Turned out to be a gun dealer who trapped eagles and tortoises for quick money. In the truck stop he told them he was a hunting guide. Scotty was an easy acquisition.Ĭlever Scotty. Angel's mom struck up a conversation at the lunch counter while they waited for their burgers. A ride they caught in Ontario let them off at a truck stop in Cabazon. When the truck was out of sight, she stood, shook her pants out, put them on, and resumed walking.įour months ago, Angel and her mom had been running from a guy named Jerry, another in a long string of abusive boyfriends picked with the accuracy of a heat-seeking missile. If anything, she would occasionally notice a knot of anger burning somewhere in her chest. Sorrow can make its own desert and Angel's tears dried a long time ago. She didn't pay any attention to the brief flood of sadness. She waited until he passed before looking up. She stepped out of her sweatpants, used them to erase her footprints as she scrabbled several yards from the track to flatten behind a creosote bush. In that quiet moment she heard the drone of Scotty's truck bucking terrain in compound low and found his line of dust on the horizon. She had walked twenty minutes or more when she stopped to slip off a shoe and shake out an annoying piece of gravel. Angel knew there was nothing north except cactus and yucca and tall scree ridges that bordered the California desert. Maybe she'd noticed that before she went into the trailer. The pickup tracks went north, away from the westbound dirt ruts that connected their squatter camp to Dillon Road. Wished she'd grabbed her daypack and taken the bread and a couple of water bottles. L ATER A NGEL WISHED SHE'D CHANGED CLOTHES, shed her robe and put on jeans and a jacket.
When she awakened at dawn, the truck was gone and the trailer was empty.
Sleeping outside was just one more thing that had to be done. Screened from night winds, cut off from the yelling and threats, Angel could nestle in her robe and watch the stars. When it didn't die down, Angel left the trailer to sleep nearby in a small draw where one of the drainage creases made a cradle. The fight started after midnight, Scotty drunk, Angel's mother shrill on crystal.
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