What Did You Come To The Desert To See?

 

 

 

 

What did you come into the desert to see

 

 The next night John entered the park from the Main Street side. There was a playground. Usual stuff. Slides, swings, no monkey bars. Monkey bars were a thing of the past. Those of the “Z” generation didn’t have the survival skills of the Baby Boomers. Consequently, no insurance company would cover monkey bars or metal slides. 

 

Beyond the playground were trees. The kind you find at the base of the Wasatch. Peach trees and cherries. No tall timber, but a good covering for hide and seek or adventurous lovers. The area was empty. John worked his way back to the foliage and ventured in. In a short while the forest and mists seemed to close in behind him, hiding the playground from view. He could easily see how someone could secrete themselves from prying eyes. 

 

The activity that he’d observed earlier was nowhere to be seen. Amazing! Wee hours of the morning, Saturday night, the locals were too holy for their own good. 

The stillness bothered him. As if the business of the night had been conducted and the participants had gone home. 

 

Then there was a sound. A rustling in the trees. John was on point, but not much. The last recorded crime here was one teen girl sticking another young girl in the the butt with a pen knife over a boy. Not exactly Austin! 

 

John eased toward the sound. He began to detect gasping and a low cough. Working his way through the peach trees and  brush, he came upon a man lying on the ground, slowly drowning in his own blood from the gash across his throat. The blood wasn’t gushing but oozing from his throat with each successive heartbeat showing he was running out of beats. 

 

John bent down to the man. He was well beyond 911, and John didn’t want any empirical implications anyway!  “Don’t know who you got cross with, partner, but they done for you.” 

 

Just then he heard a voice right behind him. “Don’t touch your gun, bounty hunter! You’ll never make it,” a child’s voice told him.

 

As he turned to see the voice, he was confronted with a form in a hoodie. Short, with the hood covering most of the face. The garment extended to the ankles.   In the right hand was a razor, still bloody. Upon closer inspection he saw a long whiff of light brown hair extending to the shoulders. 

 

 

John reasoned that the person could have already cut him. For some reason they did not. His experience told him conversation would give him a chance to deescalate a terrible situation. John asked, “Did you do that?”

 

Slowly the head nodded. The nod exposed mouth and chin a bit more, the chin of a young girl, framed by auburn hair.  

 

“Why?” John asked. 

 

“He touched me.” the voice said in a soft whisper. 

 

She made no move toward him, and he was glad. She could easily reach his throat and he’d be laying beside the man on the ground. This was the killer, no doubt.  Why did she put the man on the ground? This wasn’t a chance randevu.  The hoodie, the razor, her very demeanor spoke of planning and purpose. The man had come to the park for a purpose, too.  To abuse what he thought was an angel and instead had met the devil! With another quick glance back again he said, “A little drastic wouldn’t you say?”

 

A little girl’s voice asked, “What did you come to the desert to see, bounty hunter?” And when John looked back again the person was gone. Back into the trees and the mountain mists. John felt that she had given him his life. But why?

 

He took a piece of brush and covered his tracks as he left. 

 

John was asking many questions on his walk from the park. Her voice was vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it. And why did she call him “bounty hunter?” He wasn’t here in that capacity. No matter. 

 

When he got back to his room Rick asked him what he’d found at the park. John poured a whiskey and said, “There is someone out there, but not what I expected.”

 

“Not one of your Danites?” Rick had not yet taken the things John told him to heart. 

 

“Yes! But it took me by surprise.” 

 

Rick saw a look of concern on his friend’s face. “What did you see, John?”

 

“A man with his throat cut. He died just after I found him. While I was looking at him the killer came right up behind me. Had a razor. Right behind me. No sound.”

 

Now Rick became very concerned. His friend was well versed in man hunting, and someone had hunted him!

 

“Did you get a good look at him? Can you ID him?”

 

John drank his whiskey with a trembling hand. “It’s not a man Rick. It’s a girl. Just a little girl!”