Page 47 of Phoenix Fire

“Yes,” she interrupted, “do you have news?”

“Yes, Ms. Mason, we do have some news. We have found Mr. Prince's car about fifty miles north of Phoenix, several miles beyond New River, but we have not located as yet Mr. Prince. The car keys are still in the ignition. Looks like he didn't intend to wander far. Do you know of any reason why he would be in that general area, Ms. Mason?”

Jenny was looking at Grandma Myrena's face, seeing there a fixed and anxious look. Jenny tried to keep hysteria out of her voice. “No, I know of no reason. Please, hold for just a minute.”

Jenny placed her hand over the phone and looked first at Wardley, then at Grandma Myrena. “Does Jason own property north of New River, or anywhere in that area?”

Wardley and Myrena looked at each other with worried eyes. It was Myrena who spoke. “No, not as far as I know. What is it, Jenny? Who's calling.”

“Just a moment, Grandma Myrena, let me finish the call. Don't be concerned just yet. It could be good news.” Jenny went back to Sgt. Henning. “No, we know of no reason. Do you have anything else to tell us?”

“Not at the moment, Ms. Mason. We are searching the surrounding area but there's a lot of desert out there. There's nothing out of the ordinary about his car. It could be that he just wandered off and got disoriented. That can happen in the desert. Then, again, maybe he knows exactly where he is, what he's doing, and will be along shortly. We have no idea how long the car has been parked in this spot. The engine is cold so we believe it's been an hour or longer. We'll be back in touch as soon as he shows up.”

“Where are you exactly?”

“His car is at the end of an old dirt road that trails off north of the Rock Springs and Black Canyon Road, about ten miles east of Interstate 17. You thinking of coming out here, Ms. Mason?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Well, I wouldn't advise it. We've got people looking all around here. I don't think there's anything you could do that isn't already being done. Besides, we wouldn't want you getting lost.”

“Yes, well, that's likely the case.” Jenny was being evasive for Myrena's benefit. “I know you mean well, Sgt. Henning. If I come, I promise not to get in anyone's way.”

After more specifics on the location of Jason's car Jenny disconnected.

For the next thirty minutes Jenny talked to Grandma Myrena and Wardley, down-playing the dark side possibilities of finding Jason's car. It could simply be that Jason was considering a new land purchase, another site for another project. Maybe he was just being secretive about the whole thing. Finally, Myrena had convinced Jenny that there was no need to coddle her, protect her, from the various potential outcomes to finding Jason's car.

“It's an area where we had those camping trips, Jenny. If I know Jason, he is being instinctively led to that area by his grief and by his tortured soul. What he finds there can destroy him or save him. I'm not easily fooled, my dear, I've seen your eyes during and since the phone call with Sgt. Henning. You intend to go to that area, and you would have my company were it possible. Please be careful, my dear. Wardley and I will stay and pray. There's little else we can do.”

Jenny left the matriarch in her sun room, smiling solemnly and bravely in her quiescence, remarkably stoic in her silent suffering. Myrena was an inspiring lady for the ages, weakened, wizened, but with an aura of quintessential courage and indomitable will.

Jenny drove west to Interstate 17, then north and eventually east, toward an uncertain date with kismet. Tears slowly bubbled over the lower rims of her sad eyes and ran warmly down her cheeks. While she drove, the image was with her of Grandma Myrena, huddled on her makeshift bed in the sun room, smiling bravely through her grief, pain, and the knowledge of her impending death.

With her, too, was a glimmering candle of hope in the darkened mist of her soul.

“Oh, Jason, please be all right,” she weakly spoke in the quietness of her car. “We love you so very much.”

Chapter Thirty-one

Jason could not swallow.

Panic forced its way into his chest, nearly cutting off his breathing, causing him to cough in wheezing discomfort. He lifted his upper torso from the sand, sat in a hunched position, and fought the building anxiety. He lowered his head into a space between his knees and concentrated on slow breathing, his intakes of air a raspy screech in the late morning sun.

He was asleep again. He had walked all night, trying to stay at a mid-point somewhere within the breadth of pale light on the distant horizon. The problem with focus had arisen sometime during his long night trek. There had become a sameness to the band of light, his eyes straining so hard to maintain a distinctive grasp of the illusive center point. The light from the moon and stars had blurred into a nimbus shimmer that became the same no matter where he looked.

His mind had begun to tease him with directional inconclusiveness and he could not trust where his feet might take him. He began to suspect that he was walking in circles. Finally, weary, entrapped within his mind, hyperventilating, becoming aware of a bizarre hysteria overtaking him, he had stopped and forced himself to rest. He had fallen asleep.

Now, his mouth and throat was a ragged and raw thing on fire that constricted his swallowing. That reality had brought on a breathing panic. The slow and methodical intakes of air through his nose gave some relief. Then, his brain had signaled another area of pain. His hard crusty lips had new cracks and the searing pin stabs of exquisite stinging brought tears to his tired and sore eyes. He could not touch his tongue to his lips because the simple movement took the pain to new levels of excruciation.

The sun, high overhead, beat on the top of his head with relentless indifference. He was dizzy, disoriented, in pain, and was becoming delirious at his mind's suggestion. From somewhere in a deep soulful reserve came a command to stand and move on.

He obeyed the command and lurched, staggered to his feet, swayed and breathed deeply. The air he inhaled was like stoked heat from a furnace. He closed his eyes tightly for some seconds and reopened them slowly in measured stages of elevation. He blinked his eyes into some semblance of focus. A constant throbbing tenderness lay deep within the sockets.

He looked all around, trying to find a landmark. The sameness was still there as it was with the ring of light last night. From the position of the sun he could not tell north from south or east from west. He had sanity enough left to know that he was north of Phoenix. He knew that Phoenix was in a valley, but from where he stood he could not determine the direction. He had apparently come so far from his car that he had traversed some gradual dipping and rising terrain. He reckoned that the sun would soon start its westward sweep. Then, he could get some sense of the direction he should go. It surprised and alarmed him that he had indeed come so far.

He was conscious of time. Time, precious time, was something he had always taken for granted. Time, so much of it was spent on things related to self and personal gain, couched in buss words of the day, like, 'progress' and 'ambitious' and 'expedient.'

He looked around at the gravel, rock, and sand, at the ecru earth and pale green cacti, at the subtle rise and fall of the land. Near where he stood, there were so many unseen reptilian and sundry other inhabitants under their protective boulders, in the shade of their mesquites, ironwoods, Palo Verde, and in their cool and precisely tunneled underground labyrinths. In his hot and frenetic mind he glimpsed an eternal truth and, even in his quiet desperation, he was awed by the simple revelation the earth had given him. Here in this vast land of parched and inviolate uniformity, Jason felt the infinitesimal and harmonic value of his being. He was both part of and apart from the essence of the earth, given a uniqueness of purpose and design by God. He was remotely happy with this truth and, while he could not know the divine nature or the immortal relevance, he felt an inner sublimity of spirit. It was an ephemeral moment of grace and it passed too soon with the physical recognition of his pain.

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