Long Road to California Read online

  Chapter 12

  Caleb Looking Up

  The truck’s engine starts giving us a little trouble on the lonely road through the Kaihab Forest, headed back towards I-40 from the Grand Canyon. Dee had warned us about this, part of why she urged us to make frequent stops – after awhile at certain speeds and temps, it develops a rattle and runs through more oil than normal. I don’t think she and Harlen did any more than carry extra oil and dump it in. At Dee’s insistence, we’re got several quarts packed away with that in mind.

  Nina’s all for that, or for limping along until we hit the interstate, finding a mechanic (who will no doubt try to rip us off). I’m down with the oil, but I bring us to a stop at the first side road we come to, and tell her to go take some pictures. It would just be dumb not to let the engine cool first. And I suspect I can find a loose valve in there myself.

  This makes her nervous, like her city self, tensed for threats from any direction. She gets out of the car, but has her phone out, testing it, rather than either camera.

  “It’ll be fine,” I tell her. “Dee told us, this is nothing new.” I prop open the hood and turn my head away from the hot rush of acrid air that rises. Just looking, I can see the oil’s down. Once it cools, I’d like to tighten all the valve connections, and also make sure the spark plugs aren’t misfiring. Our very first stop for gas, I noticed all the dirt and dust accumulated, like no one bothered to wipe it down or likely even check things out regularly. Even their so called service was pretty basic.

  “We’ve got enough oil, right? And water?” Nina asks, kind of flapping her hands the way she does when she feels something is too far out of her control.

  “Plenty. The engine just has to cool. This is nothing, think what Vera’s family went through – they blew out tires going down hill on those rough roads. Miles from nowhere, on their own.”

  “You think the tires are okay?”

  I fix her my back off look. “Their tires. Not these tires. This can be your present day car trouble shot,” I suggest.

  “I’m sorry, I’ll stop hovering,” Nina says, inches from my shoulder but backing away. “It’s just, there’s not much traffic along here. In case of emergency, you know?”

  “It’s far from an emergency,” I assure her. “Any more than me toeing the edge of the canyon was.” I fan the engine and try to get a smile from her. But she’s still eyeing both me and the engine warily.

  I ease around her and reach behind the seats to pull out some rags and a quart of oil. There’s a small tool set back there too, and I grab it as well. Finally, she cocks her head, taking in our quiet woodsy surroundings, starting to think about the photos she can take. I’m resigned to appearing sweaty and probably oil smeared in yet another set of shots – but at this point, I can pretty much tune out the camera. At least I was looking reasonably clean an hour or so ago, where we and a thousand other tourists posed for a thousand identical canyon vista shots.

  Oddly enough, I think we both liked Sedona better than the Grand Canyon. Well, I expected Nina would, as she’s not a fan of heights and cliffs and so on. I did make her nervous – unintentionally – just by looking around close to the edge. Lucia used to do that too, not even realize she was freaking out her mother in her exuberant play. Nina sees dangers around her loved ones more than around herself, I can’t help but notice.

  The big hole was spectacular, or course, jaw dropping, immense. But I’ve been there before, a couple family trips as a kid, and a more vigorous camping trip down from the North Rim, not long after college. Where we got to really live in the rugged and dramatic place, not just look at it. That was just before Nina and I hooked up, I guess. When we were talking about it before, I’d forgotten that she wasn’t there. It’s funny to think how few memories I have of being an adult but not with her – and some damn camera – along too.

  But all the tour buses, the loud chattering crowds of look alike tourists clamoring to be at the same place at the same time, put me off. I suppose we’ve gotten spoiled, these weeks, to expect to have places mostly to ourselves. To just walk up to a campground and pick our spot, or drive freely and unencumbered by buses and poorly navigated rental cars. I like the quiet of this random side road better than the congestion of the giant parking lot near the grandest canyon lookout, that’s for sure.

  Not that Sedona was empty or lacking morons who’d stop dead in the middle of the road with that charmed sense that no one would ram them if they’re on vacation. But there was something easygoing about it. The pretty look of the place, the dramatic red rocks in the background. Just a street or two away from the crystals and readings and so on, there were houses and small landscaping that was stunning. I had wandered for awhile, while Nina was camped out at a café involved in her work, with her cameras and laptop juicing up.

