Desert Walk
Desert Walk
And so Denny trudged on. An iodine stain grew across the toe of one desert tan hiking boot as the blood seeped through the leather. He figured he'd lose that foot eventually. He hoped to make it to some medical attention first. If he lost it out here, his walk would end out here, alone, forgotten.
He'd already lost his shirt. Twice. Once in the stock market crash. With that went his home, his cars, his business. His wife.
The second time happened night before last. Denny took off his shirt and pants and hung them on some skeletal branches of a dying mesquite tree to create some shade from the early evening sun as he made camp. He salvaged the pants the next morning, about a hundred yards away. The monsoon brought no rain, only dust and wind. Gusted about forty miles per, he guessed. The shirt was nowhere to be found.
*
"Denny, would you run to the Quik-Mart and get me some buttermilk?" Suzanne always wanted buttermilk in the house.
"Sure." Denny kicked off his loafers and pulled on his running shoes.
"Why are you walking? It's a hundred and ten in the shade."
"The Quik-Mart is two blocks away. It's silly to waste the gas driving there. Plus, I could use the exercise."
"The buttermilk will go bad in this heat before you get it home."
"It's buttermilk. How can you tell?"
*
Denny hated buttermilk, but it sounded good about now. With nothing but bottled water, some trail mix and beef jerky for three days, and nothing to eat the last twenty-four hours, a tall glass of something cold, thick, and creamy would hit the spot. A bottle and a half of water remained, and he'd stuffed the last half a packet of trail mix deep in his backpack. He didn't want to eat any more of the mix because it made him thirsty. He could stand to miss a meal or two, but he knew if he ran out of water, he'd never reach his destination.
*
"It's trash day and you forgot again. This is the third time in a row you've forgotten. You're going to have to load it up and take it to the landfill or something. It's starting to smell out there. Things are starting to rot."
Suzanne didn't like to let things hang around and rot, not counting her marriage.
"We have a housekeeper. Why doesn't she take it out?"
"Estella works Tuesday and Friday. The garbage truck comes Thursday. Should I pay her to come over Thursday morning and roll the can to the street? Why don't you do it Wednesday night before you go to bed so you don't have to do it on your way to work in the morning?"
"Cats will get into it if I put it out overnight."
*
By the fourth day, Denny still hadn't seen a rattlesnake. He thought that was unusual, although he'd never spent any time in the desert before. He assumed the place would be crawling with them. Still, he scouted ever vigilant each time he stepped over a dead palo verde log or pile of stones. He steered clear of walking too close to the brush.
Too hot for them in the day, he remembered by late afternoon on the first day of his trek, but figured they'd come out at night. He had nowhere to sleep but in his bedroll on the ground. He couldn't remember if building a campfire would keep them away or attract them. But with night temperatures in the lower eighties, he hadn't brought anything to make a fire.
That had been a mistake. Lower eighties sounded warm, but the temperature began its thirty degree plummet the moment the sun slipped behind the mountain ridge in the distance. Denny wrapped himself up in his bedroll and shivered. He pulled his head in and zipped it up to stay warm and to keep rattlers or scorpions from biting his face while he slept.
No sign of any snakes when he awoke that morning or any morning since.
With his shirt gone, he fashioned his bedroll into a cape, the ultra-light sleeping bag tucked into his hat and draped across his shoulders and back. Stifling hot, but better than second-degree sunburn.
"I'll look like a homeless Superman when they find my dead, decaying body," he said and forced a chuckle. He'd taken to talking to himself out loud, but at least he knew he was doing it.
"That means I'm still sane," he said.
*
The first sign of the impending calamity appeared when Denny told Suzanne she had to let Estella go. Business had fallen off, and they tapped their savings to keep up the mortgage payments. Mortgages. Denny remembered to take out the trash and Suzanne became reacquainted with the vacuum cleaner.
Next, they sold the SUV and the sports car, which left them only Suzanne's Lexus and Denny's Mini Cooper. And a motorcycle Denny never rode anymore but just couldn't part with. Not until their investment portfolio dropped to half its previous value and the bank called the business loan due. Then he sold the motorcycle, boat, and RV.
