Above the Law (2 page)

Riva had laid on water and snacks in the truck, so my pit stops were a fill-up and a piss. I was motoring as fast as I felt comfortable pushing the old truck—my goal was to get there by noon, spend an hour or so checking out the Vincent (or a few minutes, if it turned out to be a wild goose chase), work out the deal, load the motorcycle in the trailer, and be home at night. It would be late getting back, but it would be easy driving, no heavy traffic.

I made good time, but then I got lost and had to backtrack thirty miles, so it was almost two in the afternoon by the time I located his place, which was three miles of bad road off the highway. I felt like I was riding a washboard, driving up that road. A steady diet of coming and going would blow your kidneys, if it didn’t blow your vehicle’s suspension first. Finally, I rounded one last corner, and his place came into sight.

The house was a desert rat’s enclave—an old double-wide on cinder blocks that had been in one place for so long it was almost petrified at the base. The paint job was original, in some places the metal worn so thin you could almost see through it to the inside. Twenty paces to the rear of the dwelling a corrugated metal shed, which would be the garage and all-around storage barn, listed ten degrees to the side. Unless I was badly mistaken, there would be a mountain of junk in that shed, decades of useless crap tossed in there. And if I was lucky, one real special vintage British motorcycle.

I drove up in a cloud of dust and jumped out. He was a dark, shadowy figure, sitting in an old, springy metal chair in front of the trailer, the one place that had shade.

“You’re late.” A stream of dark brown tobacco juice pocked the dust at his feet.

“I know, I’m sorry. I took a wrong turn coming out of Paradise Valley and wound up in the middle of nowhere,” I apologized. I didn’t want to mess up the deal before we’d even started trying to make one.

“I reckoned that’s what happened. You ain’t the first one. Not that I get a shitload of company.” A sound wheezed out of his throat, the closest he could come to a laugh. “Most people think this sorry piece of dirt you’re standing on is the original middle of nowhere.”

I’d had that thought, but I wasn’t about to voice it. I walked closer to him, close enough that I could make out his features. He wasn’t that old, mid-fifties probably, but he had the weathered face of someone who’d been out in the sun all his life, leather and lines. It made him look decades older than his true age. His hands fit his face—bone-dry claws. What you’d imagine a mummy would look like. Except he was talking, breathing, moving. Moving slowly; he hadn’t gotten out of his chair.

So much for the amenities. “Can I look at the motorcycle?”

“That’s what you came for, ain’t it?”

He reached behind him for a pair of crutches, and that’s when I saw he was missing his right foot, above the ankle. The stump was wrapped all around with elastic bandages, bulging out under his pants leg. He hove to his one good foot with great effort, fighting for balance.

“Gangrene. Lost it four months ago. Circulation went bad from too much drinkin’, but I didn’t take care of it till it was too late. ’Cause I was drinking too much to notice.” He lifted one crutch and pointed toward the shed. “Which is why I’m selling my pride and joy, instead of riding it.”

The Vincent was a bit dusty under the protective drop cloth, some rust spots on the chassis—but it looked damn fine for a forty-five-year-old machine. I fired her up—she roared to life on my first attempt.

I nursed the old motorcycle down to the highway, but once I got to the public blacktop, I opened it up and let it sing. It needed work: shocks, brakes, clutch, new chain, tires; but it was a running machine—not fast off the blocks like a new BMW, Kawasaki, or Yamaha. But fast enough. The handling was heavy but comfortable. And it had that great pedigree. The old desert rat hadn’t been jerking my chain.

I was going to ride it for fifteen, twenty minutes, long enough to get a feel for it, what was right and wrong, and if it was worth buying. I wound up riding it an hour. I couldn’t stop. I was having too much fun, even though the wind was howling. By the time I got back to his place, it was going on four o’clock. Time to make the deal, load up, and head for home. I’d phone Riva from the road, let her know I’d be late. She worries otherwise.

We haggled over the price. Gentle Ben Loomis, my motorcycle guru in Santa Barbara had instructed me that if the bike was a piece of shit but salvageable, try to get it for under fifteen thousand; in decent shape, twenty thousand, but be prepared to go to twenty-five. I didn’t want to spend that much, but I would if I couldn’t resist it.

