Badwater

14

“Look,” I said, “do you see something moving out there?”

Walter looked up from the map in his lap and peered out his window.

We were driving north on the West Side Road — so named because it hugged the western side of the long Death Valley basin. Forty miles since we’d left the talc mine and the only moving thing we’d seen was the occasional car. And that was across the saltpan from us on the Badwater Road, which hugged the eastern side of the basin.

But it wasn’t a car I’d seen out on the saltpan. It was something else.

“I suppose,” Walter said, turning back to his map, “I’ve missed it.”

Walter was breaking my heart. If he couldn’t drive, he was going to be of use navigating.

As if we could get lost driving this road through open desert.

The basin floor swept before us, south to north, like an unrolling carpet of sand and salt. Where it rolled off into the far horizon, I thought I could see the curve of the earth. To the west and east the basin floor met walls of fault-scarped mountains — the view so wide I could see the floor tilt.

What I couldn’t see, now, was that thing on the saltpan. Nothing moved out there.

Well, the earth shimmied as heat boiled up.

I checked the gas gauge. I asked Walter to check our cell phone signals. I glanced at Scotty’s water jugs in back. There’s a reason they named it Death Valley. There’s a reason nobody’s out and about, not in a Death Valley summer.

I’d been here only once before, and that was in the spring. My scout troop came to see the wildflowers. Fourth grade, pre-Walter, pre-geology. The only geological samples I’d got were sand in my boots and dirt in my sleeping bag. I’d been more interested in the Boy Scouts in the next campsite. A mental picture formed of little Hap in a scout uniform, all knobby knees and big bandana. Very cute. A mental picture formed of big Hap, all lean angles and a backdoor grin. I blinked. What am I doing?

Walter said, “What did it look like?”

“What?” Oh, my thing on the saltpan. “I only got a glimpse. Just a…shape.”

“A mirage, dear.”

“No, it was moving.”

“Temperature turbulence makes the image vibrate. And you superimpose your own thoughts upon it.”

My thoughts had just been on Hap and I didn’t see Hap vibrating out there now. So what was I thinking of five minutes ago, when I first saw the shape? The thing that’s been in my mind, upfront or lurking, since I saw the drawing on the radwaste truck last night: the running man. I tried, now, superimposing that stick figure on the shape I’d glimpsed on the saltpan. Heat rays shimmer down like fallout and the stick runs and the salt underfoot crackles like a carpet of resin beads. No. What I’d seen was something else. Something creeping. I almost wished it was my stick. He seemed, now, an old friend. Don’t worry, old stick, we’ll find the missing beads and see them buried and no scumbag’s going to unleash them on you. So you can stop running. Sit down. It’s hot out there. You must be tired.

“Of course,” Walter said, “the scientific explanation doesn’t capture the charm of a mirage.”

Charm? All right. I said, “When were you last here, mirage-watching?”

“Eons ago.”

“Back when the desert was a lake?”

“Before that. Back in the Precambrian.”

“Cool. You do predate the dinosaurs.”

He smiled.

I smiled, and relaxed into the Death Valley summer.

The road curved to round the apron of an alluvial fan, a fan so perfect it drew an ahhh from Walter. Rainwater washes earth out of the mountains and the debris comes to rest at the canyon mouths, fanning onto the valley floor. Here’s the heart of Death Valley: a mammoth basin, faulted and dropped deep below sea level, bordered by knife-ridged mountains which spill their guts, here and there, in coquettish fans.

It is a huge bathtub. Things flow into it. Nothing flows out.

I began to think about water.

Water wet the soils that spattered up and pasted themselves beneath Roy Jardine’s offroader fenders.

We’d spent a good three hours in our makeshift lab in Scotty’s RERT van with our noses in the fender soils, trying to patch together the layers. Some layers were defined. Some weren’t. The soil map at this point was a roughed-in outline. Our map, actually, resided in specimen dishes in the little ice chest in the back seat.

