Days of Drought and Empire -- Chapter One (fiction excerpt)

 

It began last winter, one night up a canyon in southern Arizona. Ron Hausler decided to get out of town after a particularly trying semester at his college teaching job. The canyons south of Tucson had always been a tonic, a place where the misplaced jigsaw pieces of his life came back together, but this trip would not be the same as those others.

As his truck labored up the steep grade out of Cave Creek, its wheels slipping on the loose rocks, Ron tried to remember the route to the cave. Lugs dug, grabbed, and gained purchase in spite of incline. This old mining road doesn’t do anyone but the smugglers and banditos much good anymore he thought as the road finally leveled out and curved hard around a ridge. From here he could see across the tawny grasslands around Sonoita. The Mustang Mountains cut their odd ball profile against the sky, catching what was left of the winter sun.

Yes, he thought, it will be a long night. This is the solstice after all, the time between semesters when he could go out into the foothills of the Santa Rita Mountains and rest. He was looking forward to the quiet, the cold, the stars over the juniper fire. Likely a winter storm would hit, but he had shelter and fuel – much more than the poor migrants who passed through here in all seasons, dying from thirst, exposure, snakebite, broken hearts. The place has become a hell, he said out loud as he looked for a spot to park the truck. He would walk in to an old mine near a cave. There he could spend a couple of days beyond the schedules and the carping of university administrators, beyond the money, the rent, the needs of others. Ron knew too well how the momentum of the country had turned against the state schools. An idiot could see that Old Power knew universities were the last threat to the domestication of the American intellect, at least that’s the way he saw it. He felt he had to fight, to fight yet another lost cause. The fight had hardened him.

But here he felt the armor plates that weighed down on his heart began to lift. One by one, heavy as the copper ingots on flatbeds rolling out of the smelters, lifted not by cranes, but by distance, time, quiet, and above all the evacuation of the endless distraction of working life, they lifted off of him. He threw his shoulders back and circled them to drop the last plates of tension.

He threw on his pack and headed down a well-trafficked trail to a cow path that meandered into a copse of scrub oak along a deep canyon until it petered out, and finally to a boxed-in dead end, a bush-whack up an outcrop of hard limestone bedrock to the cave. From there he could see the sky, the upcoming lunar eclipse, and hear the great horned owls, and his own conscience. Only the last caused him much concern. He had a lot to atone for, but that was his business. A trail of deceits is nothing to be proud of, but he couldn’t help it.

It was fully dark by the time he arrived at his destination. The half moon was high in the sky, waxing. What did they call that again, he thought to himself. No longer crescent, what was it now? The light was not enough for fine work, nor did it help much beneath the roof of the cave. He turned on his head lamp and went about gathering wood for a fire. He found a flat spot inside the cave and spread his groundcloth, sleeping pad and bag. It would be cold, frost in the morning, so he unrolled an extra tarp over the bag.

Camp set, he lit the fire and turned off the lamp. Firelight was enough. He fashioned a chair out of rocks and set about attending to the fire, the sounds of the woods, the desert, the mountains. He let the spell of the place work its magic on him, as he began, slowy at first, to notice his surroundings. He read the sounds of wind whistling through the trees. He could hear the high pitched staccato buzzing of sycamore leaves down in the canyon. The pitch rose and fell with wind gusts. Oaks still held their leaves as well, but kept to themselves, a lower tone. Given the pitch and volume of the leaves, he knew there was something coming in, a cold front most likely, one of those monsters that comes roaring down the Pacific coast out of Alaska. The leaves were chattering. Then there was the softer whistling of the juniper needles. He also heard the nervous stamping of a deer as it caught his scent on its way down to the stream. The noise of its flight echoed through the canyon between the gusts, something a mountain lion would pick up on and follow.

His own movements became more pronounced and less hurried. He felt the weight of fatigue come over him, a desire to sit and rest and do nothing but stare at the fire. Sadness draped over his shoulders like a cloak. He felt it settle on him, something he did not have the luxury to indulge out there in the world of rent and schedules.

Where would this go, he wondered. Where would this go? He said it out loud: Rebecca. The name, an incantation, stirred his pulse, his groin. Damn. Why did he do it? Why carve the heart out of his chest and leave it beating in full sight of a woman he could never be with? Red, hot anger at himself flushed his veins. He swore softly. Pain, more pain. The withering familiarity of falling again. All for what? For comfort, of course, for even a brief release, a moment of forgetting. And there was the flood of raw life that that poured through him at the thought of her. The scientist in him called it the oxytocin rush; the man in him called in being on fire. His heart could reach and touch hers no matter the distance between or the obstacles in their path.

He poked angrily at the fire and added another dry, sharp branch. He could see the rosy heartwood as the flame licked the edges and began to dine on the succulent, hot juniper. It spat and hissed as the flame caressed the edges of the branch. That branch was forged in the fire of hot summers, was hardened by June days that crackled with dry heat. Now, here it was releasing that heat, payback for all the sunlight it had taken.

He let the smells of the fire take him away to other times, other places. The fire told him stories as it danced in front of him. He did not known how long he sat in reverie before drowsiness overtook him. Yes, so many memories, so many memories... He stood stiffly and made his way to his bed roll. He found comfort in the stillness and soon left the rising moon to trace its path without him.

It was late, so late the moon had dropped over the ridge, when he heard the gunshots and the shouting. The reports of automatic rifles echoed through the canyon. The shots were not far from him, but he could not make out the words in the shouting. An engine roared up the road below him. Then silence. He heard voices again below, but this time quieter, but no less urgent. Someone was hurt. That much he knew. More talking, another truck. Later, a helicopter, lights. Men were running through the woods, across the ridges, down trails. Under the moon, a chase, a hunt, cat and mouse. This was what the place had come to, he thought, a scramble for territory and control. It looked like the Border Patrol had stumbled into a drug deal or a smuggler or a group of bandidos. It was hard to keep track of things here now. So many players, so much desperation.