This one was in the middle tier of the decent-shape category. He started at thirty-five, I countered at fifteen, he came back at twenty-five, I raised to twenty. We settled on twenty-two thousand five hundred. Much more than I wanted to spend, but this was irresistible, a once-in-a-lifetime chance.

It was five o’clock by the time we finished the deal. I counted out the cash, 225 crisp hundred-dollar bills, and he signed over the papers. We had a beer to celebrate. His suggestion, I didn’t want to offend him. I was the only company he was going to see for weeks, except for the boy who delivered his groceries. He watched as I ramped the classic motorcycle into the U-Haul, strapped it down, and secured the doors. He wasn’t happy, but he was philosophical about it.

“Ride ’er good.”

“I will. Thanks.”

We shook hands. It felt like I was shaking a rattlesnake, his skin was so dry and tough. I climbed into the truck and started driving home.

If I had been smart and checked the weather before heading back to Santa Barbara, I’d have known I was heading for trouble. But I didn’t. I was like a kid on Christmas morning, so flush with excitement over his newest possession that he’s oblivious to everything else. With images swimming in my mind of a man and his motorcycle, which would be the envy of every biker he knew, navigating back-country roads, I slipped a Coltrane CD into the truck’s stereo and motored along, grinning like a madman.

The sandstorm came up without warning. All of a sudden the wind arose with the force of a tornado, sweeping up the entire terrain and sending it into the air in a monstrous cloud that was extending clear to the horizon on all sides.

I was trapped. Worse, I was imperiled. I couldn’t see ten feet in front of me. Driving was going to be nearly impossible, but I couldn’t simply park here and wait it out. Some eighteen-wheeler on a schedule and a mission could come barreling out of the gloom and flatten me, and there was no shoulder to pull onto; on either side of the road there were steep ditches, four or five feet deep, built to catch runoff during heavy rains. I’d seen those movies about sandstorms,
Lawrence of Arabia
and
The English Patient.
I don’t know if California sandstorms are that brutal, but the thought of being buried under forty feet of sand and suffocating to death was extremely frightening.

Even with the windows rolled up as tight as I could get them, the sand sifted in, pinprick needles biting at my face and hands. It’s an old truck, the rubber weather-stripping is cracked and brittle. The wind was howling, it felt as strong as those pictures you see of the Gulf Coast being flattened by hurricanes. And it was deafening, a banshee-singing, the sound almost human-like; now I know why people in the Sahara think storms like these are accompanied by demons, shaitans, the devil in the wind.

My only option was to inch forward, headlights on high beam and flashing lights blinking, until I found a safe haven. I started off, inching along at five miles an hour, guiding by the yellow line in the middle of the road. I ejected Coltrane and fiddled with the radio, trying to get some news of what was going on, but there was only static. All I could hope for was that somewhere up ahead, close, there’d be an oasis. Filling station, motel, restaurant, any port in this storm.

I’d driven about ten minutes when I saw the car off to the side, nose down in the drainage ditch. It was a small car, a Honda or a Toyota—with the almost zero visibility, I couldn’t tell. Whoever had been driving it had lost control of the steering and been blown off the road. It would be easy to do; the gale-force wind was coming every which way. My truck is heavy and solid, but steering it was really hard, partly because the trailer I was towing was fishtailing back and forth like a bullwhip. I, at least, had lots of ballast; still, just fighting the wheel for ten minutes had my forearms burning. And I’m in shape. A small car like that, one extra-strong gust would pick it up and drop it anywhere it wanted to. Already, sand was drifting over it, starting to cover it. In ten or fifteen minutes it would be buried under a mound of sand, invisible from the road.

Stopping was suicide. Every minute I dawdled out there lessened my chances of surviving. But if there were occupants stuck in that car, not stopping was tantamount to being an accessory to murder.

I pulled as far off to the side of the road as I could without risking losing traction and going over. I keep flares under my seat. I reached down and grabbed a handful, and a box of matches with them. Still sitting in the relative safety of the truck’s cab, I put on my full-face helmet. (For some quirky reason that I didn’t even remember, but was thankful for now, I’d brought both my helmets, the brain-bucket and the sensible one, which has a full visor.) I pulled my jacket collar as tight as I could up against it. Lastly, I pulled on my motorcycle gloves. Holding the flares in one fist, I lit them simultaneously. As soon as they caught, I jammed open my door and jumped out.

