Marlon Brando, Pocahontas, and Me - Part Three
Avon + (??) Scientology = cowboys, sand, and physics...
Read Part One here and then read Part Two!
I couldn't loosen my grip on the wheel. I stared at the man's face, opened my mouth to speak but my vocal chords refused to vibrate. His hair hung over his left eye, followed the curve of his cheek, fell past his shoulders. He leaned forward and grabbed the door handle. The sun flashed off a silver bracelet. He looked to be my age, perhaps, maybe forty-five, with deep crow's feet and hands that looked like they'd seen years of manual labor. I leaned back against the sweating vinyl seat and closed my eyes. I could barely feel my feet.
"Come on, step out. You won't tip. I promise."
The horse snorted twice. I let the man grab my upper arm as I swung my legs out the door. I grabbed my water bottle with my right hand.
"The cows." I stood, braced for vehicular impact, but none came. "The cows."
I couldn't see the Scientologists' canyon from here, just rolling hills of dry yellow prickers and flora I didn't recognize, and the first grove of trees I saw since I left town. I stared at the clump of naked trees, how they grew too close together so that their nets of tiny branches wove together in a swaying carpet. My car leaned toward a dead river ravine.
"The cows." I knew I sounded ridiculous. I wanted to say Hi or Thanks but my tongue spat bovine wonder into the dust.
The man laughed. I looked into the distance. Only an occasional juniper and piñon broke the sun. I could see the hoove prints in the road. I kept drinking water, little sips, and the bottle dwindled to nothing.
"Stand back, ma'am. I'll get your buggy back on the road."
He spoke with the short staccato syllables of the local Spanish, each word sounding like a gentle question. He bent to examine the wheels, first the front, then the back. He left me standing quiet as he eased himself down the incline, back in time to a place where water once ran. I closed my eyes, found my breath and listened, waited for the air to move through my lungs. A lone crow flew overhead. A sound of wheels against the road loomed behind me, and I turned to see another white pickup truck rushing toward me, past me, into the future. The man rose from the ravine, several large rocks cradled close to his body.
"What does it mean?" I pointed to the horse trailer, to the sticker with the strange sentence. He dropped the stones near the front wheels, bent over to arrange them under the tires, and laughed. I stared at his right arm. The muscles were strong, developed, with dark blue veins under his chestnut skin.
"Don't fence me in. That's what it means. Don't fence me in, ma'am."
He laughed again, and I watched his hat press against the front side panel of my car as he worked. He wore black plastic-rimmed sunglasses, the kind you buy at the drug store, and the side closest to me was missing the earpiece. They fit snug into a thin dent where his nose met his face.
"I used to work at Los Alamos."
He finished stuffing rock under wheel and stretched. I watched him across the car, tried to estimate his height - maybe six foot one, maybe six foot two. His body cast a lank shadow over the red ground, and I tried to think of something smart to say.
"So you worked on a ranch out there?"
I rubbed my hands on my jeans to erase the sweat. The crow returned, landed on a barbed wire fence beyond the ravine and cawed three times.
"No, ma'am. I was a physicist."
He removed his hat, set it on the hood of my car. His hair shone like black fire, and I noticed it traveled half-way down his back.
"I ride rodeo now. Electrons and horses. It's all the same. You ride until you sleep, then you ride again."
To Be Continued...
8:28:37 PM 
|
