A novel. On a dusty journey with Cassandra, two young women find what they seek—and more…
CHAPTER ONE
Sarah’s eyes snapped open at the sudden lack of momentum. Her world split. Moments before, she had been flying through mist, and now, though her eyes immediately adjusted to the morning, her mind struggled with the concept of wakefulness. The connection to the physical reeled her in from a dream of blue into a dim morning, winding her to earth by a thread of silver silk. A quiet hiss of cooling metal surrounded her.
Her ears popped. Her fingers twitched as she reached for mysteries her wakened super-ego informed her were not real. The desert morning, visible through Sarah’s passenger window, brightened like a cold polaroid photo. She began to remember: she wasn’t at the University of Texas where she was supposed to be; she was far from home, and travelling with a dozen gallons of the essence of life in her back seat. Memories of her life associated her with solid ground and with the days spent rolling over it, days which had no boundaries other than the beginnings and endings of wind and engine noise.
There was a taste of salt at the corner of her lip and her chin felt connected to her right toe. A few parts of her body refused to answer roll call. Her left ankle protested with hot pins to be moved. She examined the desert, sparse, dry, and stubbornly uninhabitable. This stubbornness impressed her. Her dream evaporated, and she remembered her plan to experience The End of It All. Sarah blinked as her consciousness returned. She sighed.
Jennifer, in the driver’s seat, itched with a familiar discomfort as she waited for the cigarette lighter in the volvo to pop. For the past several hours the drive had meant a steady rush of wind and now the silence made the world seem empty. She opened her door and stepped onto the asphalt of the highway, feeling again an overwhelming yearning which surpassed the emptiness of her stomach.
“Hey girl, are you awake? It’s morning,” Jennifer said quietly.
“Where are we?” Sarah’s voice cracked. She calculated it was Tuesday.
“I’m not sure–I saw a turnout so I pulled off. It’s your turn to drive,” Jennifer said. The cigarette lighter popped. “Hand me a smoke?”
Sarah stirred and wrapped her short hair behind her ears. She rubbed her neck and thought for a moment, then searched through the disorganized backpack on the car floor between her feet. “Two left,” Sarah said, grudgingly pointing a white cigarette at the driver side door. She took a stick of gum for herself. “I’ll get a couple cartons when we stop in Dustin.”
“Thanks.” Jennifer leaned down and took the cigarette and the volvo’s lighter, then straightened and faced away from the car. She enjoyed looking into the metal heating coil as it touched the tobacco. The act reminded her of a movie scene she had watched as a child. The scene was a close-up of a couple in the front seat of a black 50′s Chevy, a serious looking young man and a rosy cheeked brunette. The young man’s face was smooth, freshly shaved. She placed a cigarette between her lips, and he leaned close to her, the lighter in his hands. The red glow of the lighter’s heating coil reflected in each of their eyes. He palmed the lighter to the girl’s cigarette; she gazed into his hands, inhaling slowly. The tobacco smoldered and caught. The brunette would explain that world wouldn’t allow them to be together, that this moment would be their last together. Jennifer remembered nothing else of the film.
Jennifer drew in a breath through her cigarette and exhaled upwards. She turned and leaned into the car to return the lighter, holding her cigarette outside, on the volvo’s roof. “We need gas. You were sleeping in a pretty weird position, but I didn’t want to wake you since you were so tired.” She walked behind the Volvo to sit on the car’s sagging rear bumper. The smoky arms of her exhalations curled quickly in the morning air. “I wish we were there already. I want The End of It All now,” she said, continuing in a mock chant: “_instant gratification_, now, now, now!”
Sarah smiled with Jennifer’s enthusiasm and checked her watch. “We’re making good time–we should make it to the turn-off around two.” She turned around to the back seat to check on the water bottles, a habit she had acquired on their trip. The nine three-gallon water bottles, their most valued possession once they made it to the salt flat, still looked safely stacked, pressed deeply into the back seat’s vinyl. Compressed beneath the bottles were a few layers of towels. The towels looked dry; the bottles hadn’t leaked. The rest of their cargo she felt was safe; everything had been sealed within ziploc bags, within plastic containers, or within their two ice chests, including their pre-made food.
