License to Thrill (19 page)

“We should go there,” said her father.

“What's at Death Valley, Ben?” asked Mrs. McDonald. “Isn't it a bunch of nothing?”

“It's supposed to be
amazing
,” said Dr. McDonald. “There's lots of wildlife, and it's the lowest elevation in the United States.
Parts of it are actually
below
sea level.”

Death Valley didn't sound particularly exciting to Mrs. McDonald. What interested her were wacky museums, halls of fame, and tacky tourist traps. As far as the kids were concerned, just the name “Death Valley” gave them the creeps.

“Why do you want to go to Death Valley?” Coke asked his father. “Couldn't we get stranded in the desert and die there? Isn't that why it's called Death Valley in the first place?”

“You watch too many movies,” his father said. “There's a Death Valley National Park there. How dangerous could it be if they have a national park?”

“Well, you indulged
me
, Ben,” said Mrs. McDonald, putting her arm around him. “If you want to take a little spontaneous detour to Death Valley, I say let's do it.”

“Oh man,” Coke whined. “We've been on the road for more than five
weeks
now. I just want to get
home
!”

“Me too,” agreed Pep.

“Look, we've come this far,” Dr. McDonald told the twins. “Death Valley could end up to be the highlight of the whole trip. Come on, where's your sense of adventure?”

Route 127 starts in Baker and goes north over 100 miles to Death Valley. It's also called Death Valley Road. A mile and a half into the drive, they passed little Baker Airport on the left. After that it was just desert as far as the eye could see.

The Mojave, to be specific. Ten thousand years ago, there used to be a huge lake there. When the water evaporated, it left miles of salt flats, low-lying shrubs, and a few hearty snakes, spiders, and wildlife that could survive one of the harshest environments on earth.

“We're lucky we have air-conditioning,” Pep said.

Coke cracked his window open a few inches, and hot air rushed into the car. He quickly closed the window again.

The climate of Death Valley is the result of being below sea level and surrounded by mountains. Hot, dry air masses get trapped in the valley and sit there. The highest temperature
ever
recorded was right in Death Valley, on July 10, 1913, when it reached 134 degrees Fahrenheit. That is
hot
. It's not at all unusual for the temperature to get into the 120-degree range during the summer.

They say that bighorn sheep, coyotes, bobcats, and mountain lions roam the area, but the McDonalds didn't see any as they drove toward Death Valley. All they saw were windswept sand dunes, a few dilapidated wooden shacks, and the occasional rusted-out, abandoned car.

And yet, there was something
beautiful
about Death Valley. It was almost like visiting another planet.

“I'm glad we decided to come here,” Dr. McDonald said. “Think of it. There probably isn't another human being for miles around. This is what
all
of North America used to look like just a few hundred years ago, guys. No advanced civilization. No fast food joints or ugly strip malls. Just nature. And someday,
after our species is extinct, this is what America will look like again.”

“You're totally bumming me out, Dad,” Coke said.

“I'd sure hate to get stuck here,” said Pep.

Seconds after she said that, there was a crunching sound from below, followed by a series of quick
bang
s.

“Uh-oh,” said Dr. McDonald.

The car rolled to a stop, the engine went silent, and the air-conditioning shut down. Almost instantly, the temperature inside the car jumped twenty degrees. There was the unmistakable smell of something burning.

“What's the matter, Ben?” asked Mrs. McDonald.

Dr. McDonald didn't reply. He got out of the car and raised the hood. The rest of the family went out to peer at the engine, too.

“Can you fix it, Dad?” Pep asked.

“I don't know anything about cars,” her father replied.

“Then why did you pick up the hood, Dad?” Coke asked, knowing he wasn't going to get an answer.

Mrs. McDonald took out her cell phone and tried to call for help, but there was no cell service this far away from a town. The other three tried their phones, with the same result.

“Somebody will come along any minute,” Mrs. McDonald said hopefully. “Everything is going to be fine.”

“It's so
hot
out here,” Pep groaned, fanning herself. “I can't take it.”

“Maybe I should take a walk up the road and see if there's a gas station or something,” Dr. McDonald mused.

“It's the
desert
, Ben,” Mrs. McDonald told him. “There hasn't been a gas station for
miles
. You might
die
out there in this heat.”

“We might die right
here
in this heat too,” Coke pointed out.

“We'll just have to wait,” his mother said.

So they waited. There was no shade nearby and the car was too hot to sit in, so the family sat on the ground next to the car, using it as a shield to partly block the sun. There was nothing else they could do.

“Maybe you kids want to throw your Frisbee around while we're waiting for help?” Mrs. McDonald suggested.

Pep had become increasingly adept at throwing a Frisbee over the last five weeks, and had taken to carrying one with her wherever she went.

“It's too hot,” she replied.

A slight breeze came along, which in ordinary
circumstances would have cooled things off. But it was hot air, and that just made it worse. Mrs. McDonald took off her earrings because they had become so hot that they hurt her ears. Coke took off his T-shirt and tied it around his head. None of the McDonalds had thought to put on sunscreen that morning. They didn't know they would be taking this detour to Death Valley.

