Jeremiah Root

Elko Clean

I was a fool to take the road to Jarbidge. The route suited a bike with low gearing and tall geometry, and the Vincent Black Shadow wasn’t it. For all I knew, I was already off the right road. Two things were certain. I was heading north and still in Nevada. Everything else was a guess.

Somewhere ahead, a Banquet beer waited in the Red Dog Saloon. I meant to drink it.

How hard is it to put up a signpost? Weird little town this way.

I loped along awkwardly, traversing washouts, snags, and buried rock. Tension knotted my shoulders, and I kept sitting at the wrong times, lurching at odd angles. Teddy Roosevelt proved his own fitness by performing the Navy General Order No. 6, riding 100 miles, and then treating his men to juleps at the end. He would’ve winced at my flailing about.

The first twenty-five miles were easy riding on flat gravel, but the higher I climbed, the more agitated the route became. I rode around a bush growing out of the road and ran straight into a scour. I should’ve backed out or feathered the throttle and climbed out. That’s what a pro would’ve done. Instead, I goosed it during a wheel slip on the bank, and the bike slewed sideways, then bucked out from under my legs.

Only the lizards were watching, but embarrassment needs no audience. I lay there in the dirt, more fixed on the stupid sound I’d just made when I fell than the fact I’d dropped an antique motorcycle. Once I realized I had no holes, leaks, or breaks, I set out to right the bike. I put my back against it and leaned in, driving with my legs, rocking the bike back and forth like a Ferris wheel car until it came upright on the eighth push.

The forks were straight, and the case held oil, but the fall gouged silver scars into the midnight-black fuel tank and cleaved the gold-and-white Vincent script, flaying it back to bare steel.

I stopped to stretch my legs and take a leak beside a small aspen grove. It was the middle of nowhere, and I still ducked behind the trees to piss. In Afghanistan, the locals sat watching our Humvees pass in long convoys. When we stopped, you pissed in front of them in the wide open while they drank tea.

When I came back, I kicked the bike; the engine turned, but wouldn’t fire. I gave it another. Same. The crankshaft spun clean. No compression. Kickstarting a bike feeds on a cycle: hope, anticipation, silence, denial.

The only sound came from the drumming of a bird in the scrub.

I pushed the bike under the shade of the crooked limbs of a mountain mahogany and sat down on a fallen branch.

“Well, shit.”

Of course, my first breakdown happened halfway to the most remote town in the Lower Forty-Eight. I’d chased a pretty line on the map, and now the sidequest was folding in on itself.

The smell of gas meant the carb was flooded, but that was secondary. I suspected the electrical. I pulled the plug, clipped the wire back on, and grounded it against the head, giving it another kick. No arc. No pop. Just the dry snap of steel and the smell of gas. Probably the magneto. Archaic little bastard.

Bump starting it was an option. I looked at the road, its mix of hardpan, scree, and deep notches scoured by years of lifted rigs with lug tires. You need a history with a machine to learn its lies. I didn’t have that with the Vincent. Modern cars tell you what’s wrong. These old beasts take finesse, an artistry buried in their complex simplicity.

In college, someone tried to steal my ’78 Super Beetle by jamming a flathead screwdriver into the ignition. Wrecked the tumbler. They never got it started, but I was too broke to fix it. After that, I had to bump-start it everywhere, which meant parking on hills or flat stretches before killing the engine. On my first date with my ex-wife, Anna saw me in a mad dash, chasing that rusted bubble down a movie theater parking lot, hoping to pop it into second before I hit the drainage ditch.

The hard part wasn’t pushing the 500-pound, 1000cc bike up the grade. It was the turn at the bottom. I kept pushing the Vincent up the eroded two-track and coasting it down to bump-start it. Each time was like shoving twenties into a dead man’s pocket.

Sweaty and panting, I plopped down in the crusty earth in the shade of a hill. I looked up at the cylindrical basalt spires. This was hoodoo country. A mural at the last gas station said "Land of the Fairy Chimneys." I’d pictured a little Icelandic álfhol. This must’ve been what they meant.

I started muttering aloud again as I paced in circles around the bike.

“You’re not even on a touring bike. Look at that thing. You’re not Robert Fulton or Ted Simon. They would have made it. Now someone’s gonna have to rescue you.”

I stilled myself and focused on the horizon. I bivouacked in the lee of a mahogany tree. I only had two Nalgene bottles of water, a canteen of booze, and a few snacks. Salt bombs, all of it. Except for the apple.

I tried to pin myself on the map. Couldn’t. The only green on paper was east, so I walked.

