The Footprints

The Footprints:

Mel was the one that found the car. It was three miles from the Slab. How she managed to drive it up the road didn't make sense. He could barely get the side-to-side up the last hill. Yet there it was, high-centered on sagebrush. It appeared she had attempted to turn around, got stuck, abandoned the car and walked towards the pond a few hundred feet from the road. Mel could see the tire tracks, as well as the footprints. She wasn't wearing shoes. The footprints stopped at the pond. Mel stood on the edge of the pond, looking. He walked around the pond looking for footprints. He found none. He walked back to the car. There was nothing of interest inside the car. No phone, no shoes, no jacket or drugs. He looked in the glovebox, the back seat, the trunk. The trunk was a mess, but the mess held no clue to the woman's whereabouts. Mel got into the side-by-side and drove down the hill. Once again he was perplexed that she had managed to drive her car up the gall-darned thing, as he called it. Mel didn't cuss. He wasn't exactly a religious man, but he did find cussing unbecoming to the White Christian society he was part of in this small Wyoming town located exactly in the middle of Washakie County. Mel was retired from the Search and Rescue, where he once was the captain, a thing he was very proud of, but now, in his 70's, he didn't have the physicality to keep up with the strenuous nature of the position, so he stepped down. He owned a mechanics garage in town that his wife ran, that he was essentially an employee of. He wasn't allowed to interact with the costumers any longer, his political views had shifted so far to the right that he was driving people away in droves. Even in a place like, W, where everyone was extremely far right, he went too far. It irked him to a great degree that he was being silenced by his wife, who he was starting to think was a communist. It also irked him that nobody wanted to hear his rants any longer, that he was regulated to changing oil and rotating tires.

Mel listened to the police radio. The town was small enough that he could spend hours hearing only silence. When the call came in that a woman went missing, Mel took notice immediately. He stopped what he was doing and listened. Hushing the one other employee who had stuck around after his political shift, a man named Tommy, whose name was John, whose last name was Tommerup, so he was called Tommy. Tommy was in the process of replacing a flex-pipe. He had removed the grinding disk from the grinder and was putting on a cutting wheel when the police radio came to life:

"Attention all cars, there is a report of a missing woman out by Nowater Road, south of the airport, Br-" Just then Tommy started cutting into the exhaust pipe.

"Tommy! Tommy! Hey! Tommy!" Tommy couldn't hear Mel. "Tommy!" Tommy kept cutting. Mel picked up a wrench and slung it a Tommy, hitting him in the back.

"What the!"

"Shut up!"

"What's happening?"

"Shut up! I can't hear!"

"...whereabouts. I repeat, missing woman, last seen on Nowater Road, south of the airport, mid-twenties, driving south, in a red Ford sedan, unknown condition, her boyfriend notified the department of her last known whereabouts."

"Roger."

"Ten four."

Mel didn't listen to the chatter. He stopped working and ran out to his truck. He drove home and hitched the trialor with the side-by-side to the back of his truck and drove towards the airport. He had been waiting for a moment like this. The world had gone crazy and it was up to him to restore order. Everyone was becoming a communist, he knew it. The radical left's secret agenda had been sneaking in like a dirty snake ever since the Chinese unleashed a secret plot to destroy America. His wife used to agree with him, but someone must have gotten to her, it was probably Tommy. Tommy had been getting weak lately. Ignoring Mel's rants. And if Tommy could go down, Mel didn't stand a chance when they came for him. But if he could prove they were out there molesting young women, if he could be the first on the scene, he would finally have proof he was right and everyone else was off their rockers, not him.

Mel knew exactly where to go. He took a right at the airport, too fast, he nearly rolled the trialor. His truck tipped a little fell back onto to road in a bounce that made him slow down. He looked back to make sure the side-by-side was still secure. He drove the half-mile to the stop sign and took a left. He took another left soon after. Drove past the Bower's place and onto Nowater proper. The washboards forced him to drive slowly. When he got to the Slab he pulled over. There was water running over the Slab. Unusual for this time of year. Late July. Wyoming was in the middle of a heatwave, but it had also been unusually rainy. The Slab was simply a slab of concrete put into the river in order for vehicles to drive over it.

Mel got out and looked for clues. He assumed she had been hanging out at the Slab. That was the only reason to be in this part of the county. It was where kids came to drink beer and hang out. Mel had no information that told him this is where she had been, but he could assume it was where she had been. Mel found no clues. He lowered the rear gate on his trailer creating a ramp. He got into the side-by-side and backed it down the ramp. He drove off into the badlands, following what looked like fresh tracks.

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Mel drove slowly. It was mid-morning, but the sun was already unbearable. There was no shade. Only sagebrush and dust. He kept two gallons of water in his side-by-side at all times, as well as a survival kit. He normally wouldn't have taken a drink of water from the water, but he was already having trouble seeing because of sweat dripping from his brow. He drove slowly, a gallon of water on his lap, taking sips of warm water as he craned his neck back and forth against the skyline, looking for a young woman in her mid-twenties.

Mel followed what seemed like fresh car tracks down Nowater road. They eventually turned left onto a rutted offshoot that he was aware of because nearly a decade ago some foolish teenager had driven a four wheeler off the side of hill, drunk, and he and his fellow Search and Rescue colleagues had come out to put the poor child on a stretcher, keeping him alive, driving him back to the airport in the back of Mel's truck, to be life flighted to Billings where the kid stayed in the ICU for two weeks before he died from damage to his internal organs.

