Joe’s Jiffy Stop & Casino, time capsule of an extinct era, was once a thriving mecca for long-haul truck drivers on the south-north route from Mexican fields plush with produce up to the cold Canadian border. The architecture was a squat, torpid Quonset hut that had been used to store crop dusters over a century ago. The half-moon building’s corrugated and galvanized steel was a chalky blue, but the base had been gentrified by a red brick front with pillars adorned with sconces. The mirrored windows were protected by bars and chicken wire and neon signs advertising beer and chewing tobacco. There was a pop machine with an OUT OF ORDER sign taped to the front. Next to it, a broken hologram advertising Burnt Lime Spin—the unfortunately named energy drink, not the deadly drug—inspired both wakefulness and diarrhea.
The holo-ad glitched, and the image of a half-materialized woman holding a bottle turned to tints and shades of red, then faded completely.
A broken-down semi—an early model of the self-drivers when they still bothered to look like real trucks—slept on flat tires next to a line of dried-up fuel pumps.
He pulled up to the side of the building, got out, and lit a cigarette. A cold wind carried the humid threat of a real snowfall. Out on the highway, a small car passed in a hurry. Memories echoed across the parking lot.
When he was a boy, he would come here with his father and little sister, Ashley. There was always some attraction, usually a faction of a carnival long disbanded. Tractor-trailers burning their diesel into the vast sky, carnies set up on the side of the road shouting catcalls. Come and dunk the clown, knock the pins down, pop the balloons! Winner winner winnerrrr! One free for the lady! Pink fuzzy dice, corn dogs, fry bread… And smoke spiced the air. Music—Native music—drums making his heart thump. Dad on the poker machines, their holographic projections were a new thing. Ashley and her girlfriends giggled; among them Zoey, her cinnamon breath and lips painted pink against her dark skin. She’d let him kiss her and touch her tits out back between the fry-oil dump and the cement wall where it was hottest, then running off into the early night, leaving him craving, like this memory slipping away into the biting wind.
He took a long last drag and flicked his cigarette next to his car, where it smoldered. A bell above the door jingled as he pushed through. Antique video poker machines, which would never again see electricity, had been pushed against the walls, relics mummified in plastic and duct tape. The Jiffy Stop was little more than a convenience store now, a shop of curiosities.
“Hey, Dr. Smith, ain’t no lunatics in here,” said the obese man behind the counter.
“Hey, Little Joe, what’s up? Long time no see.”
Little Joe and one of his employees had briefly visited Alan years ago at the clinic when they were planning on getting married. She—he had forgotten her name, something Spanish—was a pretty girl, and Little Joe was a fat old bastard even then. The story went that one night when he was passed out and his fiancée was working the counter, a handsome Mexican trucker had pulled in with a Big Mack so beautiful it looked just like a chrome dragon snaking through the lot. Maybe it was the fumes of the heady fossil fuel, a man with grease on his fingers and perfume in his hair, or maybe it was love at first sight, because when that beast pulled out, bound for Baja, Little Joe’s betrothed was on it, never to be seen again.
“Don’t need no white man’s medicine here.”
“Don’t worry. I quit my job today,” Alan said.
“Oh, shit. Congratulations.”
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“I am looking for someone. They listed this place as a mailbox.”
Through the fat and wrinkles around his eyes, Little Joe stared dispassionately back. “Really? Half the tribe lists this place as a mailbox.”
“She goes by the name of White Owl.”
“Don’t know her. Now get. I’m busy, can’t you see?”
A scan of the store revealed a vast amount of nothing happening.
“Sorry, Little Joe, it’s kind of urgent that I speak with her.”
“This about the Indian boy?”
“It’s about Francis Builds A Fire, yes.”
“Did he do it?”
“No. He didn’t do anything. I’m trying to help him, so I need to talk to this White Owl and find out some things. If his parents could be contacted?”
Through the window out on the highway, the truck with the apartment on the back passed by strapped to a flatbed. The family sat on the side, legs dangling over.
“I knew the boy’s daddy.” Little Joe took a gulp from a giant water bottle and wiped his lips. “He was Koots. Name was Pierre. Used to run around with the Margeaux gang… a real tough bunch them boys were. Sold Escape, and other nasty shit.”
“What happened to him?”
“Nobody knows. I think they took care of him.”
“They killed him?”
“You’re real smart, Dr. Smith. They should give you a degree.”
“Who’s they? The Margeauxs?”
“Sure. Why not? The world is full of theys. Theys that kill ya and theys that don’t. Theys that’ll sit back and watch it happen.”
“And what about his mother?”
Little Joe leaned his massive bulk back in his chair—it creaked—and laced his fingers across his stomach. “His old man brought her here pregnant. She was really far along. Thought she was gonna drop the baby out on the floor. She wasn’t from this tribe. Maybe she was a White woman, but who knows. Bloodlines run real thin. She didn’t fit in, you know. But they were lovers. And they were running. I could tell. I let em stay in the sleepers upstairs for a few weeks. She had the baby in Ronan. Didn’t even stay in the hospital overnight. Then one day it was just her and that crying little brat. Shit, he cried like a cougar. And she too was crying and crying, said Pierre was gone and wasn’t coming back. After a while, she goes into Ronan and gets on a bus to Spokane. I know this because I bought the ticket for her.” Little Joe went silent and regarded Alan with black eyes like olives.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. She was gone, and I know nothing of her story from that point onward.”
“And the boy?”
“I’m not a history book, Dr. Smith. You want to buy some Chardonnay? Got a sale on Gallo.”
“Come on, Joe.”
“Fine! Couple years ago he showed up dirty and bleeding. He had a guitar. That’s all he had. Someone really worked him over. That’s when White Owl came down and took him away.”
“And?”
“And that’s all, folks.”
“Francis called her a witch.”
The enigmatic smile evaporated from Little Joe’s face.
“Nobody knows where she comes from or who her people are,” Spoke Little Joe with reluctance. “She ain’t from this Rez, that’s for sure. That boy, Francis, was here right where you’re standing now, bleeding all over the place. I don’t know how White Owl knew he was here, but she came down in that old jalopy of hers. And that’s crazy because White Owl never comes down from the mountain. She loaded him up, and I thought that was good enough. What’s done is done. And word on the Rez, everyone knows he did something bad to that girl, and everyone believes it because White Owl took him, and White Owl is cursed.”
“Shit.” Alan rubbed his neck. “I need to go see her.” Through the wire mesh covering the windows, he gazed at the Mission Mountains, their very tops obscured by the clouds.
“That’s tribal land up there. Nobody but White Owl goes into the canyon. Not even Indians go in there. Superstitious, you know.”
“How do I get there?”
For a moment, it looked like Little Joe wasn’t going to tell him. Then he looked around the store and up at the bank of CCTV monitors. He leaned forward. “Take Old Canyon Road all the way up to the four-corners. The road gets bad, but keep straight past the sign that says dead end. Go past the sign that says no trespassing. Past the sign that says no return. You’ll come to where an old bridge is broken in half. You got to walk from there. Keep on the trail. You’ll see. You really going up there?”
“Yes.” He made to leave.
“You’ll need this.” From the key chain rack behind him he pulled down one of the tacky dream catchers, a white one with blue feathers. “Hang this on your mirror. It’s for the bad spirits… and the Indians with guns.” Then he reached down under the counter and pulled up a rusted old cowbell. “This is for ol’ White Owl. Tell her Little Joe says hi. And Dr. Smith, I don’t want any more to do with this.”