Hip Cities and Lost Souls

  No sage brush blew out the open gate. But Lance felt the emptiness as soon as he pulled the van in the yard. A ghost town already after a single night. Little of Gil's magic remained in the wood and stone to protect it against decay. The smell of desert was everywhere.   "Now isn't that queer," Dan said, pushing up his hat with the tips of his fingers. His face looked ragged and older.   "Where is everybody?" Sarah asked.   "Gone by the look of it," Lance said, popping open the door. "But Mike, Marie and Chris should be around."   "Unless, of course, someone helped them leave," Dan said, glancing around the court yard suspiciously, the mark of tires and oil visible in the dust.   "You mean the cops?" Lance asked.   "Them or our friends from last night," Dan said. "The place doesn't feel right either. Like it's being watched."   Lance felt that, too, and the after-battle sen...

    "You getting off?" Dan asked, downshifting for a traffic light. Lance smelled citrus through the open window but had lost track of their journey through the twisting streets. His dose melting in his sweating palm.   "I feel something," Sarah said, her voice dreamy and sad. "How long till we get there?"   Her face told Lance everything-- flushed even in the dim light of passing street lamps, eyes dilated into penny-sized circles. He remembered L.A. and knew it would be a rough night.   "Not long now," Dan said, unable to contain the drug-induced humor. He'd been giggling to himself for blocks. "Another mile or two."   Lance had his own suspicions. They had been travelling around in circles for an hour, passing several houses a number of times, the effect of the drug creating its own reality.   "Why don't you let me drive?" Lance suggested.   Dan looked over indignantly and stoned. "But you don...

    They drove northwest. Reservations infested the region like amusement parks, encircling Phoenix as if around a circle of wagons. Mike remembered the details of the road though he had come there only once. Over and over he had travelled it in his head, each time imagining himself begging the Old man's forgiveness. Now the wheels of the silver Pinto kicked up the dust, bounding over the dirt road like a real steed.   "Are you all right?" Marie asked, touching Mike's hand on the wheel, polished nails shimmering in the light like tiny knives.   "No."   "What's wrong? You never said."   What wasn't, he thought, but mumbled: "Nothing."   He had no way to explain the feeling, the ache inside his head when he sensed something wrong. The whole affair with Gil had left him more confused than when he'd come-- and slightly empty. He lacked Chris' loyalty to clan upon which to lean during hard times. The rituals of his ...

    "Just let me off downtown," Chris said, as Dan steered the van back into the maze of streets again. Gil's little empire vanished behind the stand of trees, non-existent, like lost Shangri-la   "You're not going to party with us?" Dan asked, a note of disappointment in his voice. His plans seemed to have included Chris.   "Can't," Chris said, staring straight out into the darkness, her gaze tight and angry. "I have things to do."   "Here? In this town?" Dan said. "What the hell can anyone do here?"   "Gather news," Chris said. "Gil's been pretty closed-mouth about things. I want to know what the cops are up to."   Lance felt it, too-- something had happened which Gil had not told them. The gift of drugs seemed inappropriate, and he would have preferred leaving town altogether. A cloud hung over the van despite the startling sky-full of stars.   "Party pooper!" Dan ...

    Something moved.   At first, Jimmy thought it might have been a jack rabbit. Nocturnal life in the desert was richer than people thought, as thriving as a jungle. Sometimes he came out before dawn with a low-caliber rifle to beat the sand for supper. Only now, it wasn't a low-caliber rifle in his hand, or jack rabbits he was hunting.   On either side of him, others waited, laying siege to the dusty warehouse. Mister Gil had ordered them here, something startling his instinct for danger-- though lately, Jimmy worried about the man, seeing the fear in his eyes. Something haunted him.   Movement to the left. A flash of something near the corner of the building. Not a light, but a reflected bit of metal in the starlight. Everything else stayed dark. He glimpsed a figure moving across the pale stucco wall of the building, dressed dark for the dark work of a thief.   Jimmy glanced towards Mister Gil. But the man motioned for them to wait, as if want...