Gasoline and Matches: A Lyndy Martinez Story, Part-14
Joshua Tree Ca, CA 1990s
Lyndy Life Observation: Quick health-related check, does the name Spudz Makenzie mean anything to you? If that’s not ringing any bells, then you’re probably too young so keep reading. If you answered yes—uh oh—it might be time for a shingles vaccine and to schedule that colonoscopy you’ve been putting off.
Lyndy lifted her sunglasses a notch, admiring whimsical peach-colored rock formations emerging from the land like breaching whales turned to stone mid-flight. Surrounding them were the namesake Joshua trees, a fascinating species with twisting limbs tipped by dagger shaped green leaves. Beyond this, high cirrus drifted across a cobalt sky, forming a postcard backdrop.
In her youth she remembered scampering up and down these rock formations like a baby mountain goat. Nary a concern in the world. Or camping under the stars with Kyle, laying side by side and marveling at shooting stars. That was when Lyndy was in her early twenties. But she hadn’t been back to the national park in ages. She missed it.
These days her knees wouldn’t let her be so reckless, particularly with a baby in a sling clutched tight against one’s chest.
Convincing Kyle she needed a night of camping in the desert to feel alive, had been a bit of a bargaining exercise. He seemed skeptical of the sudden plan, wondering about Lyndy’s underlying motives. Especially since she hadn’t mentioned it until after the Labor Day party. But Lyndy assured him she and Jackie were only planning a one-night excursion.
A cozy campfire. A little stargazing, and then back the next day. Simple.
By the look on his face, Kyle knew something was fishy. Nevertheless, following a shrug and a trademark eyeroll, he finally agreed, saying: “Okay, if it’ll make you happy.” After which Lyndy kissed him on the cheek.
Only thing she couldn’t do was convince Kyle to watch the baby, hence the bargaining. He balked at the idea, encouraging Lyndy to take their daughter with her since he had to work. Litigating this any further risked blowing the entire operation, so Lyndy packed up her baby stuff in the Land Rover SUV, nestled Mari in her car seat and headed out east to meet Jackie Cordray. She’d dressed in her “fashionable” mom overalls too.
Mari slept well, cause the big SUV had powerful AC and a cushy highway ride. As soon as it stopped though, the whimpering would follow.
Getting a camping spot was the next issue. Of course, when they arrived nearly all the best National Park spots were taken, including number 9. The fact a girl recently disappeared here hadn’t vexed the occupants. The young couple at the site owned one of those Euro vans with a pop-up camper attachment, not needing all the space the location offered. But this didn’t seem to matter, since they’d paid for the whole thing.
The campground itself was mostly laid out atop soft sand, making hiking through it with a baby strapped to your chest a bit of a slog. But all along the eastern perimeter stood a curtain of solid pink granite—technically white tank monzogranite. This looming formation provided a scenic backdrop for the most coveted camping spots. For climbers they came with the added benefit of easy access to the bouldering routes.
Tucked among the sprawling formations giving this park its iconic look, were plunging fissures. Some held water, even in dry years. Some pockets sheltered rare plants, providing shade for animals like Bighorns. They weren’t traditional slot canyons, rather they were cracks shaped as the rocks were in the process of cooling. Now filled in partially with sand, they were more like fractures in the formation.
Jackie explained how teams of volunteers spent weeks scouring these, with no evidence of Sabina—not even a fragment of clothing. Given the vastness of the park, the fact that their search was fruitless didn’t mean much. One could spend a lifetime exploring this park. Still, it was strange.
Having been here before Jackie was able to show Lyndy around places they already searched for her daughter. At the intersection with the main road, they lingered. Here beside the entrance to the campground, the shoulder was smooth and graded. Perhaps in darkness, during the early morning hours, Sabina stumbled here. Then what? In a rash decision, she thumbed it, catching a ride with a stranger driving at night? Rash behavior, but plausible.
Though suitable only for rock climbers and goats, Lyndy and Jackie studied the north facing side of the prominence. They spoke of possibilities on foot. Looping back to where they left the SUV next, they found the southern end of the formation tapering off more gently. Here the pinkish slab was sloping mildly enough one could scramble atop without the need for ropes or other climbing equipment. With sturdy hiking shoes and sound footing, Lyndy was easily able to ascend, even with a growing baby mounted to her abdomen.
Jackie picked a route, and sometimes with her wrists supporting her, Lyndy continued trekking to the center spine of the immense formation. She wondered if Sabina had come this way too, hoping for a view of the park. She felt the growing sense of height—a tingling in the extremities—and yet the expanding view, better with every five steps.
