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  More sweat, between my shoulder blades and now stinging my eyes as I turned back to my bike. Squinting against the glare even through my dark sunglasses, I raised a bottle of water to my mouth from the oven like confines of my saddlebags. I swilled the water around inside my mouth and spit into the dust after deciding it was just too damn hot to swallow and poured a bit on my skull which felt some better. One last look around. Flat, scrub-brush dessert on one side, steep red-walled canyon country on the other and split up the middle by black, blasted, asphalt hot enough to cook a rattle snake if he tried to slither across it.

  I was just about to ease the clutch out, hungry for a breeze again, when a metallic glint among the hundreds of cigarette butts caught my attention. Once again I switched off the engine. It was what I thought it was. Even more importantly was the stamped numbers on mirage of liquid heat. I toed my kickstand down and tipped my steel horse to its side as I dismounted. The leather jacket that had felt protective and vented at highway speeds felt oppressive and stifling, like a lead apron now. Aside from the sounds of the bike, it was near silent. No traffic for as far as I could see in either direction. The turnout was rimmed by large placed boulders then fell away to the canyon floor below. Broken glass and the bottom. 357. I looked around for more but found none. This one would have been easy to miss up under the boulder unless you were at the right angle where I had been pulling out on the road from. I tucked the bullet casing into my side jacket pocket brushing my own shoulder-holstered gun in the process.

  “Very sloppy Victor. Very sloppy.” I muttered as I turned back to the bike. My mind tried to convince itself that any number of .357 pistol owners could have stopped to blast at the old car in the canyon bottom or beer bottles set up on the boulders. Somehow the skeptical intuitive part of my brain wouldn’t let it.

  I knew the bike was on fumes as I pulled in front of the Conoco pumps two hours later. The dusty grouping of run down buildings was fittingly being called the town of Brush by the state highway sign. Population 200.  The highway divided the two dozen structures equally in half.  The Trails End Café, and motel was directly across the street from the service station where I was filling up. There were a few patrons that I could see through windows having a late supper. The motel office connected to the cafe as well as the individual stucco rooms in the shape of tipi’s seemed clean and newly painted. I was in need of a cold shower, and a colder beer, but the sun was now down behind the distant messa and the cooling dessert air was calling me to keep going into the night. In fact, often to catch up, I road the nights, dubbing me the name, The Night Rider. I glanced back at the service station. It didn’t look like there was much in the way of refreshments inside however there was an old bottled Coke machine just outside the open door. The .357 casing inside my pocket was fresh on my brain and urging me to pack as many cold bottles as I could in the saddlebags and keep going. I knew Victor had a three-day jump on me and would likely be holed up in Reno by now. I clicked the pump off and went in the station to pay. I was right. There wasn’t much to the inside, mostly belts, fluids and parts for the two service bays attached. Behind the counter was a very small, thin man in dirty coveralls. I would guess he was about seventy, but acted like he didn’t care. His greasy hat was worn backwards and he didn’t hide the fact he was thoroughly enjoying the Penthouse he was reading through thick glasses. A fan blowing directly on him sat propped in the open windowsill causing the old man to hold his magazine down with both hands to keep the pages from blowing shut. This gave any observer a clear understanding he wasn’t reading the articles. As I walked up he announced, “that ell be Fifteen fifty” without glancing up.

  I dropped a twenty square on top of a spread Miss August.

   “I’ll take the change in quarters for the Coke machine out front.” I growled at his indifference.

  He reached over for a Coke bottle he was using for a spitter while blinking at the twenty as if he couldn’t figure where the blond wearing only stripper shoes had gone. His hand connected with the bottle and he drew it to his mouth while working the tobacco wad with his tongue. Still looking at the twenty, he more or less drooled a brown streak down the inside of the bottle, and then slowly looked up. My head came back with a sharp snap at the size of his blinking eyes through the glasses. Damn! They must have been as thick as the bottom of the bottle he was spitting in. He too, straightened a bit on the stool he was perched on. Perhaps it was the less than soft times etched on my face including my permanent scowl. Then again I was always surprised at people's reaction to my six foot four two hundred and forty pound frame.

