Chapter 2
The sun was an oval furnace in the sky over the desert The sparse scrubbery on the sands, dry in the bleakness of the vast wasteland, was shrouded with the color of death; gray with the haze of heat shimmering without end.
There was only one sign of life in all that unlimited inferno of sand and sky and heat. A beat-up pickup truck made its way along the furrowed road, steam hissing from its overworked radiator, the wheels wobbling down the ruts and leaving a cloud of sand in its wake.
Two men were inside the cab of the truck. The driver, Barny Jonas, a shaggy-haired, weather-beaten old timer, was worried as he narrowed his eyes against the glare of sun and sand.
"Hope we can make it to the next gas station. This damned heat's usin' up water like nuthin' ever seen."
"I sort of like it," said the man beside him.
"Like it?" Barny exclaimed in disbelief. He cocked an eyebrow at the other. "This is desert, mister, and this is hot In other words, it ain't nothin' but hell."
His companion's eyes darted about the flat landscape, drinking it all in eagerly.
"It's so empty," he said softly.
"That's it, buster-empty."
"It's like another planet, an empty world. There's nobody in it but us."
Barny Jonas shook his head. "Guess it takes all kinds. This is the first time you been in the desert?"
"The first time." The man barely moved his lips as he talked. It was as if he were in a pleasant sensual dream.
"No wonder. I been back and forth over this sand trap for more'n half my life. And I never got to like it. But I guess it takes all kinds, eh?"
"I'm from a large city," said the other. "And no matter where you go there, you're never alone. Mobs all the time. They see everything you do." He bit his chapped lips. "You get the feeling that someone's looking at you all the time. This is so different, it's unbelievable. Nobody's watching."
Barny Jonas grunted. There was no accounting for city people. They got dreamy and goggle-eyed, like this slicker beside him; some carrying cameras all the time, shooting everything they saw like it was something freakish.
His boy wasn't at all like that, thank goodness. Ike took pictures of people-that was his work-and they paid for it. Ike knew how to get nice shadowy effects, the kind folks liked. He'd hide their bad features and bring out their best. This made them feel good and they'd order a lot of photos and recommend him to their friends.
Of course, Barny would rather have Ike's help on the ranch but the boy had other ideas of what he wanted to do with his life and now his life was in Las Vegas.
Barny Jonas glowed inwardly with the thought of seeing his boy again after over a month. Ike had left a case of camera supplies with his father when he had gone to the ranch for a vacation. Now he needed the stuff and Barny was taking it to him all the way from down state.
He had picked up the hitchhiker just a little ways from the ranch, glad for the chance to have company on the long drive across the desert. Of course, he had studied the fellow carefully before he decided to pick him up.
The hitchhiker was short and thin with a head that seemed too big for his body. His cheekbones were high and wide, so much so that they seemed to make his small, narrow chin come to a point. The eyebrows thick and black, were a straight line over black eyes that were almost perfectly round, though small and set close together. His nose was of one piece with the fore part of his face, like that of an animal, and with a short upper lip dividing it from a poutish mouth, with the chin below it receding almost into his osterich-like neck.
The strange face, Barny reflected with some shame for thinking this, looked like that of a rat. And he knew he should not have had such an impression because the poor fellow looked so lost and helpless and frail standing beside the road and he had been so grateful and polite when Barny had taken him into the truck.
The two men had not exchanged names and this was to Barny's liking. It meant that the stranger was shy and minded his own business. Barny remained quiet and so did the hitchhiker, respecting the old man's silence.
The first time he spoke was when Barny made the comment about the heat affecting the water in the car. Barny, of course, had noticed the man staring at the scrubby desert waste and had seen his avid interest in an area that did nothing but bore Barny. He couldn't imagine what could excite the fellow so about so much sand and more sand.
"Yep," Barny repeated to himself, summing it all up, "it sure takes all kinds."
This city fellow was a loner, he figured, who wanted just to mind his own business and appreciated it when others minded theirs. That was what accounted for his saying that people always watched him in the big city. No wonder, then, that he enjoyed the loneliness of the desert.
"Damn!" Barny barked as the radiator sizzled and steamed more fiercely. "Guess I've gotta use up my reserve water."
"Reserve water?" asked his passenger, his eyes still on the wasteland.
"Yep." Barny brought the pickup to a stop. "Don't like to do it. I wanted to hold onto it as long as I could. The next station is over fifteen miles from here. Well!" He swung open the door on his side. "Might as well get to it."
"Can I help?" The stranger stepped out of the car.
"Why, thanks. You can get up in back if you want to and hand me down the can of water. It's under the canvas. My back ain't what it used to be."
The men and the pick-up were the only foreign objects in the many miles of desert. They had not seen another vehicle in over an hour. There had been a few jack rabbits long-hopping across the road, plenty of scurrying lizards, and once in a while, a buzzard gliding high in the brilliant sky as it searched the sand below.
Other than that, there was only the two of them, strangers to each other, together now in this desolation.
The hitchhiker lifted himself over the tailgate and into the body of the pick-up. There he stopped and stared down at the bundle covered by the tarpaulin. He was transfixed, unmoving, his hands clenched at his sides, the knuckles white with the pressure he exerted as he bunched his fists.
"Go ahead," Barny Jonas said, standing at the rear of the truck. "Just unloop that rope. The water can's right under it."
The rope....
The man stared at the thick twine that held the canvas tight His eyes rounded wildly and the pupils glowed like black marbles. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead, dampening the hair that was combed forward in bangs. His mouth was open as he fought to breathe, showing the spaces between his teeth.
"What's the matter?" Barny grinned. "Heat finally get to you?"
The stranger tried to swallow but couldn't.
