Chapter 9

Eventually, Patrick regained something of his senses. Rising to his feet, he took stock of his situation. He angrily wiped tears from his cheeks, leaving a smear of dirt and dust across his cheeks. He would find the shack and Mary and all would return to normal. Raking his hair out of his face with his fingers, he threw back his shoulders and proceeded on his way home.

Unfortunately for Patrick, when he arrived at the top of his climb to relative safety and plunged across the terrain beyond the canyon rim, he ran blindly. He knew he had gone looking for his goat herd to the north of the shack. But was he still north of his place? He continued walking with the afternoon shadows stretching to the left beneath the sparse brush. Scratching at his jaw, Patrick asked himself again. How could he have traveled so far looking for his goats that after an hour on foot he was still north of his place? As he struggled to decide, he felt the earth beneath him begin a humming vibration. Compared to the continuing aftershocks stalking the desert, this shake was a fairly slight one. In Patrick's state, that didn't matter. Instantly Patrick crouched, cowering like an animal. When the trembler passed he stood again, completely unaware of the pose he had struck moments before.

With his surroundings refusing to give up his location, the only site Patrick could place with certainty was the high desert plateau on which the town of Tehachapi sat. That was definitely south. Or was it? He shook his head, as if doing so would throw off the feelings robbing him of his bearings. When that failed, he reached for his canteen. Perhaps a long drink would help settle his doubt, but his hand grabbed at a bare hip.

"God damn, son of a jack ass. Ain't got smarts enough ta hang onta my damn water!" Patrick wiped a dust caked sleeve across his mouth. He turned and stared at the ground he had just covered. "She-it. Could 'a dropped that damn canteen anywheres." For a fact, his stomach tightened, knowing he could have dropped, lost or set his canteen down at any of a hundred places.

His wits thinning by the moment, Patrick spun around in his tracks. He must find a landmark. He needed a landmark before he'd have any notion which direction Mary and the shack lay, or where he might find water. Once again he swiped at his dry mouth. How could someone raised in this wasteland get himself lost in it? Pulse quickening, he tried to shake off the fuzzy headed feeling that inched its way down into his gut as well. He blinked against the bright sunlight and started walking. Any direction, he reasoned, was better than standing stock still in his own piss.

Tremblers continued all day long. Every time Patrick settled himself down enough to begin to figure out where the hell he was at, another wave beneath his feet would bring panic back up into his throat and he was either crouched on all fours, or off on another blind rush. By mid-afternoon he'd gotten himself so turned around he was crossing his own tracks. He was hopelessly lost.

"God damn stupid. That's what." Then the first half way smart thought of the day hit him. He lit uphill to the crest of the hill he'd been wandering. "By God. Somethin' oughta look familiar from here."

Sitting cross legged on the ground, he put the sun to his back and looked out on a panorama of canyons, ridges and mountains. Which way is back? Which canyon leads home? Even from this post, he couldn't quite decide. All at once he kicked up a cloud of dust with his heels. Sprawling himself on his back, Patrick's flustered mind tried to decide if, being smarter, he might not have gotten himself lost at all. Maybe he was a whole lot dumber than he thought he was, getting so turned around he couldn't even tell one ridge from another. Exhaustion hung on him like the carcass of a goat thrown across his shoulders. His mouth felt pasty, like morning before coffee, but worse. He'd raised a blister on his left heel. His shoulders ached. He finally roused himself and built a fire. Eventually some brilliant thought would straighten him out and he'd be on his way home again. Just a little tired, that's all, he reasoned.

No sooner was his little fire crackling away than a small jack rabbit sprang out of a thicket of buck brush and fell to his shotgun. He cleaned out the innards and pulled off the hide, then spited his rabbit on a green chaparral branch which he wedged between a couple of rocks so his catch hung out over the fire. Patrick's stomach settled itself some as he watched the rabbit roast. Of course, that didn't have anything to do with hunger. It wasn't food he was thinking on and raising a sweat over. Animal fat spitting into the fire and the crackling wood seemed to draw out the worst part of his frustration at getting lost.