  He reached for the till, its sale ding sounding as he accessed the cash drawer. His fingers scooped out all the quarters and he counted out my change without ever taking his big blinking owl eyes off me. Now that I think back, I must have been the densest SOB on the planet not to read that book like it read. His look was a look like someone gives when they’ve been told to keep and eye out for certain someone who they never expect to see but by damn, suddenly, there they are right in front of you.

  Missing the expression for what it was altogether, I pocketed my change.

  “Need to use your bathroom” I growled, motioning my head to the single unmarked door along the back wall I assumed was the toilet.

  “Ya go right on ahead.” He returned, his Adams apple bobbing up and down, his super sized eyes never leaving my face.

  I kicked the partially opened door wider with my boot and frowned in disgust. A single, dull bulb lit the dank interior. I had hoped to splash cold water on my face to wash away the highway grime but would be foregoing that by the look of the sink. A sticky fly strip hung from the ceiling, its usefulness far spent by more corpses than available space. Again I used my foot to flip the toilet seat up, more by habit than thinking it the more sanitary thing to do. In fact, I wasn’t sure if it might be safer to piss in the sink than the john by the looks of things. As I tipped my head back in relief, I was surprised again to be reminded of how little a guy can piss when it is hot as hell out and all you do is sweat your fluid. Tucked back in, I glanced at the sink desperately wanting water. Not willing to attempt it, I glanced up into the cracked mirror. Black, sweat matted hair, scruff and that permanent scowl looked back. Time to get back on the road.

  Opening the door, I glanced back at the counter. The old man was gone. The magazine was still there however, its pages flipping from the forced air of the fan. Suddenly the skeptical part of my brain began to catch up with the rest of itself. I stepped outside the door pretending to take careful attention to placing quarters in the Coke machine while looking through knit brows at the street beyond. An obscure face under a cowboy hat outside the Café took a long drag on an after dinner cigarette. At the Trails End Motel, one tipi cabin was lit up. It was one in the very back of the circle drive and furthest from the road.  The door was open and the blue light of a television spilled outside into the evening. No car or truck was parked in front.  Then there was the light sound of female laughter.

  “Son of a bitch! You don’t suppose you’re dumb enough to hang around for some pretty-little, Spanish Split Tail?”

  My thoughts racing, I downed my Coke in four swallows and dropped the empty into the crate full of others while never taking my eyes of the doorway of the tipi cabin. As I crossed toward the bike in long strides, a small figure limped from the shadows and through the blue light and into the small room. The female laughter stopped suddenly. Shit! This wasn’t playing down on my terms! Reaching the bike all in the same moment, I thrust my hand into the center of the rolled sleeping bag strapped down against the back rest pulling out what looked like a bag for tent polls. Without loosing stride, I yanked off the bag revealing my custom, pistol grip, twelve-gauge pump nick named Peace Maker, which typically had a calming effect in small confined spaces, not unlike the one I was heading for. Out of the corner of my eye, Mr. having a smoke after dinner, acting like pissed off bikers racking shells into sawed off shotguns in the middle of main was a common occurrence.

  Suddenly the doorway lit with the blue light of the T.V. went black as my stride crossed the centerline. Three more and a spin puts my back against a road side utility pole! I wonder if there is a back door or window? I glanced to my right at the office.

Each room with cable T.V. and Air conditioning, the sign advertised. Yup! Just my luck! Each unit has a little window unit air conditioner, meaning a 12x24 escape hatch in Victors case!

  In the same instant my brain processed the information it was also validated by the  thud of a widow air conditioning unit hitting the ground. Damn again! I might be late but at least I was arriving at the right answers. Move! Tuck and roll to one knee. No shots! But from behind the cabin an engine growled leading to a roar of applied fuel to fire and spinning gravel! Then in fishtailing fashion comes the cherry-red El Camino with Victor at the wheel! In the fading dusk and dawning street light he comes as if in slow motion, one hand on the wheel fighting for control, the other gripping the signature .357 over his head. His middle finger extended up its grip, directed toward me and flashing a big “Fuck you!” grin.

  It's instinct to point, and I do. It’s ingrained not to take a risky shot and I don’t, pulling up in gritting frustration.

   Another day Victor! Another day!