God's Country

A grueling day’s drive got them to Phoenix. Brown desert, brown hills. No clouds, but the distant mountains were somehow mistier than they should have been. Miranda felt she should be able to see everything in this empty summer land with utter clarity, the pure desert air acting like a magnifying glass, but it wasn’t that way. These constant little disappointments, she thought.

Lily began to cry quietly.

“You hungry, baby?” Miranda asked, checking in the rearview mirror for her nod or shake of the head. Lily just stared out the window, snuffling, tears pouring down her little cheeks. Miranda sighed. No towns in sight, just the desert, stretching out for miles and miles, dotted with those cartoon cacti, the ones like in the RoadRunner cartoons, with the arms that stuck in the air like a man being held up at gunpoint.

As soon as she could, she changed lanes, carefully inserting the Escort between the near-continuous chain of semis bulling their way down the 10. She eased over onto the shoulder and stopped, making sure she was well away from the traffic. She pulled Lily out of the carseat and let her walk around in the dry dirt. She immediately stopped crying and bent over, pulling at the dry leaves of various plants. Miranda sat down, resting her back against the hot, dusty car. Poor little thing just wasn’t used to being so cooped up for such long periods of time. Six hours a day was too much. Miranda would have to slow her journey down. Four hours a day, tops, with a good long break for lunch in between. It would be all right. They didn’t have that much farther to go, she thought. She suddenly realized that she wasn’t exactly sure where the Navajo Nation was. Mostly in northern Arizona, she thought, maybe a little bit into New Mexico. But where was the headquarters? Where could she apply for asylum?

She folded her arms on top of her knees and and dug in her chin. Christ, she was so ignorant. Could she even ask for asylum? She was thinking of the Navajo as though they were an embassy, their ground not subject to American laws. But was that even correct? They were Americans, after all. Maybe this wouldn’t work at all. Maybe she should turn south and head to Mexico. Find her grandfather’s family in Guadalajara. She shook her head. She didn’t even speak Spanish. And she knew her grandparents had barely scratched their living out of the dirt in Mexico. That wasn’t the life she wanted to give Lily.

Lily was running now, in ever-increasing spirals. Nowhere near the freeway, nowhere near danger.

“Watch out for snakes!” Miranda said anyway. It was summertime, after all, and the desert. Weren’t there rattlesnakes? Or Gila monsters? Scorpions? She shuddered at all the invisible threats. She would let Lily run for just a couple more minutes, then give her some water before they continued on. This sun was simply painful.

She resolved: she’d continue to the Navajo, but she wouldn’t just go and spill her guts, throwing herself on their mercy, as she’d planned. She’d present herself as a member of the tribe, wishing to come home and establish herself in the land of her grandmother’s people. Lily would be her cousin’s daughter. Son. Her cousin’s son. Not a tribal member, but hopefully allowed to live there with her as a guest. She’d get a job, do some research. Decide whether to stay or go on someplace else. She’d heard the Canadians were nice. She had a moment of utter desolation, that alien feeling of not belonging anywhere. Each second, the sun was burning her skin a darker shade of brown, yet she felt the chill of human isolation. She watched the little girl running, her arms outstretched, her chin lifted. Only Lily was real. Only Lily mattered. She felt herself settle again. Centered and focused.

There were all kinds of troubles ahead. But at least they’d be in Phoenix tonight. A good place to exchange the car. To find a map of the Navajo lands. A good place to be anonymous. She could only deal with one problem at a time. She rose and stretched, running out to catch Lily, spinning around with her until she laughed and laughed. Miranda loved that sound, still too rarely heard. She clutched her close for a moment.

“We’re almost ready to stop for the night, Lily. Louie, I mean.” She’d have to get better at this if she expected the child to respond to her new name. “Can you hold on just a little longer? We’ll stay somewhere with a pool, so you can swim, then we’ll go out to a restaurant for supper. How does that sound?” Lily nodded, her eyes large. Miranda made a mental note to pick up some swim trunks for her.
“Good girl!” she said, loading her back in the car, making her drink from a sippy cup full of cool water and giving her a little hardbound book to play with. “We’ll be there soon, I promise!”

Talking to Lily made her feel more in charge, more certain. Was this what motherhood really felt like? A constant stream of worry and fear, interspersed with moments of playacting that everything was all right, and then having to go on and act as though that were true? She had a horrible feeling it was just like that. That if she kept Lily. No ifs. I am keeping Lily, she said sternly to herself. That she would feel this way forever, and that it didn’t have that much to do with Rick and Sandy’s murders, or her taking the child. It was just the way of things, when you let yourself love a child.

“I love you, Lily,” she said, wanting to say it as soon as she realized it, her eyes watching the rearview mirror. Lily met her gaze, and blew her a sudden kiss, so spontaneous and sincere Miranda lost her breath and her sense, nearly plowing right into the back of the huge Ford pickup truck she was pulling out behind. She recovered, putting the Escort firmly into its proper place in the long march of cars, but her eyes watered and her heart bloomed, excruciating little petals unfolding one by one.