Pausing atop the granite backbone, Lyndy relished the breeze on her skin and squinted at the sun. She adjusted her visor, following the nimble Jackie higher, to the northern apex. From there the scenery stretched in all directions, showing the vastness of this desert land and the distant borders of the park.
Of course, not long after, the baby began to whimper.
Bracing on her knees, Lyndy shouted to Jackie: “Wait, I need a break.” She exhaled a defeated sigh. “Mari is crying like always,” muttered the Spitfire.
Lyndy scouted a few yards further for a reasonable place to rest. As she breathed, many scents were tickling her nose. None indicated a diaper change, thank goodness. Rather, the air smelled like moist dirt. Lifting her sunglasses and perching them in her hair, Lyndy rubbed her eyes. Solution pockets sculpted over centuries by windblown sand, formed bubble-lick spherical voids in the otherwise smooth sloping rock.
Locating a flat section beside the largest of these pockets, Lyndy scraped away pebbles for a place to sit. She untucked Mari from the carrier—baby crying big tears the whole time—and checked her for a poopy diaper anyway. Still dry. Adjusting her weight carefully so as not to tip over, Lyndy took a seat on the level ground, folding her legs in a butterfly position.
She’d been fretting about her life with Kyle all morning. She’d rather be concentrating on helping Jackie, but couldn’t shake an image of that makeup glitter she’d scraped from his work shirt. Lyndy signed again. This didn’t seem an appropriate topic to bring up. Not yet.
Next, Lyndy plucked a squeezable packet of baby food from the front pocket of her overalls. She had a small wooden spoon. The label indicated carrots. With a small wooden spoon, Lyndy attempted to get the baby to eat.
Soon Jackie joined her, dashing back across the spine of the rock, arriving out of breath where Lyndy was sitting. Quietly Jackie gazed off toward the west, where cars were snaking along the main park road. Though neither of them spoke, Mrs. Cordray began to focus on the campground entrance. Above the sound of the crying baby, Lyndy thought she heard the sputtering of a cabover diesel, with a whining turbo atop spinning rotten bearings. That sort of old-fashioned rig would be an odd choice to bring to a national park. While the baby refused food and Lyndy waited—gripping the flimsy spoon—she also began to gaze in the same direction.
It took a moment to process the gravity; her subconscious perceived a threat before she could articulate it. Her chest began tightening. Nearby Jackie fanned herself, sipping from a water bottle and scanning the horizon.
Oddly, three black cars, a cabover diesel Tug and a tow truck were traveling in a row. As this caravan came to the entrance of the campground, the lead vehicle, a black BMW made a hard turn into the access road. The other vehicles followed suit. The next in line also happened to be a BMW, like the one Principal Dalton drove.
Jackie adjusted her stance, bracing against a gust of wind and watching the parade of cars. Lyndy re-capped the baby food. Using one arm to help steady, she rose to a standing position. She still cradled the baby in her other arm.
Lyndy pushed her curly hair back as her heart beat faster and faster. She stood with the wind blowing, squinting in the direction of the bright sun. Mari ceased crying, just as the slow realization was washing over them. Without uttering a word, Lyndy and Jackie watched the cars come to a stop near the Land Rover SUV.
The first BMW in line parked behind the Land Rover, touching the bumper. The driver stepped out. Even from afar, he looked a lot like the bellicose man Sergei. Standing by the door, he bent over reaching for something on the passenger seat. He then retrieved a long black gun; she didn’t need to see up close to presume he was holding a Kalashnikov. Given their last encounter, not surprising he would be hopping mad at his humiliating loss. Even that was a bit of an understatement.
The next to step out was a female, piloting the second BMW. Though impossible to confirm, Lyndy guessed the ID of the woman: Miss Dalton. She was also holding a firearm.
By now, commotion was spreading. Happy campers began crying out, fleeing from the campground in all directions.
As Jackie turned to face her, Lyndy met her gaze.
“How did they know we were here?” questioned Jackie.
Lyndy wondered the same. Still, of all the questions flooding her thoughts, Lyndy felt there was a higher priority one to be answered: “How do we not die today?”
Then a realization clicked in place. The Range Rover SUV; of course they were tracking it. Made sense, as they knew where she lived. Or at least, Miss Dalton did. They’d fixed a tracker on that thing. That’s how they knew she was coming this time. She decided it wasn’t worth wasting time imparting this detail to Jackie.
Crouching as low as possible, Lyndy beckoned Jackie to follow. They scooted across the hump-like formation, while keeping their heads low. More solution pockets were scattered throughout the pink sandstone, like Swiss cheese. In order to avoid these, sometimes it was sufficient to make a small leap, but other times it was necessary for Lyndy to skirt around them. The baby—now fully crying—made it difficult to balance. Not to mention her heart was pounding.
