Josh Stallings - Out There Bad

After depositing her booty into her rucksack, Mikayla spoke to the travelers. Rising, they solemnly shook her hand and moved to the truck. Piling in, they started out across the valley, heading toward America. None had even looked at me, I think they were afraid I might go crazy and kill them. They had mistaken my size for danger and Mikayla’s gender for kindness. Or maybe they had seen the truth in us.

Cleaning my prints off the pistol, I tossed it out into the dark landscape. The bandits hadn’t offered up any arms smaller than a rifle, and I didn’t think the highway patrol would look too kindly on my strapping one of them on my back. I hated the idea of traveling without firepower, but I had no choice. Mikayla was placing her tarot cards on the bodies when I discovered that bullets had punctured her bike’s gas tank and shattered the carburetor. “Maybe we should have taken the truck,” I said.

“They needed it more than us.”

“Whatever you say, Mother Mikayla.” Against her will, she smiled slightly at my nickname. She arched an eyebrow at me when I slipped the tequila into her rucksack, but she didn’t say anything.

Climbing on behind me, she wrapped her arms around my waist. I didn’t bother cloaking the light, speed was what was needed now. I wanted to put as many miles between us and the dead men as quickly as possible. I wasn’t really worried about the cops, these hills were scattered with the bones of dead travelers. Reporting a body meant paperwork and one more unsolved case on the books. Most of the fallen lay where they died. Coyotes and vultures would feed off the carrion and the circle of life would continue to spin.

Mikayla was the perfect passenger, she crushed her body into my back, bending when I did, shifting her weight along with mine. The warmth of her breath moved across the back of my neck where her face was pressed. It was nice to feel her there, not that I had much time to think on it, all my concentration was used to keep us on the track while I blasted us across the valley floor.

A half mile up the mountain, we passed the pickup. In the back, the young mother watched me. Her flat Indian face was solid and strong, her eyes held neither gratitude nor fear for me. I was simply one more event in her short, long life. Something in her strength and way she held the child to her made me glad she was coming to my home country. We needed more like her, people with the will to survive the hard strange days our country seemed destined for. Greed and dishonor were tearing at the bones of America and if we had any hope, it would come from women like this solid mother who would risk so much for so little. In my head, I could hear Bono singing about climbing mountains and searching for that unfound dream. I hoped these travelers would find what they were looking for.

An hour later, we were down in the far southern corner of Anza-Borrego National Park land. We had made it to US soil and although the Border Patrol worked the area, two Anglos on a dirt bike wouldn’t raise their suspicions, even looking like we did. The desert was used to freaks, hell it collected them. The temperature had dropped below freezing when I rolled to a stop and leaned against a Joshua tree’s rough bark.

“Give me that tequila,” I said to Mikayla.

“You sure this is the time? We aren’t home yet.”

“We’re never home, you and me.” I twisted the cap off, the smell screamed drink me. Peeling my shirt off my shoulder, it took a good hunk of scab and flesh with it. I clenched my jaw to keep from yelling. Pouring the tequila onto the wound set it on fire.

“Here.” Mikayla handed me a clean pair of cotton underpants, granny panties as the strippers called them. “If you don’t scrub it, it will fester.” She didn’t offer to help me. If I had asked her to, I’m sure she would have, but to offer would have said she didn’t think I could handle my own problems. It was a sign of respect, not a dismissal of my pain.

I don’t know which was worse, cleaning the wound or not drinking the tequila. Mikayla handed me her last clean shirt to tear into a makeshift bandage. Laying down with her ruck sack as a pillow, she smoked, looking up into the sky. It was late, the thought of any more jostling miles that night seemed impossible. We agreed to sleep until sun up and then head for Joshua Tree, take the desert and avoid the San Diego border patrol check points.

Sitting against the tree trunk, I looked up at the star glutted sky. It was a carpet of pinpoints, those stars felt so close I thought I could reach out and touch them. The cold was biting, but at least I wasn’t on that damn bike.

“Come here,” Mikayla’s voice was soft, almost gentle. “Lay down beside me, body warmth will keep us from freezing.” I knew she was letting me closer than any man in many years. I was honored and also thankful for the warmth as she pulled close to me. I draped the poncho over us and we shared her rucksack pillow. Tilting my face so that we were nose to nose I ran my finger over her scar. I don’t know where I got the courage to touch her in such a personal way. Maybe it was exhaustion, or maybe it was the softening in her eyes. I felt her body tense when I touched her, but she didn’t pull away.

“Who did this to you?” I whispered.

“I did.” Her voice was so soft that even in the silent desert night I had to strain to hear her. “In one summer, fourteen girls were taken from my village, taken to be sold as prostitutes. The men came with guns and KGB badges. Anyone who stood in their way was killed. They took my only sister, my father tried to stop them. He died that night. They only wanted pretty girls, so I made myself ugly.” Lifting her shirt, she showed me her bare chest. She closed her eyes, unable to watch me seeing her shame. A long jagged scar ran from her collarbone down to where her left breast had been. The scar spider webbed where her nipple should have been. “I nearly bled to death before the doctor could repair what I had done.” She shivered from more than cold as I traced the scar tissue. Her right breast was small and perfect, I wanted to kiss it, lick her pink erect nipple. I pulled her shirt down and pulled her closer.

Rolling onto her side, she spooned into me, pulling my arm around her. We drifted off to sleep like that. It was the first time in many moons that I wasn’t wracked by my bad dreams. Somehow she made me feel both safe and protective at the same time. With my arms around this strange damaged killer, I felt as if I wasn’t a bad man or a good man, I just was.

In the gray predawn, I awoke. Mikayla was sleeping in my arms. The desert stretched out around us, empty and peaceful. The pain in my shoulder had subsided into a dull ache. When I moved my arm, Mikayla snapped into consciousness. She popped her elbow back, catching me in the bridge of my nose. Rolling away, she leapt up ready to fight me.

“Whoa, Killer, it’s me, Moses. Remember?” I felt the warm trickle of blood flowing from my nostrils.

“Oh, no.” She looked at what she had done.

“Forget it.”

“I thought…” She let it hang in the air, unfinished.

“Been broken before, but never by so pretty a lady.” She looked away, stung by the compliment. The softness that had overtaken her at night was gone, her shields were up now. She looked out across the barren desertscape, her back to me.

Standing, I stretched to loosen the kinks the hard ground had given me. Wiping my face on my shirtsleeve, I removed the blood.

“Let’s ride.” I kicked over the bike. Mikayla climbed on behind me, pulling herself close.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered into my ear as I took off.

We dumped the bike outside of Twentynine Palms. It wasn’t street-legal, and it was hot. Not a good combination if we wanted a casual entrance into LA. We bought two tickets on the next bus to Los Angeles, and spent the next hour in a small diner eating steaks and eggs, and sharing a pot of coffee. We didn’t talk about the night before, her scars, the tenderness I felt for her. We ate instead in silence.