Excerpt: Chestamovarado

It was hot, very hot; so hot that the worn tyres of their twenty year old Chevrolet felt as if they may be melting as they thrummed along the single lane blacktop, straight as black thread stretched over a white egg, along the desolate, empty salt flats, white desert either side, blinding under the merciless sun. Mavis and George had been on it since dawn and it was already well past noon. The old car was overheating, and its mileometer had failed long ago. They were scared and lost and worried.

“The editor could have given us a decent car”, George grumbled.

“You are the editor, George”

“It’s all the Hiccup Daily can afford Mavis. Maybe if we can get our interview we can get us brand new Beemer … Jesus! If we get there at all! We can die right here” She looked cool and composed as usual, though he knew damn well she was as frightened as he was and sometimes he hated her for that.

“Halloween, George. It would be ironic wouldn’t it? Just look at the road”

“What the hell else is there to look at?”

“Maybe that saguaro cactus coming up, George dear; first vegetation we’ve seen so far … and look, there’s some kind of yucca! We could be getting there”.

“Better be right, were boiling out the radiator pretty damn fast”

“George! Slow down, look!”

“What now? You seen the Sheraton Hotel?”

“No George. There’s a guy way down the road. We can at least ask where we are”.

“Oh yea, I seem him now some kind of Indian”. It was a good ten minutes more when they got up to him; a small man with a grizzled, chocolate face, slouching under a wide straw hat and the bare shade of a scraggly mesquite shrub. “Don’t know how these chocolate buggers don’t melt in this sun”.

“Shut up George, and watch your language for once. Just stop and ask him for directions”.

“Guess so”. The Chevy’s brakes had got so hot they’d barely stop the car. He pulled up and the little guy took his time as he ambled over to them.

“Say my good man! You speak English? How far is it to Chestamovarado?”

“I speak five languages, senor; my respects, senora” He tipped his hat to Mavis. “You go to Chestamovarado? What you doing here in the Salina?”

“Look Indio, that’s none of your damn business! Just tell us: how far to Chestamovarado? What are you doing here anyway?”

He looked at Mavis; ignored George. “I’m a humble keeper of goats, senora. Please tell your man that. And ask him what you are doing in the Salina. What you do?”

“Oh shit! I don’t see any goats. You don’t look like a goatherd to me! We’re journalists. Just how far is it to Chestamovarado?”

“Senora, tell the senor that it has been a bad year for the goats. I don’t see any journals. Maybe you’re not journalists either, or has it been a bad year for breeding journals as well?”

“Hell! Tell him we’ll give him a free subscription to the Hiccup Daily if he’d just tell us how far it is to Chestamovarado!”

“Tell your man thank you. You are very generous, though I never heard of the Hiccup Daily, and I hope it breed well. You want to know how far to Chestamovarado? I don’t know”.

“Jesus wept! Then how can we find how far we got to go?”

“Don’t blaspheme, George. Pardon him senor, he has a bad mouth, but he’s a kind man really. Do you know who can tell us then? Our car is humble and may not get there, so would you be so kind and tell us how far we must travel?”

“We have many gods, we people of the Salina, and it is a cruel place so we try and not offend any of them, lest we gather their wrath. Tell your man that. Now about the distance to Chestamovarado … it is many leagues but Old Sam Shuffle can tell you properly”.

“Heck Mavis! It’s Old Sam Shuffle we’ve come all this way to interview, and he may be right here! Where can we find him, then?”

“Senor Keeper of goats, with all respect: can you tell us where we can find Old Sam Shuffle?”

“Oh! Old Sam Shuffle can be found in Chestamovarado, of course, senora”.