Moving easterly, Lyndy breathed hard. This side of the formation faced away from the parking lot, outward from civilization and to the vast desert.
Jackie had a harder time keeping up than Lyndy hoped, in part due to panicked breathing. Lyndy couldn’t allow herself to lose focus. She tried to recall fine details from each of the paintings Tigerlilly showed her. Thankfully she remembered the crevice in the rocks, a walled slot—and especially the burrow. The features were dim primarily due to the tight slot, but shafts of sunlight penetrated. Though not everything made sense, more and more elements were clicking into place. Plainly, Tigerlilly was never the evil mastermind; in fact, she was doing her best to help Lyndy in the only way she knew how.
At last, The Spitfire located the moist area from the first painting. Though it was desert, a thin layer of green had accumulated here, carpeting the soil a dim shade of olive drab. The dirt supported additional biomass, a mixing of sand, moss and decaying flora. She got the sense during wet years or after rain events like summer squalls, water would pool enough for animals to drink. Indeed, hints of animal tracks crisscrossed the ground. These included the double hoof impressions of desert bighorns. They were onto something.
Dashing while using her elbows to brush aside creosote and cat claw, Lyndy felt the skin on her arms being scratched. But she didn’t dare slow her pace. A few lacerations were nothing compared to what the men hunting them would do.
By now she could hear shouts and hollers. The assailants were beginning to scale the formations. Within minutes, they would overtake the spot where they first spotted her and Jackie. Yet the outline of a plan was forming in Lyndy’s mind. It helped to push down some of the worry and panic. Jackie thrashed behind, trying to keep up.
Ahead, Lyndy sighted the thing she’d been hoping to discover here. From a distance, it looked like a burrow—the kind a fox or perhaps a colony of marmots would dig high on some hillside. Except coming closer, she could see its diameter was larger than any animal like that would require. The burrow was large enough for a mountain lion to sleep, or a small bear to hibernate. Speaking of the latter, there were no bears in these parts. Mountain lions yes.
Plus, Lyndy detected something of greater importance. There were partial imprints of boots. Humans had been here. The reason this thing remained hidden, was precisely because it looked nothing like a cave or a mine entrance. It looked only like an animal den, meaning anyone searching for relics might pass by and never know its true origin. And what hiker wanted to disturb a sleeping mountain lion? Plus, the thing was surrounded in damp soil, and even ferns clung to the sides of the rocks.
Jackie arrived out of breath. Without speaking, Lyndy gestured to the hole.
“That?” Jackie mouthed.
Lyndy nodded. “We’ll have to dig a little.” She mimed a tunneling action with her hands. Being quiet wasn’t so much a protection thing, as it was rather hard to hear above the crying baby.
“With what?”
Lyndy made a frustrated face. “Our hands Jackie. Our hands!”
The Spitfire felt certain this was the entrance to an underground passageway depicted in Tigerlilly’s series of paintings. Crouching down, she started pawing like a kid in a sandbox.
“Here’s what you’re gonna do,” Lyndy commanded. “Jackie, you’ll crawl in first and turn around. Then I’ll pass the baby through to you.”
Jackie shrugged, looking as though she wanted to protest. “But …”
“Or we can die,” said Lyndy. “These are your choices.”
Apple valley, CA 1990s
Lyndy Life Observation: Watching a holiday gingerbread building competition on the TV food network, and the names of the people on the screen are like: Mary Sue, Professional Gingerbread Architect. I’m like, “what in the world?”
Perspiration mixing with unknown automotive fluids, trickled slowly from her temples, threatening to cloud her eyesight. A drip or two also touched Debbie’s lips, and though she had them locked tightly together, a sour, burnt taste somehow stung her tongue. The taste affected her nose and she grimaced. It also made her want to sneeze.
While Debbie worked on loosening the transmission, the same chemical brew beaded and pooled across her upper sternum, right between her girls; boob sweat was Debbie’s least favorite type.
She squinted, pressing with every arm muscle fiber she could summon short of tearing a rotator cuff. Until THUNK! The stupid wrench slipped again—an off brand—in the process bashing her knuckles and rounding the corner of a stubborn bolt fastened sometime in the 1950s, and never removed. There were sixteen of these buggers holding the transmission cover in place.
Debbie groaned, too out of breath to utter any sort of profanity. She let both arms fall dramatically to her sides, including her right wrist holding the box-end wrench. Her chest rose and fell, a combination of exhaustion punctuated by pure frustration.
Maybe she’d never leave this place? Maybe it was purgatory? Maybe she died already and didn’t know. These thoughts had crossed Debbie’s mind.