A truck revved its motor and sped off down the canyon road. Other trucks came and went. Then it was quiet again. He would find out what happened soon enough and it did not much concern him he thought. He fell asleep to the hoots of an owl.

Morning light came late. A storm had come in. Low clouds spit rain and gathered around the high peaks. Cold rain pelted the ground, blew the last leaves off the sycamores and slicked the rocks. He would stay sheltered today, tend the fire, read, and try to find some way to make sense of his ragged life. He did not like the forced confinement, but accepted it, settled in to it.

He extracted the journal from his pack and conjured up the words that might lead to a story that would then tie together some of the disparate lines of his discontent. His examination was ruthless, honest, and secret. The writing lifted some of the weight off his shoulders, sent some of the demons packing. He could see the day better, be more a part of it as the skies began to clear.

                                                  ***

He packed some water bottles and food, picked up his walking stick, and headed down the slope to the road. Manzanita branches grabbed at this jacket like the bony fingers of harpies as he made his way between the spiny barrel, prickly pear, cat-claw, and loose rock on the incline above the canyon floor.

He would find a trail he knew eventually, but for now, it was all winding through a maze of sharp spines, that tore at anything they came into contact with. He cleared branches out of his path with the stick and adjusted his glasses.

He found the trail and began the long ascent to the ridgeline, and the peak that dominated the valley. The low approach led through scrub oak, juniper, Manzanita, and the occasional yucca, but as he gained elevation pines began to line the trail. He liked the way the pack dug into his shoulders, the way the boots bit into the loose till of the trail. He could still maintain a good pace, not as fast as before, but long. He could go long and the pounding in his chest came measured, the breathing relaxed. He peeled off the jacket even though the air was cool and the breeze promised more of winter.

After the rain down lower, there would likely be snow near the top. No matter. The trail would most likely be passable. He noticed the detritus of migration along the trail. Even here, miles from the trailheads, there were the discards of people in a hurry, needing to travel light, desperate to keep moving – bottles, shoes, crumpled papers that had once served as insulation, torn packs, the ubiquitous baseball caps.

This was a blood trail he thought, a trail of tears and tenacity.

But now he walked alone, in quiet, except for the wind in his chest and that blowing over the ridge. He thought of other times on this trail, back when he was young, when flowers bloomed after a wet winter, and lady bugs swarmed all over the peak. It seemed like it would work out back then. Meredith had been happy, before the boys were born. So hard, then. Why had he felt the need to find comfort outside the marriage.

Yes, the questions, the questions. They go on and on. So many. Never answered, just mulled over, and over, like a rag that a dog chews on until it degrades into so many soggy threads that sink into the soil. But his questions have staying power and will not take no for an answer.

He sees bear scat in the trail. It’s a couple of days old and the tracks are faded but recognizable. “You go there, big guy,” he says out loud. It comforts him to know that the bear is here, somewhere.

He looks up to the peak. Not so far now. Ponderosa pines line the trail now. He can’t help but remember games of Capture the Flag in a park like this. Open ground, tall trees, and thin air. That was when the boys began to overtake him in their quickness and endurance. He tried to play their games, but it was now their time.

Instead of a green carpet, he walks through a charred wasteland. The fires came through here a few years ago. All of the sky islands, the cool, high peaks, that ring the basin, have burned. The heat and drought of climate change have cooked the highlands too. Species of cacti have migrated higher and higher and invasive grasses like the buffle grass have moved in. When they dry between rains, they are a fuel that, when ignited by a wild fire, will burn so hot that native species, like the saguaro, cannot endure.

The trail meets another that rises from the other side of the mountain. Here it becomes well-travelled and cleaner. He sees cheerful, fit yuppies from Tucson out for a day hike and date. Some of them run past him, their long, sleek legs exposed below high-tech running shorts. They are polite and beautiful, both men and women. Their bright colors, lithe bodies, and styled looks both attracted and irritated him. He kept to himself and walked in the cloud and gait of the curmudgeon.

On the summit, he ate and drank from the bottle. He remembered a time here on the bare pyramid of granite when he spent a summer night not so long ago. It was clear with stars and he could see the grids of light that Tucson traced across the valley to the north, copper mines to the west, more mountains and ridges to the east, the glow of Mexico to the south.

Now he looked toward Patagonia and saw the steady line of scrub and wildness that connected the rock on which he sat to the mountains of Mexico. He could see how the elusive trogon could make its way up into these canyons, how the occasional jaguar could push the envelopes of territory into the ranges east and west of where he sat. Hummingbirds, coati, javelina, jaguarundi – all of them pushing their range northward.

He could almost touch the pulse and urge of life pushing into new, unknown territories. It was tenacious, as tenacious as the javelina that wandered onto his front porch, fearless, hungry, feral, and tropical musk announcing their migratory persistence. Yes, they were coming too he thought. They would come in spite of the fences going up, the fear of the dark and tropical South. The retirement town beneath the mine to the east and its fearful threats would not stop the tide. He knew that all the assault weapons in the world, all of the retired landing mats in the world welded into barriers and fences would not stop them. Life finds a way, he said to himself.

A wind that carried the chill of evening reminded him that it was time to return, to descend. He shouldered his pack and as he picked up the staff he looked down the ridge he would travel. He began stiffly now the long walk back. It would be dark by the time he arrived. He would have to navigate by the growing half moon, and it came to him: a waxing, gibbous, solstice moon. It felt good to remember, to have those words. He walked under its light to his itinerant shelter.

What he did not yet know was that his shelter was no longer his alone.