Jimmy Swann

#55 - "Hot Enough For You?"

Welcome, Dear Subscribers!

*******************************************************************

 #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6 

Towards mid-morning Jimmy made a breakfast of noodles, the last of his Vienna sausages, and a couple slices of getting-stale bread. He hoped the night’s coolness kept the sausages from going bad. They looked okay. He was hungry. And he’d lost weight. He pulled his belt up another notch.  

He was now running low on rations. After breakfast he would have two packages of noodles and some bread he thought might be going bad. He was glad he had bought as much trail mix as he had. 

The ravens kept up their chatter. While his noodles and sausages heated up, he poured some water into the empty sausage tin and walked slowly towards the ravens.  

Getting too close, they looked like they would fly away. Jimmy set the water down and headed back to the shade of the tarp. 

He thought about packing up late afternoon and heading for Caballo Loco during the night hours, taking advantage of the cooler temperatures. His main concern was for the tires in pushing the stroller down the rock-strewn road in the dark, and in finding a suitable place to stop for the night if needed. He couldn’t count on doing the nearly eight miles overnight.

No, he thought again. Early morning would be the best option. 

He heard a raven flap its wings and he looked over as it glided down to the water tin. It ambled up to the water, looked down at it, looked around once, and dipped its beak in the water. Then it tipped the tin over, jumping back as the water briefly pooled on the ground. It picked at the wet ground before returning to the tree. Being a bit smaller than the other raven, Jimmy took it to be the female. 

Jimmy refilled the tin. In short order, both ravens flew down. They both got a good drink before the tin was again upended. With that they flew off to the east. 

The day heated up. Jimmy sat down in the shade and ate his meal.  

* 

A wave of melancholy swept over him, and he felt the familiar heaviness inside. He missed Amy, his wife. She would have made his noodles and sausages a meal fit for a king. For Jimmy. 

She had died two years previous, just as the city council started pressing them to sell their home so that they could widen the street to accommodate the city’s plans. 

Though healthy, Amy caught a virus that lingered, got worse, then developed into pneumonia. It happened so fast. Jimmy was shocked.  

He knew he would be leaving the area, not wanting to stay without Amy.  

The battle with the city planning commission and its inevitable outcome served in some manner as a way for him to deal with his grief. What he would do when those efforts came to an end, he didn’t know. 

He thought of his sons, James and Robert, both gone.  

James, a career officer in the Marines, was lost to Afghanistan early on in the war. He had a wife and a son and a daughter. His wife, Caroline, took young Robert and Carrie back to her family’s home in Louisiana. Contact with them lessened over the years. Jimmy called Caroline with the news of Amy’s death. They promised to get together. The kids were doing great. They were now twenty-two and twenty-one. 

Robert was lost to drugs. Jimmy hasn't heard from him in nine or ten years. He was then in L.A.  

He and James were very close and after James was killed, Robert couldn’t handle it. He drifted off to another world.  

Amy and Jimmy struggled with their losses. Tears welled up in Jimmy’s eyes. 

* 

Jimmy heard them before seeing them. Their heavy wingbeats broke through his dark cloud, sounding loud in the still air. The ravens half-circled the camp and landed in their tree.  

Jimmy jumped up, glad to be back in real time. He set up the water tin again and it wasn’t long before the ravens glided down to it. They emptied it and he re-filled it again. He thought of feeding them some bread or nuts but knew it wasn’t good for them. Bread could clog their gut. Water was enough.  

They flew off west but returned mid-afternoon and the process was repeated. Jimmy got a little closer to them each time, but only so close before they hopped a few steps away, questioning Jimmy’s intent. They spent a good while in the tree chattering to themselves. Then they took off over the ridge at the wash’s edge toward the west again. 

* 

Clouds moved in from the south and the wind picked up. Maybe thunderstorms in a few hours. It cooled down considerably, the humidity rose, and by six o’clock a light rain began.  

Jimmy stripped down to his shoes and stood in the refreshing rain, his head raised to the heavens and his arms outstretched, enjoying his first shower in five days.  

The rain was brief, but Jimmy felt cleansed and rejuvenated. The air was clean and clear of dust and haze.  

Kitt’s Peak appeared much closer on the western horizon.  

To the east over the Sierrita Mountains, the towering thunderstorms gathered and boomed thunder and lightning down on the mountains. Jimmy wondered if the wash might get some of the runoff.  

He bet Tucson would get hit. He checked the weather radar on his cell phone. Sure enough, flash floods were warned for the area. 

He quickly air-dried as the humidity dropped. Though the air was cooler, the ground steamed at the surface as the rainwater evaporated. 

Donning his other pair of jeans and a fresh but wrinkled shirt, he sat down with his trail mix and watched the lightning show over the mountains. 

The sun set. Twilight fell.  

The lightning in the east changed from sharp ragged bolts to broad flashes of heat lightning as the storm and its thunder moved off in the distance.  

