The Desert King: A Jack Trexlor Novel

by T. F. Torrey

  “And you were going to make things right by torturing the guy? Jack, two wrongs—”

  “I didn’t care about right and wrong. I just didn’t want to see that guy get off scot-free. Nothing could make what happened to Diane right. I just wanted to make sure that something very wrong, but not technically against the Bible, happened to this clown.”

  For the next few moments we were silent. High above us to the north a bird was circling, riding the breeze. It could have been an eagle, or a falcon—I didn’t know. I figured it was probably a vulture.

  Suddenly Macy looked up at me inquisitively. “Is this why you did that in Phoenix?” he asked. “Attacked those guys?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head and turning away slightly. “Maybe.”

  Macy stared down thoughtfully at the ground, obviously searching his mind for words, thoughts, something. Silence grew between us again.

  “I don’t know,” Macy said finally, and I believed him. “I don’t know why the Bible doesn’t say enough about it.”

  I shrugged.

  “But I can’t just throw the whole thing out because I don’t understand some things. I mean, what then? What then? You just do what you want to and you die and that’s it?” He picked some pebbles off the ground and tossed them singly at a nearby saguaro. “People make mistakes,” he said. “Everybody does. So either—either we’re all going to burn or—or we have to have another option. Maybe we can be forgiven. That’s the way it has to be. That’s the only way everything works out.”

  “So we should just do whatever we want, and then we’ll all be forgiven and everything’s okay?”

  “No, you should try to follow the rules.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “So why don’t the rules say anything about Diane?”

  Looking down and away, Macy was again silent. Then he had an idea. “Hey!” he said. “What about the eleventh commandment?”

  “What? Thou shalt not let thy girlfriend cut thine hair?” I asked.

  “No. You know, the Golden Rule.”

  “Those with the gold make the rules?” I knew what he was talking about. I was trying to lighten the mood.

  “No,” he said. “Do unto others, etcetera, etcetera.” He stood up quickly, holding up one finger thoughtfully. “Just suppose for a minute that you were to make a mistake like that with—with Sharon for instance.”

  “A mistake like what?”

  “Like suppose you did to Sharon what that guy did to Diane.”

  “Hmm,” I said.

  “I mean, that’s gotta be possible, right?”

  “No,” I said, rather offended. “Not in a million years.”

  “Well, just suppose it was possible, and suppose you did it. Then what, Jack? Suppose it’s you.”

  “Okay, suppose. Then what?”

  “Well, then wouldn’t you want me—wouldn’t you want everyone—to forgive you? Isn’t that what you would want us to do?”

  I thought for a moment. All I could think of was Diane and how she must have felt and how she must have desperately prayed for someone to walk in. If only I’d been there. If only ….

  I stood up, facing Macy, looking him in the eye. “No,” I said flatly. “I would want you to kill me.”

  “You don’t mean that,” he said.

  “Yes, I do. I really, really do.”

  He threw his hands up. “That’s—that’s revenge mentality. Jack, that’s the logic of war!”

  “I know it is, Macy,” I said. This time I felt not venomous, but deeply tired. “And I wish you could show me the flaw in it.”

  Chapter 12

  It hadn’t been different at all. Macy had reacted the same way everyone else had. I left him standing there on the rocks and walked back to the truck, trying to shake the memories of Diane from my head. Sharon was at the truck, rummaging through the coolers hungrily. She looked up at me. “What was all that about?” she asked.

  I ignored her, picking up my sketchbook and pencil. Macy would have found out eventually. Hell, I’d planned on telling him myself eventually, on my own terms, when the time was right. She’d opened her mouth just for the hell of it, just to be the one to get a rise out of Macy. She didn’t care anything about the strain it would put on our friendship.

  She asked me something else, but I was ignoring her so hard that I didn’t even catch the words. I wandered up the river by myself a ways, and she buggered off to ask Macy what had happened.

