Low Desert

She waited at the window for him.

The August heat was unbearable in this town. She felt like one of those Scarlett O’Hara types, those Southern dames. Slightly feverish. Slightly flushed. 

She waited.

He turned up just after nine. Before, whenever he would pull up in his Ford with the radio playing that heartbreak music, there was a kind of cool wetness in the air. She would imagine rain. 

Tonight was hot and dry. And still. Like something big had been and gone. Like the circus had been and gone.

‘I ain’t got a world of time’, he said. 

They drove for exactly one hour before either of them said anything. Then he leaned back in his seat, let out this deep, long sigh, and spoke.

‘It’s over’, he said.

She knew. Of course she knew. And she was a little surprised to find that she wasn’t feeling sad about it, at least not at that particular moment in time, as they hurtled through the hot, dark desert. 

She knew what was happening. Things die. 

That evening she had witnessed the desert sky turn from deep to pale blue, with that yellow glow at the edges as the night had come in. Now, the sky was full of stars. The headlamps were good for a little way out in front, but beyond that was only shadows and the occasional glare from cars and trucks. 

‘I know’, she replied. She managed to recline her seat, and then she closed her eyes. 

She dozed for a little while and experienced something like a dream. Sometimes her thoughts ran away into weird places. Voices that became conversations. Conversations that became feelings. Even more so now, with these new pills. They will help you get your rhythm back, the doctor had informed her. She had to take two every morning before she ate. They were pink pills. Her favourite color.

In this almost dream she was standing with him on a cliff. Birds were hovering below them and the sea was raging and then suddenly dead calm. He was eating a banana and laughing at her and he tried to push her off the cliff but she was rooted to the ground. He tried and tried but she would not move. He could not push her off. Just before she woke up, spluttering, he had stopped shoving and had started crying instead, his eyes bright pink.

‘We’re halfway there’, he said. 

She didn’t know what they would do when they got back to Temecula. One of them would have to sleep on the couch. She thought she could call a friend, stay over somewhere. She could spend the night and bitch about him and cry and listen to sad music. She could get drunk without worrying. She placed her hand on his and he jerked it away. 

‘I can’t see anything in this dark’, she said. He just nodded. His eyes were on the road. She moved her hand away from where he had left it.

They passed a tow truck on a turnout, dark and still, save for a tiny flashing light on the roof.

When they hit the thing the sound was metallic and heavy.

He pulled over and told her to stay in the car but she didn’t. 

There was hardly any blood. You wouldn’t immediately think the deer was injured but then she saw the legs. It kept heaving its head back, its eyes flashing in the headlights. ‘Don’t touch it’, he said. 

‘Why not? We need to help it’, she replied. She bent down and cradled the head of the deer. At first it bucked and she let the head slip but eventually it calmed. She stroked its head, then ran her hand across its white belly. ‘Poor thing’.

‘It’s going to die. There’s no point’, he said. He sat down on a nearby rock and lit a cigarette. He looked at her for a few seconds as he dragged on his cigarette and then he stared at his feet. ‘I mean, it’s not going to live, is it?’.

There was a ring of white fur around one of the deer’s eyes. She stared at this for a little while, tracing the circle with her index finger. She thought of horses. She looked at the eye and saw a bright spot in it, coming from the car’s lights. 

‘Get a blanket’, she said. He didn’t move from the rock. 

She screamed at him to get a blanket. He muttered something under his breath, then walked to the back of the car. He came back with a blanket. They wrapped the deer up. ‘Call an ambulance’, she said. 

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Call an ambulance.’

‘Why? For who?’

‘For the deer.’

‘Ambulances won’t come for an animal.’

‘I’ll call them’.

‘Be my guest. You’re crazy. You see, that’s what…’

‘What? What’s what?’

‘Nothing’. 

She dialled for an ambulance and they told her that she should leave the deer to die. There was nothing they could do. She told them they could go fuck themselves. 

‘We’ve got to save it’, she said. She told him to help her drag the deer over to the car, and they would put it in the back then drive somewhere where people could save things that were dying. 

He said they were nearly back at the apartment. They should get some sleep. It had been a long day. He understood how she felt and he was sad too, but these things do happen. Things die. 

‘I’m going to save it’, she said. She looked at him and she didn’t know what else she could say about it. 

‘Okay’, he said. They began to move the deer. It was difficult. The animal was losing blood quickly, a shiny trail as they pulled it towards the car. Their hands were slick with it. Eventually they managed to lift the deer into the trunk. 

‘Just drive’, she said.

They carried on for a while before she heard the deer. It was bleating weakly. She looked back and saw the deer working its head from side to side.

‘Hurry’, she said.

‘I don’t know where we’re going’, he said. ‘Look up the hospital. The nearest hospital’. 

‘You don’t care, do you?’ she said.

‘Of course I care. I just think that, you know, it’s nature.’

‘This animal? Dying? Is it nature?’

‘Things die. It happens. This is meant to be.’

She looked back and could see that the blood had covered the back seats now. Some had sprayed onto the windows too. There were smears on the windows where the deer had thrashed about. She checked her phone.

‘Ten miles’, she said.

When they arrived at the hospital all the lights were off and there was a sign that said In an emergency, go to the High Desert Medical Center, Joshua Tree.

‘That’s too far’, he said. ‘It wouldn’t make it anyway’. 

‘Let’s try. Please’. 

‘We can’t save it.’

‘Please.’

He smiled and started up the engine. She knew why he was smiling but that didn’t bother her too much. 

She had been stroking the deer’s head since before they reached the hospital and when she briefly closed her eyes she imagined she was flying high above the car, looking down on them as they drove into the night with this deer that she wanted to save. 

About ten miles out of Joshua he stopped the car. ‘It’s dead’, he muttered. ‘Please, let’s just get rid of it’.

She began to cry.

They dragged it out into the desert. They found a thick line of Fairy Duster and they placed the deer carefully inside it. They looked at each other and she asked if she could spend some time. He nodded and walked back to the car.

Alone, she stroked the belly and kissed the face of the deer. It was a little cold now, and there was a dead smell about it. She traced the snow white circles around the eyes and then she kissed it again.

She had always adored animals. There hadn’t been a time in her life when she hadn’t owned one. Even as a little girl she had a goldfish. 

They were so pure, animals. You could tell them anything. You could feel anything with them. You could be yourself and it didn’t matter. You could even beat them if you wanted to. They would come running back.

‘Come on. We have to go’, he shouted from the car. It sounded like he was a hundred miles away. She looked back and she could see him sitting on the hood of the car, his arms folded. 

‘Just a minute’, she said. She checked one more time, touching the belly, the head, and then she arranged the blanket so that it covered up the deer fully. 

‘It’s dead. It’s over’, he said. 

The moon was full tonight and there was a cooling breeze. She hadn’t noticed how cool it could be here at night, down low in the desert. 

She looked back again and saw him get up, pace around the front of the car. He was cursing. He was acting like a baby. His shoulders were rounded.

‘I know’, she said.