took to the air from behind the brush, rising so slowly they seemed to hang above the Joshua trees for an instant like flapping black clouds. Mickey listened and could still hear a couple of them back there, moving, scuttling around on their ragged claws.
He glanced across the hood at Paul and shook his head. He had been hoping they wouldn’t find it, that the leg would just turn out to be one of those weird things that turn up and never get explained. A few more days and the body would have been gone. Paul came around the hood and Mickey held up a hand to stop him.
Mickey walked forward on the road to where the ruts in the sand began. Dirt splayed out sideways from their outside edges, and the tracks that appeared to be the front tires were wide and deep, as though the sand had been pushed from behind. Mickey pointed at them and said, “They were driving fast when they left.” But he offered no explanation for that conclusion.
“Maybe someone didn’t like what they saw,” Paul said from behind, trying not to focus on the smell. Something about a body outside was so much worse than the smell of one in a hospital. “Goddamn it’s hot out here.” Paul rubbed the sweat on the back of his neck and looked up at the dozen dark bodies hovering in the sky above them.
Mickey took a few tentative steps toward the bushes and stopped to look around again. He waved his hand back behind him, telling Paul to stay by the truck. Then he stood with his hands on his hips and turned back to Paul, as if Paul had only just spoken, and said, “Or maybe someone didn’t like what they did.” The words were disconnected, but Mickey just stared back down at the ground.
There were a lot of markings in the sand. Mickey could now see several sets of footprints—maybe as many as four or five, maybe as few as two—the sand didn’t hold its shape well enough for fine distinctions. As he studied the ground, he remembered an article he’d once read about the Apollo astronauts. It was said that the footprints they left behind on the moon would remain there, undisturbed, for millions of years. Mickey tried to imagine what some other being, stumbling across them in some distant future, might think of those strange markings in the dirt. Would it even see them as footprints? Did you have to be human to recognize the signs of human existence? Of a human presence? To even see that which is essentially human? Was it the ability to see yourself in your surroundings—to project your own image into it—that gave the world its meaning? Whatever it was, Mickey had no doubt that what he saw there in the desert sand were the remnants of human feet, trampling the earth beneath them in a frenzy.
Two sets trailed off from the roadside, past where he stood, and on toward the brush and the clamor of the scavengers. But there would have been no scavengers at the time. The brush would have offered only a gateway to a wide, barren vista of desert. And back at the roadside there was a cluster of indentations—footprints upon footprints—signaling others that were watching, waiting. But for what? For the job to be done? For their turn? To see if the man would make it and get away? Mickey could only guess.
He studied the two sets that crossed in front of him. One had left a series of wide divots, perpendicular to the direction they were heading and irregularly spaced. The other set pointed straight ahead in a steady, measured pace. Mickey crouched down and looked them over, peering back toward the road where the vehicle had been parked. Where the others had watched and waited.
Mickey could almost see it: people getting out of the car, movement at the side of the road, people standing around doing who knows what, and then something happens; one person takes off in a confused rush, running sideways, hurrying and hesitating at the same time and looking back at someone who is coming for them, quick and determined.
Mickey stood and followed the footprints another twenty feet, dragging his own steps as he walked so he could distinguish his markings if he needed to go over anything a second time. They continued as before, angling away from where they started toward a thin spot in the brush.