Hunters and Gatherers (27 page)

“Leave Diana alone,” Joy muttered.

“You think Sonoma would listen to me anyway?” Diana was almost shrieking. “You’ve done such a job on that kid that her whole life is overeating and fucking with your head!”

“Oh, I can’t stand it,” Isis said. “Something always happens! Something always sabotages whatever we try to do—”

“Oh, Isis,” said Starling. “That’s not true!”

“It
is
true,” insisted Isis. “Someone’s always trying to set me on fire or drown me. Those women who burned the corn witches at the beach on Labor Day weekend—”

Bernie said, “I always wished I knew Sonoma better. But she wasn’t the kind of girl who would ever let you in. Still, from what little I do know, Freya, I think she just ran away, and we can’t blame Diana.”

Why was Bernie referring to Sonoma in the past tense? Hot tears welled up in Martha’s eyes, and she felt nearly faint with anxiety. Probably Sonoma was safe, and they would find her before too long. But why did Martha think that they wouldn’t—that Sonoma was dead or about to be dead, fallen prey to exposure, the victim of a four-legged or a two-legged creature, or of a snake with no legs at all? Perhaps only Martha thought that, the lone doubter among these women with their unwavering faith in a Goddess who was, as they spoke, watching over Sonoma.

Hegwitha spoke up. “Who cares why she left? We’d better get off our tails and find her. It’s cold and dangerous out there—”

“Hegwitha’s right,” said Martha.

“Ladies,” said Rita, “the desert critters know when you mean no harm, and they will never hurt you. Sonoma will be okay. The Earth, our Mother, will protect her. Native people have legends about folks who get lost in the desert, and the Grandmothers find them and escort them back.”

Joy said, “And we’re supposed to sit here until the Grandmothers find her? What if they don’t find her?”

Starling said, “I thought Native people never got lost. I thought you said that yesterday, Rita!”

“Not at all,” said Diana. “Rita was very clear about lots of Native people getting lost and surviving because of their memories of ancient hunter-gatherer ways. Gosh, I hope Sonoma was listening.”

Hegwitha said, “Is there a telephone? Can we drive into town and call? Where does this father of hers live? Shouldn’t we call over there? Should we notify the state troopers?”

Scotty said, “Hey, no, man. No way. Not the troopers—not those oinkers. I don’t think
that
’s a good idea.”

“Why not?” Martha said.

Scotty said, “Get serious. There’s two hundred years of bad blood between our Native people and those sonofabitches. The minute you invite the law onto our land you get a situation like Wounded Knee.”

“We’re not exactly activists out here,” said Joy. “Not by a long shot, I’d say. They have no reason to want to get us. A child is missing. We need help.”

“Sure,” said Scotty. “Next, it’s in all the papers how we’re a bunch of godless satanic Indian savages practicing ritual child sacrifice. We can handle this ourselves. I’ll call my friends, we’re desert rats, we’ll find her faster than a bunch of crackers jerking off in helicopters. I was in Vietnam with those choppers, man. I know what bad magic they are.”

Martha would have liked the entire 82nd Airborne out searching for Sonoma. Why wouldn’t Scotty and Rita call in all the help they could get? Could Scotty have hurt Sonoma? That was too frightening to consider.

Scotty said, “Okay, I’ll level with you. I’ve got an acre of weed growing out here. Top-grade sinsemilla. The law would not appreciate that.”

“Scotty!” said Rita.

“Thank you for informing us,” said Starling curtly.

Scotty said, “They’d probably lock us all up until they sorted things out, by which point you can write off the kid. If you ever find her, she’ll be put straight into foster care.”

“Please,” said Titania. “Don’t threaten us. We have access to excellent lawyers.”

It no longer seemed such a wise idea to call the police right away. Maybe Scotty was right, maybe he and his friends knew the desert better than a posse of overweight cowpokes in four-wheel-drive patrol cars.

Scotty said, “I got a CB in my truck. Let me call my buddies. We’ll go looking for her as soon as the light comes up.”

“We can’t wait till the light comes up!” Freya shrieked. “We have to go out now.”

“It’ll be dawn in an hour,” Scotty said. “Let’s get our priorities straight. We’ll do better thinking it through and coming up with a plan than rushing out into the darkness with our heads up our butts.”

