Exit Row (16 page)

T
HE
E
XPLORER WAS
waiting by the curb with its lights off when she and Rosa crept out of the Inn of the Kachinas at five the next morning. They climbed into the backseat, and Dominick inched out into the street. He seemed to assume that he would be doing the driving, and no one had challenged him.

As they turned the corner toward Route 64 and Dominick finally switched on the headlights, there was a surge of relief.
We made it!
Armed with maps, intelligence, and hope, they were on their way.

“When Coral was a little kid,” Dominick said, “Eve wouldn't let her have any toys.”

Fiona leaned forward. She couldn't imagine him allowing that.

“She felt that she should only have
real
stuff. She bought her art-store paints and a working camera, and planted vegetable seeds with her so they could watch things grow.” It was hard to tell if he was complaining or reminiscing. “From having books read to her instead of watching TV, she could read by herself at three.”

Rosa made a satisfied sound.

“But it all fell apart when she started school.”

“No doubt she was bored,” Rosa said wisely.

“When she was in first grade,” Dominick went on relentlessly, “she was invited to this birthday party, and Eve suggested she make a painting or write a poem. So she painted a picture and took it. And when she saw the presents everyone else had brought, she felt really terrible. Especially when she was given a My Little Pony and a bracelet set as a favor. Eve was furious; she wanted to yank her out of school. But that's not the answer. You have to live in your world.”

“There's something so pure about that though,” Fiona said. “Maybe if everybody did it . . . ”

“Yeah, but they don't. So she gave up on Coral. ‘She's
your
kid,' she used to tell me when Coral wanted a princess costume or to eat at McDonald's. Of course that's past now; she's into gymnastics.”

“Is that
the
Los Alamos?” Greg demanded, pointing to a road sign. They all leaned to look.

“Those were fascinating men,” Rosa said. “Misguided, eccentric, but brilliant.”

Greg turned in his seat. “They weren't misguided. Without them we wouldn't have the technology we do now.”

“You think you have to invent certain things before you can invent others? I mean, in a straight line?” Fiona asked. It was an interesting idea.

“Naw, it's not that linear. A thousand people jump off a sinking ship and try to swim for land, but most of them drown. The ones who make it to an island already see things differently. Then a few of them swim to another island, and so on. But no one ever goes back to the ship.” He shrugged. “The islands are always there, waiting to be discovered.”

“So we didn't really need Einstein.”

“Uh-uh. Someone else would have reached that island, just called it something different.”

“Oh, look at the camel!” cried Rosa.

It was a rock formation in the shape of a humped animal. Evidently it was natural; there were no concessions built around it. Across the way the Tesuque Indian Reservation was offering bingo and something called “Pull Tabs.”

Without asking anyone's permission, Rosa pulled out her onyx cigarette holder and inserted a real cigarette, a Camel, and then fished out a matching lighter. Evidently she reserved her electronic cigarettes for public spaces.

Fiona opened her mouth to protest but then closed it again. “That's a neat holder.”

“You'll never guess who it belonged to.”

“Who?”

“Dorothy Parker.”

“Really?”

The flame flared briefly in the darkness, and Rosa inhaled. “Someone who knew I admired her writing gave it to me. Dorothy never got enough respect. Her ashes sat on her lawyer's desk for years.”

“Dorothy who?” Greg asked from the front seat.

“You kids,” Rosa scolded, exhaling through her nose. “ ‘Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.' ”

“ ‘Guns aren't lawful, nooses give. Gas smells awful, you might as well live,' ” Fiona agreed, then pressed her hand to her mouth. “I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking about—”

“No, that's fine. One of my favorites is, ‘It serves me right for putting all my eggs in one bastard.' Anyway,” Rosa said, addressing Greg, “Dorothy Parker was a great wit and short-story writer. She spent her last years in Hollywood working on films.”

“I didn't know that,” Fiona said.

It was growing light outside, and she saw produce trucks loaded with melons and corn on their way to Santa Fe.

Then she closed her eyes.

F
IONA WAS FINALLY
awakened by a rumbling. Catty-cornered to her in the front, Greg was snoring. The noise was getting louder.

She gave her head a shake to wake up and leaned toward Dominick. “Where are we?”

“We just left Taos. I'm gonna need coffee soon.”

“Me too. Stop anywhere you see. Have you seen signs for Questa yet?”

“Believe me, there's been
nothing.
”

“Look!” said Rosa. Fiona had not realized she was awake. “There's a sign for D. H. Lawrence's ranch. He traded the rights to
Sons and Lovers
for it. His ashes are up on the mountain in a chapel. Frieda was smart enough to be buried outside with a view of the valley.”

