You’re hoping to log ten miles of running toward your ultramarathon training, but you and your sister only make it five in the 100-degree heat before it’s clear that it’d be dangerous to continue. It’s late May 2014, at the height of #NotAllMen and #YesAllWomen, in Nevada’s Valley of Fire State Park.
Back at the campsite, you both begin drinking from your cooler full of beer. There is no cell phone reception out here. Your sister forgot to bring a book but she’s one of those people who, when there’s nothing to do, is able to fall into a deep sleep. She sprawls out on a boulder, still clothed in a sports bra and running shorts, and immediately slips into the imperturbable slumber of a young child.
You grab your book and another beer and climb a large sandstone feature behind your campsite that gives you a bird’s-eye view of Arch Rock Campground and beyond. The Valley of Fire is named for its unearthly bright red Aztec sandstone. This is where they shot the Mars scenes in “Total Recall.”
It’s the off season and all of the other campsites are empty. When you first entered the park, you drove through the more popular Atlatl Rock Campground where the capacity was at maybe 50%. “Too many people,” you said and drove on. You both wanted to experience remote wilderness.
You understand why this campground, which commands the same camping fee, is uninhabited. Unlike Atlatl Rock, there are no showers nor flushable toilets, just primitive pit latrines so choked with flies you’d have to squeeze your eyes and mouth shut and plug your nose to use them. Only those seeking solitude would accept these second-rate amenities.
As sunset approaches, a late-model white Mustang with Nevada plates drives past your campsite. It’s the first car you’ve seen that day. A little past your campsite, it stops and reverses then idles in front of where your sister sleeps. You shout to her, and the car continues up the road.
“So?” Your sister grumbles when you wake her. The cloud of dust kicked up by the Mustang still lingers in the air. “Anyway, it’s gone now.” She rolls her eyes when you say you won’t be surprised if the car returns.
Twenty minutes later the Mustang pulls into the campsite next to yours, objectively the worst site of the 29 in the campground. It has zero shade and is strewn with so many rocks it’d be impossible to pitch a tent without putting in a considerable amount of manual labor. Giant rock formations separate this site from yours, giving the illusion of privacy while presenting opportunities for spying.
You wait a bit then walk up the road, past the site. You see a bald white man rooting around in the trunk of the Mustang, his back to you. There’s a suitcase on the picnic table but no camping gear in sight. When you report these findings to your sister, she shrugs and opens another beer. You go to the car and grab the Maglite you keep under the passenger’s seat. You call this Maglite “Marge.”
You’re blowing air into your sleeping pad when you hear your sister gasp as she exits the tent you’re sharing. “Oh, you startled me,” she says, her voice strained. You grab Marge and scramble through the tent’s opening. And there he is, standing five feet from you and your sister, just outside your tent. Your stomach drops down into your knees the way it once did when you came out of your kitchen and found a stranger standing in your living room. Only that man was just as surprised to see you and darted off immediately.
This man is in his 30s and stands with military erectness. He wears a fitted white T-shirt, khaki shorts and sneakers. The man is short — you are taller than him by two inches — and wiry. His hands are empty and hang inertly by his sides. He is bald by choice, his pink scalp shaved as if prepped for brain surgery. His skull looks as vulnerable as that of a newly hatched chick, and you can’t imagine it withstanding a solid whack from Marge. She’s the heavy-duty steel 4D model, synonymous with police brutality, and you grip her now with the unabashed menace of a mob enforcer.
The man looks at you with no indication that he’s registered the threat — his mouth is fixed in a neutral line, his eyes reveal nothing. But you sense his stillness belies a latent ferocity, an alligator lurking at the water’s edge. Any sudden moves from you now and he’d instantly snatch you up and drag you under while your sister could only watch, frozen in shock. “Hallo,” he says much too belatedly. He is not American.