There was a great dry lump in his throat. His gaze still spellbound by the sight of the rope, he reached for it. His hands were damp and trembling as he forced himself to touch the fibre.
"Nice and easy does it," Barny remarked. "No sense in rushing anything in this kind of weather."
No; no sense in rushing this. You've heard of this moment all your life. So enjoy it to the fullest. Such an opportunity may never come again in your lifetime. So savor it; drink in every possible instant of it.
Take your time....
When his hands finally touched the rope, he was shaking from head to toe. But he forced himself to grasp it and cleared it of the canvas. Then, still holding the rope, he yanked aside the covering with his free hand.
He saw a five-gallon water can, a spare tire, a set of tire chains, a large suitcase, a pail and a shovel.
"That's my son's photo outfit in that suitcase," said Barny with a touch of pride. "Can develop his own pictures and all."
The stranger leaned forward and picked up the shovel. His eyes were glazed now and his breathing was a harsh rasp. He seemed to move as if propelled by a hypnotic spell. Taking the shovel in his right hand, he left the fingers of the left rub the rough texture of the rope he was still holding.
Barny Jonas was a few feet away from the hitchhiker, standing at the tailgate of the truck and mopping his soaking brow with his forearm.
"Just take your time," said the old man. "No sence movin' fast in this heat. You can toss the shovel to one side. Use it when I'm stuck in this damned sand. It can get worse'n a snowdrift."
And then Barny Jonas stopped talking, stopped smiling, and he almost stopped breathing.
The stranger had swung around toward him, his face a mask of frozen horror. It was a wild face, the muscles taut with tension, the eyes wild, the mouth agape and drooling spittle.
The next instant the shovel swung in an arc, fast and hard, and struck the paralyzed old man squarely on the side of his face. He screamed and fell back, his face a mass of bleeding, lacerated flesh. The stranger was out of the truck in a bound. The rope was still in his hand and trailed him like a long, grey snake.
Stumbling, shocked with pain, Barny Jonas saw the shovel swing at him again. The blow landed full in the face, mashing it into pulp. He fell to the ground heavily and lay still.
The stranger straddled the body, his legs set wide apart to brace himself against the weakness and dizziness that overcame him. He looked up and down the road and ran his tongue over his dry lips when he still saw nothing but emptiness.
"Nobody sees you," he mumbled hoarsely. "You're all alone out here. It's another planet."
He threw the shovel back into the pick-up and looked at the rope still in his hand. Slowly, tenderly, humming softly to himself, he pulled the rest of the rope out of the truck and coiled it into loops. He took it around to the cab and laid it carefully on the seat.
Then he went back to Barny Jonas and bent over the old man.
"I hope he's not dead," he breathed. "I don't want him to die yet. There's nothing in it that way."
He pressed his ear against the old man's chest "Please don't be dead yet. This is the first time for me and it'd be a shame not to be able to really enjoy it. Don't die."
But he was so excited and breathing so heavily that he could not detect any breathing from the old man. He forced himself to calm down, taking long, deep breaths. Then he listened again and now he was sure he could hear a faint heartbeat. The sound of it was faint, but he could hear it all right.
"Oh, that's good! That's good! It would have been a shame, all of this wasted!"
He worked quickly now. He gathered the frail old body in his arms and laid it gently in the back of the truck. Then he covered it with the canvas.
There was blood on the sand and he took care of that by kicking the sand around until the stains were gone. In a few seconds the road looked as it always did.
He pulled out the water can and took care of the radiator. It hissed violently and he was afraid that he had poured the water in too soon, that the block would crack because of the shock of cold against extreme heat. But it worked out all right; the water was only lukewarm, and the engine kicked over without any trouble.
He drove along the road until he found a turnoff, one of the many that led to nowhere. The road marking was rough and vague but the pick-up made it without trouble. He kept going for about a mile to a spot where the tumbleweed and cactus was fairly heavy.
"This is good!" he whispered. "This is very good!"
He pulled the pick-up to some stunted Joshua trees and got out to look around. The road couldn't be seen from this spot, and he was sure that the pick-up was lost from view of the road, too. The vehicle was an old hap, its black paint dull, its chrome rusted. There was no chance that the sun could cast glints of light from it, and that helped keep it from being seen, too.
Now the excitement charged up the thumping of his heart again. He got out the coil of rope. Grasping it in his hands, he felt tingles of peas-ure in his stomach and groin. The excitement grew when o he lifted the old man out of the pick-up and onto the ground and tied up the body. He tied the wrists together at the back and then bent the legs back and tied the ankles to the knotted wrists.
He watched avidly as the rope cut into the flesh, sweat pouring out of every part of him, drool falling from his lips as he hummed softly, tunelessly.
And then, when it was all done, he sat back on the ground, his back against the rear wheel of the pick-up, and looked at the old man.
"Now die," he said softly. "Die while I watch you...."
Slowly, his frame began to twitch. He kept his eyes fixed on the trussed up Barny Jonas as the twitching increased and he was caught in a spasm. He embraced himself, wanting to feel the shaking that was overcoming him.
The violence increased; his legs twitched and kicked, his torso heaved, and his head vibrated as though it were caught in a charge of violent power.
"Die!" he cried. "Are you dying, old man! Die! And enjoy dying as I'm watching you ... as I enjoy watching you!"
The words poured out of his lips endlessly, ending in a meaningless babble as he was whirled into a fever of sensation. His eyes still riveted on the bound body of the old man, he felt a sudden explosion seize him, sky-rocketing his mind and flesh into a limbo of anguish and pleasure until he was beyond all sensation and felt nothing at all.
It was then, that, satiated at last, he collapsed, all energy and feeling gone, and slept.
Barny Jonas' eyes stared blankly and un-blinkingly into the great sky where a vulture soared and circled and waited.