We sank onto the hard pan. I touched the salt and licked my finger. Sodium chloride. I giggled. If I had an egg I’d salt it.
“Look.” Walter was pointing back to the West Side Road.
I looked. It was so near. We’d come through rings of salt — carbonates and sulfates and now we were in the zone of table salt and yet we hadn’t come far at all. Salt rings. They rang around my head. Telling me something. I reached for the rings and they shattered. Grains of salt now. What was it I was reaching for?
“Look,” Walter said, still pointing.
The road. That’s it. We’re mired in salt rings and we haven’t come far at all. I would have cried if I’d had water for tears.
“Plants.”
I did not care.
“Faults,” he said.
It took me a very long time to process this, to look again where he was pointing and see the dark smudges at the foot of the fans, here and there. I projected the line of the smudges upfan, to the offset of the fault scarps. I thought this over. Faults grind rock. Faults build dams. Faults trap runoff. Faults make springs.
Smudges grow around springs.
I licked my lips. What kind of smudges? Salt-loving smudges? No. Not that salt-loving or they’d be on the pan.
I rasped, “You are a genius.”
We rose, on hope. We angled southwest, aiming for the closest smudge. By the time we’d waded back across the floodplain to the pickleweed, night had edged in. We left the saltpan. The smudges resolved into shrubby trees with droopy branches. They gave off a smell in the hot night air.
My nose pinched. Fourth of July. Mesquite. Dad grilling burgers. Beer and sodas and sparkling waters in a trash can of ice.
We reached the stand of mesquite. I stared at the sandy ground. There was no beer. No sodas. No Evian or Arrowhead or Crystal Spring. There was no spring.
Walter fell to the ground and began to dig.
I came down beside him.
The sand grew damp. I ransacked the pack and then we dug with spatulas, seeing by flashlight. And then when it took more energy to dig than we had to spend, we sat back and waited for the seep to percolate through the sandy soil and find our hole.
After a time, Walter slumped.
Digging digging digging and then in wonder I was unearthing diamonds. They winked and disappeared. I dug harder and now I saw white worms among the diamonds, and now I laughed recognizing my own white fingers. Just keep digging. Greedy for diamonds. And now Walter was beside me, and I was willing to share with him but he got greedy too and scooped up diamonds and brought them to his mouth and sucked them up and I thought, oh Walter that is so crude. But then I was sucking diamonds too, crude as Walter, sucking up the salty wet diamonds until our fortune was spent.
We dozed.
Something was caressing me. I slapped my neck and came away with a crackling mess that gave off a bitter smell that cleared my head. I knew what to do. I wiped my hand clean, rolled to the dig, and scooped a palm of water. The silt had nearly settled out and it tasted less salty now. It left my hand silky smooth. When I had guzzled enough, I tied Hap’s bandana over the mouth of the water bottle and sank it in the muddy seep. What a fine gift Hap had given me. Then I slept again, dreaming of salt rings and abysses and vibrating shapes and a woman powdering my face with talc until I could not breathe.
Walter woke me and said, “Look.”
We stared across the saltpan, that great white starlit belly, to the Badwater Road where a pair of white eyes traveled north. It’s them. They’re looking for us.
We capped the water bottle and drank one last time from our oasis and then once again we broached the saltpan.
The night air was velvet now, not brutal, and we walked lightly across the crackling ground, and I thought we’d make the Badwater Road in no time at all. Except it was taking forever to reach the floodplain. Walter’s old-man shuffle was slowing us down. My rubber legs were slowing us down. There came another pair of eyes on the Badwater Road, and that spurred us on, and at last we waded onto the floodplain. And then the saltpan changed again, bunching up, and we walked on tufts of salt that grew and grew as we picked our way deeper through this miniature forest.
There came a shriek.
We turned and Walter’s flashlight caught it and I knew that’s what I’d seen from the car and then I ducked because this was no mirage.
Walter stumbled.
I grabbed his arm. We went down together and I sliced my palm on a fin of salt.
It came at us low, skimming the tufts and then wheeling to avoid a pinnacle, and then it tumbled, wing over wing, and hit the pan.
We froze.
It picked itself up, pale wings unfolding. It screeched and came our way.
I kicked a chunk of rock salt free and heaved it and the bat shrank back, and then, insanely, came at us again. Not creeping. Attacking. Rabid. Walter tried to blind it with his flashlight and in the beam the bat eyes shone red. It stopped. Mouth opened to let loose another shriek and the teeth shone, bloodied. We shoved ourselves up and took off, scrambling through the salt forest until we reached another floodplain and our legs gave out.
We sat back-to-back, Walter sweeping the flashlight beam to and fro, me listening for bat wings.
Someone bent over Walter.
I reached for the flashlight, which had rolled away, its beam now dimmed.
She turned to me.
The moon was up behind her, silhouetting her. Her face was in shadow. All I could make out was her long black hair, feathered like a shawl. She crouched, one hand cradling Walter’s head, her lean body twisted toward me, other hand braced on her knee. She was still. She was a pillar of salt.
I croaked, “Who are you?”
From her shadow face came a high young voice. “An alien.”
And she turned back to Walter. She lifted his head and took a water bottle from the sling around her hips and put it to his mouth. “Drink, grandfather.”
18
I heard water running. Splashing.
I dove into the cold pool below the waterfall. It was heaven.
“If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.”
I lay on a cloud. I fought through fog.
“If you’re happy and you know it, croak like a frog. Rrrribit, rrribit.”
I opened my eyes.
Hap Miller leaned over me. His heart face was inches above mine. “Welcome back. Long time no see.”
“Where am I?”
“You’re in fantasyland, Buttercup.”
I made a slow survey. I was in a Spanish villa: sand-colored walls, arched stone fireplace, carved-wood furniture. I lay in a cloud of soft pillows under a heavy flowered spread. I began to remember being carried on a litter, transferred to this bed. A needle. My left arm lay on top of the spread, needle in my vein. Tubing ran up to an IV bag hung on the brass bedstead. Ceiling fan sent down a warm breeze. It wasn’t enough. I pushed back the spread and breeze tickled my bare skin. I smelled of sweat and salt. I was in my underwear. I yanked up the spread.
Hap grinned. “See a whole lot less on the ladies at the pool.”
I burned, beneath the covers. I now heard shouts. Kids. I turned my head. Two big windows, bristling palm trees outside.
Hap said, “We’s in the playground of the rich and richer. This time of year, the furriners. Jess love the wild west — cain’t get enough of our deserts. And heat! Gotta come see for theyselves how hot hot is.”
“Hap.” My throat felt scraped raw. “Where is this?”
“Welcome to the Furnace Creek Inn.”
“Walter?”
“Doing fine. Right next door in a corner suite. With a private veranda for if he wants to catch himself some fresh air with his morning latte.” Hap sighed. “As for poor me, I share a room with Milt. I do fear he’ll snore.”