The Dig Site

I grabbed a handful of sand and watched the coarse dust filter through my fingers. It left a brown powder imprint on my palm. When I tilted my hand to the light, flecks of something shiny caught the setting sun making my skin sparkle. I set off across the landscape, trying to avoid the springs of green growth. That life had braved the volatile desert to grow in such an inhospitable place, it'd be a shame to meet its end under my boot.

In the fleeting shadows of daylight I slid on my headlamp and again consulted the marked map in my pocket. It should be here, somewhere, under my boots.

I made a broad circle, easily tracking my progress by my imprints left in the sand. There was no marker or filled in hole in the dirt I could spy. I wished it was like the movies where a gentle breeze would unsettle the corner of a golden treasure box. It was too dark, I'd have to come back in the daylight.

I followed my footprints back to the van, the darkening sky muting the surroundings to amorphous purple blobs. From the comfort of the open van cargo door I watched the sunlight streak towards the horizon, raking the clouds in paths of pink and purple

What was Henry doing right now? When I closed my eyes I could still see an imprint of the sky, the colors faded quickly but different shades of black flooded the image, like a monochromatic photo negative. I squeezed my eyes tighter until twinkles of white light cascaded across my gaze. What was the last image Henry saw? Did it linger? Henry had such lovely brown eyes, and delicate plush skin around them. I could remember running my thumb along his skin, down his chin, slight stubble catching my fingernail. I could almost feel him there, sneaking behind me to squeeze my hips.

The sky is dark now, the first stars appearing like dull fireflies. I ambled into the open cargo door and slid it shut behind me. Flicking on the lights the van snaps into detail. I paid an unreasonable amount for it at the rental agency and even with my credit card swiped and a cold glare in my eyes the agency hadn’t just let me drive away. I was shown how to open the cupboards, how to check the propane and turn on the burner, how to shade the windows with magnetic covers, and convert the couch into a bed. It was a small space but everything could be folded or expanded into something useful. I put a kettle on the burner and started rearranging the room for the evening. I liked the routine of it, the attention to order. You couldn’t open one drawer without the others closed, you couldn’t lay out the mattress pieces if the table was unfolded. The process was calming, like a balm on my mind. The bundled fitted sheet smoothed under my gliding finger tips, molding the fabric to the mattress corners. The kettle hummed behind me, bubbling water echoing off the metal chamber. One after another drawers slid open, resting against my knee as I searched for a teabag, honey, cup noodles, spoon, mug. I placed each item on the counter top as the kettle reached a shrill whistle. My warm mug in hand, noodles cooling, I clambered into the drivers seat. The windshield was uncovered and I hoped to see the night desert come alive beyond the pane of glass, but the lights of the van were too bright and all I could see in the window was my own reflection. I quickly covered it.

I dreamed I was driving, back in the city, snow falling all around. The roads had been salted but were still slick, so the car crept, seeking the crunch of gravel and rock salt. I could still see my breath with each exhale though the hot air from the vents was turned to full blast. I looked over to the passenger seat and there was Henry blowing slowly on a steaming mug of coffee. A large blue scarf was wrapped tightly around his neck, his nose was bright red from the cold, and a drip from his nose teetered on flavoring his coffee. I turned back to face the road and the whole world seemed to deflate like one long exhale.

My limbs were rigid and tingling when I awoke, desert nights were so cold. Stumbling out of bed I reached for long socks and a sweater. I hadn’t thought to pack warm clothes in my haste and my only sweater smelled heavily of airline seat musk and fast food. Clumsily I transformed my bed back into a seat and table, whisking away the crumpled sheets and foraging through the cupboards for instant coffee. I started the kettle and fumbled into my slender hiking boots.

Sliding open the heavy cargo door, the yellow light of the rising sun pried at my eyelids. In comparison to the gentle blush of sunset, sunrise was sharp and frigid, an omnipresent spotlight. My van was parked near the crook of two small mountains and the long shadows they cast were coattails on the landscape.

With my shovel in hand I staggered away from the van looking for somewhere to relieve myself. There was a large bush 20 steps toward the sun and I stopped there to dig a hole. I heard scurrying and the swish of a tail at my approach but didn’t hesitate before plowing the spade into the coarse ground. I couldn’t stop shivering in the shade of the bush. My preference for privacy ridiculous in this barren corner of the state. I hadn’t seen another person in 3 days and the nearest thing to civilization was a series of transmission towers that bisected the desert like a fragile zipper. My cell was also useless, it lost signal an hour before I made camp and had yet to revive in the vast plain.

As I mixed the hot water and powered coffee in a metal cup I looked at the map again. It showed the expanse of desert colored in light brown hues, the elevation blobs marking the small mountains threatened to expand and spill over the map edge like dissipating water droplets.

“You don’t even know how old that map is, that place with the O may not exist anymore”, my sister had said, incredulous that I had stopped sorting the paper laden expanse of Henry’s study.

“Then why would he keep it,” I murmured back.

