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chapter forty-five ☄︎. *. ⋆
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WE RODE THE BOAR cross-country until sunset, which was much longer than my ass could handle. Imagine riding a giant steel brush over a bed of gravel all day; that's about as comfortable as boar-riding was.
I have no idea how many miles we covered, but the mountains faded into the distance and were replaced by miles of flat, dry land. The grass and scrub brush got sparser until we were galloping (do boars gallop?) across the desert.
As night fell, the boar came to a stop at a creek bed and snorted. He started drinking the muddy water, then ripped a saguaro cactus out of the ground and chewed it, needles and all.
"This is as far as he'll go," Grover said. "We need to get off while he's eating."
Nobody needed convincing. We slipped off the boar's back while he was busy ripping up cacti. Then we waddled away as best we could with our sore behinds.
After its third saguaro and another drink of muddy water (which I couldn't imagine was too yummy), the boar squealed and belched, then whirled around and galloped back toward the east.
"It likes the mountains better," Percy guessed.
"I can't blame it," Thalia said. "Look."
Ahead of us was a two-lane road half covered with sand. On the other side of the road was a cluster of buildings too small to be a town: a boarded-up house, a taco shop that looked like it hadn't been open since before Zoë Nightshade was born, and a white stucco post office with a sign that said GILA CLAW, ARIZONA hanging crooked above the door. Beyond that was a range of hills... but then I noticed they weren't regular hills. The countryside was way too flat for that. The hills were enormous mounds of old cars, appliances, and other scrap metal. It was a junkyard that seemed to go on forever.
"Something tells me we're not going to find a car rental here," Thalia said. She looked at Grover. "I don't suppose you got another wild boar up your sleeve?"
Grover was sniffing the wind, looking nervous. He fished out his acorns and threw them into the sand, then played his pipes. It was a nice and upbeat jig. The acorns danced around, rearranging themselves in a pattern that made no sense to anyone but Grover. He looked concerned, which I doubted meant good news.
"That's us," he said. "Those six acorns there."
"Hey, nice," Percy said. "Which one's me?"
"The little deformed one," Thalia suggested. I snickered.
Grover ignored us. "That cluster to the left... that's trouble."
