Every feather made it's own unique sound. The wind seemed right for coasting. Both large brown birds coasted next to each other. I could see the feathers move and the wind change sound. But it wasn't at the same time.
Each feather was different and made a crisp and hollow sound through all its raptor bones. I was never aware that each individual feather made it's own sound. There are so many other things to think about it. It just didn't cross my mind.
They were not buzzards circling above waiting for me to lay down again. They had no interest in me or were indifferent. Maybe they ate meat. The sound was so clear. Anything I could focus on in this unfamiliar desert was better than my dry mouth.
The road was getting to me. The plants and the birds were better than thinking about how much longer I would be on this road, the reason I was on it, what lay behind me, and why on earth no cars seemed to use this road. Nobody was near my location. Las Vegas was 289 miles away.
I couldn't be tempted down one of the washed out roads that crisscrossed these hills. I had to keep on the road. I had to keep moving. When I stopped to lay down on a garbage bag I stole from the kitchen two days prior, my body hurt worse. I grew more thirsty, and my thoughts turned vile, vulgar, furious.
This was unsafe. I knew I was in danger. The Mojave Desert it turned out. What massive rain storms must have moved this reddish dirt around, sorting the rocks by size and weight so orderly.
Nothing had moved any of the rocks and sand since the last rainstorm, however many years or decades ago, maybe way longer. No tire tracks. Nobody had even pulled off the side of this highway for miles, maybe years. I realized the birds were gone and I couldn't have found a worse place to hitch hike if I tried, if I tried for years. Only a dedicated team working together throughout multiple states could have found such a place. I had every reason to believe they did.
This was not a group I wanted to return back to. I wasn't going to. The sand was getting red and the shoulder of the road was getting softer. I didn't want to drag this suitcase on the rough parts of asphalt, the rumble seemed to wear me out faster. The sand on the shoulder stopped the wheels from rolling. I was weaving on and off this miserable road for hours. Knowing I had clothes for a week was reassuring. I wasn't about to leave the suitcase in the red dusty rocks. Keep the wheels rolling. Keep looking for homes and washed out roads, just don't go down them.
Keep thinking about geology.
Keep thinking about the plants and animals.
Maybe a home will appear on the landscape. No. There wasn't going to be a home out here, only more rocks and these small desert plants that seemed to offer nothing to the rocks.
Wait. The birds. The color of the rocks. It had been unusually quiet but nobody would claim to hear the wind from each feather; and, the rocks were now a different color of red. I stopped walking. The plants were now also a different hue from this morning. The plants were the same shape. It was a species of plant I had never seen before today. The plants were the same size with leaves the same shape. Clearly the same variety of plants as the morning...but they now had an orange tint. So did the rocks. Everything was far more orange than before and was getting more orange the further up the hill I went.
How many hours had I been walking uphill with no water? I looked at my watch. This was no time for a math problem. I didn't matter. Would I stay the night outside? Are there snakes here? The Mormon from the day before told me once I made it over the hill, someone would realize I was trying to walk to Las Vegas and pick me up. It couldn't be up hill the entire way. Things couldn't be turning orange.
Every step got slower and heavier. Was he even a real Mormon? Did he want me to die out here? I already stopped several times to lay down. Laying down and wondering if this Mormon was a phony was not the best use of my time. I wasn't thinking clear.
Each step was getting much slower. It had been hours since a car zoomed by. I could feel myself getting madder. But not at the group behind or the Mormon. Instead it was the acceptance that before someone dies of dehydration, things turn this interesting new shade of orange and nobody had told me. Is this common medical knowledge? Are dehydration symptoms different for each person or orange for everyone?
I thought people failing in the desert would see water, an oasis, or things that didn't exist. But instead, just a new color and the revelation that a bird is a dinosaur, with noisy wings. A let down. I couldn't see my ancestors or snakes, or snakes that I thought were my ancestors. Snakes. Maybe that is what the birds were looking for.
Surely all that flight noise would alarm rodents. That wasn't a problem or question for now. I needed to slow my walking, slow my breathing, slow my thinking and watch and listen for cars and monitor the increasingly orange situation I was in.
It became harder to avoid the sand on the shoulder, as visibility on the road decreased with increased bends and turns. Was it dangerous to be pulling a suitcase around these blind corners on a road with no cars? No. There were no cars. But I needed to be aware of the worst areas and stay on the shoulder in spots. I needed to remember this was a road and a car could come out of nowhere.
Wait... this is what I had been doing all day, balancing the awful rumble of the primitive road with the slow sand on the shoulder, trying not to pull the suitcase into the same heal over and over. This was a bad situation. I had to get out of here. Shouldn't I survive without water for a few days? Is there reason to panic? When did I drink last? Today. Then again, I never have walked up hill for so long and never in the desert sun, and never without water in the heat for so long.
I realized it didn't matter. I just had to get out of here. All I could do was put out my thumb if a car came by and not turn back. Keep walking slow and breathing slow. Yeah. Walk slow. Breath slow. Keep moving.
No. I had to stop. My legs were tired. I had to sit down. I had been icing my knee for a couple of weeks because I tore my meniscus. This was a medical problem. This was just a transportation problem. No. This is someone with severe family problems about to faint.
No. I am not going to faint. This is just a situation where I need to keep walking, again. The birds were back again, louder than before.
Then I heard it. A truck.
