Desert Places (Andrew Z. Thomas/Luther Kite Series 1)

Wyoming: June 2, 1996

He hasn’t been as easy or productive as Luther, but I see in him potential that transcends my other pupil. So I’m letting him go. Another week here and he’d lose his mind, when what I want is for his rage to ferment so he becomes drunk on the hate. He is my brother. He is me in so many ways. I love him, and the least I can do is introduce him to himself. Though I anticipate bringing him out here again, let me make a prediction: I won’t have to. He’ll come for me, and there won’t be anything I can do to prevent it. Andy’s smart and remarkably cruel when he needs to be. If he does come for me, I’ll give him the gift, because he’ll be ready. It’s funny—the selflessness he inspires in me.

35

THE moon came up over the Winds, lighting the snowpack like a field of blue diamonds. I simmered a can of pork and beans on top of the kerosene heater, and as they filled the cabin with their sweet, smoky aroma, I surveyed the desert for Orson.

We’d left the car at noon, and it was nearly 8:30. He couldn’t have stayed alive on the desert this long. The temperature hadn’t surpassed ten degrees all day, and tramping through the snow in deficient clothing would’ve resulted in his freezing to death by now. So he was either dead out there or he’d found refuge, the only viable shelters being the Lexus, the shed, or this cabin. I knew he wasn’t in the cabin. I’d checked the four closets, under the two beds, and I knew with certainty that I was the sole occupant. The shed glowed in the moonlight. I could see it through the window beside the front door. If I’d mustered the nerve, I might’ve walked outside and searched for tracks leading to the shed. But I didn’t have the temerity to go back out into the cold to look for him, especially since my legs were beginning to blister. Where are you? I thought. And what are you going to do?

When I finished my supper, I sat on the floor beside the heater and pulled a shoe box down from the couch. I’d found it under the defunct kitchen sink, and it contained all sorts of goodies, including Indiana, Oregon, California, and Louisiana state driver’s licenses. In addition to Orson Thomas and David Parker, he was also Roger Garrison, Brad Harping, Patrick Mulligan, and Vincent Carmichael. He had passports for every name except Roger Garrison, and flipping through them, I saw that he’d traveled extensively in Europe and South America.

The find that pleased me most, however, was the rubber-banded stack of hundred-dollar bills. I counted $52,800—plenty to disappear.

Closing the shoe box, I tossed it into the drawer of videotapes and folders that I’d carried into the living room. Having scoured the cabin, every incriminating piece of evidence was contained in that single drawer, and it gave me great comfort to have it in my possession now. I stood up and walked to the window beside the door. The bluffs soared above the desert a mile behind the shed, like colossal dunes of white sand. Orson, I thought. Just you now. The only thing left to destroy.

If he came for me, it would be at night, but exhaustion wasted my mind and body. I’ll sleep until midnight, I thought. I’m worthless now anyway. For all I knew, he might never come. He could be lying out there right now, statuesque under the snow.

I extinguished the heater and went into his bedroom. Wrapped in the fleece blanket, I curled up with the gun beside my pillow, and the handcuffs in my pocket. In the absence of wind and the humming generator, my breathing and my heartbeat produced the only perceptible sound.

I dreamed a memory: Orson and I are ten years old. The church service has just concluded at Third Creek Baptist Church, a chapel in the countryside north of Winston-Salem where Grandmom attends. Because it’s the last Sunday of the month, the congregation surges through the front doors outside for a covered-dish picnic. Beside the small brick building, the epitome of homely Baptist churches, a half a dozen picnic tables exhibit a smorgasbord of country cooking. Three grills have been going since midmorning, and the smell of hot dogs and hamburgers and a whole smoked pig floods the August afternoon.

When we finish eating, Orson and I sit under a walnut tree and watch a regiment of ants feast on a discarded watermelon rind. It’s clear and hot, and we sweat copiously under our matching baby blue suits with yellow bow ties.

I see her walking toward us, stepping daintily between families, who are gorged and lounging on blankets in the grass. New to the congregation, her knee-length sleeveless dress is the same premature yellow as the sun-scorched poplar leaves. She stops and stands by the watermelon rind. I watch an ant crawl across her unpainted big toe.

When she speaks, she makes the most peculiar sound, something akin to a knife blade sliding across a sharpening stone: “Schick. Aren’t you two just the most precious little things I ever saw!”

Orson and I look up from the ground into her heavily powdered face. Her curly platinum hair is rigid, and she smells like a concoction of cheap perfumes.

“Darlings!” she exclaims, grinning, and we see her false teeth, where broccoli florets still cling. Here it comes—that question everyone feels compelled to ask, though Orson and I are mirror images of each other. “Are y’all twins?”

God, we hate that. I open my mouth to explain how we’re just fraternal twins, but Orson stops me with a look. He peers up into her eyes and makes his bottom lip quiver.

“We are now,” he says.

“What do you mean, young man?”

“Our triplet brother Timmy—he got burned up in the fire three days ago.”

Through the powder, her face colors, and she covers her mouth with her hand. “Schick. Oh, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to…” She squats down, and I’m pinching the back sides of my calves, trying not to laugh. “Well, he’s with Jesus now,” she says softly, “so—”

“No, he wasn’t saved,” Orson says. “He was gonna do it this Sunday. You think he’s in hell with Satan? I mean, if you aren’t saved, that’s where you go, right? That’s what Preacher Rob said.”

She stands back up. “You’d better talk with your parents about that. Schick.” Her feigned giddiness vaporized, she looks off into the bordering wood. With all her makeup, she reminds me of a sad clown. “Schick. Well, I’m terribly sorry,” she says, and we watch her walk back into the crowd. Then we run behind the walnut tree and laugh until tears glisten on our cheeks.

I woke and found myself sitting up in Orson’s bed, pressing the Glock against my temple. Nothing surprised me anymore. Sliding out from under the fleece blanket, I walked into the living room, the gun at my side. Without the warmth of the kerosene heater, the cabin had cooled again, and I bent down to punch the electric starter, when something curdled my blood: I recalled the dream and the woman’s queer nervous tic: schick, schick, schick. Instead of lighting the heater as I’d intended, I unlocked the dead bolt and cracked the front door. Subzero night air deluged the cabin.