I said, “Let’s talk about the itinerary.”

Walter grunted, unhappy with the thinness of the itinerary.

“So,” I said, “Roy Jardine starts up his offroader rig and…”

As if Walter could, after all, resist. “Well. The first layer says he proceeds along the dirt road, or roads, near the talc mine. And then a break — pavement.”

I waved a hand at the West Side Road. “Or an oiled road.”

“Keep your hands on the wheel, dear. Yes, a hardpack surface. However, he could have driven a few miles, or hundreds of miles, before leaving the hardpack to pick up layer two. Coarse-grained alluvium suggests he drives upon an alluvial fan.”

“So somewhere in the Basin and Range.” This was all Basin and Range country, valley and mountain, on and on like waves from the Sierras to the Rockies.

“Today we’ll confine ourselves to Death Valley, considering the proximity of the talc mine. And it fields a few lovely candidates.”

I nodded. I was liking Death Valley more and more.

“Now,” Walter settled happily into it, “layer three narrows Jardine’s trail a smidge. It’s fine-grained alluvium, playa mud and sand. Hence, we have him crossing a riverbed or a canyon wash.”

Water. I nodded.

“Layer four is more forthcoming. A grayish soil, weathered I believe from a Cambrian marine dolomite.”

“The canyon we’re heading for? One of your candidates?”

“The closest.”

“And layer five?”

“Layer five, layer six…” He grunted. “We need more time.”

I was feeling it myself. Time. Jardine killed his partner. He was on the run. He might still have the resin cask with him. “So why’s he heading up your canyon?”

“There are mines.”

Of course. He based his swap in a mine. Makes sense that he chose another mine to hide his stolen radwaste. A mine would provide the shielding. Surely, he would think about shielding. I pictured him, his scar, his long horsey face. So sad. So sick.

I shook him off. Focus on the itinerary. I had my own reservations, beyond the sketchiness of the map. Oh, we’d been meticulous, if rushed, in analyzing the soils. But something didn’t sit right. And I couldn’t put my finger on it. Like our map had an unconformity, a crucial missing piece. Like the road had been cut and below was an abyss.

Walter cranked up the air-conditioning to freeze.

I punched the outside-air-temp button and the reading showed 119 degrees. The sun was trending westward toward the Panamint Range alongside us. Sink, I urged it. But then, of course, we lose our light.

Walter said, “Up ahead. How about that?”

A massive fan spilled from the Panamints. There had to be a canyon up there but it was not visible from down here because the fan looked to extend a good two miles from toe to head and rise several hundred feet.

I stopped the car and we got out. The heat slammed me. Chilled by Walter’s freezer, I thought I was going to crack.

We were at the intersection of two stitches in the basin floor: the West Side Road and the rough route angling up the giant fan. I knelt and scooped samples of the alluvial deposits. If we were on the right track, they’d match the evidence dish marked Layer Two in the ice chest.

“What’s that?” Walter suddenly said. “You hear something? A car?”

I listened. Nothing. I scanned the West Side Road, officially closed in summer. Nothing.

“I’m certain I heard a car,” Walter said.

I’m seeing things, he’s hearing things. Well, my young eyes may have 20/20 vision but Walter’s old ears have never plugged in an iPod. He hears like a twenty-year-old. We’re both certain.

But all was silent and still.

Even so, I couldn’t resist another look at the saltpan. I noted the channel that drained our canyon into the basin, curving like a sidewinder’s path. No mysterious shapes out there. Nothing moved but the ground, liquid with heat.

I turned back to the Blazer, liquid with heat myself.

“Did you check the radiator,” Walter asked, “before we left the mine?”

“Did I?”

He said, “It’s the driver’s responsibility.”

“It’s always been you who takes care of the car.”

“Always been?”

Yikes. You nag somebody out of the driver’s seat, you better take on the rest of the job. Forget mirages. Pay attention to the real threats, like an overheated car in the desert. I gathered my dignity and went to open the hood.