Then She Vanished

Forty

We were sitting in my downtown office when Broadman’s call came through. It was 6:10 p.m., an hour and forty minutes before sunset. Dalton had been talking nonstop, sipping bourbon from the bottle. I did not. My senses were resting for whatever was coming in the next hours. My old boxing scar was itching like a bug bite. My heart felt heavy and my soul felt old.

Broadman had dispensed with the voice changer he’d used before. I could see his mangled face and hear his low, even voice clearly through Dalton’s phone speaker.

“Dalton, come to the visitor’s center at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. Use Montezuma Valley Road, in from the southwest. Follow the signs to the center. I need the make, color, and year of the car you’ll be using, and of course the plates. Make sure your phone is charged, on, and your GPS active. Natalie is waiting, but I’m not sure how forward she’s looking to seeing you. Time has passed. People change.”

“If you’ve hurt her, sir, I’ll kill you.”

Broadman chuckled softly, then listened as Dalton gave his SUV description and license plate.

“I’m assuming you’re somewhere near home right now, with your good friend Roland. Hello, Roland. You have one hour to get here.”

He hung up and Dalton strode to the door.

“Stay cool, Dalton,” I said. “Broadman is going to run us around at least a little, make sure we’re alone.”

I attached my remaining Vigilant 4000 to the trailer hitch of Dalton’s black X5, set my riot gun on the front seat, worked my paddle-holstered .45 into its warm lair at the small of my back, put a cold water in the cup holder.

I drove while Dalton looked wide-eyed out the windows, talking about Natalie. And the war. And the election. And his sons. And the Straits when he was a kid and thought his father and Virgil were almost gods, brave and wise, how much they knew and all the ways they had to get people to do what they wanted. Even Kirby was a hero in Dalton’s memory, the big brother who’d introduced Dalton to the love of his life, then gallantly surrendered his interest, the big brother who’d been cursed by God when he lost his temper and knocked their father into the barbecue pit out at grandpa’s place that night.

“I’d give up my other leg to get him back alive,” said Dalton. “As much as we fought and sometimes hated each other. There’s something in blood that you can’t deny. I’m glad Tola did what she did.”

I took the back roads to Highway 76, past Lake Henshaw to Highway 79, north to Montezuma Valley Road. The sun hid high in the trees. The yellow center line wound through the mountains then straightened as we descended toward the desert. I kept an eye on the rearview mirror.

The visitor center entrance was closed, as I knew it would be. A breezy 92 degrees. Three cars in the parking lot. Employees? After-hours tourists? I pulled into the turnaround, knowing that this is where a rifle ambush would take place if Broadman’s goal was simply to kill us. The high rock walls of the building were perfect battlements, overlooking our lumbering target of a vehicle. Perfect light and clarity. But I thought Broadman and what was left of his Chaos Committee wanted more than that. Something less merciful than death.

Dalton’s phone on speaker:

“Park on the shoulder and wait ten minutes. Then drive Palm Canyon into Christmas Circle and take the first right onto Borrego Springs Road. Park outside the Bighorn Motel. You won’t be able to get into the lot. Ten minutes, friends.”

I looked for motion in the visitor center cars, but saw none. Scanned the near sky for a drone but saw and heard nothing. Best bet was Broadman or his people were in some middle distance with their spotting scopes or binoculars trained on us, looking for our backup. We got out and hunkered in the shade of the SUV, Dalton with his bad leg out straight in the sand and his good one tucked up close for balance. We faced the sparse horizontal sprawl of Borrego Springs in the near distance.

“It’s been over two weeks since I’ve seen her,” he said. “The longest time apart since we got married. And that was a long time ago. I can still see her that day, though. And I sense that she’s somewhere close.”

I felt the hot breeze on my face, and the sweat dripping from the paddle holster against my back. Felt that pre-combat slowdown, time putting on its brakes.

“Is it enough for you to get her back?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Broadman and his Chaos Committee are responsible for three bombing deaths,” I said. “Including a congressman and a chief of police. They’ve incited the shooting of six cops and mayhem across the state.”

“What are you saying?”

“We have obligations beyond Natalie, Dalton. What if she’s not as willing to come back with you as you think she is?”

“How could she not be?”

I hung that question on the breeze. “Like Broadman says, time has passed. People change.”