She climbed out of her seat, popping the stick of gum in her mouth, and wiggled her toes on the asphalt, sensing the prior day’s lingering warmth. She felt the silence of the highway and walked to it’s center, working out a kink in her ankle and expecting high speed traffic to greet her. “We’ll definitely make it in time to set up before dark,” she said, as if talking to the imaginary traffic. The asphalt held a reservoir of temperature like water reserved in a sponge. Only the cooling creaks of Cassandra’s engine interrupted the silence. She reached her hands to the sky, flexing and stretching.
A high-pitched call tore into the air, echoing through the canyon floor. The howl began high and reached higher, a howl sounding as old as the desert. Sarah scanned the small ridge along the highway, recognizing the first notes and expecting at any moment to witness the wild coyote with snout pointed skyward. The call was answered–with a chorus of responses, the sounds tearing into the earth and awakening native spirits. The chorus repeated, the echoes fading into the distance, then repeated again. Sarah’s mind hummed with images of Indian apparitions, the warriors of ancient desert tribes, appearing around her after being summoned by the coyotes. She imagined the chief walking forward with his fellow warriors at his flanks, stepping through the desert without sound or disturbance of nature. The chief took her in with his large empathic eyes and offer her a necklace of two bones bound to a feathered, circular amulet. The final echoes of the coyote chorus trailed off into the air.
“Intense! I hope that happens every morning out here.” Jennifer, with her cigarette clutched between two fingers, released an audible exhalation. Her brown eyes searched north along the highway for any signs of action.
Sarah listened intently to the desert. “We should get going.”
“Are you afraid of coyotes?”
Sarah chewed on her gum. “Coyotes are okay. They’re just telling each other to go back home. You?”
“I’m only afraid of scorpions.”
“Shouldn’t be any out here. I’m more concerned about snakes.” She shivered, then changed the subject. “Ready to go?” Seeing Jennifer nod, she walked to the driver’s side of Cassandra. She wiggled her toes on the ground once more, took a deep breath of the desert air, then fastened herself into the driver’s seat.
Jennifer circled to the passenger side of Cassandra and reached into her backpack to retrieve a round metal tin. She opened the tin and squashed her cigarette into the bottom of the tin, leaving the butt, carefully resealing the lid and tossing the tin back in the bag. The shapes in the canyon stood out as the sun cracked over the ridge and the flat shrubs woke to the first rays of the morning, the rays glistening on their branches like hot amber.
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CHAPTER TWO
“Two Christian stations and one country station,” Jennifer said, crumpling the wrapper from her breakfast, a Nutri-grain bar, in disgust. “My parents would love it. Fire, brimstone, sad songs and barren desert. It’s already hot as hell– amen for air conditioning.” She gave the radio’s knob a mean twist to turn it off.
Sarah was driving them up the two lane highway, deeper into Nevada, through the foothills of the desert and away from another small outpost of civilization. Their refueling breaks, which separated otherwise empty stretches of highway into neat sections, reminded Sarah of the far reaching arms of America, even into the timeless desert. When Sarah drove Cassandra, she stopped frequently, even to fill up only four or five gallons of gas. A full tank of gasoline gave her confidence in Cassandra; with a full fourteen gallons of unleaded, she felt Cassandra could take her anywhere necessary. At times she felt Cassandra could even lead the way to a better understanding of the world, if it could only be given a driver who could help Cassandra navigate the way. Cassandra was the name of Sarah’s Volvo. She had pronounced it as such in a short naming ceremony quickly after giving the Volvo it’s first hot wax treatment. Cassandra was a used Volvo, but Sarah felt it was a good Volvo; it was _her_ Volvo. The blue paint had aged to a deeper hue, and a previous owner had added air conditioning. The radio was of original stock; to Sarah, it looked like Cassandra’s radio was perpetually smiling, with knobs for eyes and station pre-set buttons which looked like crooked teeth.
“It feels like it hasn’t rained in years,” Sarah said. “The gas pumps had two inches of dust on them.”
“How anyone can live out here is beyond me. There’s nothing to do. About as exciting as living in Utah and hanging with ‘da hood.”
Sarah laughed. “Maybe that’s why cacti grow up so slowly. They just aren’t excited. In a strange irony, someone named them succulents.”
Jennifer slid her sunglasses off and quickly rolled down the passenger window, creating a windstorm of dry, hot air in the front seat. “Hey cacti!” Jennifer yelled at the desert, sticking her head out the window. She pulled down on her tank top to show her cleavage. “Get excited! Woohoo!”
