Belonging
Chapter two
There was a cloud of dust coming from the valley below.
At first, Mara thought it might be animals—there were deer in the area, and mountain lions, and sometimes that meant pounding hooves, perhaps a bloody conclusion.
When she had first secluded herself here, the hunting predators had made her flinch and cower, reminding her of other bloody conclusions.
She had since grown accustomed to them, letting the minor disturbances build calluses in her soul.
She barely noticed them now, except to shape the plants or the earth to subtly guide the racing beasts away from her retreat.
Nature could go on about her as viciously as it liked, as long as it did not disturb her peace.
But this dust persisted, the billows of sand drawing closer and closer, and now she could feel it through the earth, the rumble of machinery.
Machinery that did not belong. She was far from the cities, far from the roads, far even from the parks and paths that might have occasional visitors.
That cloud of dust did not belong. She willed it to go away, either back the way it came or onward, past her haven and farther into the remote hills.
But it did not go away. It grew closer and closer, until it finally came to a halt just below her hill, in the silty area where rainwash flowed and plants were scarce. The last puffs of dust wafted off on the breeze, fading into the dry haze of the atmosphere. The mechanical rumble ceased.
Whatever had come hunting, it was here. Too close for comfort.
The flower Mara was coaxing to bloom started to wilt.
She frowned and sent more energy into it, calling on her elements to bring it to life, but when it did bloom it was anemic and pale.
Not what she’d wanted at all. Not what Tristan deserved, and she knew it was because of the intruder.
The invader. Whoever it was—it had to be a who, if a machine was involved—her mind would not be settled until her shrine was secure.
She sighed in annoyance and sank into the earth.
Having the desert sand about her as she traveled soothed her.
Though it was not her only element—her mother had been of wood, and her father’s mother’s mother of fire—the pressure of the warm earth was a second home to her.
She could not see, of course, and her hearing was muffled, but she was connected to the landscape about her in a way beyond sight and sound through that pressure, able to feel the world through its shifts and vibrations, and they guided her to the hillside just above where the machine pressed down on the land.
She cast a glamour about herself as she emerged, to be invisible against the shrubs and sand.
Below her sat a Jeep, its bright green paint scarred and dusty.
It was pulled partway up onto the opposite hillside into a slight clearing above the wash’s silty bottom, tilted at a slight angle but its blocky black tires planted on secure earth and rock.
So it was someone who knew what they were about, enough to be cautious of flash floods.
And they planned on staying, at least for the night. Longer?
The back of the Jeep was piled high with equipment and supplies, with a solar panel and a large square case strapped to its roof.
There was a faint mechanical hum, though the Jeep itself was no longer running—a generator?
Yes, there it was—and a few containers of fuel beside it.
They were prepared for a long stay, then.
Well prepared, from the size of their water tank.
Mara slipped closer, searching the landscape for the Jeep’s owners. She had not felt footsteps upon her own hillside, but that did not mean they were not hiking about the area. The thought made rage bloom bitterly in her stomach. This was her space. Her hermitage. Her shrine. What right had they—
A flash of movement beyond the Jeep caught her eye, and she froze instinctively, despite her glamour.
It was neither a deer nor a mountain lion, but a man, and she watched resentfully as he came around the back of the vehicle.
He was tall and sturdy, dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved work shirt, with scuffed brown hiking boots on his feet.
His hair was long and tangled, dulled by a layer of pale dust that obscured the color, but as she watched he ran a hand through it, shaking the dust away to reveal a reddish blond.
The man’s skin managed to be both too pale and too dark at the same time, almost fish-white beneath his chin, red on his cheeks and nose and forehead.
A pang of grief stabbed through her belly, remembering Tristan’s sleek build, his neat dark hair, the way the sun had set his brown skin aglow.
It was an insult, that the only man she had set her eyes on in years was so entirely the opposite of the man she longed to see beyond all others. It hurt to look at the invader’s face.
As if he’d heard her thoughts, the man leaned in to squint at his reflection in the Jeep’s rear-view mirror.
He let out a low oath. “Note to self,” he muttered.
“Next time, sunblock before the eight-hour drive.” His voice was low and growly—roughened by the dust, perhaps, but still jarring and brutish.
He poked his cheeks, hissing at the contact.
“You’ve been out of the field too long.”
Mara could not keep from shaking. Everything about the intruder felt wrong, from his bright metal Jeep to his vulgar pale features.
If she had met him in the city where she and Tristan had lived, it would not have been so painful; the cities were filled with humans of all shapes and colors.
That was where they were supposed to be.
But here, in the middle of her high desert hills, he felt like discarded plastic refuse, polluting the pristine landscape. He did not belong.
Tristan would have belonged. He would have felt like he blended with the earth, the land, smiling up at her with gentle love.
His sleek, compact car would have been left behind in the city, not forced up the wash and onto the hills—oh gods, why had she not taken him up here into the hills years ago?
She could have kept him safe here. He would have belonged here, with her, forever. He would have—
She turned away sharply, diving back into the earth, coming up when she reached the edges of her memorial.
These were the first blossoms she’d called forth; they were fading a bit now.
She set her jaw and poured her welling grief into them, watching through blurry eyes as they brightened.
The flow of energy stopped her shaking, brought her back to serene stillness, and she could finally turn to regard the valley again.
The Jeep was still visible, though much more distant, and the man was moving about it, preparing a campsite. Perhaps he would only stay the one night, and in the morning he would move on. In the meantime, she could protect her memorial.
