“Are you sure it wasn’t the big black machine you were sticking in its face?”
Finn stood up, her knees stained with red dust. “Fine. You try.” She shoved the recorder at Zadie.
“I’d rather just go back to camp.” They had been walking around the campground for only twenty minutes and Zadie was already bored.
“But we haven’t been that way yet.” Finn pointed to a paved road lined with gnarled conifers and a brown sign posted next to it that read:AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
“Wait, we’re not supposed to go down…” But before Zadie had even finished her sentence, Finn was already running toward the road. Zadie groaned and followed her sister, dragging her feet as she went.
“Don’t forget to record!” Finn called over her shoulder. Zadie rolled her eyes theatrically and looked down at the recorder. It was still rolling. She lifted the microphone to her mouth and said in her best narrator voice, “On today’s episode ofThe Lizard Whisperer,Finn takes her show name literally and believes that lizards are actually whispering to her.”
Finn scowled. “What doesliterallymean?”
“Will she learn to commune with her reptile friends, or will she make a fool of herself on national TV? Tune in to find out!”
“Don’t be an asshole.”
Zadie gaped at her sister. “Wha’d you just say? You know I’m recording, right?”
“So?” Finn shrugged, trying to play it cool. “Asshole,” she said again, giggling to herself this time.
Zadie grinned and put an arm around her sister’s shoulders. “Mom’s gonna be so proud of you when she hears this.”
The road they were on opened up into a sandy clearing where a couple of dozen RVs were parked in a horseshoe formation. By now the sun was almost completely behind the red rocks. Only the crowns of the buttes to the east glowed their postcard orange. The rest of the valley was bathed in a smoky shade of violet.
The camp was mostly deserted save for one person: a woman, sitting alone in a lawn chair, facing the rocks. As if she sensed them watching her, the woman turned around in her seat and held up a hand to wave at them. The girls waved back silently. Then the woman turned back around toward the sunset.
“Do you think she lives here?” Finn asked.
“Probably.”
“Where’s her family?”
“I don’t know.”
The girls stood for a few more minutes, watching the sky change color before their eyes. Zadie was about to suggest they head back when the woman turned around in her seat once again and pointed to the hills.
“What is she pointing at?” Zadie squinted but saw only mountain-shaped shadows.
Finn gasped. “Over there!” Zadie followed her sister’s index finger to a four-legged creature climbing over the rocks. “It’s a coyote. Hit record. Hurry up!”
Zadie pushed the red button and the recorder began to softly whir. Then, as if on cue, the coyote lifted its chin toward the sky and a series of yips and howls echoed throughout the valley. Zadie shivered. It was the first time she remembered hearing something beautiful that also made her feel like crying.
Moments later, the coyote bowed to its audience and slippedbehind the rocks. “Whoa,” Zadie whispered. “That was awesome.” She looked for the lady who had pointed the coyote out to them, but all she saw was an empty chair.
When Zadie and Finn arrived back at their campsite, they had expected to find their mom tending a roaring fire and, in deference to their noisy bellies, cooking something over said fire. However, what they found was just the opposite. The camp was dark and Nora was nowhere to be found.
“Mom?” Finn called. There was no answer.
Zadie felt her heart plummet into her stomach as Finn unzipped the tent and stuck her head inside. “She’s not in here,” she said, then backed out on her hands and knees and added, “There’s duct tape on the floor.”
Zadie looked inside the tent. Sure enough, there was anXof duct tape in the middle of the tent floor. “Mom must have fixed a hole.”
“Where do you think she went?” There was an uneasiness in her little sister’s voice that Zadie wasn’t used to hearing.
“She’s gotta be around here somewhere.” Thankfully, the car was still where their mom had parked it hours earlier, so she couldn’t have gone far. Zadie had to decide if they should go looking for her and risk getting lost in the desert at night or stay put and hope she came back. She wasn’t particularly wild about either option, but the thought of stumbling through a moonless desert, unable to see any scorpions and snakes that might be hiding in the dark, made her blood run cold. “She’ll be back soon. Don’t worry.”
“I want to play her the coyote,” Finn said, clutching the recorder to her chest like a security blanket.