Sarah felt her skin redden. “If you can’t get them to stand at attention I don’t know what will,” she yelled over the wind noise.
Jennifer let out another woop and rolled up the window, squelching the front seat’s miniature tornado. She shook her head back and forth to collect her thick brown hair about her shoulders, then combed it with her fingers. She gave Sarah a deadpan look while collecting her mane. “I just don’t think they’re interested.”
“You might have better luck at the next stop. I’ll bet there’s another guy in blue overalls named Jimmy.”
“Ugh! Not another gas station sleazeball,” Jennifer shuddered, shaking off Sarah’s teasing comment and the memory of the recent, though quick, encounter while stopping to refuel and stretch. “Greasy guys who don’t stop staring! That gives me the shivers. Reminds me of the creeps who used to watch me walking home from junior high in Arizona. I used to give them the Evil Eye, but nothing ever happened.” She demonstrated this, squinting wrathfully at Sarah. “I always hoped I’d meet their mothers, to tell them all about their smarmy auto mechanic sons whistling at school girls.” She gripped her sunglass frames and gave them a mean twist.
“Did anything bad happen?” Sarah asked, suddenly concerned.
Jennifer’s grimace vanished. “Oh. No, they were just slime balls.” She slid her small sunglass frames back on.
“Do you think, when we get to the gate–that the weather will hold out? Did the guidebook say why the sudden windstorms start?” Sarah’s pulse quickened.
Jennifer shrugged. “Whatever happens, we’ll work it out along with everyone else.”
“If we drive smack into some mobile home-sized mud hole camouflaged by dust from a windstorm, then what? Some parts of this trip are too sketchy.”
“Then we get out and someone will eventually see us and come help.”
“Get out and do what? Hike up your skirt?” Sarah whitened her knuckles with her tight grip on the steering wheel. “Wait for all the boys to stop?” Sarah felt a sudden silence from her friend, and frowned. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that. I’m just not sure we thought of everything.”
“We’re in this thing together, right?” She saw Sarah nod. “It’s our first big adventure.” She touched Sarah’s arm. “Girl, it’s back to basics–five days of freedom, no rules, ten thousand strong. Now we can be a part of it…finally! So when the black lights go up, that’s where I’ll be, forget the windstorms. I’ll blow them away myself. Once the DJ’s start spinning, our only problem will be deciding which trance is the best to dance to.” She saw Sarah smiling. “Hey, look at that,” she pointed ahead. “Traffic!”
Up ahead, they saw a line of three vehicles heading north, traveling slower than Sarah’s Volvo and backed up by the leading automobile. As the Volvo caught up to them, Sarah backed off the gas pedal. “A blast from the past,” she said, as Cassandra came up behind the trailing car. “Check out the graphics.”
The car immediately ahead was an old Civic, originally gray, though only small patches of the paint were visible from the rear. The entire back of the car acted as a bible of hipster slogans, made up of dozens of bumper stickers. Only the current tags on the license plate showed evidence that the vehicle was from Earth–or, at least, from somewhere in California. Skeleton iconography of the Grateful Dead were featured along side peace logos with psychedelic color schemes, plant leaves in two-tone holography, and beatific sayings.
“Life Flows from Within,” Sarah read aloud with interest. “Get Your Mind Together by Blowing It Apart. Plants and People are One.”
Jennifer took a turn to read aloud: “Lucy Shows the Way. The Blue Bus, The Crystal Ship, Follow Jim.” She laughed. “I like that one. Tex’in radio an’ the big beat an’ awl,” she drawled in an over-ripe Texas accent. “These cats fell off the magic bus somewhere and forgot to get back on.”
“Maybe that is the magic bus. It’s just the nineties version–with good gas mileage and a hatchback.”
“Hey, well, their magic is going too slow. Floor it and pass them.”
Sarah checked her speedometer; the meager convoy traveled at a good ten miles per hour under the limit. The trip guide, which Sarah followed strictly, mentioned that any speeding through the desert, even one mile per hour above the limit, made for easy prey by highway patrol. The locals were apparently armed with radar guns. She looked into the distance ahead and saw straight highway with no oncoming cars, and in the rear view mirror, the highway looked clear. She hesitated. It looked as if she would have to pass all three cars ahead at once; there didn’t seem to be room to pass them one at a time by slipping in between them. “Let’s just wait for a passing lane. I don’t want to get pulled over.”
