The skinny white dog was painted mid jump on the blue oval sign. Five bullet holes had pierced it. The rim of the holes had the metal bent backward. Rust, tiny red-brown pigments, had eaten in between the remaining paint. The sign was small and flimsy, just a little something that someone had screwed to the roof without a bench.
It was a vestige of human civilization in the expanse of golden brown dirt, little mounds, a little track of something, and a cluster of vermin or snake holes. That desolate expanse reached to the horizon, where some lowly hills obscured the farther view, not even mountains. That would have been a destination. The only interesting thing was a dead 7 foot tree. The desert had dried it out so savagely that the bark shriveled up to half its juicy green size, all the way to the point where it turned into crumbs. The dead branches paid testimony to nature heat pulverizing the tree with the merciless baking light, the sun.
Caroline stood with her head in the shade of the roof. Her freshly shaven, bare shins reflected the blazing sun. The black-purple high heels had a patent leather shine to them. Her feet were arching high in the heels. Her calves were tightening and rising high. A lavender dress started mid-thigh. The fabric was very light and looked limp. The limp feeling strengthened the impression of timid, little person from the distance. However up close, her butt cheeks were clenched. Her spine was extra straight. Her shoulder blades were pulled back. Her whole body was balanced on her own axes. And that made her size B breasts pushed out. They were in front of her body like an ambassador announcing that her body would follow, like figurehead on the bow of a historic sailing ship carving through the world's oceans: "Listen up world, here comes Caroline!"
The dress had triangles over her breasts held up by thin string over her shoulder that showed plenty of her skin. The skin was smooth and young. Her chin was parallel to the ground. Her posture was perfect like she had practiced holding a book on top of her head for hours at a charming school. The makeup in her face was a smooth layer of pasty-white base. Her lips were painted in a bright pink. Her left hand reached into the blue leather purse that hung close to her armpit with the white, slightly foamy deodorant marks. Her fingers lifted metal tab of a diet coke inside of her purse. A refreshing million dollar his popped in the absolute silence of the Chihuahuan Desert.
Not a single car passed. The roughness of the asphalt showed with a million tiny little holes and unevenness, too small to see the individual holes. The color was also a blend of light gray and white dots, both of which were too small to see individually. The only thing that was clear were the bold, thick yellow stripes in the center of the road. They had a richness too them that was calming and centering. One followed the next in a straight line for hundreds and hundreds of yards probably miles until the road converged into a single point in the distance into those lowly hills unworthy of geographic recognition. They, the road, the desert, and Caroline, where all standing still, as a lizard to conserve energy, with 105 degrees, which all felt like 105 individual bastards tormenting her, trying to wear her down, making her fight against them to stand a little taller with a little more poise.
A white shuttle bus, like one of those little ones from the airport, wound its way through the desert towards the road. It big black oversized windows. There was a black box with a sign above the windshield. The whine of the engine was faint. It carried crystal clear across the desert silence, like one can hear a pin drop at the center of an ancient Greek amphitheater because of superior acoustics. Caroline also heard her own breath, small, feminine, and nervous.
The bus made a complete stop before entering the road, despite not a car being visible. Caroline offered herself the respite of one last weight shift from her left hip to the right hip. The sense of blood flowing back into her compressed left knee from standing forever was a delicious, private joy. The bus grew in size at it came larger. And still it would fit 15 people at most. The sign over the windshield read: "Courtesy shuttle - James Lynaugh Unit."
The driver pushed a lever to open the French-style doors. It was an old man with gray hair, short trim and clean face, who smiled at her. He was thin and in uniform. She carefully placed her high heels that were an inch higher than she normally wears on the first step and pulled herself into the refreshing cool of an air condition - an instant temperature plunge of 35 degrees. Her skin was so cold that it felt wet.
"You are lucky, miss. I sometimes cheat a little and take a break instead of driving out here. Not many people visit Lynaugh. It's 17 hours from the nearest airport," said the bus driver.
Caroline sat down with her knees pressed together and quickly crossed her knees, so that one high heel dangled in the air. She had to hold onto the pole, when the bus drove over the hump into the desert side road. Her whole body got shaken and was struggling to keep her poise against the momentum.
Her phone buzzed. She slipped the pink iPhone out of the purse on her shoulder. It was a text: "Caroline, you don't have to do this. You are bold beyond anything for even going this far. Please, come back. We never meant to egg you on this far with the challenge. It was a stupid idea. We are all sorry."
"You better reply soon, because the signal fades quickly once we leave the highway," instructed the driver. His arms were making wide movements to turn the big horizontal steering wheel. He turned into the dip of a wash, one of those desert rivers that's dry all the year, except for one day when rain sends an apocalyptic torrent down, which carves deeply into the loose dirt.
Double-thumbed Caroline typed back: "I'm almost there. Tell Steve to have the $1,000 ready, when I come back. XO Caroline" Then she watched the last bar disappear from her phone. The display switched to a symbol of a broken cell tower: "No signal."
"My wife runs a little B&B. Actually, it's only our spare room. Though, it's a firm mattress and clean sheets. It makes the visits a little easier to have a place to sleep overnight. Take one of the cards. You never know when you need it." The bus driver pointed a pile of business cards that were wrapped to a pole with rubber strings. The print was green with a little palm tree.
"Thank you, sir. I won't be back. This is a onetime thing," replied Caroline.
"Oh, boy. I feel sorry for the guy. They guys here are very isolated from the rest of the country. Even a close family finds it hard to travel this far to visit them. It's very sad. A few times a year, I see a pretty thing like you with a vanilla envelope, divorce papers all signed. And the same week, the prison bulletin reports an inmate taking a razor blade or hanging from the ceiling," blabbered the bus driver in a stern voice.
"No, no, it's not like that," insisted Caroline.
"Well, it's none of my business," acquiesced the bus driver upset. "A young thing with those heels and that dress will quickly find the next one." The bus driver upraised her body in the rear view mirror with an elevator glance. "I have a son in the Marines. He's good looking, strong, and hard working. He got a freedom medal last months. You should consider him."
