After a while Jack and Laura managed to start chatting again. They made small talk as they admired the amazing views that they could not see at home: the valley floor butting up against mountain walls; the streaks of reds and tans that told the history of the world. The sun was in its full glory and the heat began to abuse the ground. They listened to the radio, Jack singing out the grunge hits from his high school days while Laura tried unsuccessfully to retune the dial. They finally settled on a classic rock station, and though the singer crooned about how sweet Alabama was, they took it as a fact that he had never come out west.
Slowly the station turned to static until it was completely gone, forcing them to shut it off. They were on the moon, gently riding the road as it coasted over rolling hills of rock and sand.
“We are in the boondocks now, huh?” Laura said.
“Yup.”
“You think this is a good idea? We haven’t seen another car for about half an hour.”
“We’re fine. We picked up some snacks and water, and we got our cells.”
“I know, but . . .”
Jack grabbed her hand, which felt cool in the AC breeze. “Just a bit more. I want to see what’s past that hill.”
That had always been Jack’s reason for everything. Never content with the present, he was always working for something beyond reach—one more degree, one more promotion, one bigger raise. One more hill. He explained it away as simple curiosity. She thought it was greed laced with ego. Always proving he was better.
Ambition is truly blind. It leads to no end, only constant searching.
Laura always went along with it. Even though the same mountains and valley peeked at them after each rise and fall, she held her tongue and let him do what he always did.
Laura was everything Jack was not. It was the only way they could get along. She was not the high school cheerleader, nor was she the valedictorian. Laura just was. She was the woman you pass on the street, admiring her good looks as she walked by, then forgetting she was there after just a few steps. She blended into her surroundings, unnoticed. Too often she went unnoticed by Jack, but she trudged on, silently carrying her loneliness and taking what scraps he offered her.
Twenty minutes down the road the car’s dash began to flicker and the engine began to hiccup.
“Well, that doesn’t sound good.” Jack eased off the gas and coasted to the side of the road. When the car settled into the gravel, the power went out.
“Uh . . . dear?”
Jack knew that tone. It was the I will appear patient, but you better get this fixed right now or you will suffer tone. He turned the key in the ignition but got no response. All the electrical was out, and the engine would not turn over.
The silence in the car was amplified by the absolute nothingness of the desert.
“Maybe it just got overheated. Let me take a look.”
Jack popped the hood and got out. He was slapped by the hot air as he opened his door, the radiation from the asphalt shooting through the soles of his sandals.
He gazed at the engine, but didn’t know what he was looking for to begin with. He hoped that just by the sheer strength of his stare he could will the car back to life. After masquerading for a couple of minutes, he got back in the car and tried the starter again. Nothing.
“All right,” he said, “let me call a tow.”
Jack pulled his iPhone out and looked at the screen. No power.
“Well, that’s weird. I charged this thing last night.”
Laura grabbed her cell from her purse. Same issue. “Uh . . . dear?”
Again with that same tone. Jack’s mind started racing for solutions. They were stuck in the middle of nowhere with not another soul in sight. The last sign of civilization was the town of Goodwell, and that had been a couple hours ago.
He decided to walk back up the road to the top of the hill. Before opening the door, he reached into the bag on the floor and grabbed two of the waters, handing one to Laura.
“I’m going to walk back there a little ways, see if I can see anything. You stay here.”
She didn’t argue with him.
Jack walked up the slow grade almost a half mile behind the car as the heat from the blacktop made his feet sweat and warmed his calves.
He looked back now and then at the car parked on the side of the road. With each step it appeared more and more insignificant in the great landscape around him. A small bit of metallic blue reflecting, shimmering like a watch in a sunbeam’s path.
“Well, Jack, what are you going to do about this?” he said to himself. “It’s hot, nobody around. Not good. Should have just stayed at the hotel.”
When he finally crested the small hill, he had chugged almost his whole bottle of water and felt dizzy. After catching his breath, he stared out into a sandy sea of nothingness. Rolling rocks and blue, cloudless sky was all that caught his vision. He hoped for the subtle reflection of a car, or a tin roof trailer nestled among the cactus, but all he saw was desert.
The road they had come in on ran away from him into oblivion. Turning 360, the view did not change at all. They were stuck with no chance of help but what might come driving down the two-lane. He pulled the phone from his pocket again. The touchscreen was still unresponsive.
His mind began to race. An empty road could bring anything.
Jack envisioned a painted Indian in a dune buggy, wielding a sawed-off shotgun, bounding over the distant ridge followed by a stampede of Thunderdomers searching for fuel and slaves. Only problem was, he wasn’t Mad Max and he knew it.
Or worse, he thought of a dusty black pickup cresting a distant butte and driving full force toward him. Colten, the hick gas pumper, exacting back-country vengeance on a city boy and stealing his girl. That was more of a reality, and it sent a pang of fear through his chest. He could practically hear the banjos playing in symphony through the mountain peaks behind him.
He shook off the visions. This wasn’t a movie. This was real life, this was what did I do to us reality.
He stared back at the rental car, wondering what he was going to say to Laura when he got back. What could he say to his wife after he had driven them into an oven and slammed the door? He thought himself lucky that it was a half mile walk to the car. At the least, he tried to appreciate the absence of sound on his way back.