15 - Phoenix
"You
bitch!" Mike said as the van rolled over the lip of the hill and down into
a gulley. The mountains rose around them like great hands preparing to clap.
But they'd done the worst and now everything went downhill, each gully part of
steps descending into Arizona, and hopefully beyond the grasp of the police.
"Stop harping on it," Chris said,
seated beside him with a hand-drawn map in her lap. The others slept in the
back. "I said I was sorry, didn't I?"
"Sorry isn't enough," he said. It
was already less dark outside, dawn catching up with them in the lower lands,
glowing against the foreground of mountain peaks. Mike stepped on the gas a
little harder. "You're trying to get me wrapped up in something and I won't
have it."
"You owe something to your people,
Michael," Chris said.
"I'm half Irish," Mike spat.
"Does that mean I should go and fight for the IRA?"
"That's different and you know it."
"I don't see it that way," Mike
said. "And you don't read the papers either. The revolution's fizzling out.
Kids are going home. The FBI's killing the leaders."
"Not our leaders."
"Oh brother!" Mike moaned. "Now
you're going to start singing me the praises of Indian solidarity. I'll bet
they've already been infiltrated."
"You wouldn't be riding away if they
were," Chris said.
"Maybe," he conceded. "But the
reason your brothers are condemned to reservations is because of other Indians,
Indians the white man's converted, Indians who sold their souls helping the
white man hunt and kill us. Those are the people you expect me to lead?"
Chris stayed silent.
Mike cursed and shifted gears for another
round of rising land, the last before open and ground and heart land of
Arizona.
They
came into Phoenix with early dawn, a warm, dry dawn that stank of citrus groves
and car exhaust, though traffic on the highway was thin, mostly pickups and
interstate truckers speeding through.
Lance woke to the sticking gears and Mike's
cursing.
"Problems?" Lance asked, poking his
head through the curtain.
Chris
leaned against the passenger door, snoring slightly, her brown face smooth in
the growing light, almost pretty. Dan grumbled from the rear and made his
appearance, wincing at the highway.
"Oh God! Not this place again," he
moaned. But there was a hint of cheer in his voice, drawing a curious glance
from Mike.
"You don't sound all that
displeased."
"I am. But it is home, sort of," Dan
said. "You ready for me to take the wheel?"
"No, we can't keep driving in
daylight," Mike said. "We should find a place to park. We all need
rest."
"There's a twenty-four-hour diner up
ahead a bit," Dan said, squinting out at the scenery. "And a lot
behind it nobody uses."
"Out of sight?"
"As much as anything can be in this
town," Dan said, lighting a cigarette, wincing at that, too. "There
it is."
The van bumped over the lip of the roadway and
into a gravel drive, stones banging the bottom as Mike steered the machine
around the back. Low citrus trees formed a fence along the far end and Mike
parked the car behind these. He turned off the engine.
"I'll sleep here," he said, slumping
down in the front seat like a bookend to Chris.
Dan sagged against the side door but looked
far from sleep.
"Aren't you going to crash out?"
Lance asked, feeling the sudden stillness, and that much wearier because of it,
as if he hadn't really slept at all during the trip.
"In a minute," Dan said and sucked
the cigarette again. "I just want to sit and breathe. This is supposed to
be healthy air."
But he seemed to be thinking and Lance left
him, returning to the two sprawled bodies on the bed. Sarah sprawled to the
right; Marie curled in a fetal position to the left. He found space between
them and drifted off.
Someone
shook him. Hot air pressed into his face like a hand trying to smother him.
Cigarette smoke filled in interior of the van. Chris' angry face floated over
his.
"You're on my bag," she said,
dragging it out from under his head, glancing at it as if he could have caused
it damage.
"Sorry," Lance mumbled. He
remembered tossing and turning with the rising heat and yanking something cool
from the pile of packages.
"Forget it," she said, wiping the
sweat from her forehead. Her hair dripped, down the tangled strands.
Someone had opened the side doors and the
windows on either side of the driver's seat. Mike and Marie huddled just
inside, perched and wary, watching the rumbling trucks through the trees.
Tractor trailers speeding along the highway, rocking the land beneath them.
Lance struggled out and stretched. But the air
outside the van felt just as warm, a precursor to coming Summer when the temperatures
would rise into a daily ritual of over a hundred. In the north, a low line of
mountains showed like the grey teeth of a wolf grinning, made hazy by the
distance. He had seen them before on his first journey west, closer up, nearer
the Painted Desert
they
bordered. They were farther than they looked, and higher, though none showed
any signs of a snow cap. Too hot for that. Even at their elevation.
An odd deja vu struck him.
He sucked in the warm air. It felt fresh in
his lungs despite the heat. It was the smell, the perfume of growing things,
citrus groves making him want to take a bite out of the air.
"Okay," Dan said, booted foot hooked
onto the splintering front bumper, one hand holding down his hat against the
wind. "We're here. Now what?"
"We make connections," Mike said.
"There's a man named Gil who runs the underground here. You should know
him. You spent time here."
"I've heard of him," Dan said.
"Not many people actually meet him."
"But you'd know how to get in touch with
him?"
"You mean you don't?"
"I can't show my face around this
town," Mike said. "They know me here. By sight."
"Which means?"
"You, the Pacifist and his old lady'll
have to make the connections while the rest of us make scarce."
"Wait a minute!" Chris said.
"I'm not wanted in this state. Why should I duck out of sight."
"Because you could draw attention to
me," Mike snapped. "Some cops still think we run together and if they
see you, they'll start searching. You'll stay low until we talk to Gil, and
then you can go on your way."
"Lay low where?" Chris asked.
"If Dan's got the van."
"There's a motel up the road," Sarah
said, looking particularly uncomfortable in the heat.
Mike shook his head.
"They wouldn't let us in without a car.
Just drop us downtown. We'll get lost. We can meet up you later near the square."
Dan nodded, eyeing Mike, Marie and Chris with
a certain obvious humor, as if their union had its own odd irony to it.
"Just like the old days," he said with a grin.
"Not quite," Mike said sourly.
"Let's get on with this thing."
The others climbed back into the van. Dan
started the engine. But Lance lingered, staring out at the sandy world.
"Lance," Sarah called, as if reading
his thought from his
expression.
"Get in."
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