Darkmoon(77)

And so I distracted myself as we jogged east on the I-40 for a few miles, then got off at Highway 89, which led all the way to Page and the Grand Canyon. Not that we intended to go that far, as Cameron was a lot closer. We passed the mall and headed north, climbing through residential neighborhoods before beginning to drop down into the dry, dusty valley where Cameron was located.

It was hotter there, too; I watched the outside temperature reading on the dashboard rise from the comfortable eighty-two it had been in Flagstaff up into the low nineties, then rise even more. By the time we were nearing the trading post, it was almost a hundred degrees outside. I really wasn’t looking forward to getting out of the FJ’s powerful air conditioning.

We didn’t stop, though, but turned west on Highway 64, going slowly because, although the crews weren’t working on Sunday, the road was carved up by what looked like a massive construction project. Out here there wasn’t a lot of vegetation, except some trees clustered around the trading post and what Connor pointed out as the Little Colorado River. Off the road I saw small settlements, a few houses clustered together, all small and consisting of a single story, some of them mobile homes, a lot of them surrounded by collections of broken-down-looking vehicles.

As Connor had warned me, none of this appeared very promising. I sat quietly in the passenger seat as we drove a few miles down Highway 64. Then Connor slowed and pulled off on a dirt road that wasn’t even marked.

“Good thing you looked this up on Google maps, huh?” I said.

He gave me a quick, tight smile but didn’t take his eyes off the road. “I also programmed it into my GPS, just in case. But it looks like I found the turn-off okay.”

On this side of the highway there was a series of steep hills with shadowy canyons in between. It looked like we were headed toward one of those, and I peered through the dust swirling up from the FJ’s tires to see that we were approaching another one of those meager little compounds, this one with two one-story houses, both painted a light sand color, an outbuilding that looked as if it might have been made of adobe, the pale cylindrical shape of a propane tank, and, incongruously, an array of shiny solar panels. Up toward the canyon there seemed to be one more building, but I couldn’t quite make out what it was. A stable, maybe?

There were two vehicles parked under the shade of a large oak tree, one a battered white pickup truck, the other a Jeep even older than my Aunt Rachel’s, maybe twenty years or more.

My heart seemed to stutter and then resume a normal rhythm. Had that Jeep once been new and shiny, carrying my father to his assignation with my mother in California?

Only one way to find out.

Connor pulled up on the far side of the pickup and then put the FJ in park. Although we must have made a good deal of noise coming up here — and brought a conspicuous dust cloud with us — no one had emerged from either of the houses to see who was trespassing on their property. Maybe they were out, but then why were both vehicles here?

“You ready?” Connor asked, reaching up to turn off the engine.

Not really, but of course I couldn’t tell him that, not after making him drive all the way out here. I swallowed. “Sure. Let’s do this.”

He pulled the key from the ignition, and I reached over to open the door. A blast of dry desert heat hit me, and I had to fight the urge to cough, feeling as if I’d just swallowed half the dust particles we’d stirred up as we entered the property. I did wave a hand in front of my face to ward off a few flies that descended almost as soon as I moved two feet away from the SUV.

Both of the houses looked roughly the same, paint peeling in places, a chaotic assortment of potted succulents clustering around their front doors. Off past them I caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a small garden, carefully covered with shade cloth. They’d certainly need it out here.

Since I really didn’t know where I was going, I angled toward the house that was slightly closer to us. Connor followed a pace or two behind me, the sound of his hiking boots on the gravelly dirt a welcome sound. Once again I had to thank the Goddess for bringing him to me. I knew I could never have done this without him.

When we were a few yards away from the nearer house, the door to the other one opened, and a tall man stepped out onto the uncovered front stoop, lifting his hand to shield his eyes from the pitiless sun. He wore a loose white linen shirt with an old-fashioned band collar, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing sun-browned forearms. His hair was long and dark, pulled back into a ponytail, but when I got closer, I saw that his eyes weren’t dark to match, but hazel, their green-gold unexpected against the warm brown of his skin.