“Come on, Sarah. Girl power!”
Sarah frowned at her fiery companion. The gas pedal felt firm beneath Sarah’s bare right foot. The Volvo maintained a smooth speed, alternatively coasting and tugging the momentum of the heavy cargo. She steered a bit to the left; the yellow road reflectors gave her a periodic warning of the imminent danger of driving beyond their own lane. Cassandra’s air conditioning blew cool and dry against her skin. Sarah maneuvered back into the northbound lane.
“We’re only going forty-five. Let it fly,” Jennifer said.
They still had several hours of driving until Dustin, and though she wanted to reach their destination with plenty of time to set up a camp, they were remarkably on schedule, and could even afford to take extra time on the drive. Sarah looked over at Jennifer again; her wide eyes dared her, looking both angry and impatient. Sarah pushed Cassandra’s air conditioning button, turning it off. She checked the rear view mirror. The oncoming lane was clear. She stomped on the gas pedal and crossed the yellow dashes.
Cassandra took a moment to down shift, then began to pick up speed. They gained on the ad-hoc convoy and Jennifer examined the Civic curiously, trying to get a good view of the passengers. She quickly eyed the driver as they pushed near even. The Civic’s window was rolled down, revealing a tan arm connected to the shirtless, equally tan torso of a young man. His head was covered in a tall knit cap, woven from hemp with rainbow yarn, full of his bunched-up hair. “He must have some nice dreds,” she said, looking back at Sarah. “I wonder what other hemp he’s wearing.”
Sarah glanced across at the Civic’s driver just as he turned to see who was passing. A happy brown gaze met hers, and a friendly, relaxed grin lit up his face. He smiled at her as Sarah continued to pass. She suddenly felt the tread of the highway’s far shoulder and quickly regained her focus on the road.
Jennifer leaned forward, looking back at the Civic through the passenger side mirror. “I think he likes you,” she laughed. She tried to look at the Civic’s passenger seat but couldn’t get a good view. “He must be hot without air conditioning.”
Sarah alternated her gaze on both the road and the rear view mirror. “You say that about every guy we meet.”
“Being hot? Or liking you? I don’t say it about every guy–”
They reached neck-and-neck with the second car, a normal looking, dark red minivan. Being equal with the second car revealed the slow moving first vehicle, the culprit of the single northbound-lane highway bottleneck. “Check that–it had to be a bus.”
The lead vehicle was a blue and white Volkswagon bus, with several windows down the side. The driver’s window wings stuck out, channeling the air, presumably into the driver’s lap. The bus’s paint looked weathered, but clean. Small marks of age gave the vehicle a chiseled character. The hubcaps gleamed in bright chrome, as did the bumpers and the trim. The entire bus was free of any stickers or labels. Blue and white checkered curtains decorated the windows. As Sarah’s Volvo approached the rear, the engine of the bus became audible, humming like a well-stuffed bumble-bee.
The girls noticed the driver through her open window. Instead of a slack-dressed teen with long hair, they saw a pale woman, perhaps in her late fifties. Long locks of her otherwise light brown hair matched the white of the bus. A tie-die long sleeve shirt brightened her thin frame, the ink spirals of the pattern matching her clear blue eyes. She seemed absorbed in her driving, yet unaware of her immediate surroundings, fixated in deep concentration.
After a moment, they had safely passed the bus, and Sarah maneuvered Cassandra back to the right side of the highway’s yellow dashes. The speedometer glared at her and she coasted to return to the speed limit, fifty-five, slowly outpacing the bottleneck behind them. Sarah pushed the air conditioning button and relaxed her grip on the steering wheel. She noticed she had been perspiring, and Cassandra’s air conditioning began drying her skin.
“Now we know what the crowd will be like,” Sarah said. “They must be going where we’re going.”
The highway ahead seemed clean, traffic free, and dry. From their recent map check, it would be a few hours to the nearby town where they could look for a good meal. Jennifer pulled a sweatshirt from behind the driver’s seat, rolled it up into a ball, tilted her seat further back, and stuffed the sweatshirt behind her head, wedging it against the passenger side window. She closed her eyes and pushed her head into her makeshift pillow. “Wake me up if we hit anything.”
As excited as Jennifer could be, she always fell asleep quickly and slept as if disconnected from her senses. Sarah let out a soft hum.
