Читать книгу Valley of Fire - Steven Manners - Страница 7

H e comes out of the desert in late afternoon, the only living thing in the Valley of Fire. It’s a Thursday in June, 4:03 p.m., according to a note in the ranger’s log book. The man identifies himself as John Munin. Tall, perhaps early forties. Old enough to know better. Explains there was a breakdown, engine overheated, the fuel line, he doesn’t know much about cars. His voice is raw; he’s been out there a while.

It’s fifty degrees cooler inside the ranger’s office. “I’ll get you some thing cold to drink.” There’s a small refrigerator in the corner of the office, TV on top. Not much to look at outside the window; the land scape is hard to focus on, shimmering with heat, elusive. “You all right? Feeling dizzy?” The ranger has been trained to recognize the signs of heat stroke.

“I’m a doctor.”

“Then you should know I have to check your pulse. Procedure.” Grips Munin’s wrist for a few moments, grunts, then releases him. “Could have been a close call.” Hands him a bottle of water and a packet of salt from a drive-through.

“I have to get back to town.”

“You can camp out on the cot in the back. I’ll give you a lift into town when my shift’s over. A couple of hours. You look done in.”

“I don’t want to be any trouble.”

“No trouble. I don’t mind the company. You can get a tow truck out here tomorrow.”

Munin takes off his shoes and sinks onto the cot. “It’s a rental.”

“Then I guess it’s their problem.”

Munin can feel the beginnings of a heat headache; his eyes feel scratchy and inflamed as if seeing in infrared. There’s a heat-bug whine in his ears, worse when he lies down. “Sorry to put you to so much trouble.”

“This kind of thing happens out here.”

“Do you like it? Out here?”

“You get used to it,” the ranger says. Meaning the stillness. Heat and loneliness. “It’s a popular spot. We get a lot of visitors. Decent folks. It’s like nowhere else, I guess. No buildings. Rock formations, of course, but nothing much else to look at. A lot of emptiness and open space. People tell themselves that’s what they want. Until they get lost in it.”