All The Way Down

Chapter 14

As the police car grew in my rear view mirror, I slowed further and started to pull over to the shoulder of the highway, but the police car blew past me and got on the rear bumper of the Ray's car.

"At least there's some justice left," I told myself. Ray’s Chevy and the police car were pulling onto the shoulder of the road as I went by.

I drove on to the White Sands monument, looking for something to do. I paid at the tollgate and drove into the National Monument area for several miles, looking at the soaptree yucca and hedgehog cactus.

After several miles, the road began shifting left and then right to accommodate increasingly tall dunes. A baby blue pickup with a camper on the back and a muffler that resonated like it had a hole in it was in front of me, blocking my view and taking its time on the road. I rolled up the windows, turned on the a/c, backed off a few hundred yards, and enjoyed the view. The dunes were a perfect white. I glanced at the map, which showed that the road went for miles into the desert before stopping at the heart of the dunes area. I put the map back on the passenger seat and watched the dunes slide past like giant waves.

Ten minutes later I reached the parking area at the end of the road. The lot was surrounded by dunes thirty feet tall. The camper that I had tailed for several miles pulled off to the left of the enormous lot, heading for the portable restrooms and picnic benches. A silver Jeep with a black convertible top was the only other car in the parking area.

I drove over to the east side of the lot, as far away from the camper, the Jeep, the portable toilet, and the grills as the pavement would allow. I parked the little blue Ford against a dune and got out.

I picked up a handful of the white gypsum sand and let the crystals drain through my fingers. A slight breeze from the east pushed it against my jeans as it fell, leaving a white powder against the blue. I started hiking up the dune, but the sand was so soft that my feet just created small landslides that covered me to the knees. I backed out and walked around to where the dune trailed gently to ground level. The sand on this side of the dune seemed crustier, as if it had been hardened by drying rain. I crunched up the side of the dune and stood on top of it, looking north into the desert across miles of white gypsum dunes. The sky was an intense blue against the white sand. I sat down on the sand and stared across the tops of the dunes at the San Andres Mountains.

I think at that moment that I really did understand why Brick had liked living there. There was a strong sense of isolation in the desert, but there was a simple and harsh beauty that balanced things out. Enclosed areas of lakebed the size of football fields lay within the confines of the dunes, and I guessed that the dunes shifted over time with the wind, exposing different parts of the lakebed to light before they were buried again when the dunes shifted. Everything is temporary. Every single thing.

I walked down the soft side of the dune onto the flats, making a landslide of sand follow me to the bottom.

Rosemary mint plants and tumbleweeds weren’t the only evidence of life in the dry, hot bowl. I spotted a slender turquoise colored lizard and walked behind it as it made its way across the cracked, buckled surface of the lakebed. The lizard spotted me and ran away, hiding under the prickly branches of a leafless bush.

I tried hiking up the face of the dune nearest me, this time going slowly, using my hands to steady myself against the near-vertical sand. A large black beetle made its way steadily up the incline of the dune and marched purposefully past me, seeming to swim up the soft surface. I followed the beetle and then stood at the top of the dune. I looked back to the South, the direction from which I had come, and I could see nothing but dunes in all directions.

It occurred to me how easy it would be to become lost here if you weren't paying attention, or how easy it would be to hide here if you didn't want to be found. Ten miles of gypsum dunes lay between where I stood and the highway. I wondered if anyone had ever walked into the dunes and become disoriented here, wandering around for days looking for the way out. It was difficult to judge distance, but easy enough to tell directions. White Sands lay north to south in a valley between two large mountain ranges. Far to the north, across a sea of dunes, I could make out what appeared to be a large stand of trees. The heat coming from the dunes made the image ripple and twist. I had no way of telling how tall the trees were or how far away they were. They might have been a few hundred yards away or a mile. I headed due south back towards the car, bypassing the long strip of lakebed that had taken me into the dunes and cutting across the tops of a number of huge interconnecting dunes. I hiked for ten minutes, longer than I thought it should have taken to reach the parking lot. It was about noon, dead still, and the sky seemed to glow neon blue through my sunglasses.

The air was so dry that my sweat evaporated instantly. I sat down atop a dune to think. I knew that if I had to, I could retrace my footsteps carefully and make it back to the car that way. There was no wind to erase my footprints in the sand. My reverie was snapped by the sound of a car engine starting off to the east. I stood up and jogged across the tops of several dunes, moving fast in my jogging shoes. As I reached the third dune, I saw the enormous man-made open space that was used as a parking lot for tourists. I could see the camper leaving the parking lot. The Jeep was still there, and on the far side of the lot my rental car waited for my return.

I jogged back to the car around the perimeter of the lot, staying on top of the dunes while keeping the lot in sight. I checked my watch on the way. It was nearly lunch time, time to give Michelle a call. I opened the doors and stood clear of the car for a minute to let the contained heat escape.

On the drive back to the highway I thought about the previous evening with Michelle and her daughter. I didn't understand how Brick could have cut them off. It seemed odd that he just quit talking to her. Maybe he was concerned that she would be in danger if they kept being seen together. Something must have been going on, but what? If Brick was shooting photographs at night around here he wasn't going to see much: a sea of moonlit dunes, maybe some lizards or rabbits. Maybe the photography didn't have anything to do with it.

I left White Sands and headed back towards Alamogordo at the speed limit. No need to push it too hard. I knew I was lucky that I wasn't ticketed for speeding earlier that morning. I saw the blue Chevy with the bird jammed in its grill parked on the side of the road where it had pulled over for the police that morning. It looked empty. I thought that Ray and Marty might have been busted for drinking and driving, but it seemed surprising that their car hadn't been towed in if that's why they were arrested.

I called Michelle from the hamburger place where we had eaten lunch the day before. She was too busy to talk, but she said that she would call me back that night. I thought I heard Dean's voice in the background and I told her good-bye.

I hung up and looked up the number for the Alamogordo police department in the phone book chained to the booth. When I called, an operator answered the phone, and I asked for Sgt. Bullard. The operator said that he was out on patrol, and asked if I wanted to leave any messages. I left my name and asked Bullard to call me at my hotel. She said she'd leave the message and phone number on his desk.

I ordered a couple of cheeseburgers and a large soft drink at the counter, and took my lunch with me out to the car.