stool in front of the window. The gas station owner wondered how the station was doing, and for a reason he couldn’t pin down he began to laugh. He couldn’t picture the girls he’d hired to run the place, the girls who’d been waitresses and in time would become librarians. He remembered them as pretty, almost preposterously so, but he couldn’t picture them. He thought of enchiladas with green chiles and it was useless, like thinking of a billion dollars. He couldn’t smell the sauce or feel warm tortillas in his mouth. This wasn’t a hunger he knew anything about. It wasn’t in his stomach but in his head and limbs.
The sky grew dim as the lunch hour passed, and the gas station owner was relieved when he saw flashes of lightning in the distance. He waited and waited for rain—it must’ve been a full hour—but if there was weather it wasn’t going to hit him. The lightning stayed in the distance, too far off for its thunder to be heard. It was too much for his eyes, but he watched it anyway, a last show for him, a message he need not return.
He emptied his pockets. In one was the stumpy pencil and tattered scorecard the gas station owner had managed not to lose. Some of his marks were faded and some were trying to hide in discolored creases. The gas station owner flattened the paper on his thigh, which was just a bone now, and made a mark for today, the lightning day, the quitting day. He counted the marks without rushing and came up with thirty-six. He rested, head in his hands, eyes aching, then counted again and got thirty-seven. He thought he had one more attempt in him. He pressed his fingernail against each mark. Thirty-five. From his other pocket he emptied a handful of lizard bones, now not much more than sand. He drew the broken little bones to his nose but they only smelled like his pants, only smelled like him. The gas station owner dug a small hole with the cup of his hand and dropped in the bones and covered them over.
He wasn’t going to count the marks on his scorecard again because his eyes were worn out, and he also wasn’t going to count them because he wasn’t going to reach forty anyway so what did it matter and on top of that he didn’t count the marks again because he was allowing himself to admit what had been nagging him half the time he’d been out here: his venture, mission, his test of himself, had from the start been artificial. Great tests, you couldn’t assign them to yourself. If the universe didn’t want to test you, you wouldn’t be tested. You didn’t get to decide for yourself how much time you had and what supplies you could bring and you didn’t even get to choose your adversary. There was nothing heroic in this challenge. The gas station owner was not nobly and obliviously obsessed. He was more aware of simple concerns than ever, and those concerns were growing by the moment.
It took what felt like an eternity for the wolf to approach, the silent afternoon lightning still flashing steadily from miles away. The ga
s station owner sat with his knuckles to his lips, taking comfort in the salt. He watched the wolf from when he could’ve been a coyote and then through the middle distance when he took on his color and eventually the wolf’s snout and heavy paws were right there. Burrs were grown into the wolf’s fur. His eyes were yellow marbles and his ribs looked like the rotting hull of a boat. His tongue hung from his tight-closed mouth, his snout crusted white. The wolf growled without effort or meaning. The animal was desperate and so it recognized desperation. This was the least silly creature the gas station owner had ever seen.
The wolf had stopped twenty paces from the gas station owner. The wolf knew something had to happen and was waiting. He and the gas station owner could not pass each other, could not go their own ways. Their journeys had brought them to a common spot, and both were spent.
The gas station owner kept his eyes on the wolf but he rummaged behind him into his pack and found the pistol. He had two rounds left. He shifted himself onto one knee and lifted the gun shakily, aiming as best he could. His hand, empty, was heavy to him, and the gun felt like a sack of wet sand. The wolf’s eyes failed to flash at the weapon.
The gas station owner jerked his finger and the gun jumped and sounded its report. He missed low, a cloud of dust blooming from underneath the wolf. The wolf wasn’t looking at the gun anymore, but straight into the gas station owner’s eyes. He’d shot plenty of elk, but he never had to look them in the eyes. The gas station owner put his finger to the trigger again and half-pressed, not enough to fire the gun. He held the trigger static, a hair shy of the firing point, the barrel leveled at the mangy beast before him. He thought he could hit the wolf this time, his aim corrected from the miss. The wolf’s growling was even, no threat in it. The gas station owner’s brain was telling his hand to fire the gun but nothing was happening. His arm began to quake under the pistol’s weight so he braced his gun arm against his leg. He had no idea if he was trying to provide for himself or defend himself. He breathed in sharply and then went ahead and lowered the gun. He looked at the weapon, gray under a gray sky. It had one bullet in it and that bullet would not be used. It wouldn’t be used on this wolf or on the gas station owner. It would stay safe in the spinner.
The gas station owner sidled over on his knees and lifted the rock he’d used as a pillow the night before. He rested the pistol underneath it, hiding the gun from view. No human would ever find it. It would remain where it was until the whole world was finally punished. Still on his knees, he edged toward the wolf, closing in on him. The gas station owner stopped at a few paces and held his hand out, his shoulder again quaking. He tried to soften his eyes, to let the wolf know that the fighting was over, that the gun was extinct. He was dizzy now with the effort of this peace offering, with the weight of his hand even without the gun, even in the lightest air in the world, and when the animal took a step toward him it startled him. The gas station owner felt energy, fear. The wolf closed the distance and the gas station owner gave no ground when his hand was hotly sniffed. The wolf seemed more intelligent than the gas station owner. The wolf had known from the start that an understanding was inevitable. He sniffed the gas station owner’s fingers greedily. The wolf was long-legged and long-necked and was reaching downward to get the scent he wanted, and the gas station owner resisted reaching out his other hand and petting the wolf on his bony head. He kept his hand raised to the animal, his arm no longer heavy. The wolf started licking the gas station owner then, wetting down the flesh of his hand and then the topside of his wrist, like a bumbling collie, and then the wolf pressed its dry muzzle against the gas station owner’s forearm and the gas station owner pushed back to keep his balance. The wolf balked, snorting, and the gas station owner felt the wolf’s teeth against his scorched forearm, saw that the wolf’s saliva was flowing openly, springing from some hidden source in the wolf’s desiccated body and slicking the filthy fur of his front. The lightning was still striking, an empty county away. The moment was changing and the gas station owner, trapped inside it, had no power to escape, no power to change course now after this much wandering, after arriving at this impasse. At the taste of the gas station owner’s blood the wolf’s tongue became animated and something changed in his eyes. The wolf seemed to remember that he was not afraid of anything. Night would not come at the end of this day. Forty days never mattered, but this did.