"We may need to sell the house and move to something more affordable," Denny said to himself at the kitchen table one morning over coffee. He didn't intend to say it aloud.
Suzanne walked out that afternoon. More precisely, she drove off in her Lexus to stay at her mother's.
The bank took the car from her the next week, so Denny gave her the Mini.
"If you give me your car, how are you going to get to the office?"
"If you come home, you can drive me to work and you'll have the car during the day."
But Suzanne put her foot down, refused to compromise. She wouldn't stay married to someone who gave up so easily.
"Then I'll walk," Denny said as he handed over the keys to the Mini, the only vehicle they owned free and clear.
*
Denny's foot no longer throbbed and ached with each step. He wasn't sure if that was a good sign or not. Maybe it'd stopped hurting. Maybe it had gone numb. Maybe it was a dead hunk of foot-shaped flesh clinging desperately to the ankle bone.
The blood had dried between his toes and on his sock and no longer oozed through the brushed leather. The stain on the boot turned black, then gray again as the dust caked over the sticky leather. He still limped slightly to favor the big toe on his right foot, but he didn't know why since it didn't hurt anymore.
All because he tried to kill a snake with a rock in the fading light of late evening. A rock that took both hands to lift. He missed the snake and slammed the small boulder on his toe. Denny screamed and fell, writhing around on the ground in agony. The rock rolled against the snake, which didn't move.
"Sticks sure look like snakes in this light," Denny said and cursed his luck.
He made camp for the night in that very spot. Probably scared off any snakes within a hundred yards, he thought. Or maybe he said it out loud, he wasn't sure. Besides, he couldn't walk any farther.
Once he'd set up camp, he pulled off his boot and a bloody sock. The toenail fell to the ground. He cleaned the injury as best he could, wrapped his toe in some recycled, biodegradable camping toilet paper and put his sock and boot back on before the swelling would make it impossible.
"Now I've really screwed up."
*
Denny walked the two miles to work on Monday after he'd handed off the last vehicle to Suzanne.
He walked again on Tuesday, but left earlier, before the sun heated the pavement. He also carried a change of clothes in a backpack.
"Let me come pick you up and drive you to work." Suzanne's voice carried a mix of sympathy, guilt, and bewilderment.
"Thanks, but I'm enjoying the walk."
"God, you can be so stubborn sometimes." When her voice shifted to exasperation, Denny hung up.
Denny listed the house with a real estate agent. When Suzanne filed for divorce, he took the house off the market and signed it over to her. She moved back in and he walked away from the house on the side of the mountain with a swimming pool and four-car garage. He walked away from the first mortgage and the second mortgage and the negative equity. He walked into a studio apartment a mile farther from his office.
*
Denny checked his GPS as he settled into his thin bedroll, crusty from dust and dried sweat. Eighteen miles to his desti
nation. He could make that by tomorrow evening well before dark if he made good time. If he could hold out under the blast furnace of a sun for another seven or eight or nine hours with only one bottle of water, then he could take a shower and sleep in a real bed and see a doctor about his toe the next morning.
A highway lay seven miles to Denny's south. He could make that before noon and flag down a passing motorist for help. A remote two-lane highway between Tonopah and Salome, it wasn't a heavily traveled road, but there would be cars. Would anyone stop for a shirtless man wearing his sweat-soaked bedroll for a cape? Even if no one stopped, someone might call the state patrol to report a vagrant superhero.
But that would be giving up. Surrendering. Falling just short of the goal, taking the easy way out. He'd done too much of that lately. He didn't consider the shortcut to the highway again as he scrunched down into his rancid bedroll and zipped it over his head. He never looked at his toe. Some things are better left unseen.
*
It took a few months, but Suzanne finally unloaded the house in a short sale and moved in with her mother once more.
"At least you never had children." Her mother always tried to find the silver lining.
"Maybe if we'd had children, it would've turned out different," Suzanne thought as she cried herself to sleep.