She sent her senses down the hillside. There were areas where she had encouraged the shrubs and cacti to crowd together, to discourage larger herds of deer and javelina from disturbing her flowers.
She gave them a gentle nudge now, coaxing prickly pears to spread their paddles wider, barrel cacti to swell, shrubs and grasses to spread broader and taller to fill any gaps.
What worked against one wild beast would work against another; if the unwelcome intruder did decide to explore the area, there would be no easy path up her hill.
He would simply have to explore elsewhere.
By the time she felt her barriers were sufficient, she was exhausted, quivering and drained from effort; she sank drowsily down upon the sand, pressing her cheek to it, letting her element cradle her.
Perhaps she should sleep. The sun was soon to set, and she had done much today.
If she rested now, let the earth rejuvenate her, she could rise early and send forth more flowers to greet the dawn.
Perhaps watch the eyesore of a Jeep depart, its sunburned brute of an owner finding some other piece of landscape to despoil with his presence.
That would cheer her, watching its clouds of sand disappearing into the distance.
She smiled at the thought and let sleep take her.
After slathering some aloe vera gel on his red skin, Ethan unfolded his worn topological map, comparing it to his GPS receiver and the satellite photos.
The sun was close to setting, the night breezes already starting to rush in from the shadowed valleys, cooling his cheeks even more.
He’d have to deploy his tent soon if he didn’t want to waste precious generator power lighting the process…
but it would waste more power repacking and moving his whole setup if he were in the wrong place to begin with.
Once he’d left I-10, the state routes and dirt roads leading in this direction hadn’t had mile markers, and of course once he’d gone off-road he hadn’t had any guidance but the terrain and his map.
He’d had to drive slowly, following the wash in order to avoid disturbing the plant life.
And washes were notoriously changeable. Even though he’d come before the annual monsoon, there could have been rain since his last photos were taken.
But once he got all his sources oriented the same way, they told him he was in the right place.
Those were the farms he’d passed, circles of irrigated crops in nested squares, rigid tiles set into the organic curves of the landscape.
This was the pale winding wash, that was the rock formation to the north, that the low ridge of mountains to the west, and that meant the hill to the east was the one he was interested in.
The one that had been catching his attention for more than a year, once he’d realized how strangely the plants were behaving.
Had been behaving for years, according to the photographs he’d acquired over enough of a range of dates to confirm his suspicions.
He’d gotten in the habit of occasionally scanning satellite photos of the region when he’d been working on his thesis, trying to link the spread of invasive plant species across the Southwest, and he’d never fallen out of it.
It was soothing, looking at the snaking washes and creases of mountains, zooming in to see the vegetation, tracing the paths he could take when he went overlanding.
Which he’d used to do several times a year.
When he’d been a student, it had been so easy—just take off for spring break, or summer, or sometimes winter.
And when he’d first started teaching, had a steady paycheck that more than paid for his needs, he’d upgraded his gear.
Bought the Jeep, top-of-the-line GPS and satellite phone, rooftop tent, portable toilet, solar panels, water tank…
And then five years ago, he’d stopped.
He grimaced and folded his map up again, tossing it on the driver’s seat with the other papers.
Had he stopped overlanding because he’d started dating Sarah?
Or had he started dating Sarah because he’d stopped overlanding?
It didn’t matter now, of course, because by the time he got back, the movers would have done their thing, severed the connection for him, and all that would be left was unpacking the boxes he’d packed before he left town.
Sarah had been an adult about it all, calmly discussing which of them got the microwave (him), who got the carved wooden bed (her), how to divide their mutually acquired collection of DVDs and board games and knick-knacks.
Serenely negotiating who would sleep where until he left on his trip—she’d offered to take the couch, since he was about to spend months sleeping on a camping mattress, and he’d agreed and spent the last few nights alone in the bed that was now hers.
It was kind of her, and generous, and admirably mature.
He’d been mature about it, too. Calm, reasonable, even friendly.
Which he was simultaneously proud of and freaked out by, because he hadn’t felt mature.
He’d felt like he was falling, the ground giving out under his feet.
Which had happened to him more than once out in the wilderness. He knew exactly how it felt.
Lying alone in the bed that had been theirs, packing box after box of things they’d once enjoyed together and now they would each enjoy half of alone, walking out the door of their apartment for the last time—Sarah’s apartment, he reminded himself.
It was just Sarah’s now—had felt worse. Not just falling.
Falling off a cliff into the Grand Canyon.
But he was a grown-ass adult, as he’d told Javier. He knew the best way to stop falling was to deploy a safety net. And his safety net was here, all packed away in and atop his lime-green Jeep.
Sarah’s car was gray, the matte mid-gray that had inexplicably grown in popularity when beige/gold had started to wane. She’d bought it new, too, ordered it in that color. She hadn’t settled for gray because that was the color she’d found at the used car lot. She’d wanted gray.
Why did I spend five years with a woman who drives a gray car?
The thought felt disloyal. But it wasn’t.
There wasn’t anything to be disloyal to, now.
It was just another sign that they hadn’t been right for each other from the start.
She liked sleek gray sedans, and he liked scuffed green Jeeps.
She liked cut roses in a vase, and he liked yucca plants, saguaro, cholla, getting his hands in the dirt.
She liked her life the way it was, and he liked…
Well, this was something he liked. Standing in the high desert hills, the wind on his aloed cheeks and the hills gilded by the setting sun behind him and a puzzle in front of him, one he’d start solving tomorrow. It felt right, somehow. Comfortable.
This was where he belonged.