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CHAPTER THREE
The first speed limit sign read fifty-five. The second one, only a minute after the first, read forty-five; the third one, another minute or so after the second, read thirty-five; each sign after that, as if mocking credibility, ticked down another five miles per hour. After the posting reading twenty miles per hour, a white rectangle proclaimed to the desert audience that an urban area had been entered. The highway was empty. Grudgingly she followed each successively lower limit, out of respect for the local police radar. By the time the signs reached “5 mph”, Sarah was ready to scream. The gradations on Cassandra’s speedometer looked vague below fifteen. With a delicate idling, Cassandra crawled into the town, leaving plenty of time for Sarah to evaluate the sparse scenery.
The highway parted the small town down the middle, with two small forks venturing off into rings of short, wide houses. Each side of the highway’s shoulder was painted in a broad strip of asphalt. A pair of wooden porches created the frontage for a pair of retail stores and a pair of restaurants. At the far ends, a few mechanic garages and a gas station acted as the town’s border. The walkways appeared deserted, though Sarah assumed any inhabitants were inside, enjoying the air conditioning. A few cars sat parked in front of the stores, glinting in the sun.
“Jennifer, wake up. It looks like our restaurant options are wide open, just like the guidebook said. On the left there’s The Eatery, and on the right, there’s the grocery store slash gas station slash mini-mart. The guidebook recommended The Eatery.”
Jennifer mumbled, her eyes refusing to open.
“Right you are, let’s try The Eatery,” Sarah answered herself. She turned to the left, crawling slowly up to a wooden porch. Jennifer stirred only to block the sun from her eyes with her sweatshirt-pillow.
“Hungry?” Sarah asked her co-pilot, attempting to rouse her. Jennifer hid her head, unmotivated, and fastened her eyes shut. “I’m heading in to see about breakfast. Are you staying? It’ll get pretty warm in here.” Sarah waited for a response and was answered with a mumble. She rolled down the driver side window halfway. “Okay, just lock up when you come in.” Jennifer turned her head further into her disarrayed sweatshirt. Sarah fetched her sandals and knit purse from behind Jennifer’s seat, opened the driver side door and set the sandals on the ground. She stepped into them and closed Cassandra’s door gently, examining the structure in front of her.
From the outside, The Eatery looked like a large, square house. A single lace-curtained window displayed a wooden “Open” sign and a white sheet of paper with fancy lettering was posted near the door. Sarah looked at the sheet, the menu for the month, and read through the home-town selections. Near the bottom of the menu, protected by a thin, shadowed line, were several vegetarian choices. Her eyes widened happily. Seeing even one vegetarian entree at a restaurant made her feel at home. She pushed on the door and walked into the restaurant, with a small bell announcing her arrival.
* * *
Jennifer pushed Cassandra’s lighter with her wrist as she held her cigarette between two fingers. She crumpled the empty pack in her left hand. The heat made it impossible to sleep. The clear sky seemed made of a giant magnifying lens for white fire, the lens being held slightly out-of-focus, forcing all observers to squint. Shadows ducked into corners in apprehension as the glazed earth became a near-perfect reflector. She felt incredibly hot, though a different sort of hot: she felt like she was perspiring, yet moisture barely held onto her skin. The balmy tiredness, the hot of Texas heat, was absent from this sense of hot, and in it’s place was an unforgiving sense of being baked on all sides, like a half-moon of pita bread in a toaster oven. This hot distantly reminded her of growing up in a desert state, this hot reminded her of the sick joke of evaporative cooling, this hot she was no longer used to; now she was used to air-conditioned homes, air-conditioned classrooms, and air-conditioned cars.
Her body demanded nicotine to ward off the idea of discomfort. She salivated, and licked her dry lips. By breathing the smoke she could feel immune to hot and exhale it as part of herself. The right side of her mouth twitched into a smile when the lighter popped. Cassandra’s lighter had created it’s own heat: a purposely focused heat, which could start her cigarette smoldering.
She tossed the empty, crumpled pack on the seat and snatched the lighter. She rounded to Cassandra’s bumper to sit on the dusty chrome and placed the lighter to the tip of the cigarette. The cigarette’s filter stuck to her lip. She drew in a slow breath as the heating coil touched the tip. She closed her eyes.