*
"I should've fought harder to have kids," Denny said to the early morning moon, which looked close enough to touch. Four a.m. By the time he relieved himself, got dressed and packed up, the sky caught enough light to start the final leg. Day five.
*
"His secretary called me. Said he never showed up for work today. Yes, officer, I already tried his cell phone and then I drove to his apartment. His wallet and keys are here, but he's not. Front door's unlocked. No, no sign of forced entry that I can see. Nothing is disturbed, everything is exactly in its place. He's always meticulous like that. I'd know if anything was out of place. Yes, I'll wait in the parking lot. In the red Mini Cooper."
Suzanne waited for the police. She waited for her phone to ring, for Denny to say, "Hey, I'm at __________. Can you come pick me up?" He never called. An officer came and took her statement, walked around Denny's apartment and looked, but didn't touch anything.
"Man's a neat freak, ain't he?"
"He's organized," Suzanne corrected him. "No, I don't know where he might have gone. No, there's no one who would have any motive to hurt him. No, he's not seeing someone else. Yes, I'm sure. Yes, we are separated right now, but I know. Trust me. I would know. He doesn't own a car. He walks everywhere."
"Ma'am, I'll file the preliminary report now. If no one hears from him, you can file an official missing person report in twenty-four hours. No ma'am, that law only applies to missing children. Adults, you got a waiting period unless there's some sign of foul play."
*
Even though Denny took care to only let the water touch his tongue, allow a mere drop to slide down his throat with each sip, by noon the bottle was empty. A few drops lingered on the sides and refused to let go. Out of reach of his swollen tongue, the drops clung there, teasing him. "Two more drops of water and he could have survived," Denny imagined the coroner saying. "And there were two drops left in that bottle when they found his body."
Fourteen miles to go. His pace slowed to a crawl as his mind wandered about the desert rather than concentrating on walking. Thoughts flittered through and carried him away from the task at hand. Think. One-two. Right-left. Stride. Keep up the rhythm. Keep up the rhythm, and a cool shower awaits. Maybe they have that watermelon-scented shampoo Suzanne always used, the kind that made her hair smell sweet like when an early evening rain threatened the desert valley. Like that day he'd cooked burgers and brats and on the grill for Suzanne and her sisters and their husbands and all their children. The clouds boiled up from the southeast and lightning crackled across the distant horizon. Denny moved all the meat off the grill and finished in the oven.
"I don't know why you moved inside," Suzanne said. "It never rained."
"It looked like it might. I didn't want to risk it."
Thirteen-point-eight miles. One p.m. Had he really only made two-tenths of a mile in an hour? Think. Walk. Rhythm. Concentrate.
*
"Yes, officer, he's been acting very strange lately. I'm not a secretary. I'm his executive assistant."
Shironda was Denny's executive-assistant-not-secretary and had been for thirteen years, his entire career as CEO. For twenty-seven years before that, starting the day Denny was born, she did the same job under various titles for Denny's father when the old man was CEO.
"He's been under quite a strain. The business isn't doing well, he's had to sell off some cars and stuff to make the loans. His wife left him. He moved out of his house and into an apartment. He's been walking to work. Then he goes in his office and shuts the door. When I've gone in, he's not working, just pacing back and forth. Last Thursday he met with the accountant, Fenton. Fenton told him he needed to lay off at least five employees immediately or he wouldn't make payroll next month. Denny said he'd review all the personnel files that night and decide who had to be let go. He never showed up to work Friday. I never took him for someone who'd kill himself, but he's been acting very odd. God, I wish his father was still around. He'd know what to do."
*
Denny resisted turning on the GPS for another two hours. He only turned it on twice a day to check his progress and make sure he hadn't veered off course. Despite his economy, the battery was nearly drained. Without it, he might wander around in circles until he died a half a mile from his destination, the kind of news stories that always got emailed around the office and people would laugh and say, 'What an idiot,' or, 'Darwin Award.' Denny didn't mind the idea of dying, but he didn't want his death emailed around offices to brighten everyone's day with a nice chuckle.