The four wheeler had been left at the bottom of the hill where Mel had helped the poor kid. A friend of one of his daughters. It was very tragic. Mel stopped driving and got out of the side-by-side. He walked over to the edge of the hill. The four wheeler was still there. The bright red motor casing now a faded orange. The four wheeler on it's side. A monument to the kids death. Mel looked around. Looking for the young woman. He saw no signs of her. He got back into the side-by-side. Drove down into a gulch and followed her tracks up the steep hill he was surprised she was able to drive up with the car she had been driving. At this point he found her vehicle and followed her footsteps to the pond.

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On his way back to the main road, Mel saw something he couldn't believe. He stopped driving and put the side-by-side in park. He walked to the front of the vehicle and looked down. There were footprints. Naked footprints. Footprints on top of his own vehicles tracks. He followed them into the sagebrush. Soon the soft dusty dirt became hard and dry. There was no clear trail. Only sagebrush and cactus. He stood there looking. Looking for any sign. He could see the town. Miles away. The towers from the sugar factory. What used to be the radio tower, but was now just a shed and grazing land. Hundreds of miles in the distance were mountains. There was a thunderstorm coming his way, and the hot high desert wind made his eyes water. Mel walked for a good mile before he gave up. She could have gone anywhere. He assumed she was okay, because she was heading towards town. He was glad that she was alive, but felt sorry for himself that he hadn't found her corpse. Mel really did think it would prove something. That the government and the radical left were in cahoots. He drove to Nowater and put in the call. Telling the dispatch where to find the car. That he would wait for help and that they should bring a truck capable of towing a car over questionable terrain. That the woman was heading north and needed help. That they should send as many bodies as possible because there was a lot of land to observe.

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Mel spent the day with the Search and Rescue trying to locate the young woman. He helped them haul the red Ford sedan out of the badlands. He showed the police the footprints he found. He led them to the pond and then back down the road where he found the second set of footprints. By evening there were dozens of people walking the hills, looking for the young woman. Somebody discovered a shoe and a sweat-shirt, far beyond the pond, in the opposite direction the footprints went. When the sun set everyone went home. They would continue the search in the morning, when it was light and cool. The new captain thanked Mel for his help. Mel told him it was no problem. He started to go into a rant about communists, but the new captain didn't stick around to hear it. Mel got into his side-by-side and drove back to his truck and trailer. He was annoyed that he hadn't saved the day, hadn't proven the communist plot, but there was nothing he could do about it now. He drove his side-by-side onto his trailer, put the ramp up and drove up Nowater until he could turn around. He drove home, expecting to get a heroes welcome from his wife. Expecting a nice hot meal. He pulled into the driveway and parked. He was exhausted, he would deal with the trialor in the morning.

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Mel walked into his house thinking he would be well received. He was not well received. His wife was standing in the kitchen, she had a glass of iced white wine sitting on the counter. Her eyes were black like wet steel. She said:

"Where the hell did you go today?"

"What'dya mean? There was an emergency!"

"Yeah, you didn't think to tell me about it? Leaving me and Tommy like that?"

"What, Tommy? That commie bastard?"

"Mel, you are out of your mind with this commie shit! Where the hell, you can't just, what the hell, Mel!"

"Hey! Enough with the cussing! You know I don't like it! I thought you'd cook me up a juicy steak because of all the good stuff I did today."

"What the hell are you talking about? You really let me down today, man, you really are, you're, Mel, I think, man, I don't even know what..."

"There's a poor girl out there lost in the woods!"

"I know! But how is that your problem, we have a business, you know! You can't just bail like that!"

"I don't need this! You don't understand. I'm going out to the garage, come get me when the steaks are ready!"

"What?! Steaks?! What steaks? What are you talking about? Get!"

"You're just as bad as they are! I know you got commie blood, I can tell it!"

"Get!"

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Mel went out to the garage. He slammed the door on the way out. He walked down the concrete path. The lawn on either side well kempt. Wooden fences keeping his neighbors from peeping in. He turned the light on and looked around the empty space. The work bench, the tools. He opened the tiny fridge and took a non-alcoholic beer out of it. Mel had been sober for twelve years. The beer tasted like sawdust. He wanted a real one. He wanted a bottle of whiskey and can of chewing tobacco. He wanted to yell at his wife and root out the commies. He had done something good today but nobody noticed. He was the only one that understood what was happening, and he was a hero for finding that poor girls car. He drank the near beer with anger, thinking he would show them, meaning the commies, what was what, his wife included. He paced around the garage, fighting an impulse to get into his truck and drive to the liquor store. He realized that he would have to back it into the driveway and unhitch the trailer with the side-by-side on it. He thought his wife would come out and give him grief. That commie bastard. Mel decided to walk to the liquor store. It wasn't that far away and he could sneak back in through the alley. He could get drunk and sleep on the couch and she wouldn't notice. She was already pissed at him. What was the harm?

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Mel walked out into the alley. The light from the garage pointing down on the slab of concrete that was in front of the garage door. The alley itself was dirt. Dirt and gravel. There were fresh tracks in the alley. Tracks that looked like a side-by-side had recently driven past. Mel had his head down as he walked out of his garage. He was determined to get drunk. He looked down and saw footprints. Naked footprints. A wind blew by. The smell of sagebrush. A cottonwood tree, fluttering, bent slightly and whispering into the hot dry night:

"I found you, Mel. You commie bastard.”