With a thump, the front tires bumped over the sidewalk and he blew through the plans for what would have been a lovely house at one time.
And once he’d cleared the rotted wood-flag outline, he just kept going.
There was sand out here, he knew, and hardpan, and cactuses and desert palms and Joshua trees and yucca plants and great big rocks. But there were also big stretches where all he had to do was weave the RV delicately in and out and in and out of all of the above. He had to keep his headlights on, which was a problem, but he also had a good idea where the road lay. Parallel to the road, he thought, glancing at the stars. He could spot the North Star easy this far out from Victoriana, and he resolved to keep it forever on his right, to the front of him.
Sailors have been doing it for years.
Eric kept his eyes on the desert and drove as fast as he could without wiping out on the rocks or the yucca plants and said tightly. “Anything on the phone?”
Brady grunted, and Eric could see him scrambling to his feet in the rearview.
“Fucking glass,” he muttered, shuffling through the shards on his way to the passenger seat. “Yeah,” he said. “Jai told me that—and this is a quote—‘That nice man won’t bother us ever again,’ and I don’t want to know what that means.”
Eric grunted. “I’m pretty sure it means there’s a new corpse in the desert—I hope that isn’t a problem for you.”
“Well, since I’m not the corpse, I’m going to say no,” Brady said grouchily, which meant that yes, it did bother him, but he was willing to admit it was better the gunman than him. “How do you know that’s what it means?”
“Because I get the feeling it’s not Jai’s first corpse in the desert,” Eric said. “And I hope this doesn’t freak you out, but it might not even be his tenth or twentieth.”
Brady snorted. “Yeah, nope. Still glad not to be the corpse. Do you think they’ll be okay back there?”
“The people in the houses, or Jai?” Eric asked, partially in irony.
“The people in the houses,” Brady said, and he didn’t sound like he was listening for snark of any kind. “Watch it—whew!”
Eric had swerved to avoid a small granite plateau and ended up going over a low patch of cactuses. With a sigh, he consigned this RV to the trash heap, which was too bad. She’d been a good home for a while.
They both caught their breath for a moment, and Brady asked, “How far? How far and how long are we going to drive out here?”
Eric let out a breath. “Ace’s front porch light should be visible to our left in a few. When it gets visible, we’re going to go north for a little and then turn west again. We’re going to circlearoundthe garage and then keep going until we’re halfway to the sheriff’s office in Baker, probably still surrounded by nothing much and nowhen. And then we’re going to turn out all the lights, sweep up some glass, and wipe the goddamned blood off my arm because it’s driving me batshit. How’s that for a plan?”
“Good stuff,” Brady said soberly. “I like that.” He checked his phone and blew out a breath. “George says, ‘Don’t go east into the desert. There will be ugly flowers.’”
Eric snorted, and then Brady read from his phone again.
“Ernie says, ‘Changes in the plan incoming, but it’s all still a go.’” He paused. “Oh. Okay—I guess that makes sense. Business as usual, only we’ll….” He sighed. “I’m sorry, Eric. We’ll be leaving your home out in the desert.”
“No worries,” Eric said. “I was planning to move into the house anyway.”
“Yeah,” Brady sighed, glancing up toward what looked like a wide ribbon in the dark. “Wait—do you see that?”
Eric risked some bumps and some cactuses, and they found themselves in one of those hardpan riverbeds, with all the cracks from parched earth. “I wonder if this was formed during that weird hurricane in the desert,” he murmured. The camperleveled out, their progress smoother. The riverbed took them a little to the north as it headed west, and Eric breathed a small sigh of relief.
“We can’t be seen from Ace and Sonny’s,” Brady said, correctly interpreting his relief. Or maybe it was just Brady’s own. “Do you think anybody will follow us out here?”
Eric snorted. “Nope,” he said. “All the ugly flowers are to the east, remember?”
Brady shuddered. “Do you want me to go start to clean up the glass?”
“Sure,” Eric said. “There’s a high-powered vacuum in the little coat closet on the bedroom side of the bathroom.”
Brady laughed a little. “For broken glass?”
Eric shot him a look, and he knew his expression clearly said he was out of patience. “Brady, if you don’t know what I am by now—”
Brady stood and squeezed his shoulder. “Hush, Charlie. You’re right. I guess I’m just constantly surprised by how good you are at what you do.”
Eric’s entire body warmed from that touch on the shoulder, and he found he had toreallyconcentrate to keep their progress within that impromptu hardpan riverbed because he kept wanting to glance behind him.