“Who's Frieda?” Greg asked.

Both women laughed. “Go back to sleep,” Fiona advised.

“How come you know where everybody's ashes are?” she asked Rosa.

Rosa smiled cryptically and glanced out the window. “ ‘Golden lads and lassies must, as chimney sweepers, come to dust.' Shakespeare.”

“Pleasant thought.”

“Oh, there's more.” But Rosa looked thoughtful and stared out the window instead.

The green-carpeted mountains that had been close to the highway started to recede as the ground flattened out. There were signs for deer and “Dangerous Crosswinds,” and several notices that ski areas were closed. Fiona could see lights going on in the houses scattered on the prairie and thought about the people inside. An ordinary Saturday morning with a list of tasks to accomplish. She envied those people.

When they came to Questa, it was no more than a collection of drowsy motels, gift shops, and a “Wash-o-Mat.” In another moment there was a sign bidding them
“Via con Dios,”
and they were over the Colorado line.

“S
AN
J
ACKSON
—O
LDEST
Town in Colorado” was spelled out by white stones on a hillside. Fiona saw a mural of mules pulling a covered wagon on the side of a building, a sign for “Liquor to Go,” and that town was over. Finally, a few miles later, there was a lighted café ringed with pickups.

“There!” Fiona cried, but Dominick was already pulling into the crowded lot.

Rosa stirred and read the sign: “Powderbush Restaurant. Do we have time to go inside?”

“Might as well,” Dominick said. “We've got to eat.”

The Powderbush was like the luncheonettes of Lamb's Tongue: red-vinyl chairs with aluminum-tube legs, battered maple tables, and white plastic doilies under skinny vases. Taped to the glass front door was a notice advertising a rodeo. Fiona paused at the bulletin board inside the door, which was papered with handwritten ads selling rifles, pickup trucks, and a satellite dish. The notices nearly buried a calendar of a little girl hugging a Saint Bernard.

They waited uncertainly in the doorway, breathing in the odors of disinfectant and fried food.

“Sit anywhere!” a waitress advised them. Except for her and a family of parents with three children, the patrons were all men. Fiona felt eyes tracking them as they found a table near the crowded counter. In contrast to the ethnic mix of Santa Fe, these men all seemed Anglo, ranchers and farmers, friends who called back and forth to each other as if they were in their own homes. The only exception was a Mexican in a tan park ranger's uniform who was hunched over coffee at the counter.

“And how are y'all this beautiful morning?” The waitress, tanned and with long golden braids, seemed younger than she had across the room. Seeing her at first, noticing her rounded stomach in jeans, Fiona had fantasized that she was a single mother trying to make ends meet. But this woman looked barely twenty.

“We don't know yet. We need coffee,” Fiona told her.

“Coming right up! What else can I git you?”

No menus here, of course.

Dominick gave her his open smile. “What do you recommend?”

“Just whatever you want.”

“Well—how about three eggs, scrambled, and some of that bacon I keep smelling?”

“Fries with that?”

“Why not?”

Rosa, who was delicately picking the sand from her eyes with a fingernail, said she would have the same and the others agreed, though Fiona subtracted an egg and added grapefruit juice.

“Oh, honey, none of that here. Orange, tomato, papaya. And they come large or small.”

It seemed an impossible decision so early in the morning. “Orange. Small,” she said finally. Then she got up to find the restrooms. Two adjoining hollow-wood doors were labeled “Dukes” and “Duchesses,” with crowned silhouettes on toilet thrones. Inside the Duchesses was a plaque with a happy face that admonished

Back at the table, she recited the poem to the others. Rosa shook her head as if at the demise of literature, but Greg grinned. “They've got one in the Dukes too:

“That's disgusting!” Rosa cried. “I'm glad I'm from New York.”

“ ‘Thank God I'm a country girl,' ” Fiona teased.

The men laughed, but Rosa said, “God save me from local humor.”

“It's not Dorothy Parker,” Dominick agreed.

“Where do you think that park ranger is from?” Fiona asked suddenly.

“Mexico?” said Greg.

“No, I mean where he works. He might be a good one to ask if there's been anything unusual going on around here.”

“But we're not there yet, are we?” Rosa asked.

Not if you believed in psychics
. Fiona sipped her coffee restlessly.

In the next moment, a strong odor of cooking oil spread across the table. Looking up as her plate was lowered, Fiona saw that it was not from the home-fried potatoes and onions she had envisioned, but a pile of golden French fries. Her stomach turned over.

“Catsup?”

Greg grinned at the waitress. “Sure thing, honeycakes.”

