Desert Crossing (2 page)

“We're not going to find anything,” Kit said, tapping his foot noisily against the dashboard. And a minute later, “See? It's gone. Maybe you just clipped it. We've gone too far already. Turn around.”

But then I saw it: something shadowy and unexpected, lying near the side of the road.

“Jamie! Stop! It's over there.”

Jamie braked, and the car skidded sideways. “Where? What?”

“Look.” I pointed, but through the rain, I couldn't be sure.

“You're both crazy,” Kit said. “I can't believe we're doing this. So what if it is a dog? It's probably, like, rabid. What are we going to do with it?”

“I don't know,” Jamie mumbled. “But come on, let's take a look.” He turned the car again and pulled across the road, shining the headlights where I'd been pointing. A white arc of light covered the road. I swung open the car door and the blast of wet air made me shiver. There were jackets buried somewhere in the trunk, but Jamie and Kit just pulled their T-shirts on top of their heads and stumbled into the rain. It washed over us, drenching our clothes, sending rivers down our arms and legs. With their shirts surrounding their faces, Jamie and Kit looked like ghosts.

I ran ahead.

“There it is!” I yelled. I heard the crunch of Jamie's feet on the gravel behind me.

In the glare of the headlights, I could see it. Something pale, curving away from the road.

I stopped where I was. Jamie almost knocked into me. We stood there, staring. We couldn't breathe.

It wasn't an animal.

It was a girl, her slim arm curving across the gravel, like a ballerina's.
Oh my God,
I thought.

3

There are moments when everything changes, and it happens so quickly, in the time it takes to blink or catch your breath. It's like there's a line between “then” and “now,” and you can feel yourself stepping over it, and you don't want to because you know you can't go back. That's how it was when we saw the girl. We walked toward her, with Kit coming up behind us, and I don't know how we did it, how we moved our feet or remembered to breathe. I wanted to run back to the car, wanted to grab their hands and pull them with me, back into the minute before this minute, so we could drive away into the night without knowing. Because knowing would change everything. As soon as we saw her, I could feel it: We were walking away from our old life and into something else.

When we got to her, we could see her hair flowing over the ground in a wet, dark fan. Her eyes were wide open, unblinking in the rain. She was dead.

None of us said anything. We stood there with the rain pouring all around us and looked at that girl, looked and looked at her, as if we could somehow stare the life back into her, get her up on her feet, away from the road, away from cars in the rain.

I'd never seen a dead person before. I kept thinking, if this were a movie, people would be frantic now, checking her pulse, stretching her flat, pounding her chest. And maybe after a minute, she'd cough or wheeze, and you'd know she was going to be okay. But this girl was so still. Even in the roar of the storm, you could feel the quiet space around her.

Jamie squatted next to her. “But it was a coyote,” he said slowly.

Kit bent over, hands on his knees. He gave a long, shuddering breath. “It was dark. You couldn't see. She came right into the road.”

“No,” Jamie said. “It was an animal.”

“You couldn't see.”

“No.”

“Jamie…” I touched his shoulder. He shook his head hard, jerking away from me. I couldn't take my eyes off the girl. Her mouth was partly open, a small, clean oval, utterly silent. She was older than we were, but not by much. Everything about her was ordinary: dark jeans, a T-shirt with writing across the front, a silver charm bracelet that looked like the one I had in my top drawer at home. Her nail polish was chipping. One ear was double-pierced. How could she be dead?

Her body lay at an angle, twisted, with her shirt hiked up, showing a band of pale skin. I reached out and pulled the shirt down. Then—I don't know why—I felt sick, completely sick, and I started throwing up. In the middle of it, as I was doubled over, I felt someone grab my hair and gather it back from my face. It must have been Kit, which was strange, but not stranger than anything else.

Jamie yanked his T-shirt back off his head, and the rain poured over him, plastering his hair to his forehead. He didn't look at me. “It's okay, Luce. We'll call somebody.”

“Here,” Kit said, taking out his cell phone. He shielded it from the rain with his palm, turning and pointing it in different directions, punching the keypad. Finally he looked up hopelessly. “There's no signal.”