I spent most of the day hiking to a creek. Water oozed from a swampy seep, and I hand-pumped water through a small filter, then hoofed it back to camp. On the second day, I checked the line and the plugs, then pulled the magneto. I stared at it for a long minute, then put it back on.

East past the mesquite and sage, I found a patch of chokecherries, hidden in a bush with aggressive thorns and tight clusters of dark red fruit. My parched mouth clamped down in a fit from the sour fruit. Nearby, I stumbled into a tangle of blackberries. The sparkly helmet made for a decent basket. I filled it with berries and returned to camp.

At camp, fresh tire tracks cut through the dust where a vehicle had driven up. They stopped by the bike, and two sets of footprints walked around my campsite and the Vincent. Nothing was missing. Whoever they were, they’d come and gone while scrounging berries instead of guarding the only road.

That evening, I sat by a fire with a bowl of tortilla soup and my freshly picked berries. The coyotes howled and yipped half the night.

The next day, after more failed attempts to start the bike, I went back to the tent to read Fat City. I was far away with Ruben Luna when I heard the motors. Faint, yet approaching. A low, guttural thrum. I ran to the tallest hill, scrambling up the talus. One jagged piece sliced through my left hand as I scooped the rock, clambering up. At the top, I stutter-stepped to the edge, certain the rimrock was rotten and would send me careening over the side, but the crown was caliche, holding me as I scanned for the vehicles.

Three quads ran east along a goat trail on the draw. I didn’t bother waving at them; their backs were to me, already passing out of sight. I followed their trail, hoping they had stopped for food or might backtrack. After a mile or two, I heard their high-RPM engines fade into the distance.

The gash on my hand was bleeding. Back at the bike, I used the first-aid kit to seal it with liquid stitches, then wrap it in gauze and medical tape.

I was going into my second night. I was certain at some point I had banked off the main road and was now on some off-road alkaline spur. Still headed north, but north to what and whom? Probably nothing.

That night, I dipped into the whiskey and sat on my camp stool watching the wood settle into coals. My hand was pulsing in time with my heartbeat.

“Your fire hides the stars,” a voice said behind me.

I shot up. “Fucking hell.”

A man was standing next to my tent, half-lit, half-obscured.

“Who is there?”

“I was out for a walk when I saw your fire.”

“A walk? Step into the light so I can see you.”

A thin man with long white hair in a ponytail walked into the firelight. As far as I could tell, he wasn’t armed. Just holding a Stanley thermos like a football.

“You always sneak up on people in the dark?”

“Like I said, I saw the fire.”

“If you’re walking, then where did you come from?”

“I walk at night when it’s cooler,” he said. “Nothing is ever as far as it seems.”

“What is your name?”

“Jasper.”

Of course, it’s Jasper.

“Well, Jasper, I don’t appreciate you creeping up on me.”

“Not my intention.”

“Jasper, I am stranded out here, so if you’ve got a house or a vehicle nearby…”

“I don’t have what you need.”

“Then where are you headed?”

“Here.”

I waited, but he didn’t elaborate.

“I was going to Jarbidge when my bike died.”

“You’re on the wrong road,” he said.

“Wrong road? What road is this?”

“It doesn’t have a name.”

“Where does it go?”

“Nowhere,” he said. “What do you call yourself?”

Call myself?

“My name’s Case. Case Burrell.”

Jasper’s eyes dropped to the canteen sitting in my lap.

“You want a drink?” I held up my canteen, already regretting it.

“I’m more of an herbalist,” Jasper said, crouching down by the fire.

We both sat in silence. Jasper was watching the fire, and I was watching Jasper. The tepee fire lay topped over into the coals, kicking up sparks. Jasper watched one glowing speck flutter into the sky, then die out.

“You should look at the heavens out here. It beats any fire. Stars are holes in the firmament.”

Yeah, sure. Sky holes. I kept the poker where I could grab it.

“You sure you don’t have a phone or a CB or something?”

He shook his head, standing back up.

“I’ll send someone for you in the morning,” he said, walking back in the direction he came from.

“Send from where?”

“From town,” he said, continuing to walk into the darkness.

“Jasper,” I called out.

“A truck will come,” he said. “You’ll be alright.”

“What the fuck was that?” I said.

After a moment, Jasper spoke from a distance. “You have a nice bike.”

I spent the next two hours pacing camp, half-expecting Jasper to come at me with a hatchet. I let the fire burn out so he wouldn’t have the advantage of darkness. At first, I set the liquor aside so I could stay on the alert. But boredom or sloth got the best of me, and I finished the canteen’s worth in the dark.

Drinking until the heavens began to spin.

