Desert Crossing Read Free

punching the keypad. Finally he looked up hopelessly. “There’s no signal.”
    And then I remembered. “There was a house,” I said.
    â€œWhat?” They both turned to me.
    â€œThat light we saw. We can get help.”
    â€œYeah, okay,” Jamie said. Something in his face was different, closed off. He kept staring at the girl. “She’s too near the road. Can we move her away?”
    Kit shook his head. “I don’t think we should touch her.”
    I swallowed hard. “What if somebody hits her? What if somebody runs over her?”
    â€œShe’s dead,” Kit said.
    Jamie’s mouth was a tight line, but his eyes were huge. “I’ll stay here. You guys drive to the house. “I’ll wait with her.”
    Kit frowned. “There’s nothing you can do.”
    Jamie threw him the car keys. “Just go.”
    So Kit and I went back to the car. Kit opened the trunk and tossed me my jacket, but I just stood there looking at it in my hands. I couldn’t think what to do.
    â€œPut it on,” he said. And then I realized I was shaking. We got in the car, and I held Jamie’s windbreaker out the window for him as we rolled slowly past. Jamie took it and flopped it over one shoulder, the rain still gusting around him. I watched him in the rearview mirror as we drove away. He got darker and smaller, but I could still see the jacket, flapping uselessly, like a flag.

4
    It was raining so hard we could barely see the turnoff. But the light was there, deep in the desert blackness, and when we slowed down we saw a thin gravel lane breaking off from the highway. It was muddy and pooled with water. Little streams coursed over it. Kit slowed the car to a crawl, and we bumped and heaved over the ruts. I was still shivering, but I felt like I was waking up, paying more attention. Now everything seemed too real: the metal handle of the car door, ice cold, pushed against my thigh, and the tangy smell of beer filled the front seat. I kept sneaking quick looks at Kit. It wasn’t like him not to talk.
    Finally he said, “We should get rid of the cans.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œWe have to dump the beer.”
    â€œNow?”
    It seemed impossible that there was something else to think of besides the girl. But there would be police.
    â€œI don’t know,” I said.
    â€œWe have to get rid of it.”
    â€œBut the car really smells. They’ll figure it out. It’ll look like…” I didn’t know how to say it.
    Kit shrugged, squinting at the road. “If they find open beer cans in the car…” He hesitated. “Think about Jamie.”
    I was mad at him, furious. He was the one who’d wanted the beer, gotten the six-pack, given Jamie a can while he was driving. And now a girl was dead, and it wasn’t Jamie’s fault, it couldn’t be Jamie’s fault. But we’d been driving fast and our car stank of beer. Who would know what really happened?
    â€œI am thinking about Jamie,” I said. Kit shot me a sideways glance. He slowed the car and rolled down his window. Then he reached across my shins and grabbed the two cans, heaving them into the night. A minute later, he sent the rest of the six-pack spiraling after them.
    â€œKit,” I said. But he just drove on.
    Suddenly the house was in front of us. It was low and rambling, with lights shining in two of the windows. There was a truck parked next to it. As soon as we pulled into the yard—if you could call it a yard because there wasn’t a boundary, it stretched right into the desert—two big dogs came charging out of a shed, barking.
    We stepped out into the rain.
    The dogs surrounded Kit, but their big tails swished back and forth, and they only sniffed his legs. I pulled up my hood and headed for the door.
    It opened before I had a chance to knock. A woman in her thirties stood there, wearing a man’s shirt spattered with