Oh, please.
Fiona hoped she would slap him down, but when she returned with the red plastic bottle she was all smiles. “Y'all staying at the lodge?”

“Which lodge?” Fiona asked.

The waitress met her eyes, surprised. “You know, that hunting and fishing place over on the lake. That's where everybody stays. The motels and campgrounds are up around Fort Garland.”

Greg preened at her. “Any motels you especially like?”

At that moment Fiona became aware of a thumping sound that seemed to be coming from everywhere. Turning, she saw that the men at the counter had begun banging their coffee cups in unison again the wood. They were unsmiling, and her heart began to thump along with them.

But the waitress grinned. “More java, guys?” she called, moving toward the coffee urn.

“I'm glad I'm from the East,” Rosa said firmly.

“Leaving early was smart,” Dominick said. “If anyone's following us, they won't know where to look.”

“They will if we're lucky,” Fiona said.

“What the hell does that mean?” Greg demanded.

“It means,” Dominick said with a sigh, buttering a biscuit half, “that it doesn't matter to them where we are as long as we're not where we shouldn't be.”

“Well, shit!” Dark eyes wild, Greg looked close to a tantrum. “That means we're shooting fish in a barrel. Leave me off; I'll make my own way back.”

“It's not like that,” Fiona reassured him. “We just have to be careful.”

“I knew I should have stayed in Santa Fe.” His scowl didn't lift until the waitress returned, and even then his smile was forced.

“Y'all want anything else?”

“Maybe. What have you got?” But his heart wasn't in it.

She slid a green rectangle onto the table as if it contained a secret message.

Everyone's hands reached for it. But when Fiona turned it over, it was only the check. “I've got this,” she said. Then, noticing the line at the cash register, she said, “I guess you pay over there.”

“The locals probably just tell them what they had,” Rosa agreed.

The locals.
She imagined how conspicuous her group must look.

A
S SHE WAITED
for change, Fiona saw the tourist father approaching the ranger. She had not paid much attention to the family who had looked, to her morning-jaded eyes, like models from a JCPenney catalog, but now she decided to speak to the ranger too.

When she finished paying, she approached them. The father had flip-up sunglasses and thinning hair with large freckles on the dome of his head. “But when we got there,” he was continuing, “they chased us away. They said it was private property, so we didn't get to see anything. They wouldn't even let me take pictures!” He had an earnest, educated voice that was now a whine.

“And that was for the whole town? It's possible someone bought up the old buildings; they're not worth much. News to me though.” The ranger's white teeth flashed in his mahogany face. “Maybe they want to build condos.” The smile widened. “Ghost town condos—that's a thought.”

The tourist looked as if he had suggested destroying the Grand Canyon. “They can't do that! That town is history. Marysville is important. To think of destroying it . . . ” He straightened up, the short wide sleeves on his cotton shirt flapping. “I'm not leaving till I see that church. Who can I contact about this?”

The ranger, ducking his head for a last swallow of coffee, looked back up with his engaging smile. “It's north of my area, but I wouldn't worry about it, sir. Probably they're shooting a movie or some commercial. There are lots of good ghost towns north of here. If you stop at the Fort, they have literature about them.”

He turned his gaze skillfully on Fiona, signaling the end of the conversation. “Are you worried about Marysville too? Have a good vacation, sir,” he called as the man edged unhappily away.

“Oh, no,” Fiona told him. “I just wondered if you'd heard about anything unusual happening—a plane in trouble around here, anything like that. Not a 747 or anything,” she added, seeing his incredulous expression. “Just something different, not quite right.”

The ranger gave her his wonderful smile. It made him seem pleased simply to be in the world. “So you're
looking
for trouble.”

“In a way.”

“Nothing I can think of,” he said cheerfully. “That's oh for two. I'd better get back to the Fort, where I know what I'm talking about.”

Fiona laughed and went back to her table where the others were standing, waiting for her.

“We need to get up high and look for something big,” Greg was saying. “Maybe something silver that shines in the sun.”

Which of them was he expecting to sprout wings?

“What we need is to rent a helicopter.”

“Do you know how much that costs?” Fiona asked. “It's hundreds of dollars when Lee has to rent one for aerial shots. Not that he's the one paying. Maybe when we get closer to the Sand Dunes we can think about it.”

“It might be cheaper out here than New York,” Rosa said. “Lots of people out here seem to have their own small planes.”

How in the world did she know that? It made sense, but still . . .

Rosa bought two packs of Camels at the register, and they left.

Perhaps because it was on the driver's side, Dominick was the first one to notice the flat tire.