Desert Goddess

A Short Story

She disappeared one fall afternoon just around a bend on a mountain trail. One step there, the next nothing. But that wasn’t the strangest thing of the day. The strangest thing was the brief but deep sense of calm that rose up over the pristine view of the switchbacks - an hour’s worth of walking - completely empty. 

The panic came later, obvious like a thunderhead rolling across the valley floor, but at that moment a simple peace, punctuated by some late-season bees lingering beside the path, their collective hum seeming to call and echo down the stretches of barren trail soothing and warning all at once: forget her.

The urge is so strong, like the first drink after a long week, just sigh and settle down and let it wash over you. It’s seductive. Turn and smile and walk back home.

The panic arrives crawling across the skin like wasps form a split nest. Forget her. Injecting veins with acid, burning eyes and nose like walking into the midst of her hairspray, burrowing down to the heart and shriveling it into a shuddering husk. 

She was never even here. The last a whisper, a shrug from the wind. I warned you.

They don’t believe a word of it. They defer to routine and assemble search and rescue teams with helicopter support. Their wide eyes snap up and they speak their unknown rescue jargon when I trace the map and say here, look right here.

She liked to hike fast. She’d catch that second wind, the goddess she called it, and start covering ground. She was way out in front when it happened. 

Hey, how do you know what happened then, they ask. I don’t, it had already happened when I got to where she was. What did? No idea.

They don’t like that at all. They keep looking at each other, leaning close and speaking behind a flat hand, politely accusing. They don’t come out and say it. Instead they asked if there’d been any strange behavior lately. As if she’d run away, stepped off the trail, and bushwhacked her way to a new life.

Yes, there was some strange behavior, starting last spring in the desert with that crazy run. No, that’s not true, it started much earlier, probably the snowshoeing trip up the pass the winter before. 

What the hell are you talking about, they demand. They don’t see the connection, how this city girl, standing in knee deep powder ringed by winter spruce, head raised and breathing deep the piney musk of sap that coated everything in the clearing, had any relevance to their investigation.

The east coast with its gently rolling hills and lakes and forests cannot prepare you for the incredible drama of the rockies. The scale and the wilderness is an intoxicating allure, especially to a life-long city girl. 

They definitely don’t like how things keep adding up. The newly installed security camera at the ranger station at the mouth of the canyon. She's laughing in the front seat of the jeep. The hikers that come over to talk, curious at all the patrol cars. Yeah, they saw her in that pink down jacket and hiking poles at the base of the trail. 

What, she didn’t come down? All heads shift to me, all eyes hardening to stone. This doesn’t look good at all.

It struck her as soon as she stepped off the road on her first trail. Neither of us were hikers, coming from the big city, but moving west as soon as the craggy peaks filled the horizon scratching at the sky we had to explore. 

That snowshoe hike solidified it for her. High above the ski resorts, first through ghostly aspen groves to the heady candle-shop spruce forest. She perked up, nostrils flaring, like a doe about to bolt. 

Instead she stood breathing deep, touched the tree trunk, and crumbled a small dried cone in her hand. She held the crushed remains close to her nose and breathed in fully, filling her belly, lungs, and arching her head backwards. She repeated that for several minutes, and when she looked at me bits of seed scale coated her mouth and chin. She looked like a wild animal after a kill. She didn’t see me for a full ten count of breaths. Then she was back, laughing and coughing and wiping her face. 

Notice anything strange lately? The lawyer suggests I cooperate fully. 

After snow shoeing to the spruce clearing, hiking was the main pastime. We got a jeep and in the spring explored mountain roads and desert tracks that slipped out into the junipers and sagebrush, twin slashes in the ochre sand that seemed to lead you back in time.

Time, she mentioned that again and again in the desert. High on the plateaus where you could see how eons had carved river valleys, and down in the canyons where she’d run her hands along the red walls and claim she could feel the time, like she was wading into a current.

Time, that is what they say we were running out several days into the search. They search the jeep, the house, look at my phone. The hiking app has GPS tracking coordinates. They get permission to track her last known whereabouts. It ends at that bend in the trail where the search dogs race barking and howling only to start whining and spinning in circles right at that bend. Anything else you can think of, they ask.

There had been a mountain spring, she’d drank from it, cupping her hand and slurping loudly. She’d offered me some, but for some reason I’d waved her off. I regret that now, more than anything, because when she kissed me after, her mouth still wet and cold from the mountain water, my lips buzzed. Buzzed like an electric current, like a bee’s wings.