The desert may not appear to be much of a place for a mermaid, or for Princess TigerLily, but it had its own subtle beauty, she decided right then.

She pulled off the freeway that night and drove quite far toward the city center. She didn’t want to make it too easy on her pursuers by staying only in motels with signs that could be seen from the interstate. There wasn’t really much of a city center, she discovered, just a huge sprawl of mini-malls and half-built houses. She eventually found a motel with a pool. It seemed that most motels here had pools. So she checked in and then took Lily shopping. They bought swimsuits and two big beach towels with bright red stripes. Sunglasses and tanning lotion. Flipflops. She even bought Lily an inflatable tube with an elephant head on the front, its green plastic ears huge and limp.

They went back and jumped in the pool, Lily hanging onto her tube for dear life, shrieking and giggling as Miranda towed her back and forth. Miranda herself was breathless from swimming and laughing, and pretending to be a sea monster coming up from below while Lily kicked and screamed. They got out eventually and laid on their towels, drying quickly in the sun, even though it was now very close to sunset.

“Your son is adorable,” said a voice next to her. Miranda opened her eyes. A lady with poofy red hair sat on a lounge chair, wearing a tight suit with a little skirt and a stacked bra that was probably popular in the sixties. Varicose veins crept up the sickly white of her legs. She was wearing a thick layer of makeup, which sat heavily atop her sweating, rosy skin, and didn’t do a thing to disguise the signs of approaching old age.

“Thank you,” Miranda said shortly and shut her eyes again, keeping one hand protectively on Lily’s little arm. She felt overexposed suddenly in the skimpy black bikini that she’d decided went best with her disguise.

“I’m Noreen,” said the voice. “Me & Bert, we been RV-ing all the hell over the place, and I finally said to him, Bert, I need a real damn shower! So here we are. And that old sweet thing got me a pool and everything. Ain’t it heaven?”

Miranda nodded non-committally, not opening her eyes.

“My momma would say that is one sinful suit you’re wearing there, but I personally envy you the figure to carry it off,” she continued. Miranda gritted her teeth. She had to stay in character, she reminded herself. What would Sabrina Lloyd do? She liked the name she’d chosen. Sabrina Lloyd. It was sort of exotic and movie star, and trashy as well. She wouldn’t be able to use it on the reservation, of course, because all her tribal paperwork was in her real name. She was still trying to think of a way to get around that.

Noreen had rattled on while she was still thinking of a response to the last comment. “We’re from Ohio, originally, but Bert retired with a good bit of cash, he was in insurance you know, good business, that, and so I told him I was tired of staying in one place, I wanted to just get out and travel a bit. Old Bert, he did me right. Bought us a 24-footer, all plushed out, and we been drivin’ ever since!”

Lucky you, thought Miranda sarcastically. “You’re so lucky,” she said out loud, being careful of her tone.

“Oh, you got that right, honey. Old Bert is a darn good catch for an old hooer like me!” she cackled while Miranda tried to translate “hooer.” “He probly won’t last too much longer but hey, I’ve had a good run!”

“Oh?” Miranda said, trying to seem interested. It was plenty to keep her going.

“You betcha. Bert took me off the streets of Philly when I was just a young ‘un, couldn’t have been any older than you, and twice as pretty, if I do say so myself. He had himself a struggle, cuz I was making good money for the first time ever, and I didn’t want to get out of the game. It wasn’t rough then like it is now, I’m sure you know what I mean. The johns just came and did their business. No violence, no funny stuff. No drugs. Just a couple of drinks, a lay or a gobble, then they’d pay up and go back to their wives.”

It slowly dawned on Miranda that Noreen thought she was a prostitute. She stifled an urge to giggle hysterically. Well, she had gone for the trashy look. Perhaps she’d have to rethink her disguise before she hit the reservation. That wasn’t quite the impression she wanted to give. Instead she merely nodded knowingly. Noreen would remember more about her if she got up in a huff and stalked away than if she just listened. She was just another piece of furniture right now, and she didn’t want to do anything memorable. On the other hand, she could be trapped here for hours, listening to this old “hooer” maunder on.

“Say, I don’t suppose you’d do me a favor, hon,” said Noreen, lifting her glasses to show blue eyes, puffy and old, outlined in thick eyeliner and layers of flaking black mascara. Miranda lifted her eyebrows inquiringly, barely moving her head. “If I were to watch your little boy for awhile this evening, I don’t suppose you’d, you know, take care of Old Bert for me. I mean, the old boy hasn’t had a treat in a good long time, if you know what I’m saying, and I want to do something special for him.”

Oh God. She couldn’t be serious. Miranda sat up slowly, turning away from Lily. “I’d pay you, of course, honey. Professional courtesy and all,” Noreen looked at her expectantly. Something about her made Miranda feel almost bad for refusing.

“I’m so sorry, Noreen, but I don’t work when I have my kid,” she said. “Gotta separate work and family, if you know what I mean,” she winked at Noreen, feeling a little sick. Turns out being in disguise wasn’t quite as fun as it had once seemed.

Noreen sat back with a sigh. “Of course, of course. Can’t blame you, really. Guess I’ll just have to think of something else.”