‘Then why’d he dump me?’
‘Maybe he decided not to trust you. Or maybe he just wanted to be alone again.’
‘Any way you slice it, it was a rotten thing to do. You understand what I mean?’
‘I think so. Where are you headed?’
‘Tucson.’
‘Fine. I’m going in that direction.’
‘How come you’re not on the main highway? What are you doing out here?’
‘Well…’ She laughed nervously. ‘What I’m intending to do is not… well, not exactly legal.’
‘Yeah?’
‘I’m going to steal cacti.’
‘What!’ He laughed. ‘Wow! You mean you’re out to lift some cactuses?’
‘That’s what I mean.’
‘Well, I sure hope you don’t get caught!’
The woman forced a smile. ‘There
‘Gol-ly.’
‘A sizable fine.’
‘Well, I’d be glad to give you a hand.’
‘I’ve only got one shovel.’
‘Yeah. I saw it when I stowed my bag. I was wondering what you had a shovel for.’ He looked at her, laughing, and felt good that this woman with all her class was going to steal a few plants from the desert. ‘I’ve seen a lot of things, you understand. But never a cactus-napper.’ He laughed at his joke.
She didn’t. ‘You’ve seen one now,’ she said.
They remained silent for a while. The young man thought about this classy woman driving down a lonely road in the desert just to swipe cactus, and every now and then he chuckled about it. He wondered why anybody would want such a thing in the first place. Why take the desert home with you? He wanted nothing more than to get away from this desolate place, and for the life of him he couldn’t understand a person wanting to take part of it home. He concluded that the woman must be crazy.
‘Would you care for some lunch?’ the crazy woman asked. She still sounded nervous.
‘Sure, I guess so.’
‘There should be a paper bag on the floor behind you. It has a couple of sandwiches in it, and some beer. Do you like beer?’
‘Are you kidding?’ He reached over the back of the seat and picked up the bag. The sandwiches smelled good. ‘Why don’t you pull off the road up there?’ he suggested. ‘We can go over by those rocks and have a picnic.’
‘That sounds like a fine idea.’ She stopped on a wide shoulder.
‘Better take us a bit farther back. We don’t wanta park this close to the road. Not if you want me to help you heist some cactus when we get done with lunch.’
She glanced at him uneasily, then smiled. ‘Okay, fine. We’ll do just that.’
The car bumped forward, weaving around large balls of cactus, crashing through undergrowth. It finally stopped behind a cluster of rocks.
‘Do you think they can still see us from the road?’ the woman asked. Her voice was shaking.
‘I don’t think so.’
When they opened the doors, heat blasted in on them. They got out, the young man carrying the bag of sandwiches and beer. He sat down on a large rock. The woman sat beside him.
‘I hope you like the sandwiches. They’re corned beef with Swiss cheese.’
‘Sounds good.’ He handed one of them to her and opened the beer. The cans were only cool, but he decided that cool beer was better than no beer at all. As he picked at the cellophane covering his sandwich, he asked, ‘Where’s your husband?’
‘What do you mean?’
He smiled. It had really put her on the spot. ‘Well, I just happened to see that you aren’t wearing a ring, you understand what I mean?’
She looked down at the band of pale skin on her third finger. ‘We’re separated.’
‘Oh? How come?’
‘I found out that he’d been cheating on me.’
‘On
‘Not crazy. He just enjoyed hurting people. But I’ll tell you something. Cheating on me was the worst mistake he ever made.’ They ate in silence for a while, the young man occasionally shaking his head with disbelief. Finally, his head stopped shaking. He decided that maybe he’d cheat too on a grown woman who gets her kicks stealing cactus. Good looks aren’t everything. Who wants to live with a crazy woman? He drank off his beer. The last of it was warm and made him shiver.
He went to the car and took the shovel from the floor in the back. ‘You want to come along? Pick out the ones you want and I’ll dig them up for you.’
He watched her wad up the cellophane and stuff it, along with the empty beer cans, into the paper bag. She put the bag in the car, smiling at him and saying, ‘Every litter bit hurts.’
They left the car behind. They walked side by side, the woman glancing about, sometimes crouching to inspect a likely cactus.
‘You must think I’m rather strange,’ she confided, ‘picking up a hitchhiker like I did. I hope you don’t think… well, it was criminal of that man to leave you out in the middle of nowhere. But I’m glad I picked you up. For some reason, I feel I can talk to you.’
‘That’s nice. I like to listen. What about this one?’ he asked, pointing at a huge prickly cactus.
‘Too big. What I want is something smaller.’
‘This one ought to fit in the trunk.’
‘I’d rather have a few smaller ones,’ she insisted. ‘Besides, there’s a kind in the Saguaro National Monument that I want to get. It’ll probably be pretty big. I want to save the trunk for that one.’
‘Anything you say.’
They walked fardier. Soon, the car was out of sight. The sun felt like a hot, heavy band pressing down on the young man’s head and back.
‘How about this one?’ he asked, pointing. ‘It’s pretty little.’
‘Yes. This one is just about perfect.’
The woman knelt beside it. Her shirt was dark blue against her perspiring back, and a slight breeze rustled her hair.
This will be a good way to remember her, the young man thought as he crashed the shovel down on her head.
He buried her beside the cactus.
As he drove down the road, he thought about her. She had been a nice woman with obvious class. Crazy, but nice. Her husband must’ve been a nut to cheat on a good-looking woman like her, unless of course it was because of her craziness.
He thought it nice that she had told him so much about herself. It felt good to be trusted with secrets.
He wondered how far she would have driven him. Not far enough. It was much better having the car to himself. That way he didn’t have to worry. And the 836 he found in her purse was a welcome bonus. He’d been afraid, for a moment, that he might find nothing but credit cards. All around, she had been a good find. He felt very lucky.
At least until the car began to move sluggishly. He pulled off the road and got out, ‘Oh, no,’ he muttered, seeing the flat rear tire. He leaned back against the side of the car and groaned. The sun beat on his face. He closed his eyes and shook his head, disgusted by the situation and thinking how awful it would be, working on the tire for fifteen minutes under that hot sun.