And then I remembered. “There was a house,” I said.

“What?” They both turned to me.

“That light we saw. We can get help.”

“Yeah, okay,” Jamie said. Something in his face was different, closed off. He kept staring at the girl. “She's too near the road. Can we move her away?”

Kit shook his head. “I don't think we should touch her.”

I swallowed hard. “What if somebody hits her? What if somebody runs over her?”

“She's dead,” Kit said.

Jamie's mouth was a tight line, but his eyes were huge. “I'll stay here. You guys drive to the house. “I'll wait with her.”

Kit frowned. “There's nothing you can do.”

Jamie threw him the car keys. “Just go.”

So Kit and I went back to the car. Kit opened the trunk and tossed me my jacket, but I just stood there looking at it in my hands. I couldn't think what to do.

“Put it on,” he said. And then I realized I was shaking. We got in the car, and I held Jamie's windbreaker out the window for him as we rolled slowly past. Jamie took it and flopped it over one shoulder, the rain still gusting around him. I watched him in the rearview mirror as we drove away. He got darker and smaller, but I could still see the jacket, flapping uselessly, like a flag.

4

It was raining so hard we could barely see the turnoff. But the light was there, deep in the desert blackness, and when we slowed down we saw a thin gravel lane breaking off from the highway. It was muddy and pooled with water. Little streams coursed over it. Kit slowed the car to a crawl, and we bumped and heaved over the ruts. I was still shivering, but I felt like I was waking up, paying more attention. Now everything seemed too real: the metal handle of the car door, ice cold, pushed against my thigh, and the tangy smell of beer filled the front seat. I kept sneaking quick looks at Kit. It wasn't like him not to talk.

Finally he said, “We should get rid of the cans.”

“What?”

“We have to dump the beer.”

“Now?”

It seemed impossible that there was something else to think of besides the girl. But there would be police.

“I don't know,” I said.

“We have to get rid of it.”

“But the car really smells. They'll figure it out. It'll look like…” I didn't know how to say it.

Kit shrugged, squinting at the road. “If they find open beer cans in the car…” He hesitated. “Think about Jamie.”

I was mad at him, furious. He was the one who'd wanted the beer, gotten the six-pack, given Jamie a can while he was driving. And now a girl was dead, and it wasn't Jamie's fault, it couldn't be Jamie's fault. But we'd been driving fast and our car stank of beer. Who would know what really happened?

“I
am
thinking about Jamie,” I said. Kit shot me a sideways glance. He slowed the car and rolled down his window. Then he reached across my shins and grabbed the two cans, heaving them into the night. A minute later, he sent the rest of the six-pack spiraling after them.

“Kit,” I said. But he just drove on.

Suddenly the house was in front of us. It was low and rambling, with lights shining in two of the windows. There was a truck parked next to it. As soon as we pulled into the yard—if you could call it a yard because there wasn't a boundary, it stretched right into the desert—two big dogs came charging out of a shed, barking.

We stepped out into the rain.

The dogs surrounded Kit, but their big tails swished back and forth, and they only sniffed his legs. I pulled up my hood and headed for the door.

It opened before I had a chance to knock. A woman in her thirties stood there, wearing a man's shirt spattered with paint. She had a pretty face, tan from the sun, and her dark hair fell around it like a veil. She brushed it back, looking annoyed. “Yes? What is it? Car trouble?”

“No,” I said. “There's … we…” I couldn't think what to say.

Kit came running up then, with the dogs bounding beside him and tangling in his legs.

“Oscar! Toronto!” the woman said sharply. The dogs backed away, cringing. I held out my hand to the big black one, and he licked it, butting his head under my palm.

Kit was talking fast. “A girl ran into the road. Right in front of our car. She's … she's dead. My friend stayed back there with her, but she's dead.”

The woman looked from Kit to me. She had dark, steady eyes, and it was hard to look back at her. “Come inside,” she said. “I'll call the police.”

We dripped water all over the floor while she dialed. There was in the middle of the room, a huge piece of twisted metal, painted all different colors, with weird things sticking out of it—a hubcap, a piece of pipe. A drop cloth was spread underneath it, and a rug was rolled up against the wall. Kit looked at me and raised his eyebrows.

