Indian Hill

The road they’ve found leading out into the desert, straining towards Indian Hill, is not much of a road at all. It’s simply a set of parallel grooves, left by the tires of the few cars to have come before. The pickup follows as faithfully as a train on its rails.

The path further degenerates into one long trench. The pickup is swallowed by ridges of dirt and the overgrown chaparral of the Nevada desert. The driver wants to go fast but is cautious of the rocks, tall grasses, and other various flora that sprout up freely between the two tire tracks. Rumor has it that Jeanie is flown to and from her house in a private plane. None of that is of any concern to the driver, the hitchhiker, or now the scrawny black teenager riding between their seats. He eagerly, though unnecessarily, points out the general direction. Or he was; he hasn’t spoken now for many minutes.

The hitchhiker wonders where the Indians of Indian Hill are.

“Kinda risky for a pretty lady like that Jeanie Meriwether to be livin’ out here amidst wil’ Ind’uns, no matter who she’s hired to protect her.” He peers up into the darkness, but the headlights are having trouble reaching over the mounds of earth that rise up on either side.

The pickup starts on an ascent, and there immediately rises what can only be a spaceship, hovering over the ground in an indeterminable amount of distance away. It’s the first sign of civilization. As the pickup winds a gradual turn, the object comes to look more like an enormous glass insect, either devouring, mating with, or climbing atop a lopsided dirt hill. If this is Miss Meriwether’s Las Vegas desert hideaway, it looks like it’s been treated to wrecking ball or else carefully dismantled by a bomb. Shards of glass, three or almost four stories high, stab out in every direction. They’re lit from within, and although the hitchhiker, the driver and the teenage black are still a few miles away, they can see the irregular shadows of people moving within each spire.

It’s not clear if the teenager has ever been out here before, but if he hasn’t, there’s no sign on his face to indicate that he is in any way excited to be so close to crashing a party of millionaires. If anything, the blank stare drawn across his eyes combined with the hard gulp in his throat tells of an inward-focused unease.