The first taste always brought a familiar rush: the shedding of the familiar itch; the sudden release of muscles taut with a pointed anticipation. The smoke circled in her mouth, hot and dry, and she drew it down into her throat. She reflexively held the smoke within her until her lungs felt the largeness of the breath, then, arching her back, exhaled strongly through her nose. The smoke stalled in the hot air, indecisive, clinging tightly to her body. She opened her eyes to look at the thin smoke; it seemed like such a small thing, compared to the strength of it when inside her. Slowly, it began to evaporate upward into the air. She watched the remaining wisps curl past her gaze, squinting instinctively.
She didn’t know how long she had slept in the car, but realized she was hungry. The asphalt shined as the sun beat through the dust to the pavement. She returned to Cassandra, reaching in for her sunglasses while holding her cigarette outside the door. She put her glasses on and glanced at her surroundings, unimpressed.
The town seemed dull and fatally incestuous. She took the small tin from her bag and returned to Cassandra’s bumper to finish her cigarette. Even with her sunglasses on, the town, the cars, even the earth itself acted as perfect reflectors for sunlight, and her pupils seemed to ache from tightening. The black asphalt highway glistened with radiant dust and her own skin beamed at her. She tied her hair behind her and she exhaled forcefully. The hot bothered her less now, and she snuffed the cigarette out in the tin, returned the tin to the passenger side seat, and locked the car.
Inside the eatery, Jennifer found Sarah sitting at a small booth facing the door, halfway through lunch. A bell hanging at the edge of the door frame tinkled above her. She took her sunglasses off and found herself blind.
“I was wondering when you’d wake up,” Sarah called from her table.
After a slow moment, Jennifer’s eyes adjusted. “The heat woke me up.” She asked for coffee and sugar, and ordered the first thing she saw on the menu. “What are you having?”
“It’s a tomato curry with garbanzo and cauliflower. It’s really good. It says the cauliflower is organic and locally grown. I can’t believe they’d have a big vegetarian crowd here. Unless it’s just because of us.”
“Us, and the other ten thousand mad ravers?”
“Ten thousand young music enthusiasts,” Sarah corrected.
“Ten thousand free-dancing, dayglo-wearing, trance-loving, pill-popping, electric heads.”
Sarah rolled her eyes. “We can only hope.” She looked at her watch. “It’s already two. We still have to go across the street to get ice, your cigarettes and the rest of our food. Did you lock up Cassandra?” Jennifer nodded. “Roll up the windows?”
Jennifer hesitated. “I forgot the windows. I need to wash up anyway. I’ll lock her up.” She took Sarah’s keys from the table.
Once outside, Jennifer recognized the gray Civic at the gas station across the street. The driver, wearing the easily recognizable rainbow hemp hat, and long cargo shorts, flopped back to his car from the store in thin sandals. He began tethering his car to a gas pump. Jennifer opened the Volvo’s door and rolled up the window. She locked Cassandra and returned to the restaurant.
“Guess who _I_ saw in town,” Jennifer said, sitting down again.
“Oprah and an army of cameramen?”
“Huh, wouldn’t they just blow the underground. Nah. I saw Mr. Magic Bus. He’s across the street getting gas.”
“I guess he finally caught up with us.”
Jennifer untied her hair and ran her fingers through it, letting the cool air soak in. She stared at her friend. “We need to get supplies, right?” Sarah nodded. “And you’re finished eating, right?” Sarah nodded again. “He’s across the street. Why don’t you go over and introduce yourself?”
Sarah avoided Jennifer’s gaze.
“What did you come on this trip for?”
Sarah reached for her water glass; the ice in the water had made the glass sweat. She touched the side of the glass and let the condensation wet her finger. “I came for the music.”
“You _skipped school_ for this. Why not go over there and browse around, and see if he wants to talk?” She took a bite out of her sandwich.
Sarah’s cheeks turned pink. “Talk about what?”
Jennifer gazed directly into Sarah’s eyes. “You have to see if he’s interesting.” She took Sarah’s hand, and held it, and then gave her the keys to Cassandra. “I’ll finish in a minute–then we can go.”
Sarah focused her gaze on the door and gripped her keys. She noticed the metal doorbell which hung from the ceiling, held by a thin, dirty string. Around it’s base were small cuts in the metal where the door had stuck it, forcing it’s small voice to ring. The small bell could be at peace, if it weren’t for the door. The scars in the bell were easily visible, but Sarah doubted if anyone noticed them.