The image Martha saw was out of Hieronymus Bosch: Scotty’s buddies scurrying through the night in that odd anatomical position. She didn’t like picturing Scotty’s friends in any position at all. But now the same women who’d thrown a fit about having Scotty around weren’t hesitating to call in the Hell’s Angels. In fact, they seemed quite grateful for any help at all.

“That’s a wonderful idea,” Isis said. “Especially waiting for dawn. There’s no overestimating the power of light, of seeing things in a new light. Wait. I have a thought. Let’s do a healing circle before we go look for Sonoma. Ask the Goddess and the Great Spirit for help in finding their child, and ours.”

Would they really waste precious time on mumbo jumbo when they could be stumbling around, calling Sonoma’s name? Martha thought of how she’d met these women, how she’d jumped in and saved Isis from drowning. What was wrong with them, what had happened to leave them so paralyzed and passive that they could stand and witness horrific crises without being able to act? Wasn’t anyone objecting? What was there to object to? Perhaps they should wait till dawn rather than go out now and get lost themselves.

Martha still thought they should call the troopers, but Scotty might be right. Finding Scotty’s pot plantation might interfere with the search for Sonoma. Sonoma would have had something to say about a healing circle now. She would have crooked her finger into her mouth and pretended to gag.

“All right, Isis, babe! A healing circle!” Scotty stuck up his thumb.

Freya accepted the group decision and didn’t insist they start searching at once—though that was surely what Martha would have done, had Sonoma been her child. But she’d never had a child, so how could she possibly know? Was it all right to wait the hour, to let Sonoma get farther away? Would the benefits of daylight outweigh the likelihood of Sonoma wandering that much farther from the camp?

The women shambled about in the vague way that preceded forming a circle. And even Joy, who’d been most vehement about doing something at once, gave in to the always seductive chance to put something off for a while.

Martha knew she couldn’t join in—she would not be able to do it.

Hegwitha came over to Martha and said, “This is total bullshit. We can’t just wait for an hour. We should blow this place right now and go out and find her.”

“Let’s go,” Martha told her. That was how long it took to decide. Then they stood and stared at each other. What would they do now?

Hegwitha said, “Should we take the van? Shouldn’t we ask someone? If this is really a nonhierarchical situation, it’s our van as much as anyone else’s. I think we should just take it.”

“Can you drive it?” Martha was leery of standard shift, and cars with special needs and quirks.

“No worse than Joy,” Hegwitha said. “And I know where Joy keeps the keys.”

Martha didn’t want to ask how Hegwitha knew. It might have led to Hegwitha saying more about Diana than Martha wanted to hear right then. “How are you feeling?” she said.

“Not great,” said Hegwitha. “But not so bad I can’t drive.”

Hegwitha went to her cabin and came out waving the car keys. She climbed into the driver’s seat. Martha got in beside her. Would the women come after them when they heard the van start up?

The women bowed their heads and joined hands. From the van, Martha could hear their tremulous mewing. What a sad minor tune it was, how frail and tender they seemed, with their yearning to believe that their pain and loss were part of some higher design.

Hegwitha turned the key in the ignition. The engine started up. Miraculous! The second miracle was that no one turned to watch them go.

“It’s a sign,” said Martha.

“Bingo,” said Hegwitha.

Hegwitha switched on the headlights. A cactus jumped into the light. She swung the van around and found the driveway.

“All right!” Martha said.

“Yess! Yess!” hissed Hegwitha. She sounded like Sonoma. “We’ll find her, I know she’s out there. We’ve just got to tune into her vibes.”

Beyond the range of the van’s high beams, the desert was silent and unforthcoming.

They bounced along, the needle wavering between five and ten miles per hour. Martha scanned the dark landscape. Oh, where was Sonoma? She concentrated as if Sonoma were a noise she could listen for and hear. She wished she were one of those psychics whom desperate police departments employ to find missing persons, though—she reflected with horror—clairvoyants often had better luck locating the dead.

“She could walk faster than this,” said Hegwitha. “If she came this way she might have reached the main road and maybe, Goddess help us, hitchhiked out.”

At the end of the driveway, the sky above them opened. The first rays of dawn gave the desert the silvery gleam of mica. An empty two-lane road rolled out toward the distant mountains. Sonoma was nowhere in sight.

Hegwitha shifted into neutral, and, with the engine running, they waited beside the road. It was time for them to decide where to go and what to do, and to admit that they didn’t have a plan, or any idea how to find Sonoma.

“Should we aim for Tucson?” Martha asked.

“I don’t know. I guess,” said Hegwitha. “I keep hoping we’ll find her walking by the side of the road.”

