Alone in the Desert, The Axe Murderer Strikes

But will there be coffee after?

The truck accepted the pocked and rutted dirt road in stride, but the 60-year-old travel trailer groaned its annoyance from behind, its frame shaking continuously like a dog after an unwanted bath. I slowed. The last thing I needed was to blow a spring. Because in the middle of nowhere, a hundred miles from civilization and almost as far from a usable cell signal, nobody would be around to offer help. Or hear me scream.

Although if the camper derailed, it wouldn’t be the first time my trip fell off its tracks. After leaving the Grand Canyon, I set my GPS for Utah, but the swift slap of a winter storm forced a directional recalibration. While the rehabilitated camper, which I gutted and renovated at the onslaught of COVID, felt fresh and modern, it lacked a number of crucial cold-weather features. Namely, plumbing that wouldn’t freeze and a furnace that, when left running all night, wouldn’t try to smother me under a pillow of carbon monoxide. So, instead of investing in gas-sniffing canaries to leave in the camper, I followed a curving highway south, toward Nevada.

The truck’s windshield wipers fought a losing battle against heavy snow, leaving thick smears of moisture with every pass. I cursed myself for not changing them out when preparing for my trek, but on the open road, complaints fall on deaf landscapes.

Perhaps the wipers and smeared glass were trying to keep my attention on the slick, desolate road, and away from the red rock landscape as it collected a dusting of powdered snow. The frosted tips of rock formations shimmered, offering spectacles few would ever see before the snow returned to its liquid form.

As the elevation dipped and the highway crossed through the northwestern corner of Arizona, then into Nevada, the snow gave way to rain, which gave way to sun. I pulled off into a gas station advertising loose slots and hot showers. In the mood for both but time for neither, I filled the gas tank and double-checked the new destination on my phone. A site just outside of the Valley of Fire state park. After snow and slush, fire had a welcoming ring to it.

I grabbed a questionable pre-packaged sandwich and two cans of Diet Coke from the station then twisted the truck’s ignition to life and followed signs for the highway entrance. Against my better judgment, I avoided looking for any expiration dates on the first food I’d eaten that day. Stress has a way of walling out all desire for food as if temporarily sustaining the body on negative thoughts and aggravation, but once that wall begins to crumble and hunger seeps in, health and nutrition be damned. Besides, what could go wrong with a haphazardly packaged sandwich sold in a middle-of-nowhere gas station with loose slots and hot showers? The Diet Coke would wash it all down anyway. Part of the reason why I purchased two.

A wet nose sniffed at the back of my ear, as one of my two dogs let me know they were doing fine in the back seat. I reached blindly behind, rubbing the velvet-soft ear of the spaniel mix, then felt and scratched at the coarse rump of the sleeping pit bull.

I twisted from the Interstate to a state highway and eventually onto a rutted, paved road with no name. The GPS lost signal as I pulled the trailer off onto Bureau of Land Management land two hours north of Las Vegas. Marked by little more than a slender green post invisible to anyone not within arm’s length, anyone can stop and camp on the government-owned property for weeks at a time. It’s the perfect destination for anyone wanting to enjoy the outdoors with little to no human interaction. I’ve never liked campgrounds. I avoid them whenever possible. Something about waking up, fixing a cup of coffee, only to look out the window and meet the gaze of a neighbor as they’re performing their morning constitutional in the back of their own camper has never appealed to me. I wanted to take in the world without taking in humanity. Just me and the dogs and the world. A palette cleansing from people.

Leveling the trailer and chalking the wheels didn’t take long after pulling into the shadow of a small, forgotten mountain. With solar panels propped, I too directed my face toward the chilled November sun. Despite a cloudless sky, my skin gleaned little warmth. Grabbing a jacket from the truck, I let the dogs out to smell and stretch and mark newly acquired territory.

Creating my own trail, I walked through rock and sand, looking for footprints and ATV tracks. I already learned the hard way to not park where ATVs liked to roam. Nothing had shot me awake like the roaring sound of ATVs and screaming joyriders at two in the morning. Those other sites offered plenty of warning. Thick pairs of tracks freshly stamped into the earth, crisscrossing through wooded hillsides like the steps of a mechanical dance. But here, the forgotten mountain sat alone, away from the world, with no tracks of visiting vehicles. Hopefully, it wouldn’t mind my company.

The dogs loosely followed along, diverting their attention to strange rocks and the occasional discarded beer bottle, labels long since bleached away. Only the patter of paws and the crunch of gravel under shoes accompanied us. There was no traffic, no wind, no other animals. Just us. As close to audible deprivation without paying to sit in a specialized tank I could ever hope to find.

The scorched earth offered little in the way of visual splendor. Beyond the singular stalagmite of a mountain, which I would explore later, the dusty terrain dipped over the horizon in every direction. Off in the distance, a vehicle continued along the isolated highway. It was little more than a spec. A yellow blemish on a sepia canvas.

It was the kind of place I could wander and think to myself, without the stress of towing a prehistoric trailer through rush-hour traffic. I could stumble upon answers to questions I didn’t realize I had. Talk to family long since passed on. Contemplate life. Mark my own territory. The kind of place I could let my mind wander. But driving long hours had a way of tiring the mind. I’d do all that in the days to come.

The transition from day to night came quickly in the desert. I watched as the sun slipped behind the horizon, stretching my shadow across the entirety of the desert. For a brief moment, I was a giant of a man, until the sun said no more and my shadow faded to nothing. Life summarized before my eyes. With a final goodbye, the sky went from pink to purple to black. The stars would be coming out soon.

