2.
 One late morning a state trooper wearing a cowboy hat followed with wailing sirens and flashing lights. It was a hot day, dry, in the alluvial New Mexico flood plain in which no ocean had stewed with its megasharks and dinofish in a hundred million years. Sunlight beat down with a silent force whose inconsequential content could bleach a folded newspaper in half an hour, a watercolor of Paris quais in half a day, a crocheted pillow showing birds and flowers and simpering maidens in three days. Korinta showed him her papers as she waited by the side of the road. She turned the twanging music, with its slide guitar, down but not off. Sweat beaded on her upper lip, and she tapped her hand nervously on the windowsill of the car. Walking slowly, the sheriff returned waving her documents. His heavy black gun swung stiffly in its leather holster, and his cowboy boots crunched on gravel. Korinta waited with anxiously hopping knee. The policeman leaned over as he handed the papers back. “Are you aware that you have a flickering right taillight?”
“A what?” Terror shot through her gut. What if he found Sparto?
“Taillight, Ma’am. Get out and I’ll show you.”
She sat frozen, staring at him. She thought of Sparto’s gun under the seat.
He slowly pulled down his shining sunglasses. “I said, Ma’am, I’d like you to get out so I can show you.” He had small yellow teeth and one brown one. His spit glistened on the brown one, and he turned his head to one side for a second, emitting a squirt of brown liquid. “Otherwise I’ll have to write you a ticket.”
“That won’t be necessary,” she said quickly, pushing the door open.
He noticed the flutter of her hands but said nothing. Why? Could he not smell her fear, the sweat lying in her dusty pores, the road grime in her long blonde hair tied back in a pony tail? He wore brown leather gloves and stood with his thumbs hooked in his gunbelt as she got out. The glasses were back up under his eyebrows, and she didn’t see his eyes, only a reflection of her own slender figure in white slacks and airy blouse with pastel block prints as she climbed out. It was good to walk after her long sitting, and she followed him stiffly around the car. She was taking a chance, she knew, but this vulnerability was her best defense. “See here?” He spat again to one side, without manners or apology. He pointed with a leather-covered finger. “That’s the one. Stay here, and I’ll show you.”
She did as she was told, standing with arms folded, not even pulling her kerchief up from around her neck to cover her head from the blasting sun. The sheriff, on the other hand, had no doubt grown up in this area and seemed to be baked of the same tough material as the adobe walls that occasionally lined cliffsides in this part of the country. Chewing unhurriedly, he walked around the side of the car as if he owned the road, the desert, the whole world. Nobody was arguing the point, anyway. “There!” she heard him say. The row of red lights came on and sure enough, the middle one in the right bar flickered.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You get that fixed at the next opportunity,” he said.
“Yessir. Thank you.”
“I see from your papers you are from New York. Where are you headed, Ma’am? California?”
“Actually, I’m just headed a few miles from here, to the Western Sunset Arroyo Motel.”
He froze. “The what?”
She repeated the name. “They seem to employ retarded people there, and do a lot of other good things.”
“Oh, now,” he said with a slight objection in his tone, “we think of them as otherwise-abled in these parts.”
“Sorry. That’s what I meant.” She almost laughed, suddenly realizing he wasn’t entirely made of leather and gun oil, though his right hand in its glove always seemed to hover near the welcoming grip of the nine millimeter police special on his hip.
“Not going to California, eh? Most everyone coming through here just keeps on going.”
“Yes, well I’m a journalist and a painter. I’m killing two birds with one stone.” She hoped that wasn’t a politically incorrect metaphor. Damn, she’d have to get a yokel cop who read leftwing editorial columns, from the look of things. “I’m going to do a story on their good deeds, like the way they recycle trash and use low-impact washing methods for their towels and sheets, in addition to having otherly-enabled chambermaids.”
He took off his glasses, revealing clean white eyes and sensitive brown sclera. “And you’re going to paint them?”
She laughed this time. He did have a nice smile, despite the horrid chaw. But then she was used to Sparto’s habits—he was a cigarette junkie. “No, I’m going to paint the beautiful sunsets and the mountains. We just have a lot of trees back in the northeast. Making a vacation of it. Why not?”
“I was in Boston once,” he ventured. “I went to visit my sister in college there, and I took the bus down through New York City where I flew back here. All in all, I’ll let you keep the trees. I like it here, scorpions and snakes and all.”
“I might just paint you too if you’re not careful,” she said. “Can I snap your photo?”
“No Ma’am.”
“Oh come on.”
“It’s against regulations. Okay, just one.”
She skipped merrily to the back window, reached in, and pulled out her Leica with its tie-died strap. He never flinched, apparently never thinking she might pull out a shotgun or something, though of course his hand never strayed far from that deadly grip and he remained fully in control of all that he, by virtue of the authority vested in him by the people and the state of New Mexico, surveyed as he took all the time in the world to flirt subtly with an attractive New England blonde with blue eyes, a thin face, and small but full lips accented with a glossy pink Factor shade right out of Macy’s.
He posed graciously, standing loosely with his arms at his sides and his feet slightly apart. “What’s your name?” she asked while aiming.
“John Lance, Ma’am. Korinta.”
She held the camera steady, centering him. He knew her name from her papers. “You must meet some nice single women this way, John,” she said brightly.
He grinned. “I take it steady and slow, Ma’am. Sometimes you meet a friend or two. It happens even here.”
She thanked him. He tipped his hat, satisfied. “I’ve kept you long enough, Ma’am. Travel safely.”
“Thanks.”
Relieved, she glanced in the rear view mirror from time to time. He and his car stayed by the side of the road and dwindled quickly from view.
|
Thank you for reading. If you love it, tell your friends. Please post a favorable review at Amazon, Good Reads, and other online resources. If you want to thank the author, you may also buy a copy for the low price of a cup of coffee. It's called Read-a-Latte: similar (or lower) price as a latte at your favorite coffeeshop, but the book lasts forever while the beverage is quickly gone. Thank you (JTC).
|
TOP
|
MAIN
Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
|