One step out of the truck and I was blown back ten feet. It was like I was in a wind tunnel. I’d never encountered weather this hostile before. Holding on to the side of the truck and bracing myself against the wind, I fought my way to the back, where I jammed my flares against the back tires. I didn’t know if anyone coming my way would see them, but at least I’d given them a chance.

I worked my way to the front of the truck and rested for a minute. The wind was blowing dead down the road from behind me, so while I was in this position, I had some protection. Pulling my jacket tighter around me, I looked over at the car in the ditch. Already, in just a few minutes, it was almost invisible from the coating of sand that was cocooning it. If I had come by five minutes later, I would have driven right by it.

Taking a deep breath, I broke for the stranded car. As soon as I left my cover, the wind picked me up and lifted me clean off my feet, flipping me onto my side, hard, and I felt the rough tarmac as I scraped along it. I’d have a strawberry tomorrow from my shoulder to my hip. It’s the same kind of roadburn you get when you go down on your motorcycle. I’ve had them, they’re painful as hell.

Staying low seemed to work marginally better, so I crawled the rest of the way across to the car. Sliding down the embankment, I brushed some sand off the side window, enough to look inside.

Three pairs of eyes stared back at me. Women’s eyes, wide with astonishment, fear, and relief I’m sure they had figured this was it, they were going to die out here in this godforsaken place.

Between their pushing and my pulling, we pried the driver’s-side door open. They were young, dressed skimpily, tank tops and jeans. Not enough clothes for out here this time of year. They had all been crying, their faces were smeared with makeup and dirt. But thanks to the Good Samaritan, they were alive.

“Grab hold of each other arm to arm,” I yelled into the wind.

They grabbed their wallets and backpacks and we formed a human chain and worked our way up the ditch to my truck. They all piled into the cab along with me, slamming the doors against the biting sand. We were all scrunched together, two of them jammed up against me and each other, the third sitting on the shotgun sitter’s lap. You couldn’t have shoehorned another body into the little cab.

I pulled off my helmet, and we took a look at each other. Then they were all trying to hug me at the same time, almost hysterical in their gratitude.

I waited a minute for them to calm down, then we exchanged stories. They were college students, UC Riverside. They had been in Phoenix, visiting the sister of one of them, and had decided to take the scenic route home, stopping at the Spa in Twentynine Palms for a night. They had heard that a Santa Ana might be coming, but no one could imagine anything like this. It was like driving in a whiteout combined with a tornado.

They had been in the ditch for almost an hour. Initially, they had debated about getting out and walking, but that seemed more suicidal than staying where they were and hoping help would come. As time passed, their hopes faded, slowly at first, then faster. They thought they heard a few cars and trucks passing—in the howl of this wind you couldn’t be sure of hearing anything—but as far as they knew, mine was the only car who had seen them.

“Or stopped to see if there was anyone inside.” Said with anger by Marilyn (from “you know who”—she smiled—“my mother’s idea”). She was sitting next to me, in the middle. Pretty, a voluptuous cheerleader’s body topped by a classic Irish face and a full head of dark auburn hair.

They were all pretty. Which meant nothing to me, particularly at this moment.

“If you hadn’t stopped, we would have died.” This from Pauline, the lapsitter.

I didn’t know what answer to give them. There was none, because it was true.

“You’re not going to die now,” I assured them (and myself). “We’re going to find someplace where we can wait this out.”

I started the truck and put it in gear. We inched forward. The needle on the speedometer was barely registering, but we were moving, that was the important thing. I hoped nobody coming upon where I had stopped would be spooked by the flares I’d left behind. I wasn’t about to go back and get them.

We lucked out. The Brigadoon Bar & Grill was less than a mile up the highway from where I’d rescued the girls. We were almost by it before we saw it, but, man, what a welcome sight! I jerked the truck against the wind and skidded into the gravel lot, pulling into an empty parking spot. Several vehicles parked along the front—a few cars and pickups that looked local, a Dodge minivan with bumper stickers advertising every attraction west of the Mississippi, a Lincoln Navigator, and two boxy motor homes with Utah plates. Bracing ourselves against the storm, the girls and I ran for the entrance and staggered in.