Page 51 of Phoenix Fire

The faces were there, saintly, smiling, and beckoning him onward. He seemed possessed of a righteous passion to get on with his life, to fulfill what he hoped would be a noble destiny. He could live now with death and dying --- 'to everything under the sun there is a season.' He could give back something from the bounty of his life, give back to the truly needy and the truly poor. 'Apple Brown Betty' was still real and beautiful in his mind, still alive, still a dream to unfold. He could use it for good --- and, he would.

Thirst … all thought ceasing for thirst.

His vision blurred further and he tried not to think about water. But, how could he not think about water? The thought was paramount, supreme, unstoppable. His thirst nibbled at all other thoughts that tried to come. His body was rejecting his courageous efforts, his new resolve, and his noble thinking, reminding him harshly of the pain and the damage he was doing to it. His body was reminding him that, here, in this domain, he was at the mercy of some greater power than his mind.

His walking had become mere forward shuffling of feet.

Doubts returned.

Resolve weakened, that once vague promise of hope was hopelessly fading into the haze of blinding sun. When had that been? That hope?

The terrible twist of fate lay heavily on his mind. Perhaps the blurry rise ahead of him was not part of a remembered joy. Perhaps it was just an ugly trick of fate, a maze thing to confuse, tantalize, and destroy.

“Oh, God!” he wailed, through the sore, pulsing, hard baked lips, “let me go on!”

He sank to his knees.

He struggled again to his feet, defiant.

He sank again to his knees.

His throat was a blistery, raw, and ragged passage. His chest was afire with a fiercely pumping heart. He was becoming numb again with the heat and the pain, his body a thing separate and strangely static.

Water! “Oh, God! Give me water!” He cried.

He fought within his confused mind the opposing wills: to go on or to succumb to his sinking spirit. Was it all over? Finally, over?

Then, there came another unbidden, lucid moment from memory. It seemed now that his life was a short journey from womb to tomb. He could flash back through the pages of his life, and it was all so brief: the childhood joy and pain; the adult dreams, passion, love … Was this the final 'life flashing' event before death made its claim?

He hovered there in the gravel and sand, swaying on deadened knees, looking off with squinting eyes toward the slight rise ahead. A vague shape appeared on the horizon, a Rorschach blot, flickering on the afternoon thermal. A sound, like a voice calling, came faint and imprecise. Another Rorschach blot appeared somewhere near the first, then, another. Three ink blots wavering on a line separating the earth and the sky.

There on his knees, he swayed and watched in mute fascination the stampede of Rorschach blots, getting bigger, coming toward him. Were hell's agents rising to greet him? Were they golden chariots altered by the sun?

Voices, now distinct, were cutting through the desert haze, calling to him, yelling his name, “Jason! Jason!”

He swayed and stared at the dark looming forms, comprehension slowly returning to a feverish brain.

The voices became louder. The ink blots became running bodies, still smudged and blurred, coming nearer. They were near enough now for him to see a glowing smile on the face of an angel, nearer still until he saw the tears falling and heard the sobs.

The angel arrived before the other bodies.

The angel fell to her knees in front of him, gently touching, carefully and tenderly cradling his burned and crusty face in her loving hands. The angel sobbed and spoke to him of love.

A great visceral wave passed through Jason Prince, and he cried unashamedly with great heaving sobs, tears that miraculously appeared from some distant and parched part of his soul.

Through his bruised and cracked lips Jason mumbled something to the angel. He felt Jenny's body, soft and yielding, tenderly tentative, settling into his own. Then, he gave himself up to her softness and to the compelling folds of darkness.

Chapter Thirty-five

While Jason recovered from his serious burns and from the other ravages of his high desert journey, the Phoenix police found Carlton's killers.

The killers were part of a gang that stole American automobiles and resold them in Mexico. While Carlton's car was never recovered, enough evidence was found at the scene of Carlton's beating to ultimately lead investigators to the gang members.

The gang members would be subsequently tried, convicted in a Phoenix court, and sentenced to life imprisonment. The thugs would join hundreds of other inmates at the Arizona State Prison in Florence, Arizona.

As far as crime and punishment were concerned, the chapter was closed.

For Jason Prince and Myrena Wimsley, the apprehension and conviction of Carton Prince's car thieves and killers was only a modest closure. For them, it was only an intellectual exercise in adjusting the scales of justice. Their love for Carlton was deeper than the temporary relief realized from justice being served. There was an acknowledgment to good police work and satisfaction that the killers were found and off the streets.

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