  I know it’s a wealthy area, and one rife with native plants and remarkable rock formations, so no surprise that the larger estates were done up nicely. But backtracking down a narrow lane just behind the main drag, I was impressed with the look of things as well. People with even a small space just got it, as far as their proportions. Balancing the rise of their architecture with the heights and angles of the vegetation out front. I was measuring square footage in my head, nodding at how it came together. Simple and stark placements of stonework, clearly local pieces, and those quiet desert succulents that you hardly notice until they shoot out a spectacular bloom.

  Couldn’t help but wonder, strolling around, if several of them had used the same service, or if there was some neighborhood program or something. I mean, the landscaping pulled the collection of disparate houses into an attractive and physically balanced, very appealing neighborhood. I was charmed, and believe me, I’m not a guy who often is charmed by stuff.

  Turning back to the engine, I wet the rag and wipe down where I can. Test the temperature, and then reach in to gently test connections where I can. Strain to reach the plugs and wonder if I’ll need my reading glasses to be able to see better. Reminded of being a kid, being too short to reach and see the stuff I was fixing. It’s hard to tell, but there are a couple possible culprits for the rattle. I fumble around for the right sized socket, and tighten each connection in turn.

  There’s something kind of relaxing about working under the hood. Like walking around, looking at landscaping, seeing what works, what could be fixed – this is the same, tools and some easy physical labor and it’s fixed. Or at least looking better, or running better. There are a series of things that I can figure out and get done, whether it’s a for an opulent new corporate headquarters or fixing a piece of machinery.

  It occurred to me back there in pretty little Sedona, and it strikes me again now, that it would make sense for me to focus small like that, like those houses on the little lane. It doesn’t matter anymore that my so called expertise was in higher end places. When the housing market eventually comes back, there will be the need. Small jobs on small lots can be a starting place. I’m not doing myself or anyone else any favors sitting at home crushed by my epic fails, Something about being out here, away from everyone I know, makes me see the smallness of my own personal shortcomings. Scheme of things, my failed company, my lost investment, they’re more like specks on the edge of the canyon than boulders blocking my path.

  I finish up with the oil, and check over to see if Nina is still stressing. She’s got the paper map out. In her shorts and t-shirt, one hand winding her hair out of her face, she looks like a school kid. I gather the rags and rinse off my hands from a water bottle, trying to wash off the gunk and car smell, and take in the fresh scent of the pines surrounding us.

  “We’re still 50 miles from the interstate,” she says, “and it’ll be getting dark in another hour. I was hoping to see most of this in better light.”

  “Well, let’s find a Subway or something on the highway and then find a camp sooner. Take another day to go across and spend the after
noon around there, then start fresh at the border in the morning.” I watch, trying to gauge her reaction. We’d been aiming to get farther along today, but it doesn’t really matter.

  She nods, looking satisfied with this change of plan. “We could check out the river area in the afternoon light.”

  Nina wants a thorough investigation of the last patch of road out of Arizona. Back before Highway 40 was rerouted, the stretch of Route 66 out of Oatman and down to the California border was infamous – a treacherous narrow twisting road that would challenge the best of vehicles and proved the undoing of some of those old 1930s rigs.

  Vera’s family managed it with only a pair of flat tires, one on each car, down by the bottom. There are several photos, and it’s the part of the story that most stuck with me from the family lore of my childhood days. The flat that made them run off the road and how they nearly careened off a cliff, almost spilling all their worldly goods below. Plus, as Nina has pointed out several times, it was at this juncture where Vera met the famed Reno. Her family fixing their cars, taking a break from the stress of almost crashing, the brothers Smith working odd jobs along that last stretch before the California border. Nina has shown me the photo: something with shovels.

  The truck starts up smooth, no knocking, and I give the wheel a little pat. Ease it gently back to the road.

  We ramble along at a good pace, each with our thoughts. I’m still calculating out the types of jobs I might find, how much I could see fit to charge, how many I’d need to make it worthwhile. How long until my leg is reliable. How to mitigate if it never really is – face it, man, that’s a possibility that’s stupid to just ignore. Nina, I’d guess, is lost in thought about lights and colors. It’s getting toward evening, when the sun is low and the sky and distant hills are suffused with pinks and corals.