She gestured to the papers around us, “why did he keep anything, I found a lease in that drawer and he hadn’t even signed it.”

I looked down at the map, it’s frayed edge clearly ripped from an atlas. A red O had bled through the page it was marked over so many times in sharpie. I sensed her eyes on me, watching me fold the page, it’s crisp edges rubbing against my fingertips. I slid it into my pocket with that chasm of silence between us. Grief swarmed, Henry’s absence the constant thrum of each passing moment, anything she could have said drowned in the oppressive silence. We returned to the papers in front of us, reading, sorting, shredding.

Three more days passed in the desert, in the morning I would orient myself against the mountains making my best guess of the position of the ‘O’. With my boots I would trace out a circle in the sand, digging into the ground with my toes, tapping the underlayer, feeling for something unnatural. Once the circle was traced I would walk inside the area looking for unusual markers or odd shapes. After a quick meal I would dig, my hands wrapped in dirty laundry to protect my skin from the low hanging sun and the grains of sand that rubbed my knuckles in the repetitive motion of the dig. Small cuts burned the folds of my fingers and I had to stop regularly to rinse them out with bottled water. My case of water was only half used, the empty bottles multiplying around the van in a gradual invasion.

The van was starting to smell, dirty clothes, wrappers from protein bars, banana peels, and the musk radiating off my body from a week without a shower. When I lay down at night I could feel Henry’s cold palm pushed against my back, the stink like his morning breath when I would wake early and listen to him snore.

In the house Henry felt more real than my memories. There is his study door closed when he’s working, here is his coffee mug cleaned and waiting for him. That creak on the stair was just him passing by. I never believed in haunted places, but the memories of him in our home felt more present than a ghost. The real memories of our time together filling all the spaces he lingered, like a shadow playacting a life. I didn’t expect him to follow me here, where everything was different and new. Henry hated camping.

The thought made my breath catch in my throat. Henry hated camping, how could he make it out to this desert? What misfortune brought him to this foreign corner of the country, to bury some secret, mark it on a map, and never tell me about it? Something like a sob escaped my lips, labored and low. My chest heaved and my eyes clouded. Blood rushed to my ears as I planted my hands firmly in the sand trying to steady my breath. I closed my eyes and counted to ten. And again, and again. I could feel the edges of the map poking into my thigh from it’s hideaway in my pocket. I picked up my spade and went back to the dig.

On the eighth day I decided to climb one of the mountains. It was steeper than I expected, my breath labored and my thighs burned as I zig zagged up. The mountain was rocky, sand gave way to boulders and scrub brush peaked out through cracks in the rock. Near the top I was scrambling on all fours, pausing to make sure the van was still visible on the desert floor. With a final heave I reached the top, the blood rushing in my veins louder than my coarse exhales. I sat on a large stone, my bottom teetering on its smooth edge. The landscape was beautiful, miles of the desert unfolded like a board game in front of me. There were large mountains in the distance, dipped in muted purples, pale grays, and every shade of taupe that could be khakied. The wind was flowing like a gentle stream at this height, clouds like clumps of cotton balls were swept away in a meandering drift. I could imagine myself lingering on the mountain too long, my clothes dissolving, my bones ground into dust carried away by the wind, and this view remaining the same.

My phone pinged, at this height service returned. I looked at the messages and missed calls flooding in, curious, anxious, tinged with concern. My sister had sent a series of texts, gradually increasing in urgency. Please, they said, come home. Home.

On the desert floor the circles from my search were barely visible. The holes I dug were like pock marks on each flat face. In a terrain beset with blemishes I knew mine would disappear soon enough. Home. The thought stuck in my mind like molasses poured into my skull. He wanted to die at home, near the end when he could hardly get out of bed. He would still smile at me, tucked into a blanket made by his mother, he looked so comfortable. He could tell I was scared, in the breathless whispers, in the ways I crept around the house trying not to make a sound, I was never good at hiding my fear. He cupped my face in his hands, they were brittle then, just skin and bones, and he murmured, “give it all to me. All your fear and anxiety and self pity. Give it to me. When I’m gone, I’ll take it with me.” I couldn’t respond, even in the hospice bed, even with his dwindling appetite, even with the nurse knitting silently in a corner, I couldn’t believe he was dying.

I looked at my hand, cracked and bleeding from my days in the sun and sand. They were rough and growing callouses so different than his fragile fingertips, which I felt tickling my earlobes like the passing breeze. I pulled the map out from my pocket, looking at the circles in the sand below and the circle on the page. Was anything out there? The bright red marker had faded in the sun and its darker hue looked more like blood.

The sun fizzled on my sunburnt cheeks as I clambered back down the mountain. My joints felt tired and heavy, my hands ached each time I placed them on a rocky outcropping. I stumbled back to the van and pulled myself into the front seat, hiding my forehead behind the window shade. He had said give it all to him. Maybe this mystery was his to keep too. Give it to me, he’d said, I’ll take it with me. “Okay,” I whispered and put the van in gear.