Where is this bend, then, they demand. It’s just around this turn, no wait, it was before that deadfall you had to crawl under. 

There is no spring this time, no water. Just a small clearing beside the trail. They form a circle. Her sister and brother-in-law are there, first hopeful now furious. Their faces red and their lungs heaving with exertion at this altitude. But their love and pain are like thorns stabbing their eyes.

What the hell did you do with her, her brother-in-law shouts. He’s built like a tow truck and sticks a heavy finger right up at nose level. He steps close, shaking with rage, the violence held back by a single strand of decency, like a snarling dog pulling at a frayed lead. The sheriff and rescuers don’t move to interfere, and his wife trembles beside him with teeth bared. They watch his hand, finger extended, waiting for it to curl into a fist.

Then a bee lands on his finger. 

The aspens and scrub oak branches are bare and skeletal around us, the mountain peaks already covered with snow, and a bee settles down on his finger. But with her, there were always bees.

When we dated back east she never liked bugs, she’d call me at work for a spider alert, stating clearly that she’d be back after confirmation of its death or removal. She shied away from the bees at first, but they were so commonplace on our walks and hikes she quickly warmed to them. 

In high mountain summer meadows they’d swarm in the wildflowers around the campsite, and she’d point them out while naming the plants: some there on the Indian paintbrush and fireweed, oh and they’re all over the silvery lupine and western bluebells.

Even in the city near our home they crowded the lavender plants that lined the walking path, always buzzing and floating near her, drawn to her laughter like the scent of nectar. 

They have missing person signs along that walking path now. Strangers are sending death threats on social media and her black and white face stares out from where it’s stapled to the telephone pole. The lavender plants are all trimmed low for winter. There are no bees.

The bees were most puzzling in the desert. You see a lot of wasps and flies in the desert, but rarely bees. But that one hike they were there, at the end of a long weekend in the canyon country. The fatigue was bone deep that morning, the two previous days we’d hiked from breakfast to dinner, carrying our water and snacks. 

That morning I dreamed of a long sleep, a late breakfast, and a scenic drive home. She was having none of it. She prodded and cajoled, and then she showered me with kisses, getting the back of my neck as I tried to frown her away to reach the morning coffee.

Her enthusiasm was insatiable and we set out into the dry river washes, slowly descending toward red canyon cliffs far ahead. The desert was already oven-hot that early in the season. Not the broil of midsummer, but a strong bake that scorched the skin and sucked moisture from the pores. The uniform was long sleeves and hats and face-covering muffs and buckets of sun block. We looked like desert ninjas, she countered with hiking mummies. The sand got hotter as the day grew later and we hiked on, plodding through the deep sand towards the slot canyons ahead.

Slot canyons are like two stage curtains hanging close together, their folds curling back and forth on either side and you often have to turn sideways to slip through. Only they’re made of stone and do not give if they press too close. 

The canyon was like a greek voyage to hades, descending through fear and death, the sky a helpless blue slash far above. You had to press on until the end, no turning back, until rebirth. She rubbed her hands raw on the walls, she had to touch every surface. She had to remark on the wind and the erosion and the epic time scale it took to carve these out. 

Then after drinking water in the final shade before facing the long hike to the jeep, climbing back up the steep river wash trail, the bees rose from the sand around us. 

There weren’t any plants nearby. Further down the wash were dunes covered in desert grass and on the hill beyond some juniper trees, but in this crack of stone there was no life. But there were bees. 

“Babe look!” She stood and lifted her hand and they swarmed around, never touching, but close. Her eyes wide she grinned and leaned towards the buzzing cloud. 

I tried explaining it, tried to say something about the salt on our skin, just to tell myself what was happening. It broke the spell, and they spilled out into the valley and were lost in the sunlight. 

She looked at me, her eyes still wide, and set off. Her pace was brutal, she floated on the sand. My boots seemed to sink deeper with each step. She spread her arms. “I feel like running.”

I felt only awe. Meet me at the jeep, I called after her. She made sure to pull the muff down for a second to show me her smile, her joy. Then she covered her face against the sun and was gone, bounding over the dunes. I found her several hours later resting in the shade of a juniper tree near the jeep. “I guess I should have taken the keys,” she said laughing. 