  Opening my sketchbook, I discovered that the drawing I’d sketched earlier that was supposed to be John fishing had turned out to be mostly just Erica sitting. Sure, John was in the picture, but I’d really spent some time detailing Erica. After talking to Macy, though, I didn’t feel much like drawing. I felt more like just dissolving. That’s what I had hoped to do in Phoenix in the first place.

  For the rest of the afternoon, I avoided Macy and Sharon because I didn’t want to talk, and I kept my distance from John and Erica because I didn’t want to talk. I sat mostly by myself, chasing the shade and staring into the river and the horizon. The heat sucked the energy out of my body, and I didn’t feel like doing anything.

  I wasn’t the only one who was lethargic. Though I was away from the others, I could still see them, and even the fishermen seemed dopey. They’d cast their lines into the water and sit without moving, staring at the water, just waiting, their eyes glazed from the heat.

  At one point I was leaning back against a tree, watching John and Macy fishing downriver. I basked in the sunshine—or, rather, baked in it. Closing my eyes, I dozed off for a little while, and I had the strangest dream. I was standing in my kitchen, in front of my oven, and the oven door was open. I was bending down, looking into the oven at nothing there. The heat coming out of the oven felt like it was parching my skin, singeing my eyebrows. Here I woke up from the dream, and I could still feel the oven, burning my face and hair. It was the sun.

  It reminded me of Macy’s monologue that night in Gridlock about the desert. About actively surviving against the sun. Spending all my time indoors in Phoenix, going from one air-conditioned place to another, I guess I’d forgotten about how hot it really was. The challenge of the desert.

  So while the hours dragged past I survived actively, soaking my shirt in the river and putting it back on, lurking in the shade and the shadows, and drinking a lot of water. And I kept my eyes open for scorpions and snakes.

  ***

  It seemed like forever later, but eventually the sun did begin to go down. Unlike the song, however, as the night was falling, the desert world did not begin to settle down. I counted four probably-vultures circling in the sky, scanning the long shadows of dusk for something to eat. From the surrounding vegetation came a virtual symphony of insect chirps and buzzes intermingled with the trills and whistles of some mysterious desert birds. As the sun began to set, my friends seemed perkier, and even the river seemed to bubble a bit more energetically. We all felt lively, and hungry.

  We’d brought hot dogs, and after we scrounged around for some firewood we roasted them. As we ate, Sharon made small talk with Erica. Macy and I were still avoiding each other, though we’d cooled off quite a bit, both ways.

  “So what happens now?” I asked John as the condiments were being put away. “Do we go to sleep or what?”

  John looked at me like I was stupid. “No way, man. Now we get out the lantern and the lawn chairs. Night fishing’s the best.”

  “Oh, yeah, of course,” I said, feeling out of place. I backed off while they got the lantern and stuff out of the truck, focusing my attention instead on the spectacular sunset panorama around us.

  Far to the east, the sky was already dark with a few cold stars poking out. To the east beyond the bluff on the other side of the river, the mountains caught the last few rays of the sun, flashing a defiant memory of the afternoon. To the south and north, the long shadows of the trees and cacti created a brilliant bas relief of desert foliage. To the west, the jagged mountains stood
silhouetted black against a dazzling explosion of deep orange and red, which faded and lost to the most royal of purples directly overhead.

  As I committed the details and colors to memory, I made secret plans to someday get a round room with a domed ceiling and to paint this scene, to somehow capture the raw power and serenity of this scene in what could only be called Desert Sunset Panorama, my masterpiece.

  I wanted to turn and ask Macy and John if the sun always set like this out here, but I didn’t. I’d had my fill of feeling dumb for one day.

  As I stood desperately memorizing every detail, I heard my fellow adventurers behind me, unfolding their chairs and clattering them into flat places among the rocks. I heard the unmistakable, rhythmic, ticking hiss of someone pumping up a gas lantern.

  Overhead, the orange and red slowly lost to purple, which in turn lost to blackness and to stars. The mountains to the east joined the bas relief in surrendering to hazy gray indistinction and ultimately, to darkness.

