Mose awoke early--Arturo
had rolled over and hugged him, murmuring about how much he loved him. That was
enough for Mose. He walked outside in the early morning light, down to the
turnoff for Shoshone.
An all-night automotive
shop sat at the junction with its faded blue neon sign glowing like a Halloween
pumpkin--“Auto Repair.” The big tow truck squatted, covered with morning dew--like
a spider waiting for a fly to hit its giant web that extended across the desert
from Death Valley in the North to Kelso in the South and from Afton Canyon in
the West to the Nevada border in the East--to snag a hapless motorist. Pumps dispensed
gas outside, east of the garage. Customers drifted in all night long from the
Interstate, traveling to and from Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Customers had to
summon the lone nighttime mechanic from his noisy garage onto the dark tarmac
to collect his gas payments.
☼
It was here that
Frank, Arturo, and Mose had car-jacked the diamond broker five years ago. They
had had no way of knowing who he was. They had been simply looking for a free
ride to Pahrump. Frank had insisted that they stop on Ibex Pass to examine the
man’s locked case. They had known what they would have to do--at least Frank
had known--when they first saw the tiny sparkles from within the case, like
stars on a cloudless new moon night.
☼
Back at the motel,
Mose took the keys and drove the van to the other end of town to avoid being
recognized. There he filled the tank in anonymity. He bought a newspaper to see
if the story of Frank’s escape had broken in the press. Reluctantly he walked
slowly back to the motel to wake Arturo.
They picked up
McMuffins with Coca-Colas for breakfast and headed north. Mose drove up the
gradual slope of State Route 127 towards Shoshone, a long drive on a two-lane
road through the sparsely vegetated and dusty desert. Mose put on some Wes
Montgomery in the tape player to make the miles go by easier. If Arturo had
been feeling better, he might have insisted on Santana.
Eventually they
reached Ibex Pass, at 2,072 feet. Crossing Ibex Pass brought them out of San
Bernardino County, across an indefinite boundary, and into Inyo County. The
surveyed boundary may have been indefinite according to the government; but
Ibex Pass was a distinct watershed in the lives of these two men, more than
just the point of no return to Baker, which sat at only 923-foot elevation.
Mose had blown a head gasket on Ibex Pass years ago, and had miraculously
coasted all the way back to the auto-repair shop with the tow truck and the
neon sign in Baker.
☼
It was here that
they had dumped the body of the dead broker. It had been Frank, who had
brutally strangled him with the broker’s own leather belt. It was Frank, who
had kept the broker’s jewel encrusted scorpion silver buckle as a souvenir.
Once the broker had died, they had all known in that instant that they could
never go home again. It would have meant a potential death penalty for each of
them, if the authorities were to apprehend them--and that is what happened.
☼
Mose and Arturo
crossed silently through the pass, neither of them inclined to review how they
had spent the following three years.
Ten minutes down the
road, they reached the welcome sight of Shoshone with its shady cottonwood
trees on the Amargosa, or Bitter, River. The Bitter River was so bitter
sometimes that a person could smell it, but not so much in the springtime.
They made a beeline
to the Crowbar for a couple of cold beers. There was nobody in the bar and a
lady had to come over from the café to tend the bar. Rustic, ancient, dusty
mining equipment and mining photographs hung on otherwise plain walls. The old-fashioned
jukebox on the south wall was lit up, so they figured it still worked.
After a frosted
Coors and Fats Domino’s ‘Blueberry Hill’ on the jukebox, they sauntered into
the adjoining café for a couple of cheese melts. Mose had a tall iced tea and Arturo
had a Mountain Dew. Someone had let in a cheese-loving bee. It kept buzzing
their plates--when it was not flying around the gauzy curtains, looking for a
way out to the sunlight. Arturo got a headache watching the bee and said he was
going back to the bar. Mose finished Arturo’s sandwich and followed.
They had a few more
beers in silence. The bar tender returned from the café and said he did not want
any overnight parking on his property. There was a trailer court down the road
and across the street where they could rent cheap storage space.
They drove over to
the trailer court and rented a slot for six days. After they shit and shaved, they
walked over to the communal restroom facilities to cool off in the warm saline
shower that sprayed out of a salt encrusted fixture.
It was too late for
anything else that day, so they got some sleep so they could get an early start
the next morning.
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