The whole meat of the gas station owner’s lower arm was in the wolf’s mouth and the gas station owner did not protest. The wolf sliced easily into the skin, never biting down all the way. He was merciful, the wolf. The gas station owner wanted an active part in the moment. He would not be victimized. He shoved his arm roughly at the wolf, encouraging him. He felt no pain. Though he felt removed in some necessary way, he could see it clearly when the wolf got hold of the piece of flesh he was after, the veined old muscle the gas station owner would’ve used to pull the trigger again, had he pulled the trigger again. The wolf paused and shuddered. The gas station owner watched him peel away a full strip of his flesh, watched the wolf retreat several paces and chew and swallow hard.
When the air hit the wound, he could feel it, but the gas station owner had felt worse pain many times. He’d probably had hangovers that hurt worse. He tucked his arm to his side, remaining on his knees and returning the wolf’s hollow stare. The wolf didn’t look desperate anymore, didn’t look special. The gas station owner waited, curious about his life, curious if this was how it was going to end or if there’d be more for him to deal with, and next he was watching the wolf turn away and trot toward the east, toward the coming night. It would arrive, the night. The gas station owner could see the wolf for a while and then could only see the dust the wolf disturbed as he returned to his life, part of the gas station owner inside him, fueling him.
The gas station owner’s blood was surging now. His arm was bleeding and his mind was buzzing. He stood and went to his pack, hoisted it off the ground. There’d been nothing in it but the pistol for days. The gun was gone and he was not afraid. He dropped the pack on the desert floor without ceremony and began walking, his mangled arm snug to his body. He wasn’t trying to conserve energy or trying to find anything. When his blood slowed, he would walk no more, and he wanted to cover some ground while he could. He would walk for another minute or he’d make it ten miles, to where the lightning was finally giving out, only a late weak flash now and then. There was a point on the horizon where in a couple hours the sun would set, and maybe the gas station owner could beat the sun to that spot.
MAYOR CABRERA
He was visiting with his sister-in-law when the call came from the clinic. They told him Jay Fair had been brought in, worse for wear but stable now, severely dehydrated and torn up a little from a run-in with some coyotes. A young couple had come across him driving back from a remote hike, on a washboard road that sometimes went unused for days. Mayor Cabrera wasn’t sure if Fair had asked for him because they were friends, or if he’d been contacted because Fair had no family and Mayor Cabrera had long been the head of the town Fair hailed from. He hoped it was the former. He hoped he was about to drive to Albuquerque on purely personal business this Wednesday evening.
He excused himself from the living room, said goodbye to his sister-in-law with a lingering hug, and dumped the rest of his tea down the sink. He went up the hall toward the front door and stopped at Cecelia’s room. He knocked and heard Cecelia’s small, clear voice. Mayor Cabrera went in and Cecelia was making her bed, tucking the last corner in tight. Then she stepped over and gave Mayor Cabrera a hug that was stiff but nonetheless felt sweet to him. He asked her if she was still going to the vigils at the clinic, because he had to go there too tonight, to see about Mr. Fair, who’d turned up half-dead from the desert. He asked his niece, not whispering but not loud enough that his sister-in-law could’ve heard from the living room, if she wanted to ride over with him. He knew catching a ride with him wasn’t any more convenient for Cecelia, and probably she liked being alone with her
thoughts when she went to the vigils. He had no idea how late she usually stayed, but he assured her that he’d be happy to sit with Mr. Fair all night if necessary, and was surprised when Cecelia rested her Rubik’s Cube in the center of her bed, glanced toward her window in the general direction of Albuquerque, and said, “Sure.” She asked if he was ready to go right then and Mayor Cabrera said he guessed so and stood by as Cecelia wriggled into a sweatshirt, her face emerging open and calm. She patted her pockets then told Mayor Cabrera to lead the way.
They got in his car and set off and Mayor Cabrera made sure not to act like it was a big deal that Cecelia was riding with him, not to act like it marked a success for him. They opened their windows and got clear of Lofte and onto a two-lane county road that wasn’t paved very well but didn’t have any stoplights. Mayor Cabrera didn’t want to be on the interstate, where you couldn’t converse over the whipping wind. The evening was almost warm, the air with weight to it and carrying a scent like grainy crackers.
Mayor Cabrera knew it didn’t matter what he talked about. He had to say something. He had to not say nothing.
“I had a dream last night where people kept smiling at me,” he offered.
Cecelia was lost in thought, but she abandoned whatever she’d been mulling. She considered Mayor Cabrera’s statement earnestly, as if he’d stated a philosophy.