  But the memory of my Desert Sunset Panorama still burned vividly in my mind (and still does).

  From behind me, the sound of someone striking a match was followed quickly by a flash of stark yellow light. I turned back to my compatriots. The lantern pushed back a circle of darkness with a harsh glare of light where Macy positioned it on the rocks between the truck and the river. They had arranged stones into a ring by the water’s edge and built a little pyramid of firewood inside. John held a match to the tinder at the bottom of the pile, and flames licked hungrily over the dry wood. I was about to turn away when John went to the back of the truck and began clamoring for everybody’s attention. “I want you all to see this,” he was saying.

  Immediately he had Macy and Erica’s attention. Sharon and I looked on without as much zeal. John held one of his duffel bags in one hand. With his other hand he rummaged through the bag. “I went the whole day without saying anything,” he said, “hoping she’d think I forgot.”

  Erica grabbed his arm. “Oh, John, stop. It’s not that important.”

  “Now, wait,” John said. “I just want everybody to see what I got you for your twenty-third birthday.”

  Macy leaned back and howled enthusiastically. Sharon and I looked at each other. Sharon glanced back at Macy and rolled her eyes. I agreed.

  “I was going to get you a card and a cake,” John continued, “but I figured they’d get pretty beat up riding out here in my duffel bag.” I grinned. Sharon smiled. Erica chuckled. Macy guffawed. John found what he was looking for in his duffel bag and pulled it out. “For your birthday, I decided to get you something practical,” he said, handing her a small rectangular box about as long as her hand and as wide as three fingers.

  “What is it?” she asked. “Can I shake it?”

  “Why don’t you just open it?” John said.

  “Oh, John. Really, you shouldn’t have. My birthday’s nothing special.” She was smiling, and probably blushing, but it was hard to tell in the light of the lantern and the still-small campfire.

  “Everything about you is special to me,” John said.

  This was getting entirely too syrupy. I wished she would just open the damn box. It was only a pen and pencil set or something. Hardly worth the discussion.

  Suddenly John’s head snapped around and he peered into the darkness downriver.

  “What—” started Macy.

  “Shh!” John said, holding up his hand. “Listen!” He frowned intently downriver, head tipped slightly to the side.

  We all looked into the darkness, listening. I couldn’t hear anything but the bubbling river, punctuated by an occasional snap from the fire. I looked at the others. Only John appeared to hear anything.

  As I wondered what we were supposed to be hearing, John started walking away, apparently sensing something on the riverbank some distance away. He quickly moved out of the circle of light into the darkness. Cautiously, we followed. About thirty feet away, he stopped, looking carefully at the ground. Curious, we moved up to him as he crouched and picked something up.

  “What is it?” Erica asked.

  “Scorpion,” John said, turning and holding it up toward us.

  Erica and Sharon jumped back, but not without me.

  “Eww,” Sharon said.

  “Cool,” Macy said, stepping forward to look.

  John held the small scorpion by its tail between his thumb and forefinger. It stretched out its pincers, trying to get an angle on whatever was holding it. John didn’t give it a chance to get a grip. With a quick flick of his wrist, he threw it backhand up the riverbank away from us. It arced up away, quickly disappearing into the darkness.

  “Wow,” I said. “You heard that all the way over there?” I’d been impressed before, but this was almost superhuman.

  “Yep,” John said. We all started walking back to the truck and the light.

  “Why didn’t you kill it?” Sharon asked. “It might come back later.”

  John looked at her patiently. “There are scorpions and snakes all over out here,” he said. “If you aren’t careful, it doesn’t matter how many you kill.”

  “Yeah,” Macy agreed.

  “Besides,” John said, “scorpion stings aren’t much worse than bee stings.”

  “Some of them are,” Erica interjected. “I’ve seen some bad ones.”

  “Let’s just forget about the scorpions,” John said, smiling, as we got back to the truck, “and remember my present.”

  Erica still held the box in her hands. She, too, resumed smiling.

