Gone second section of chapter 4

He was becoming enraptured by the harsh vastness of the desert. He persuaded Sandra Dee into a night of camping, on the nearby mountain. It was a good hour’s drive from the Wagon Wheel. She brought them to the spot where she once camped with her Grandfather. Alec was like an excited teen— running back and forth with hiking bags, clearing the ground of rocks and branches. He pitched a two-man dome tent beside a cluster of fat twisted rocks, some as low as the knees like steps, others as high and curvy as three story Bounce House.

They sat on adjacent boulders. Sandra Dee lit a fire and set down a pan. She boiled the water and crushed a bag of Ramen noodles into the pan. After dinner they played Rummy, drank Corona beer and waited for the moon to rise. The winds blew, carving the seamless dunes into wondrous shapes; the air fanned the flames. The firelight made dancing shadows on her face. After cards they climbed the rocks, rugged steps and leaps, to the highest point. A brooding, pensive desert, reddened beneath the setting sun as it dropped behind distant mountains. They sat beside each other and held hands and stared into the sky, now dotted with stars.

“Do you remember your parents,” he asked.

“My grandfather, mostly. He raised me from a child. Pappy was a big old happy Indian. Loved American sports— especially baseball. He taught me how to hold a bat, field a groundball and throw a curve. He saw talent in me, I guess. He used to say that one day; baseball would be my one-way ticket out of here. In little league, I made all-star. In high school, they called me the chick with the golden bat. I got looks from scouts too. But that was so long ago, kind of a blur now. It’s funny… I wanted to be the first Indian woman to play in the major leagues.”

Alec pictured her running to second base, taking out Derek Jeter on a relay throw. He smiled.

“I never met my father. Never even found out who he was— no name, nothing. My mother was sick mostly when I was a kid. I was too young to care all that much or really notice my dad’s absence. When alcoholism finally killed her, she took his identity to her grave.”

“There’s no way to track him?”

“When I grew older and curious I talked to Pappy about it. He was shush on it. He said my father was a hippy, traveling across country, just bumming around, I guess, when he met my mother. He stayed with her for three weeks before he hit the road again and left her for good. I don’t think he even knows I exist.”

“Did Pappy have any clues?”

“If he did, he didn’t let on.”

Alec turned his face toward hers. He squeezed her hand and she smiled. Behind her, a thin purple line traced the silhouette of the mountain range.

“Where’s Pappy now?”

She kicked the dirt.

“He was planning a big high school graduation party for me. All my friends, family even strangers were going to be there. He was so excited— you would have thought it was his own. He bounced around the reservation. He bought the food platters, balloons, streamers, beverages— he even dug up a band. He wanted a pop type band but, ha-ha, they had to play traditional Tohono O’ Odham music too. Shit— half the locals didn’t know traditional stuff existed. Everything had to be big and grand.”

The sky grew dark quickly. The firelight below thinned out.

“Two days before the party, he was at an ATM. So, he leaves and a thief sticks a stub nose in his back. Wanted his wallet. He shook the stubby at him but Pappy turned on a dime. He walloped the guy, catching the thief off guard. In the scrub, it went off and hit Pappy in the above the eye. Killed him instantly. The thief escaped. They never found him... if they even bothered to look. Just another dead Indian.”

A tear rolled down her cheek.

“I had nightmares— a hidden evil, tracking me, stalking me. I lost focus on my life. I gave up on a lot of things. And I gave up on baseball.”

A feral, ghostly illumination appeared— an opaque mushroom of cranberry light.

“My brother was killed too.”

“What happened?”

“His airplane. The engine seized and it went down.”

He had never discussed his brother’s death with anyone. When he spoke it, the buried anger and guilt seeped out and stretched the edges of the old wound.

“I just wish… I could have been there for him somehow. He spent his whole life helping me. Looking out for me. And I had a fucking bad feeling about that plane too. He would have laughed at me though.”

“Where was he going?”

“California.”

“Following a dream, yes?” she asked.

“I guess so. Crazy bastard.”

“If you can talk a man out of his dream then it is not his true dream.”

“I don’t know.”

“Some are lucky enough to find them before they disappear forever.”

“Shut it you. You’re depressing me,” he said. A hint of smile turned on his lips.

“Two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl,” she said.

“That works.”

“Yes.”

They descended the high rocks. At the fire pit, Alec reached into the sand, picked up an oversized pinecone and tossed into the dying fire. It snapped and crackled. He stretched a blanket across a soft patch of sand and pinned each corner with large rocks.

“Oh! There it is,” she cried.

The moon peaked above the mountain; a jagged sliver of silver light.

“This is nice,” she said. She leaned in close.

The moon rose. Before them, the landscape glowed. The red domed tent, the footpaths and prints through cactus groves and the spindly Paloverde trees— the shrubs and rocks and scuffmarks in the sand— everything glazed. The entire camp was cast in unworldly pewter glow— a desert drama of sculpted radiating neon.

“It’s like we’re on the moon,” he said.

She kissed him on the lips.

“It’s okay. It’s just life, yes?”

He nodded, unable to take his eyes of the lunar landscape.