Jimmy walked over to the ridge above the wash. Water flowed down toward the highway but there was no significant flow. The brunt of the storm was on the eastern side of the Sierrita. 

Clouds still covered much of the sky but above and westward, the stars were dazzling in the cool clean air. A quarter moon hung in the sky well above the horizon. 

Back at the camp, he took down the tarps and stowed them underneath the seats of his stroller. Except for packing up his tent and heating up some morning coffee, he would be ready for the final miles to the Ranch. 

The coyotes began their evening ritual, their howls echoing back and forth from all directions. They reached their highest pitch then dwindled into quiet. How could so many coyotes make a living out here in the desert, he wondered? 

Wanting an early start in the morning, he set his cell phone for 4 am. And downing the last of the third gallon of water, he checked the camp one last time for critters, crawled into his tent and was soon asleep. 

* 

Jimmy awoke just before the alarm went off. Eager to get started, he got up and while heating his coffee water he took down the tent. He finished loading the stroller and all was ready.  

With his coffee he moved a few steps away from the camp and looked skyward. Not a cloud in the sky, and crossing the expanse, the International Space Station steadily made its way across the stars and disappeared above the southeastern horizon. 

It was time to go. 

He made it to the road as the first rays of dawn appeared. You would not have known it had rained. All was dry. The air was already losing what overnight coolness it had. It would be a hot day. 

Without three of the five gallons of water he had started with, the stroller was much lighter and more maneuverable. 

The stroller handled well on the rock and dirt road, but he was ever alert to avoid what rock he could. Some of the rock was broken in shards and could easily puncture his tires if not careful. It slowed his pace. 

Jimmy figured he had made about a mile as the sun rose over the mountains, a bright yellow orb directly in front of him. It was already warm and not a breeze was to be had. 

Two, three, then four miles maybe before he pulled off the road to rest under the shade of an acacia tree. It was mid-morning, and he was well into his fourth gallon of water. He was tired, perhaps a bit dehydrated. And hungry. He needed a full stomach. He ate a little from his dwindling trail mix.

A jeep, a pickup truck pulling a trailer, and an SUV kicked up a plume of dust as they passed by slowly making their way toward the highway. The dust canvassed the area before settling. 

Jimmy drank some more water but in setting it back down in the stroller seat, he dropped the jug to the ground. The cap popped off and before he could set it right it had spilled a lot of his precious water. The plastic jug didn’t crack but it now contained about a third of a gallon. He hoped he wouldn’t need what was lost. 

He took another good swig and closed his eyes for a while. 

* 

Soon refreshed, he wheeled the stroller out onto the road wanting to do at least another mile before holding up for the afternoon’s heat. Jimmy was certain he could make it to the Ranch by nightfall. 

He pulled out the umbrella and was surprised at the relative comfort it afforded. Just keeping the sun’s glare off of his face and upper body helped immensely. Pushing the stroller while the road gained elevation and holding the umbrella to block the sun proved awkward, but he soon got the hang of it. 

Moving along steadily, Jimmy estimated another mile was covered and feeling good, he thought he would continue on before stopping for the afternoon. There would be even less distance to the Ranch for the late afternoon push. 

The stroller started pulling to the right. The right rear tire was flat.  

A sliver of rock was embedded in the tire. Jimmy pulled it out, glad it was in the tread and not on the side of the tire, and glad he had a patch kit. It had been a long time since he’d repaired a tire, but he’d figure it out. 

At the top of a flat rise, the sun beat down, and there was no shade. And no wind. 

He moved off the road, unloaded his gear from the stroller, and pulled out the patch kit. 

He was looking through the instructions when a white pickup came up the grade, leaving a rooster tail of dust in its wake. It pulled up alongside Jimmy and stopped. The lady driver lowered the window, looking Jimmy over.  

“I’m going to the Ranch. You need a ride?” She said. 

Jimmy smiled and answered, “Yes, I do.” 

“Put your stuff in the back, and hop in.”  

Jimmy loaded his gear and the passenger side door opened. He got in and they were on their way. 

“Hot enough for you?” She smiled.  

Jimmy returned her smile and nodded. 

It was air conditioned inside the cab and felt wonderful. 

She said, “My name is Carla Santini.” 

“Hello. I’m Jimmy Swann” he said reaching over for a handshake. “Pleased to meet you. Thank you for the ride.” 

“You’re welcome.”  

Carla reached behind Jimmy’s seat and pulled a couple bottles of water out of a cooler and handed them to Jimmy. 

They were cold and wet with ice melt. Wiping his face and neck with cold wet hands, water was never more welcomed and delicious. 

Some small talk and some ten minutes later, they were at the Caballo Loco Ranch. 

*******************************************************************Thank you for reading! 

Please take a moment to like this post by clicking the heart icon below as this will allow others on Substack to more easily discover my content. 

For my newer Subs, here is an earlier post from Dec. 19, 2022 -

From my CD - WILDERADO SERENDIP - My cover of the Yardbird’s - “Only the Black Rose” - 

Photo by Me

See you next week, my friends.