After half a minute’s rest, she felt strong enough to hold out her watch, pressing the little LED button on the digital display to check the time. Half past midnight.
Debbie exhaled, wiping a forearm across her head, sopping up the dirty sweat. Hijole! She knew she was losing an ability to concentrate—the slightest inconvenience burned in her cerebellum.
She also hadn’t eaten a solid meal in over 16 hours; emptiness in Debbie’s stomach had begun taking its toll. It growled and gurgled like an angry hippopotamus. Only a Double-Double and vanilla shake could satisfy this kind of craving. Sadly, the crossed palm trees were impossibly far.
Now that she wasn’t straining so much, an odd repetitive sound tickled her ear drums. It had been monotonous enough to ignore previously. Now it made her curious. It sounded like someone … sweeping? Like someone with a fibrous sorghum broom dusting off a porch.
What the heck?
Squeezing her thighs as a brace, then digging in her heels, Debbie scooted out from beneath the Bronco. Rotating onto her knees, she stood up, yawning into to her hand. Gazing to the house, she observed a bluish glow. A light was on, but how? She’d been told the power was non-existent.
Needing to investigate, Debbie stretched one shoulder across her torso, then the other, remembering what the old geezer had said before disappearing into his cabin for the night. He mentioned a stack of military rations, collecting dust on the service porch. Enticing.
Debbie set aside the crescent wrench, a screwdriver and half-dozen other tools. She rested them atop a cloth blanket, so as not to lose them in the sand. Next, she reached down to pick up the storm lantern. With its flickering yellow lifeline of a flame in one hand, Debbie marched toward the homestead.
At the porch, she saw the hunched over profile of the old man. Miraculously a single outdoor light glowed blue-green from above. It reminded Debbie of a cartoonish alien tractor beam. In his hands, the old man held a broom, busily sweeping away the day’s accumulated sand. Before opening her mouth to speak, Debbie lifted a finger. She had a list of questions cycling through her brain like a tape register, but hesitated, not knowing which to ask first.
The old geezer spoke first: “LADY BUGS!” he grunted.
Debbie blinked, taking a few steps toward the porch. “Uh … what?”
“Ladybugs,” he grunted again, pointing with the broom. “Whole mess of em.”
The correct response to that didn’t come. After a beat and slow exhale, Debbie shook her head. She then marched up the stairs. “Dude, I didn’t know this old cabin had electricity. I thought the power was cut?”
Holding out one of his wrinkled hands, with a pronounced tremor, the old guy set an index finger against the decayed railing. Brushing his finger across this, he picked up a series of insects. Moving into the light—so near she could smell him—Debbie leaned forward. Indeed, they were ladybugs.
“Oh yeah, they seek out water by smell. They’re licking dew off the railing I bet,” Debbie surmised. “That’s why they’re here. For us, there’s hardly enough to wet our lips, but for them this is a bonanza.”
He gazed at Debbie, with a haze of cataracts across both eyes. “Patty loved ladybugs,” he announced, in a loud, but raspy tone.
“Is that so?” Debbie replied.
He didn’t exactly smile, as his muscles seemed frozen and incapable, but he managed a somewhat friendly grin. “Oh hey, do ya want an MRE?” With his broom, the fellow pointed to a disintegrating, rat-chewed box festooned with military lettering, containing stacked MRE’s. By the flaking label, she could tell they were intended for use during the Gulf War—George Bush numero uno. There were roughly fifty in total. Debbie undid the flaps, letting out a sigh.
Here’s a question: Which would you prefer? A frozen burrito from a gas station, or an MRE. Probably the burrito from a gas station.
Debbie was so hungry, she could eat an MRE.
Raising the lantern over her head to better decipher the printed labels, Debbie began rummaging through the pile. The available flavor choices were pitiful: “Chicken al la King”, widely regarded as the worst of the worst, frequently referred to as chicken a la muerto. Then there was “Cincinnati Chilli”. Gag. Even real Cincinnati Chilli was a gag fest. “Cheese and Veggie omelet”. Gag. They used to call that the “vomulet” for short. “Frankfurters”. Double gag. They called that one the five fingers of death.
“The peperoni pizza ones are the best,” declared the man, shuffling off. “But I already ate those.”
Because of course the halfway edible ones, e.g. peperoni pizza were already taken. “Ay dios mio,” grumbled Debbie, stealing one of Lyndy’s favorite phrases. “We need to fix your stove.”
She perched the lantern on the rail.
Taking a seat on the front steps, she gazed out at the Desert, resigning herself to Cincinnati Chilli. “Damn you, Cincinnati,” she thought. First the Bengals and now this. These MREs came with a little heating bag.