Jasper wasn’t wrong. You can see everything out here when there’s nothing left to block it out. They say to stop the spinning, you focus on one point. I picked a nameless star, wishing I had taken the time to learn the constellations, and then passed out.

I awoke in the dirt, having fallen off my camp stool, the sunlight firing the rim of the hills. Thankfully, I had not been murdered in my sleep. Jasper could have smothered me, and I probably wouldn’t have noticed.

After two nights and one weird apparition, I decided the only chance left was to pack my gear and walk into town. Jarbidge was closer than the highway, but I was out of water. Ants had bitten my arms and neck into purple welts. My penance for falling atop their home. To top it off, my hand was swelling. Jarbidge got its name from the Shoshone word for the devil—the name fit.

I had just set out on foot when the truck pulled up.

It wasn’t Jasper but a heavyset man with a dark brown beard and curly hair. He stopped next to the Vincent but didn’t get out.

“I’m lucky you came around.”

“I can see that.”

“I’ve been stuck here for over two days.”

“Can you give me a ride into town?”

“There’s nothing in Jarbidge that’s going to help you.”

“Well, can you get me to someplace where I can make a call? Maybe get a tow?”

“Jasper told me about you.”

“Damn. I didn’t think that spooky-ass Third Man was actually real.”

“He’s a night walker. Nothing to worry about.”

“Where did he come from?”

“Oh, he has a roost just a couple of miles up that goat trail. Made it himself out of rocks,” he said, pointing west.

“Nice little place.”

Nice little place?

I didn’t realize how tall he was when he was seated in the truck. When he got out to open the tailgate, he towered over it, depressing the latch lever with his giant hands.

“You have a ramp. That’s handy.”

He laid the ramp down and uncoiled the tie-down straps. “Okay, let’s get that bike up here.”

I hesitated looking at the behemoth and his rusty Chevy.

“Oh boy, that’s a heavy old thing,” Rocco said, looking at the bike.

“You were expecting a dirt bike,” I said.

“Hadn’t thought about it.”

I pushed while he hauled from above. Midway up, the rear tire slipped, and we froze, balancing the weight between us. Rocco hugged the front of the bike, and heaved with a grunt like he was uprooting a stump. The Vincent teetered once, then climbed. We got it in the bed, tires square. He ran two straps over the frame and ratcheted them down until the front forks compressed.

The front seat was strewn with soda cans, and the floorboard was carpeted with sunflower seeds.

“If you can take me to—” I started.

“I’ll take you to Elko. It’s the only place to fix your bike.”

“Elko. That’s a long way. I can’t ask you to—”

“It’s the only place.”

“Well, I’ll pay you for your gas and the trouble.”

“That’s alright. It’s what we do out here.”

“Does this happen often?” I asked.

“This? No.”

“Well, thank you. My name is Case.”

“Rocco,” he replied, shifting the truck into gear.

“You from this area, Rocco?”

“Not many people are,” he replied.

On the trek down, I tried to make small talk, but he turned on the radio and said nothing. It was for the best. I picked at the bandage. The glue had failed, and the gauze was darkening. Rocco tuned the knob to the kind of program you’d expect if the desert had a microphone: abductions, space-based lasers, ranchers with dry wells.

Maybe this was a high desert abduction. Was Rocco an alien? I chuckled to myself, but I don’t think Rocco was listening. He just stared at the road.

With machined precision, he plucked sunflower seeds from a bag tucked under his crotch, cracked, deseeded, and flicked the hulls out the window without looking. The whole thing ran like an autonomous, fire-and-forget operation.

I ground coarse dirt flakes into my heavy eyes as I started to doze. I didn’t want to sleep in this strange man’s truck. Just a quick nod off, I’ll stay half awake.

“Hotel or auto shop?”

His question roused me. I looked around and realized we were in town.

“Sorry?” I said, a little embarrassed that I had been asleep for at least an hour.

“Would you like to go to a hotel or an auto shop?”

“Eh, hotel. Auto shops around here won’t know what to do with this thing.”

“I’ll take you to the Pioneer Lounge.”

“Is it clean?”

“Elko clean,” he said flatly.

“Let me fill up your tank,” I said.

He shook his head no.

The Pioneer Lounge sat hunched by the main thoroughfare, four stories of smoke-dark windows and red brick. A neon prospector stood over the doorway, shovel in hand, floppy Stetson pulled low. His eyes tracked you in the lot. Red-and-white two-tone lettering ran the length of the building: CASINO and BAR.

This time, stepping out of the truck, he put on a black cowboy hat, which made him even taller. We offloaded the Vincent near the front of the hotel. I extended a hand. “Thank you.”