“Joe? Hi, it's Beth Osway. I've got a couple of kids here. They've had an accident, they hit somebody. They think she might be dead.” She listened for a minute, then turned to Kit. “Where was it? How far from my road?”

Kit gestured. “I don't know, east of here, maybe two, three miles?”

She repeated the information into the phone. “Okay, we'll meet them there.” She turned to us. “Are you all right? Were either of you hurt?”

We shook our heads.

“No, they seem to be fine.” She hung up and took a nylon jacket from a peg on the wall. “It'll take them a while,” she said. “But we'll go wait.”

She looked at us curiously then, with the same sharp gaze, almost like she was solving a puzzle. “I'm Beth. What are your names?”

Kit spoke. “Kit Kitson and Lucy Martinez.”

She looked at Kit. “Kit Kitson?”

Kit flushed. “Well, Frederick. But everybody calls me Kit.”

I stared at him. Frederick? I wasn't sure even Jamie knew that.

We ran out into the rain again. When I climbed into the back of the car, the smell of beer was stronger than ever. Beth pulled open the passenger door and started to get in, but she stopped. She looked around the inside of the car, then back at me.

“Have you been drinking?”

“No!” I said quickly. “No … I'm only fourteen.”

Kit was sliding into the front seat, not looking at her.

Her eyes didn't move from my face. “Has he been drinking?”

I turned to Kit. He started the car, not saying anything.

Beth reached over and twisted the keys, yanking them out of the ignition. “We'll take the truck,” she said. Her voice was hard.

5

In the truck, I sat in the middle, pulling my shoulders together so I wouldn't have to touch either of them. I could feel Kit shifting around, getting ready to say something. In the dark cab, his face looked tense; the usual smirk had disappeared.

“We weren't drinking,” he said finally.

Beth didn't answer. I stared at him. I couldn't believe he was going to lie. She'd been inside the stinking car.

Kit shrugged. “I mean, we had one beer.”

Beth kept her eyes on the road. The windshield wipers swished back and forth in a panic, beating in time with my heart.

Kit leaned forward. “Like one sip, really. Half of it spilled, anyway. You know, when we…” He was trying to get her to look at him, but her eyes stayed on the road.

She frowned. “Pretty goddamn stupid, don't you think?”

Kit sank back, defeated, and I shrank into myself. I couldn't figure her out. She seemed to be helping us, sort of, by calling the police and driving us back to Jamie. But she wasn't treating us the way a normal adult would. She didn't keep asking us questions to fill the gaps in the conversation. She just seemed eager to get rid of us.

Then we saw Jamie, sitting where we'd left him.

“There he is,” I said softly, but Beth had already seen him and was slowing the truck, steering onto the shoulder.

“Stay here,” she said abruptly, slamming the door. I scooted away from Kit and watched through the window. She walked over to Jamie, pulling up her hood. He tried to stand but his legs were unsteady. He looked like he hadn't moved since we left. He stumbled sideways and Beth grabbed his arm to keep him from falling.

I could see him talking to her, her answering. He pointed at the girl. Beth squatted down and stayed there awhile, with Jamie gesturing and talking. When she started to get back up, he held out his hand to help her.

“What are they talking about?” Kit asked.

“I don't know.” I glanced over at him. “Maybe the beer you didn't drink.”

“Oh, come on. What was I supposed to say? We're in enough trouble without her making a federal case out of that. It wasn't even half a can.”

“But you can smell it in the car! It's just dumb to lie about it now.”

“Okay, okay.” He looked mad. “I didn't hear you come up with any great ideas.”

There was nothing I could say to that.

I turned back to the window, and as suddenly as it had begun, the rain stopped. It didn't taper off to a drizzle—it stopped altogether. We sat in the new silence, listening to the tiny trickling sounds of water streaming off the road. The windshield sparkled with a screen of droplets. The highway shone like a river in the headlights. I could barely look at the girl. What had she been doing out here, alone, on the road? I opened the door and the damp night air swept into the truck, making me shiver.