  “Open it,” John said.

  I was still thinking about how amazing it was that John had heard the scorpion.

  “Yeah, open it,” Macy said.

  She opened it, and her smile flickered. It was just for a second, but I noticed.

  So did John. “You don’t like it,” he said.

  “Oh, John, yes I do,” she said, smiling with new energy. “I’ve never gotten anything like this before.” She pulled the gift out of its box. It was a knife, a white handled folding knife with both ends silver tipped and gleaming like fire in the lantern light. “It’s … really nice, John.”

  “You bet it is,” Macy said, unable to restrain himself any longer. “You can open that baby with one hand.”

  “One hand?” I asked. “I thought that was illegal.”

  “No,” scoffed Macy. “No way.”

  “Well, yeah,” John said.

  “Really?” Macy asked.

  “You gave me an illegal knife,” Erica said, shocked, “for my birthday?”

  “You gave her a knife for her birthday?” Sharon asked.

  “Wait a second,” John said. “It’s not illegal to carry the knife, and it’s not illegal to own it.”

  “How about to give one as a gift?” Sharon asked.

  John glared at her. “If she was to attack someone with it, then it would be considered an illegal weapon. But it’s not illegal just to have it.”

  “What if the police caught her with it?” Sharon asked.

  “How would they do that?” John asked.

  “Well, suppose they asked her for her driver’s license, and while she was getting it, they saw the knife in her purse and they said ’what’s that?’”

  “Then she could just show it to them,” he said. “She’d just have to make sure she used both hands to open it.”

  “And they wouldn’t arrest her?”

  “No,” John stated flatly.

  “But what if she was drunk and speeding?”

  John ignored her, turning back to Erica. “Just don’t kill anybody with it,” he said.

  I wasn’t clear on the legality of the knife, and I kept quiet. But I was sure that she wouldn’t get caught killing anybody with it. Not Erica.

  Erica was puzzled. “Why did you get me a knife?” she asked.

  “Because it’s handy in the desert, and I like to be prepared,” John said. “We’ve been coming out here a lot lately.”

  There followed a thoughtfu
l pause.

  “You could clean fish with it,” Macy said.

  “Yes,” John agreed, “or cut steak with it.”

  “You could cut the claws off of crabs with it,” Macy said.

  “Or you could butter bread with it,” John said.

  “You could gut a deer with it,” Macy said.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Erica said, smiling at their competition. “It’s a very handy, versatile knife, John. Thank you.”

  “I wanted to get you something special, something that symbolizes our relationship, what we do together. And something practical.”

  Sharon laughed rudely. “And you got her a knife instead, right?”

  John ignored her.

  “How do you open it with one hand?” I asked.

  “It’s as easy as saying it,” John said. He took the knife from Erica and held it up in front of him. As he did, the blade flew open with a snap, cold and gleaming in the light of the lantern and the campfire.

  Erica jumped. Macy smiled wide. “Wow,” Sharon said, genuinely impressed.

  John closed the blade and showed us how it worked. “You see this metal tab on the back end of the blade?” he asked.

  Of course we did.

  “It’s part of the blade,” he explained. “So you just pull it around with your index finger and it pivots the blade out and locks into the handle, locking the blade in place. Like this.”

  The blade appeared with a metallic snap, gleaming wickedly in the firelight.

  Erica thought that was neat. She took the knife from John, closed the blade, and snapped it open just like he had. Everybody beamed. She did it a few more times, practicing. She liked it, but she was a bit more ginger with it, a bit more careful and apprehensive than John had been.

  “Be careful,” John warned. “That blade is sharp enough to shave with.”

  She assured him that she would be.

  “My knife’s sharp, too,” Macy said suddenly. He searched in his pocket for a second and frowned. “I must have left it in the truck. It’s one of those Swiss Army types with all kinds of blades so you’re prepared for anything.” He smiled wide, with lots of teeth.

  John smiled gently. “I like to keep things simple,” he said.