Mom is driving pretty fast, north out of Phoenix, on three-lane blacktop.
Sitting beside her, looking at her flapping mouth as she tries to explain, I am silent. Inside, though, I am thinking, WHAT THE HELL? We pass a Motel 8 and I barely see it, it’s as if all objects and things have gone transparent, and there is only this insane new fact in the world, disguised by glassy fake motels and gas stations and streetlights, a thin watery covering over insanity.
I can imagine what you must be thinking, she says.
Oh yeah? I think.
I know this must come as a shock, she continues. I know it’s a lot to take in.
Uh, yes, I think. You told me my dad was DEAD.
I glance out the window—scrub and sand as we join I-17, leaving the city behind. Mountains in the distance. Blue sky forever; no clouds. It’s weird: we’re actually, finally leaving the city, which is what I’ve dreamed about forever. But now I don’t even care.
Shelby, say something, she says. She has to kind of turn in the seat to talk to me, which is super dangerous at this speed, but she doesn’t seem to care.
My dad has been dead my whole life—it’s pretty much the only thing I actually know about him. It’s a defining feature of my life. It’s like being told that the moon actually IS made of cheese after all. I just can’t even. I can’t. Even.
I look out the window instead, so she can’t talk to me. I curl up into my seat, like a wounded animal.
It’s scary how quick, when you drive out of Phoenix, you’re in just pure desert. I mean, this landscape hasn’t changed since the Native Americans rode their horses across it. It’s not like dunes—it’s more like Wile E. Coyote, you know? Rocks and bits of grass in the sand, and these reddish outcrops sticking up, though not massive ones like in Utah.
It’s partly why I didn’t like you leaving the house, continues Mom. Why I’ve always been so protective. He’s … a dangerous man. I don’t know what he’s capable of. Remember when we left Albuquerque? That was because he found us. He spoke to a woman I worked with in the court. A judge’s secretary.
Now, I literally don’t know what to say to this. So my dad isn’t dead, he’s just some kind of homicidal lunatic chasing us down. Way to spring some serious shit on your daughter, Mom.
At least I can be grateful you’re not wearing your pajama jeans, I say eventually.
Shelby! This isn’t the time for your jokes.
Then what is it the time for? What the hell do you want me to say, Mom? That it’s no big deal?
Don’t curse, Shelby.
Oh, no, you’re right, THAT’S the take-home message here. Cursing is bad.
Mom sighs and turns back to the road, which I’m kind of happy about because she was swerving a little bit.
For the longest time, neither of us says anything. We just eat up road, Mom sticking to the express lane, putting Phoenix behind us at eighty miles an hour, going as fast as the baseballs I like to hit.
Where are we going? I ask.
Flagstaff, says Mom.
Flagstaff? Why?
I don’t know. It’s not Phoenix. And it’s big, and surrounded by forest. It’s a good place to hide. She pauses. Hey! We could even go to the Grand Canyon. Like you always wanted, right?
It’s dumb, because I’m still freaking out about my dad and everything Mom has just dumped on me, but I still get this spike of excitement. Yeah? I say. I don’t know why I want to go so much—I guess it’s the idea of this big crack in the world, like it’s a place where you can see under the world’s skin, to what’s beneath. To the truth below the earth. I don’t know. That sounds crazy, when I say it like that.
Yeah, says Mom. We’ll be close enough to drive. No plane.
Cool, I say.
We’re climbing out of flat desert, following I-17 into the mountains. I’ve never been this far from the city before. It’s almost like I can feel the air getting colder.
For miles and miles, it’s desert plateau—not just sand like around Phoenix, but a kind of scrubby desert, saguaro cacti like buried hands. And in the distance, high blue mountains, far away across the brush. It’s a vast landscape, incredibly beautiful, and I find myself, despite everything, kind of just gazing at it raptly as we drive. We pass a sign that says AGUA FRIA NATIONAL MONUMENT. There is hardly anyone else on the I-17—it feels like a road movie, the ribbon of highway stretching out in front of us, across the desert. The mountains dreaming in the distance.
Then, like an hour later, we start to pull out of desert and into forest. I start to see pine trees—at first just a thin covering, red rock outcrops behind them. Then the world shifts slowly from reds and yellows to greens and grays. Big things jut out of the trees that make me think of the word “stone,” not “rock.”
Mom pulls over at a gas station with a 7-Eleven. She gets out of the car and goes in—and when she comes back she’s got a disposable barbecue, and a bag that looks like it contains burgers and buns.
After another half hour, there’s a sign that says we’re entering the Ores National Forest, and Mom swings off the highway onto a smaller road that very obviously does not lead to Flagstaff. Forest swallows us immediately, a throat of shadow around us. The sun is going down too, slanting low through the leaves and the needles.
We drive another ten minutes, then turn onto an even smaller road, with a sign saying PUBLIC CAMPING AREA, NO BARBECUES, PICK UP YOUR OWN TRASH, THIS AIN’T COMMUNIST RUSSIA. Next to it there’s a mailbox and a smaller sign hanging from it: $10 A NITE. HONESTY IS A VIRTUE.
Someone has shot the sign with a shotgun, it looks like, which I take to be promising.
We pull into a graveled area scooped out of the woods—there’s one other car there, a newish Honda Civic, and near it, under the trees, a little one-person tent. Mom helps me out of the car. She shoots a glance at the tent and frowns. I look around. I’ve never been in a forest before. It’s weird—like being in a building but one made of wood and leaves. But I like the way it’s cool and smells like air freshener.
What’s the plan here? I say. We don’t have a tent.
We’ll sleep in the car, Mom says. It’s not cold. We’ll just have to snuggle is all.
I hobble around a bit but there isn’t much to see and pretty soon I sit down.
So, this thing with Dad …, I say.
Mom runs her hand through her hair. He’s a violent man, Shelby, she says. That’s why I left him.
Okay, I say. But why would he want to kill us?
She hesitates. I consider the coyote, how it said, there will be two lies, and then there will be the truth. I think: is this the first lie? Is Mom lying to me right now, spinning me a story about this violent father? But I can’t figure the angle, if it’s the case. I mean, what would she gain?
Anyway Mom at this point stops frowning, and her face settles, like water after the ripples have passed. He started hurting you, she says very softly. I threatened to leave. He said if I did he would hunt us down.
Oh, I say.
She puts her hands on mine. You are my little Shelby, she says. I would die before I let anyone hurt you. There are tears in her eyes, and I put my arms around her, which is awkward because the CAM Walker unbalances me, but she holds me up.
When she straightens, I say, I just don’t understand how he—
But that’s as far as I get, because this pasty overweight guy pops up from among the trees, swinging what looks like a can of water. He shields his eyes from the horizontal light of the nearly gone sun, and walks over to us.
There is a knife in his hands—a hunting knife, with a long serrated blade.