Chapter 6

Once we were in Lanfair Valley we made time with all deliberate speed. Things were easy as long as we were on county roads – dirt they might be, and washboarded in places, but at least the county dragged 'em once a year or so, and kept the ditches bladed out. But when we turned off the Cima road onto the track that leads to my place, there wasn't any maintenance at all, unless you count an OX Ranch cowboy moving things out of the way when he found 'em where he wanted to drive.

Cecelia's learned to handle four-wheel drive, and bad or nonexistent roads, coming out here every year. She handled the Blazer as well as I could have, while Darlia and I handled the gate where the track turns west for a while. You never leave a gate open in this country – the ranch has 'em there for a reason, and if you leave one open cattle will drift through and get where they ought not. This gate was just a fence post strung with barbed wire, and standing next to another post with a loop of baling wire over the tops of both. I removed the wire loop from the gate post, and Darlia and I dragged the makeshift portal out of the way while Cecelia drove through. Then we dragged it back, and I slipped the wire back over the gate post. It was crude, but cattle don't go around working on how to open gates, so it worked well.

We drove west for a while, and then turned back north, the Grotto Hills on our right. After a bit we came to the driveway, which if possible was in even worse shape than the track had been. I could remember a time when the track and driveway both had been passable even for passenger cars, but Tony and Anna had died in 1989, and no one had lived here since. In the 18 years that had passed erosion and time had turned the driveway into a couple of ruts, with little erosion gullies, and rocks, and the occasional dead cholla branch, blocking the way. Darlia and I moved a couple of rocks – the Blazer could have handled them, but why not get 'em out of the way and be done with it? – and we threw two or three pieces of cholla wood into the back seat for later. Cholla wood burns fast down to long-lasting coals, and I've never found a better way to roast marshmallows.

It didn't take long, even moving obstacles, to come to the little clearing which was the yard I'd grown up in. The Airstream trailer that Tony, Anna, their two sons, and I had lived in was long gone, but the shed was still standing to our right, and the overhang of 4x4s and green fiberglass panels was in its place to the left. I've done a little work on both since our first trip to make sure they remaining standing, and I've made the shed what it had once been – a sleeping place, this time for Darlia rather than for me, Andy, and James. Other than that, and making sure the outhouse –which sat further to the right, far enough away that odor wouldn't be a problem – was in usable shape, I'd done nothing to the place since I'd bought it. Well, actually I had. Originally the outhouse had been on the left side of the clearing, but it had moved a time or two when I lived there, and I decided our second or third year of visiting the place to let the left rest for a while. Decay is slow in the desert, and while the pits dried out quickly and thus didn't smell, why not allow the process to work without interference?

Cecelia turned off the engine. She must have been thinking of the first time I'd brought her here, for she leaned over, kissed me on the cheek, and said, "Darvin, my love – we're home."

Yes, I'd called the place home back in 96, even though I was perfectly content living in our house in Hoffmantown. Some places will always be home, no matter how long you're gone. Lanfair Valley was that way for me, and the ruin of a shotgun shack outside Leanna was that for Cecelia – though it was equally true that her parents' house right on the edge of town, a house she'd bought for them, was home as well. For Darlia home probably meant Albuquerque mostly, but here and Leanna as well, and perhaps to some extent the Lahtkwa reservation; she's spent time in all those places and gotten different and fundamental things out of them.

But it was August in Lanfair Valley and I wasn't going to break my brain trying to think things through. I'm not analytical and don't much care to be. I'll leave that to Cecelia, who's got more brains in her little finger than I do everywhere. I just unbuckled my seatbelt and got out, feeling the quiet and the heat and the dryness, looking at a place which is as familiar to me as my own living room, though I haven't lived there in 21 years, or even more, since I'd moved in with Tina in Needles before I finally left California.

Cecelia looked at me, a gentle smile on her face. She's got a foolish grin that I love, and a smile that launches ships on the other side of the galaxy, but for me that soft serene little smile is the best. I love to look at it, and I love it when she gives it to me, for it seems to express her greatest contentment. "Shall we take a short walk now," she asked me, "or should we unpack first?"

"Walk, Mommy, walk!" Darlia squealed, causing me once again to wonder how you can squeal when your voice is as raspy as Ana Gabriel's ... though I don't, actually, know what Ana Gabriel's speaking voice sounds like.

"Darvin, I believe the voice of authority has spoken," Cecelia said, looking down at our daughter. "We shall walk – but not for too long, because we do need to set up camp."

That was an apt phrase. Though we were going to be on the place for a month, we weren't going to erect a tent or even dig a fire pit. We'd have a fire now and then, if only to roast marshmallows, but mostly we'd use our camp stove for cooking, and if we needed light at night we had a Coleman lantern. We weren't going to burn up all the firewood we could reach; we all wanted to leave the desert as untouched as we could.

I closed my door, not bothering to lock it, and pulled my bullrider hat lower on my forehead. "Walk it is, then." I looked at Darlia and grinned. "Lead on, MacDuff."

"My name is Darlia Carpenter, not MacDuff," she told with her imperial dignity. "And I'll just hold Mommy's hand. But," she added, "I want to go that way." And she pointed due west.

"Then we'll go that way," I said, "and I'll hold Mommy's hand too." And I did, and we did.

By the time we got back to the camp it was after noon, and we were all hungry. I got the camp stove out of the Blazer and set it up under the overhang, in the shade. The dry heat of the desert means that you're not nearly as uncomfortable at 100 degrees as you would be in Alabama with a temperature of 80, but the desert sun glares unmercifully and if Cecelia was going to cook she didn't need that in her eyes.