  There’s a junction with the interstate, edible if uninspiring food for dinner. We’re back in the Kaibab Forest, according to the map, and just a little ways along, the GPS indicates a campground. Up a gravel road and away from the lights and cars of the interstate, I have to admit I’m glad I just checked the engine. “Relax,” I tell Nina. “We can crash in the truck if there’s nothing up here.”

  But a few slow miles in, there’s a sign, a little self serve place, and we hurry to set ourselves up in the last of the dusk before darkness comes on fully.

  I should call Dee – I did promise to give her an update if the truck had any problems. She answers, sounding glad to hear from me, and immediately mentions that Mom is over. This is a good time to apologize for not checking in with Mom that often, because Dee can’t really whine about it when Mom’s right there. I give her the low down on the truck. She seems less than interested; I guess she figures it’s our problem or Clint’s from here on out.

  Mom of course wants to chat, and Dee turns over the phone fast. She at least says hi and how are you, before launching into the saga of her latest battle with her cable company, her annoyance at people’s manners at the grocery store, and so on. Nina can tell it’s Mom, I’m sure, and comes up to my other ear to whisper “ tell Ginnie the latest about Reno!”

  First I need to get a word in edgewise. I say where we are, where we’ve been, the Grand Canyon and so on, and we both recall the first trip we took there as a family. Dee and I were little; it was before Dad left. “Nina wants me to tell you what Grandma said about that guy she met on the trip, the one from that picture?” I add, hoping this won’t be too weird for her. The idea of her mom being in love with another guy. Although frankly, in my case, it would seem totally fine, I suppose. Too bad my mom hasn’t hit it off with someone else.

  Mom can’t really remember which picture. In an odd way she never showed that much interest in Grandma Vera’s collection, in what was clearly an important part of her mother’s life. Or maybe it’s that she almost resents it, the way her mother has always favored those photos, that time in her life before she had her and her brothers. But she remembers Nina asking about the guy in the picture.

  “Well, Grandma confessed that he was a boyfriend. They met on the trip and then they worked together later at a farm. Only he left and they thought he died. So after that, she married Grandpa Walt.”

  Nina’s pushing on my arm, saying, “Her first love, it was magical, she was devastated.”

  I repeat her words. “Do you remember your parents talking about that, from when you were little?” I add. After all, Grandpa Walt’s eventual confession would have happened when she was a kid, maybe a teenager.

  “Well, I wonder, now,” Mom says. “You know neither of them spoke much aloud about feelings and so on, it was just the way people were back then.” She pauses, exhales.

  I watch the crescent moon hovering by the horizon as she collects her thoughts.

  “There were times when they were testy with each other, I remember that. I don’t know, it was the early 50s, I might have just assumed they were worried about communism or something.”

  “It’s hard to imagine Grandma being afraid of much of anything.”

  Mom laughs. “Can’t argue with that. You know, she always did make a point about finding true love. I can recall that same word she used, magical. That I shouldn’t settle for anything less. She was not sold on your father when I brought him home, I guess because she didn’t see that magic. She was right as it turns out, though probably not for the right reasons. But I always figured she meant true love like in the movies, not something she had experienced her own self.”

  “From everything she’s told Nina, she was talking about herself before she dated Grandpa Walt, with this young guy. I think they would have gotten married if not for his accident.”

  I can hear Mom’s sharp intake of breath, but it’s hard to tell with her – is she interested in the story, or distracted by something on TV? “Well, gosh, Caleb,” she exclaims. “That’s something, that she actually had that kind of romance herself, that she always held up as some sort of ideal? As a teenager? Hard to believe.” Mom laughs. “Well, maybe I should believe it, knowing her. But that she’s talking about it, my gosh. Dee, come listen to this!”

  I retell the story to them both, Dee listening in, chuckling and exclaiming. “The thing is,” I add, nodding to Nina, who is practically dancing in front of me, looking like she’ll chew my arm off, “it turns out that the guy didn’t get killed like they thought, it was his brother. So like potentially, he could still be alive.”

  My sister and mom squeal in unison; I have to hold the phone away, keep from bursting an eardrum. “So we’re thinking maybe we should make a big detour and go to his last known area, Monterey. Last known from like 30 something years ago.”

  “Of course you should, oh my God!” Their voices blend together. It’s too dark to see Nina’s expression, but I don’t need to see her face to know she agrees.

