Page 53 of A Long Con

I fit the head of the crowbar into the trunk’s weather stripping. Royal was in the process of tearing off the car’s antenna.

That’s when the two little girls came through the front door.

“I call shotgun!”

“No, I do!”

“Ira said I could sit there!”

And other inanities. At least we knew we were at the right house.

Quick as a lightning bolt, I stood upright and jammed the crowbar into my ass crack. My leather jacket wasn’t covering it, but hopefully I was in time. Royal took four long strides to stand beside me as we pasted on shit-eating grins and waved at the girls, who had seen us.

We all froze.

“Hi, girls,” I said. “Just checking security.”

“Security,” added Royal.

We took several measured steps the fuck out of there before the silhouettes of Ira and Myra clogged the doorway.

“Thank you so much for taking the girls to dinner,” she was saying.

We broke into a run once we were out of their view, crouching down behind the garbage cans.

“What the fuck?” I yelled in a stage whisper. “I don’t think he’s buying rugs from her.”

“Sure as shit,” agreed Royal. “Sounds like he’s been injecting her with some hot beef.”

I made a lip fart. “What? Jeez, Royal, please don’t ever say that about me.”

He smiled warmly at me. “No worries. But now he’s gone with the little girls and who knows how long dinner is around here?”

“There were a bunch of restaurants back there, where we turned to go to Canyon de Chelly.”

“Nothing after that. Hey, let’s get out of this fucking rain. This house looks empty.”

We didn’t try the doors or anything—no sense in stumbling into a living room full of snoozing Diné—but we used the eaves as a shelter of sorts, as long as the rain stayed vertical. The wind was loud in our ears as we hunched down there, our asses in the mud. It wasn’t the most soothing way to spend a night, but as long as I was with Royal, nothing bad could happen.

I thought about my luck in finding Royal. I’d been so aching to hear his voice in a vortex, I’d neglected to see sun rising. I was waiting endlessly for a message from God—or Royal—even as my world was being repaired around me. I’d found the most possible love in the oddest place. If it weren’t for Pothole stealing my silverware, I never would’ve met Royal. Was Royal a gift? Therefore a sign of a God?

I decided to live as though this were a fact. I needed to bet my whole life as if this were true. I needed to live in line with this, and knowledge would come. It would probably not come in the way I might like, but it would come.

I must’ve finally dozed off and on a bit.

“He’s on the move!”

Royal tugged on my sleeve. I stood by crawling my shoulders up the wall behind me, completely dazed. Rain was still pounding, but it was . . . daylight? A grey pall almost illuminated the rez, but only the next three or four houses were visible. Taillights—Hogshead’s sedan?—were sedately making their way toward Route 59. Royal and I stumbled like silent film actors to straddle our rides.

“He’s probably heading back to 191,” Royal yelled. “That’s the most logical way.”

Never having trailed anyone, I wondered how it was possible that we not lose Hogshead, yet he not see us. Yet weirdly, this is what seemed to happen, at least for the first ten miles. Hogshead drove so mildly that we had to keep it down to forty-five to remain out of his rearview. I, too, was becoming sedated when quick as a shot, Hogshead took a sharp left onto an unmarked road. Another Indian route.

Why the fuck was he doing that? I got an inkling of an idea when he sped up to make it through a new creek, what had probably been a dry wash until this recent storm. Farther on, impromptu rivers raced across the road, bringing rocky debris with them. The worst yet was a river about two feet deep—at the moment. I knew how fast this could change in the desert. Hogshead decided to slow down for this one, making me wary. By now, it was obvious he could see us trailing him. He might’ve been hoping we stalled out in the water. He even lifted an arm out the driver’s window and gave us the finger. We wore no armor other than leather jackets, and to park it horizontally either on the asphalt or the rocky creek could do us physical damage.

However, Royal flipped him off too, and decided to hammer down through the creek. I hung back based upon nothing but intuition. I even idled for a moment with my foot down, watching Hogshead successfully navigate the ravine. Royal plunged in headfirst, his pipes smoking, cleaving the water like a prophet.

But the pull of the tide proved too much for his Road King. He began to burn out, his rear wheel spinning and sending him in a counterclockwise direction. He was burning a vicious Mad Max. While Hogshead blissfully tore out, my lover was losing his ride.

“Lay it down!” I bellowed over the rush of the creek.

Royal persevered through almost an entire sweep of the clock, facing me, then facing another burgundy sandstone butte. I kept shouting at him to lay it down, to dismount. He’d never get his bike out of that rushing water. Then his engine died, and he was left splashing in the tide, just holding onto his ride by the handlebars, pointlessly.

I had to take the opposite tack. Crouching low like a belly-shover, I rode very slowly and deliberately through the racing water. A giant rock clanged up against my spokes, and I pressed on.

“That’s it!” yelled Royal. “Go slow!”

It was the only approach left me, and it worked beautifully. My engine didn’t stall, and I made it through, even if like an old lady, to the other shore with only some bent spokes to show, maybe a couple dents in my pipes and fender.

Royal greeted me on the other side, water pouring from his torso like he was the swamp thing. With arms held out from his sides, I saw he’d taken his overnight bag from his saddlebags, and he now crushed it into mine.

“Leave the bike,” he grumbled. “Take the money.”

I understood he was aping The Godfather, and I had to chuckle at our circumstances. “Get behind me. We can find him. He’s got to stay on this paved road. His car isn’t built for dirt ones. “

Like my ride was? Well, there was only one way to find out.

I could do anything with Royal’s thighs clamped around mine, his hands planted on my hips.