I disconnected the solar panel and brought the dogs inside the camper. 20 feet of camper space wasn’t much when traveling alone. It’s even less when two dogs flop onto the floor, inadvertently doing their best to always be right where I needed to step. I washed my face with a bottle of water outside. The less liquid I ran into the gray/black water tank the longer I could go without emptying it. There were many great things about traveling the country in a camper. The worst might be the black water tank. The smell can’t be adequately described. But if Death ever vomited in an outhouse, I suppose the aromatics would be comparable.

Stars had already overtaken the moonless night sky, spreading like an infection of celestial lights. There were no street lamps, no headlights, no neon restaurant signs to compete with for a hundred miles. The moon’s absence allowed the billions of stars and planets to take center stage, the lead actor behind a curtain for the night’s show. Nothing could awe inspire like a sky such as that. Nothing could make someone feel as insignificant either. I wanted to remain outside, but the mass of the day’s drive weighed on my eyes, with sleep not far away.

Climbing back into the camper, I toweled off my face, changed clothes, moved the dog’s water bowl out of the way so I wouldn’t step into it during the middle of the night, and covered the windows. During warmer evenings I liked to leave the windows shielded only by the veil of curtains, so the morning sun would wake me, but with the dropping temperature, I put in place the insulated coverings. It blocked out both the cold and my view of anything outside.

Curling into bed I tapped the lights off. Resting my head against a pillow, I closed my eyes and listened. No wind. No traffic. No city noises or dogs barking or insects buzzing. No white noise or weather or anything. I was surrounded by complete silence. I’d already spent a hundred nights around lakes and national parks and forests. All quiet, but all with their own unique atmospheric orchestration. Water lapping at a smooth sandbank, wind caressing pine branches and whispering sweet nothings to spruce trees. Crickets rubbing wings together and rain rhythmically tapping on the aluminum roof and birds singing love songs to one another. Always something. But there, in the shadow of the forgotten mountain, I laid in an audible vacuum of nothingness. Complete isolation. The kind of place I could let my consciousness wander. So I let it.

Someone was going to ax murder me.

That’s how it always happened. In every movie, in every television drama, in every episode of Forensic Files or Dateline NBC. The world was quiet. Too quiet. And then the killer would strike.

The world around me did not produce noise, so my mind searched to create in its place. It sifted through the nothingness for heavy booted footsteps in the desert sand. For the metallic cocking of a revolver or the scraping of metal blades along the camper walls. For the maniacal laughter of a killer as he twisted at a locked doorknob.

Did I lock the door?

I backtracked through my actions. I washed my face, toweled off quickly, marveled at the night sky, walked back inside, closed the door, and . . . and . . . ?

I couldn’t remember! My eyes and thoughts drifted through the blackened interior of the camper to the door and its handle. Did I twist the lock? I thought I did. No, wait, I didn’t think so! Should I get up? Should I check the lock? Two steps to the door, two steps back. Quick and easy. Or was that just what the killer would expect me to do?

I made mental notes of all the weapons stashed throughout the camper. My younger sister told me, before I left, I should consider purchasing a firearm. That I didn’t know what kind of crazies I’d run into during my travels. I didn’t follow through on her advice. Instead, I brought a baseball bat. It sat in the closet next to the front door. Not that I could swing away in the confined space. Next to the bat, a hatchet. More useful, but still next to the possibly unlocked door. I purchased a maul for splitting firewood. I don’t know why. It never did any splitting. A canister of mace, tucked into the glove compartment of the pickup, would do me even less good than the oversized maul and baseball bat. Lastly, outside of the hard plastic cutlery, a trigger-fired can of bear spray sat secured in the cabinet above my head. Yes, that could be a solution, I thought. Grab the bear spray, slowly creep for the door, pick up the hatchet, then wait. Wait by the door, and watch the handle. So when it started to turn I could aim the devastating spray, then spring my own attack. The murderer would never see it coming.

The floor at my feet groaned. My head shot up from its pillow, I searched the darkness in vain. Breath held tight by my lungs, blanket held tighter by my hands, my ears tried to listen through the ringing of fear. Weight shifted on the bed. Like a fist pressing down on the mattress. Or an ax. I froze, unable to move. Unable to breathe. Unable to scream. More weight on the mattress. Something brushed past my leg. I closed my eyes and waited for the end.

A dry nose sucked at air around my chin, followed by the stunted lick of my pit bull before she thumped down between my chest and the wall of the camper like a sack of cement. Tucking her muzzle under my arm, the pooch fell sound asleep before I could offer a quick scratch behind her ears.

The warmth of her body, the beat of her heart, quieted my reckless mind. Soothing my imagination, the sound of the dog’s slow, rhythmic breathing lullabied me to sleep.

The next morning I unlocked the door to a desert landscape sunning itself awake. The dogs lept out in search of new smells and optimal territory to claim. I took my own morning walk, around the camper. A silly exercise, I knew I wouldn’t silence all doubt in my mind until I inspected for tracks or boot prints or zodiac signs scratched into the side of the trailer. When my inspection turned up empty I returned inside, leaving the door open so the dogs could freely come and go as they pleased. Setting a kettle of water to boil, I scooped whole coffee beans dry roasted with Mexican chocolate into a manual grinder, twisted the mechanical crank until left with coarse grounds, and poured the contents into a French press. Lifting the kettle from its burner, I filled the French press with water.

Outside, the dogs had no interest in returning to the dark confines of the camper, so I brought their breakfast out to them. As they raced to see who could eat their food first, I propped the solar panel toward the sun, directly next to a reclining camping chair. I poured myself a cup of coffee, added a dash of cinnamon, and sank into the outdoor chair. With the sun on my face, I took a sip, letting the cocktail of caffeine and sun warm me inside and out. Closing my eyes, I let my thoughts once again wander. To the past. To the future. To answers I desired and to questions I previously discovered. There would be no false nightmares or whispers of doubt as the night before.

Things were so much easier during the day.