His curiosity overcame his conservation and he turned on the GPS for a minute. It found the satellite, it found Denny's location, it found his destination. Ten miles. Five hours of light – and heat – left. He'd definitely make it. He wouldn't stop to make camp as he lost the light, but he'd keep on walking in the dusk. The moon had been bright the past few nights. The lights of the town would be within view by the time darkness fell, so no way would he stop to sleep when he was so close. He'd keep walking, one foot in front of the other, heading for the town. A big glass of water first. Or a beer. Buttermilk, if that's all they had.
*
Police searched his apartment for clues, a note, anything. They didn't check his regular haunts. He didn't have any. They couldn't reach his friends. He didn't have any of those either. Other than Suzanne, there was no family he might try to contact. His cell phone sat on the dresser, on the little pad that automatically charged it, so he couldn't even call Suzanne to say, "Hey, I'm at _________. Can you come pick me up?"
*
Five miles left. The sun settled on the horizon. The giant saguaro stood sentinel along his path, their long shadows pointed back the way he'd traveled as if to say 'turn around, go back.'
*
With the 'Missing businessman: Day Four' graphic over the blonde news anchor's right shoulder, she breathlessly reported the latest information from police. "There is no new information, leads or even theories as to where local entrepreneur Dennis Stephenson might be, if he is in any danger, the victim of foul play, or if he just decided to vanish." The 1-800 number scrolled across the bottom of the screen for anyone who had any information about his mysterious disappearance to call. "Dozens of tips have been called in, according to the police spokesperson, but none have panned out. Police have questioned his estranged wife, Suzanne Peters-Stephenson, but say she is not suspected of wrongdoing or complicity in his disappearance." This was said with a copy of Suzanne's driver's license photo replacing the 'Day Four' graphic.
"God, it looks like Nick Nolte's mug shot," said a distraught Suzanne.
Three of the tips reported UFOs and speculated on Denny's p
ossible alien abduction. Five more callers reported seeing him in casinos on the reservation, and four said they'd picked him up hitchhiking to either Vegas or Hollywood. One tipster, who called himself Elvis Presley, said he was playing poker with Denny and Jimmy Hoffa at that very minute. It wasn't a prank call.
*
Denny no longer sweated. That was a problem, he knew. His tongue swelled and stuck to the roof of his mouth. He could breathe only through his nose, the air scraping his throat in both directions. As the sun lowered and the heat lifted, he took off his bedroll cape and considered tossing it aside. He thought better of it, though, so he rolled it up and stuck it across the top of his backpack.
Within fifteen minutes, he pulled the bedroll back out and draped it around his shoulders for a cloak. The air chilled to the mid-nineties and he shivered and shook. His teeth chattered. Twenty minutes later, the temperature had dropped into the frigid upper eighties. Every muscle tightened to ward off the cold. His calf muscles cramped and he had to stop to stretch and rub them. His lower back spasmed. His arms drew up around the sides of his chest and he could no longer swing them back and forth to help guide his pace. Breaths, raspy and rattling, climbed in and out of his lungs with effort.
The moon lit the landscape. Every shadow, every stick, appeared to slither and coil. Coyotes yipped in the distance like an out-of-control day care center. Birds skittered across the dry branches on the ground, pecking for bugs or seeds, surrounding Denny with tiny, rustling footsteps.
Denny blocked out all sights and sounds, imaginary or real, and walked with renewed vigor in the cool breeze. He walked toward the lights dotting the black horizon. He turned on the GPS once more – two miles. He turned it off to save the battery but hoped he wouldn't need it again.
*
"Ms. Stephenson, we have your husband. Yes, he's alive. I'm the nurse-in-charge here at the emergency clinic in Hope. Yes, Hope. No, Arizona. We get that a lot ever since Clinton was president. Yes, ma'am. He's severely dehydrated, sunburned, a foot injury, and seems a bit delusional, but he's stable. Yes, ma'am, delusional. Disoriented. Probably from heat exposure, sun stroke. The doctor will be able to tell you more. Well, ma'am, he says he walked. From the looks of that foot, I believe him."