“Mom, do we have any water?” Pep asked. “I'm so thirsty.”

“We should have bought some while we were in Baker,” her mother replied.

“The car's radiator must have water in it,” Coke pointed out. “If we had to, we could drink that.”

“I'm sure that water isn't good for you,” his father said.

“Neither are dehydration and heat stroke,” Coke said. “Do we have anything to eat? Food has water in it.”

“The only thing I have is that jerky I bought,” said Mrs. McDonald.

“Oh,
great
,” Coke said. “We're stuck in the desert with no water, and our only food was specifically made by removing the moisture from it.”

“I don't like jerky anyway,” Pep said.

“Beggars can't be choosers,” said Mrs. McDonald,
annoyed. “If you recall, I was
going
to stuff my purse with snacks at the all-you-can-eat buffet this morning. If you hadn't treated me like I was a common criminal, we would have some food now.”

“I'd give anything for one of those breakfast pastries,” Pep said.

“I'm burning up,” Coke complained, fanning himself. “I never felt so hot in my life.”

Dr. McDonald didn't feel like talking. He got up and walked a few yards off the road, looking at the cracked, dry earth. He was surprised to see a few flowers that had somehow managed to survive the desert. But he also saw the bleached white skull of some large animal, maybe a goat. He didn't tell the rest of the family about it. He didn't want to alarm them.

“What happens if nobody comes to rescue us?” Pep asked after some time had passed.

“Somebody will come,” his father said. “Think positive.”

“But what happens if they
don't
?” Pep persisted.

“We'll die,” Coke told his sister. “That's what happens if nobody comes to rescue us. You can't survive long in this environment without water.”

“We're
not
going to die!” Mrs. McDonald insisted hoarsely. “Don't talk like that!”

An hour had passed. Their four throats were dry. Dr. McDonald kept looking up and down the road hopefully, but there were no cars in either direction. High overhead, a few birds were circling ominously.

“Are those vultures?” Pep asked.

“Yeah,” Coke told her. “They're scavengers. They wait for animals to get sick and die. Then they come down and eat everything but the bones.”

“Stop talking like that!” said Mrs. McDonald. “They're not even vultures. They're hawks.”

Another hour passed. The sun was lower, but the heat was unrelenting. It would be several hours before the sun went down, providing some relief. Everyone was starting to feel weak and tired, common signs of dehydration.

“My tongue feels like a piece of wood in my mouth,” Pep said. “I can barely swallow.”

Just speaking required effort, and it was important to conserve energy. But unrelenting quiet can be oppressive too. Coke in particular felt a need to break the silence.

“The amazing thing is that this is one of the lowest spots in North America,” he informed the rest of the family, “but just seventy-six miles from here is Mount Whitney, the highest elevation in the contiguous United States.”

“Nobody cares,” Pep muttered.

“Y'know,” Coke persisted, “I read in a magazine article that part of the original
Star Wars
movie was filmed in Death Valley. Remember that scene with Luke Skywalker—”

“Shut up!” the others shouted.

As everyone became increasingly uncomfortable and frustrated, tempers were growing short.

“This is all
your
fault, Ben,” Mrs. McDonald said.

“What did
I
do?” Dr. McDonald replied.

“I
told
you to get a
practical
car. A Ferrari is
not
a practical car.”

“
Any
car could have broken down out here, Bridge! Don't blame it on the Ferrari.”

“I'm not blaming it on the Ferrari, Ben. I'm blaming it on your judgment. You bought the stupid car, and it was your stupid idea to come to Death Valley in the first place. The rest of us wanted to drive straight home.”

“Don't call me stupid.”

“I didn't say
you
were stupid. I said the car was
stupid, and it was a stupid idea to come here.”

“Fighting doesn't solve anything, you guys,” Coke told his parents. He had never seen them fight like that.

“Are you going to get divorced?” Pep asked.

“You can't get divorced if you're dead,” Coke said.

“We're not going to die!” both parents shouted.

In the back of his mind, Coke wondered if perhaps someone had sabotaged the Ferrari. When they were at the Grand Canyon, he remembered, somebody had broken in and written that cipher in Pep's notepad. Maybe they also had tampered with the engine in some way that would cause a breakdown a few hundred miles down the road. There was no way of knowing.

It didn't matter at this point, anyway. All that mattered was that they were stuck in Death Valley and if somebody didn't come soon, it would be all over.

“I'm
so
thirsty,” Pep groaned. “Now I know how the Donner Party felt.”

The Donner Party didn't die from thirst, but everybody was too tired to argue the point.

“I've heard of people who were so thirsty that they drank urine to survive,” Coke said. “It's mostly water.”

“That's disgusting,” Pep muttered. “I'm not drinking your pee.”

“You don't have to drink
my
pee. You can drink your
own
pee.”

“I'm not drinking
anybody's
pee!”

“I'm so sleepy,” Mrs. McDonald said. “I'm going to take a nap.”