“I’ll go now–” Sarah said, reaching for her wallet and adding as an afterthought, “he might leave soon.” She pushed herself up from the table and left enough cash to cover the lunch bill. “Join me when you’re finished?” Jennifer nodded. Sarah walked slowly out the door, the small bell lightly ringing with her exit.
* * *
Sarah saw the Civic attached to a gas pump and hurried inside the store, attempting to keep her shopping list in mental focus. Spontaneous purchases of varying sweetness and nutritional value greeted those in the entryway. Arranged above a ragged collection of small metal shopping carts was a cork tack board with faded fliers: a snake warning, with instructions for venom detoxification, and the current fire danger–very high. The store shelves were deep and short, and the rows continued past two large freezers. She grabbed a shopping cart and quickly wheeled it between the shelves. The cart’s wheels squeaked at her, pronouncing the cart’s emptiness, and she grabbed at the first shelves to fill it with a few items.
Toward the middle of the store, Sarah noticed camping gear and survival gear, foldable water containers, canteens, propane bottles, first-aid kits, a large selection of sunblock, and meal-sized can goods. The freezers held beverages, water, a pallet of beer, and some refrigerated food. One of the freezers was empty.
Beyond the freezers were cardboard boxes with army surplus gear. The boxes were stuffed with green and black camouflage clothing in three standardized sizes. Smaller boxes, neatly sealed, had shoe sizes written on them, along with whether or not they included steel toes. At the rear of the store was a heavy glass display case, lined with knives and small arms. Sarah returned to the front of the store.
“Excuse me,” she said to the man behind the single front register. “I don’t see any ice.”
He nodded at her and adjusted his _Mobil_ baseball cap. Tufts of gray hair stuck out around it’s sides, blending with the stubby hair in his ears. “My boy should be back with the truck in a bit. What kind you looking for, cubed or block?”
“He’ll be back–when?”
“Shouldn’t be more than an hour, he left around ten, and it takes a few hours to load up the truck.”
“I need block ice. But I can’t wait around.”
“You going to that thing in the hills? Young guy comes in here yesterday afternoon, had a flatbed, and bought all of it. I guess he went up there too. Even loaded it himself–had another guy with him–the whole pallet. Funny thing, but there’s been funnier business than that, long before you all started up. You can wait around about an hour, my son will be along with the truck. He’s dependable.”
Sarah stared at him blankly. She mentally counted the hours until sunset, when they wouldn’t have a chance of finding their destination and another night would be lost in travel. The man was bagging her items and telling her the total.
“Does that include the ice?”
“Don’t you want to pay when it comes in? I could add it now–but, like I say, you’ll have to wait.”
“I’d like to pay now.”
The man shrugged, and added the price to the bill, giving her the new total. She looked out the window at the Civic outside; it’s driver had unhooked it from the gas pump, and was walking towards the market. “I’ve got a few other things I need. I’ll be back.” Her pulse quickened and she pushed her empty cart into the aisles again.
“Just hollar if you can’t find something,” the man called over the shelves at her. Her cart squeaked it’s wheels in response. After a moment she heard the old man greeting someone, then counting out the change from a twenty. The old man was explaining where to find something. Sandals flopped near her. She squeaked around another shelf, though finding herself surrounded by hygiene products, she suddenly felt the need to bolt down a third aisle. The flopping changed direction, then stopped, and paused. Sarah’s heart was racing; he seemed to be on the next aisle. She thought she might be able to bolt down another aisle, though a small squeak from her cart made her wince. She heard the sandals flopping back to the counter again, and the old man was explaining something about needing to look in the store room. Between the puffy pink wrappers on the shelves she saw the rainbow hemp hat. Her back stiffened and she took shallow breaths. After a few moments the old man returned, and there was a ring of change being passed. Sandals flopped out the door. Sarah let out a long breath. The circulation in her fingers resumed as she loosened her grip on the cart.
She stiffened again, hearing a familiar voice outside the store. It was Jennifer. She heard her smooth beginnings to conversation. Sarah sighed. She returned to the old man, paid the bill, loaded the groceries into the cart, and headed out the door.
“Oh, Sarah–this is Rich.”
His golden chest seemed to absorb the sunlight. Sarah smiled at him quickly.
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