“You don’t think Natalie’s changed, do you?”

For probably the hundredth time in the last two weeks I wondered if Dalton Strait was as childlike and oblivious to reality as he often seemed.

“Dalton,” I said. “I told you what I saw. How Natalie was dressed and how she behaved with her captors. Are you going to have my back if Natalie doesn’t want to come back to you?”

“Then why did she call? Not to lure me into a trap, like you said. She’d never do that.”

“That’s exactly why she called, if she’s fallen in with them. You’ve got to factor in her state of mind, Dalton — the bipolar, the abduction, the indictments, the campaign pressure.”

Dalton thought a moment. Reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his M9 combat sidearm. The hammer caught on his pocket liner and he almost dropped the gun.

“There’s three Chaos fuckers left,” he said. “If you go by the TV station raid. We can take them.”

“Three at least,” I said.

Dalton turned to me, frowning. “If you could shoot phone video of me fighting them, it would help me in November. Better than any ad I could afford. Can do?”

“I might be a little busy for that,” I said. “Put the gun away until you need it.”

“Fine. Okay. We just have to make sure Natalie is safe, Roland. She’s all that matters to me.”

Dalton worried the gun back into his pocket. I checked my watch.

“Back to the Bighorn,” I said.

I parked off the road across from the motel. Yellow crime scene tape rippled across the entrance. More crime scene tape across the office and several of the bungalow doors — notably six and nineteen. A San Diego Sheriff cruiser parked outside the office. Another in front of bungalow eight. No other cars. A coyote trotted across the lot, tail bushy and low.

I got the binoculars from under the seat, glassed the hills behind the motel. Old tailings from the mines glittered blue and yellow in the lowering sun, the windows of the rock homes peering out from low ground like snipers. Atop a distant boulder I saw the sudden flash of sunlight on glass, then movement. A woman?

Dalton’s phone:

“Our federal government ruined the Bighorn, thanks to you, Roland. I take great umbrage at that. Dalton? Natalie is dying to see you. Retrace your way to Christmas Circle and continue north on Borrego Springs Drive until you come to San Ysidro Drive. Go right. It’s a dirt road. Park in the shade of the Serpent. You can’t miss her. She’s thirty feet high, three hundred and fifty feet long, with the head of a dragon and the tail of a rattlesnake. Get out of your cute little BMW and stand still with your hands up. Any different, we’ll cut you to ribbons.”

“Please be careful, Dalton,” said Natalie. “Please do exactly what we say. Everything depends on you.”

We, I thought. But Dalton didn’t skip a beat.

“I love you, Nats.”

“I always hated it when you called me that.”

“I didn’t know. There’s so much I need to learn.”

“I never spent much on myself,” said Natalie. “Target and JCPenney for me. Why did you tell everyone that I’m crazy and spent all the campaign money?”

“I needed an out. I’ll set the record straight after you plead guilty in court. Don’t worry!”

“I worry a lot, Dalton. Come and get me. It’s time we see each other face-to-face.”

I headed into the traffic circle, merged behind a gleaming silver-and-black motor home that went back toward town. Four bikes on the back, two of them small and pink — a late spring fling for Mom, Dad, and the girls. I continued north.

The sun hung fat and orange in the west. I made the right onto San Ysidro and saw the enormous iron head of the Serpent glaring down from the cloudless blue. I thought of Odile’s vision of Natalie Strait coming to harm in the desert. Slowly picked my way across the sand flat and parked in the shade of it. Shut off the engine.

An openmouthed dragon towered above us. Red-rusted tendrils dripping from its jaws, sabers of bared teeth, iron spikes flaring back over its eyes in a crown of rage. Big enough to eat the little-pink-bicycle family and their shiny motor home in one bite. One of many Ricardo Breceda sculptures scattered throughout the Borrego desert.

“Wow,” said Dalton.

No cars. No people.

I got out, went to the front of the vehicle and raised my hands as instructed. Dalton did the same. I could see down the length of the Serpent all the way to the rattlesnake tail, roughly a football field away, its long body looping up from the sand in diminishing arches, scaled and spiked, a serpent in a sea of sand.

From under the last rising coil Broadman’s silver Tahoe emerged toward us. Followed by a black Yukon.

“Game on,” said Dalton.

“Steady,” I said.

“My middle name.”