  Off the phone, lights out, the darkness is like a warm blanket. At first, utterly black. And freeing in its way – anything I need to see or do will just have to wait until it gets light again. For now, all we can do is sit, talk, stargaze until sleep takes us.

  Slowly our eyes adjust, and the now moonless night makes itself known to us. Above the slim silhouettes of the nearby pines, bright stars pierce the silent sky.

  Nina’s puttering, but soon she sits, and we lean towards each other, heads back, awestruck at this darkest, showiest night so far. Wonder at the sheer number of stars, the expanse of the galaxy practically at our fingertips. Matching gasps as a meteor shoots by.

  “They had nights like this almost the whole way,” I whisper. Don’t want to break the silence, but I suddenly have Grandma Vera’s voice in my head and the need to share it. How she would collect all the kids at our family gatherings, keeping us awake after our bedtimes, the stories she would tell. “They would pull off the road wherever they happened to be. Sometimes they’d look for other families, sometimes it was just them. The guys would put up t
he tarps for tents, and Vera would help her mom and aunt cook, or take the little kids around to scrounge for firewood. They might have a campfire, heat up their food. But it was always dark like this, no highway lights at all. They liked it when the moon was out. She always knew the phases of the moon, like it was her personal friend.”

  Nina shifts next to me, and I feel her hair lightly brush my arm. “For all the hardship, they had a pretty amazing experience,” she says. “You know I’ve always gotten a bit of that sense from her. That they had a bad time of it, but she loved the adventure.”

  “Yeah, those were the stories she would tell us. I mean they were dirt poor and there were hardly any jobs once they made it to the central valley. But she would tell us – imagine all us kids in sleeping bags out on the porch at that big place in Modesto – she’d tell the story of coming down that steep windy road by the border. Being in the back, bouncing and keeping hold of her little brother and all the stuff piled around them. Hearing fear in her father’s voice and trying to crane around and see the front of the road but just seeing the drop off the sheer edge they were next to. Then all of them leaping out of the car, trying to push it to a turnout before someone came crashing along into them after they stopped.”

  “What else,” Nina murmurs, her voice faint, barely breaking the stillness.

  We’re both tired. Which reminds me all the more of listening to those stories on those childhood nights. “They were really low on money by then. They got the cars fixed and even washed them before they crossed into California,” I continue. “There was some sort of agriculture border check, and it was important not to look like vagrants. They camped out by the Colorado River before the crossing, and it was really luxurious because they could all bathe and soak out all that dust. She would tease all of us kids, telling us we had no idea how much people back then would love the nightly baths we tried to get out of,” I add.

  “Then it was this big let down at first. They crossed into California, but it was still the Mojave desert. The kids literally thought they would see orange groves the minute they hit the state line. Instead they had to reverse their days and nights – sleep in the day and stay awake to drive across the desert at night, to avoid overheating. And they were really running out of food, like everybody was eating the last of this giant sack of potatoes they had brought. But just when the adults started questioning their choice, they came upon these people whose car had broken down. They were leaving, headed east, but stuck at the side of the road. Her brothers were able to fix the car, and the people were so grateful that they shared all their food. Grandma would describe this meal they had, just as the sun rose up over the mountains behind them – she could name every type of food they had, thick slices of bread, bacon and eggs, fresh pealed oranges, apricots, coffee to drink.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Yeah. What we might think was a nice meal was like the best feast she could imagine.”

  “Well, that gets to the heart of it, doesn’t it,” Nina whispers. “You gotta suffer a little bit to appreciate when it lets up. To know what’s really valuable.”

  The stars still sparkle, but my eyelids are drooping. We crawl into our sleeping bags. Nina sighs deeply, the way she does, like a cat, just before falling asleep.

  I’m almost there too, though her sigh makes me miss our old cats for a moment. Thinking about what she said, what’s valuable. I think about Grandma Vera as a teenager, all those kids, so psyched about simple food. Her and her young love, the guy whose love for her was magical. I roll to my side for a sec, toward Nina. Trying to imagine how bad it would have been to have lost her. Even if someone else came along, even if years had passed.

  Just before I drop off, it clicks finally in my head, about Grandma Vera. Vera and her first love. The years don’t matter. Of course we have to go find him.