He shook it silently, then turned back to the truck.

“Tell Jasper thank you,” I said as he opened the door and set his hat on the seat.

He didn’t nod. Didn’t say a word. Just started the engine and drove off.

I looked at the Vincent sitting in the sparse parking lot. How am I going to keep anyone from stealing this thing?

After several days of silence, apart from Rocco’s dreary AM programs, the clashing sounds of the Pioneer Lounge’s slot machines jarred me. A discordant mix of synthetic melodies and brief, triumphant fanfares overlapped and collided, forming a relentless, electric hum.

The Pioneer Lounge was wood-paneled, with equally dark carpet and walls lined with prospecting bric-a-brac. Gold pans, pack animal harnesses, and sluice boxes lined the walls, alongside black-and-white photos of old-timers standing in creeks, their beards trailing down to their hips.

The receptionist, a young woman named Janine, organized a series of sticky notes that lined the perimeter of her computer. Behind her, a little boy wearing a Hawaiian shirt dive-bombed a plastic plane.

“Good afternoon, sir. How can I help you?”

“I would like a room, please.”

“Do you have a reservation?”

“Reservation?” I pictured a dusty cattle-ranching family making reservations for their big trip to Elko, Nevada. “No, ma’am. I don’t.”

“How long will you be staying?”

“Well, I can’t say.”

“We have nightly and weekly rates.”

“I wager I’ll need a week.”

The little boy made a strafing run with the plane, colliding with the back of her knees and nearly rolling her over.

“Excuse me,” she said, bending over. “Sammy, Mommy’s working. Why don’t you play with your army men at the desk?”

Sammy didn’t reply, just banked the plane 180 degrees and flew off to attack some unsuspecting little green soldiers.

“Sorry about that. It’ll be easier next year when he starts kindergarten.”

“Cute kid.”

Looking at the kid, I was brought back to Chuck’s voice in San Francisco, his plea to find his grandson Mateo. A five-year-old who could be anywhere. Guess it was easier to drink in Jarbidge.

The woman let out a coughing grunt. “Nightly is $120, but with the weekly, it drops to $100 a night.”

I blinked, snapping back to the lobby. “A hundred bucks a night?”

“Yes. And we have full showers.”

I looked down at my sweat-covered jeans and a dingy white T-shirt.

“That would be nice. One week, please, ma’am.”

She tapped it into the computer.

“Would I be able to get something shipped here?”

She reached for a small laminated card. “Use this address, and let ‘em know your room number.”

“And what room will that be?”

“312. Elevators are over there.”

“How late is the bar open?”

“Two a.m. The kitchen closes at midnight.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

She smiled. A little.

“Do you have a business center?”

“No, we don’t. It’s not really that kind of a place.”

When I went to my room, I wondered what “Elko clean” really meant. I’d pictured a smoke-stained shitbox with a chalk outline on the floor, but it was clean and functional.

I took a shower and headed down to the bar. With all the rancher trucks in the parking lot, there was a good chance they had a thick steak waiting for me. I wasn’t wrong. First hot meal in almost four days.

I checked my messages. Four were from Chuck, wanting an update. I didn’t have it in me for that conversation. The last message was from my ex-wife, Anna. It was a short, garbled butt dial, nine seconds of her voice after ten silent years.

I listened to it more than once. Under the static, she was laughing, that same throaty giggle only she makes. Laughter meant for someone else. On another day, I might have picked up. I might have told her my best friend was gone, that I was out here trying to square one last favor. For once, I might have spoken plainly.

But I missed it. I could call her back. For that, I would need booze. A lot of booze. And she would know I was drinking. She always did. Our detente was held together with silence and distance.

I looked out the bar window, through the painted-on logo, past the parking lot and Elko gas station roof to the vast expanse of the desert. The Ruby Mountains in the distance. Glaciers had once carved out jagged edges of the now-brown promontories.

The waitress refilled my empty water glass.

“Boy, you are thirsty.” I didn’t turn away from the window.

She matched my gaze. “They call them the ‘Swiss Alps of Nevada.’”

“It is a sight,” I said, setting my phone back down on the table.

I threw back the shots, the second one burning my nostrils, then chased them with a Bud, pressing the cool bottle into my throbbing hand.

No. Fix the bike. Find the boy. Get moving. Movement solves everything.

​

END

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Jeremiah Root is a native of Paradise, California and is now a Marine Officer living in Washington D.C. with his wife and three children. He has also been a musician (La Fin du Monde), biologist, and police detective. Along with writing he enjoys recording music, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Muay Thai.