She wasn’t even tired. “The desert goddess found me, babe!” I could hear a faint buzzing in the juniper tree but saw no more bees that day.

But I see the bee on my brother-in-law’s finger. He sees it and freezes. It stings him anyway. He jumps back cupping his finger, confusion and rage on his face, and the humming encircles us.

The bees come from the cold mountain forest and swarm between us, and for a moment, just a flash of sun through the trees, she’s there. After disappearing around that bend, after thousands of volunteers had hiked the trail and canyon, after the dogs and drones and helicopters, after the calm and panic and heart ache, she’s there. In the time it takes for an eyelid to slide close and open, she’s there.

She blows a kiss.

I saw it. Her sister and brother-in-law saw it. The sheriff and rescuers saw it too. Before we can breathe again the bees are gone. 

That night the sheriff holds a press conference. They were calling off the official search and closing the investigation. He encourages safety for future volunteers and wishes condolences to her friends and family. 

The in-laws return a few times over the years, and each time returning to that bee spot to rest and eat. They express the same things, communal feelings, the same as when I thought she had stopped to rest, her boots and hiking poles suddenly ceasing their regular thumping on the trail. One-two, one-two, one-nothing and then peace. 

They don’t know why but they feel peace. The gaps in their visits increase by years and now it's been such a long time. I hear they started keeping bees back east. 

But they didn’t hear all of it. They heard she loved hiking, she loved the mountains and the desert and was a fast hiker. They didn’t hear about the bees, or the desert goddess. Or the mountain goddess. Wherever the trail wound, at some point she would look at me and smile. “I’m going to take the lead” 

Desert Goddess, I’d cry, or Mountain Goddess, depending on the terrain. Then, as she sped away up a switchback, or along a ridge line, or into a canyon she’d shout, “Meet me at the jeep.” She always did. Except that last time.

I’ve kept hiking and searching. Attention was high years ago, but has long since waned. Questions appear every now and then, like June snow or November bees, but the story is the same. 

There are details I still don’t share. I saw her reflection in a high mountain lake, looking back up at me, that same smile, then gone with the splash of a fish jump. 

She was in the fall aspen leaves as the wind picked up twirling around me like a dust devil, startling other hikers on the trail, but in the whipping and crackling I felt several signature kisses on the nape of my neck. Then gone. 

Her footsteps appeared in the desert, dancing in the sand and then racing off across the dunes. I tried to follow, they stopped at a cliff face. A tiny wet depression at the base of the sandstone wall. I dug out a hollow and waited half the day as it filled with silty water. I cupped and drank. My lips and tongue buzzed, and my feet were light on the return hike, but when I woke in the tent in the morning I was still alone.

I held the ceremony in the spring time. All that talk of the desert goddess and mountain goddess speeding her along, the ridge-line whispers to forget her, why not summon them. Starting before sunset she came to me when it peaked as the stars blurred overhead in rainbow geometries. She sat beside me and held my hand. She smiled and looked so happy. She was drinking wine out of an enamel coffee cup. She gave the cup over, it’s heavy like longing, and then she stepped into the sky and danced with Orion. She loved dancing in the kitchen while meals cooked and Orion held her and spun her as I once did. They danced until dawn and then faded away with the night and the sun rose over a cold fire ring and a wind like forgetting carried the ashes out into the desert morning.

Hiking again, the same old trail. Not as fast anymore, but this trail I can do with my eyes closed. Sometimes I even nap in the clearing. The sound of buzzing bees wakes me. They’re very close.

Leaving the trail, stepping over a toppled aspen and there behind a rock, a small spring, bubbling up. The thirst is desperate. Hands cupped, water splashing face and beard, filling my mouth. The water is so cold, but not numbing, its cleansing. I sit there on the stone, feeling the cold spread down into my stomach, into my limbs. The buzzing intensifies, rhythmic and thumping like an old drum, like boots on a trail, and becomes footsteps through the dried leaves, coming closer.

There is no panic this time, but my eyes are closed. No bees now. Stillness.

She sits next to me. She squeezes my hand and her hair grazes my cheek as she kisses the back of my neck spilling warm honey down my spine.

“She wanted me all to herself,” her words sink through the skin massaging the bones with its timbre. “But you didn’t forget.”

The peace returns, that first calm high on that ridge.

“Look at me.” She’s there.