“That’s what I keep hoping,” Martha said. “If it were me out alone here, I’d stick pretty close to the pavement.”

After a silence, Hegwitha said, “I knew you’d come through. I knew you’d want to do something…Because it was you that day on the beach who pulled Isis out of the water.”

“Gee,” said Martha. “Thanks.” How surprising to discover that Hegwitha respected her, when she’d always believed that Hegwitha thought she was a fool and had just latched onto her for entree into the Goddess inner circle. When, in fact, it was Martha who’d wanted into that privileged coterie…It was also surprising that Hegwitha would defy the Goddess women, though perhaps her not being able to say that she was sick had changed her feelings about the group.

As if she’d read Martha’s mind, Hegwitha said, “A woman’s gotta do what a woman’s gotta do. I just hope they’re not too mad at us when they find the van’s missing. Though maybe they’ll forgive us when we come back with Sonoma.”

The van coughed weakly. The motor sputtered—and cut out. Hegwitha turned the ignition. The key clicked in the lock.

“Oh, Jesus Christ. Oh, Goddess,” Hegwitha said. “This was not what I had in mind.”

Somehow Hegwitha found the button that popped open the hood of the van. She got out and looked beneath it with a purposeful expression, though it was hard to tell if she knew what she was seeing. Martha felt obliged to peek over Hegwitha’s shoulder and demonstrate her helpful intentions.

A funereal black ribbon of smoke curled up from the charred belts and wiring. Hegwitha frowned at Martha, who imagined her suggesting they pray to the Goddess for emergency auto repair.

“The way I see it,” Hegwitha said, “we’ve got two options. One, give up and tuck our tails between our legs and go back to camp and tell everyone we fucked up. Or two, we stay put and hope that an angel comes along, an angel who can fix this heap of shit or find someone who can.”

But there was not an angel anywhere for miles around. Not a single vehicle, not a plane in the sky. They heard a howl in the distance.

Hegwitha said, “I don’t like this. This really gives me the willies. I keep wondering which is worse: nobody coming along to help and having to walk back to camp—or somebody coming along and, given the high percentage of men involved in recreational murder, getting raped and strangled and left for dead in a drainage ditch.”

Martha said, “I always think one of the worst things about being female is knowing that the next guy who drives by could hack you up to bits and leave trash bags full of your body parts in a dozen different dumpsters.”

“Right on,” said Hegwitha. Then she said, “Cut it out, Martha, okay?”

All at once they felt a subterranean rumbling that in Martha’s upside-down state she mistook for a plane overhead. And now they saw a pair of headlights skimming over the road.

Hegwitha said, “Why am I worried? It would probably be more merciful to get sodomized and stabbed than die a painful, boring death in some shithole hospital in Manhattan.”

“
You
cut it out,” said Martha.

Hegwitha flashed the van blinkers. Across the road, a three-armed saguaro lit up and went black and lit up.

The truck got closer. It was huge—and white.

“Moby Dick,” said Martha.

“It’s a refrigerator truck!” said Hegwitha. “A meat truck!”

“Perfect,” Martha said. “Once I saw a movie about a farmer who kidnapped drivers off the road and ground them into sausage.”

“
Motel Hell
,” said Hegwitha. “What a great film! The stupid fucker can’t decide if he’s going to stop or not.”

The truck did seem to be going through some crisis of indecision, slowing and speeding up again, its lights brightening and dimming.

Martha said, “Maybe he’s trying to decide if we’re killers planning to hijack all that prime rib. Wouldn’t that be a good sign—I mean, that he wasn’t a killer himself?”

“Not necessarily,” said Hegwitha. “The fact that he expects violence may mean that he’s capable of it.”

The truck gave off a porcine squeal but kept inching forward until the driver peered out his window and made sure that Martha and Hegwitha were harmless. On the side of the truck the company name was lettered in black.

“Arizona Meats,” Hegwitha read. “This is unbelievable. Instant karma for eating roadkill at Rita’s.”

The cab door swung open and a tall young man climbed down. It was immediately obvious to both Martha and Hegwitha that this was not the maniac who would leave them dead in a ditch. He was thin, with a tense wiry body, a pale, appealing freckled face, and yellow hair that stood up in a brush. He was probably about Martha’s age—biologically speaking. Culturally he was in some time warp, a throwback to greaser prehistory in a black T-shirt and jeans and stubby biker boots with buckles.