“What’s up?” your sister says evenly, and you know that she too is on high alert. He asks to borrow some propane for cooking, speaking with an obvious German accent. While your sister fetches the tank, he scans your campsite. His eyes eventually settle on your car. “You from California?” he asks. You continue to stare at him in hostile silence, though he doesn’t seem the least bit unsettled by your inhospitality.
“Where are you from?” your sister responds flatly, clearly trying to maintain some semblance of normalcy. She shows him the propane tank but does not hand it to him. Is she planning on hitting him with it? “Detroit,” he says. He glances at the Colman tank, known to fit all standard portable propane appliances.
“That won’t work,” he says. “Not compatible.” Your sister shrugs. He waits, possibly for a dinner invitation, but no one says anything further. The sun has just set and the valley is ablaze in a red glow. After one more look around your campsite, he leaves. You and your sister watch him until he’s out of sight.
In under ten minutes, your sister packs up the food and beer while you partially collapse the tent and stuff it into your hatchback. You drive away from the site watching for any sign of the man in your rearview mirror. “So, to the other campground?” your sister asks once you’re stopped at the campground’s exit.
You should’ve known this would happen. Of course you’ve been told that women shouldn’t go camping alone, just as they shouldn’t go certain places after dark, or ever, without a man. Yes, going to the other, populated campground is the smart move.
But you have already paid for this campground. And what’s more, it dawns on you, you pay the same taxes as a man! Taxes that support parks like this and other public places and the roads leading to them which, as it turns out, you actually have limited access to if you’d like to remain safe.
Suddenly, you are overcome with beer-fueled rage as you finally understand other people’s indignation when it comes to taxes. Why should you subsidize the lifestyle of an already privileged group while accepting one that is less-than for yourself? Where’s your goddamn tax break? What a fool you are!
You put the car in reverse and pull into the driveway of a nearby campsite. No, this is where you’re staying, you tell your sister. There’s no way the man could’ve seen that you ended up here, even if he’d been peeping. And this new site is away from the bathrooms and hiking trails, so there’s no innocent reason he’d happen upon it.
But if somehow some unfathomable wickedness propels him to you in the night, you tell your sister you’ll kill him. “He was, beyond a doubt, asking for it,” any jury would conclude and exonerate you immediately. You did your duty to retreat and nevertheless he persisted and now the state of Nevada compels you to stand your ground!
Your sister agrees readily, so you amend your statement: “We’ll kill him.” But your sister is not interested in killing anyone, even in self-defense, not when you’re there — you, a slight person she’s accurately described as “bird-boned” all your lives.
You remind her that she’s physically much stronger than you and better equipped for hand-to-hand combat from wrestling in high school, practicing mixed martial arts and doing the prescription weight at CrossFit. Her hands are grappling strong and protrude from wrists that are as thick as your ankles. This woman has no problem opening jars.
Although she agrees with your facts, she has her nursing career to consider. Plus, she’d like to marry and have kids. No, there’s no room for any homicide on her record, even the justifiable kind. It occurs to you your sister is not afraid of assaulting this man, she is simply uncomfortable with the repercussions. And she’s deemed you expendable.
At this moment, you can’t see how protecting her reputation should be both of your priorities. But it’s not the time for debate, so you agree to be the one wielding Marge. Sure, you’ll do most of the work, but you figure you’ll both get credit in the end, like with a group project. She’ll be an accessory at the very least, a joint principal most likely. Your sister has never seen an episode of “Law & Order,” and she lives her life like it.
Now that you’ve actually committed to using force against this man, you’ll need to be rational and practical in your approach. You dial back your initial unbridled bloodlust. Full-on murder is worst-case scenario. You won’t deliberately aim to kill, but you also won’t inhibit yourself in subduing him.
Your plan is textbook Cobra Kai — strike first, strike hard, no mercy. Should the man sneak into your camp, your sister will shine her high-beam flashlight in his eyes, and you’ll come from the opposite direction to hit him in the head with Marge.
The first blow must be the most accurate and backed by the most power, especially if he’s carrying a weapon. If you’re positioned behind him, your sister advises you to aim for the base of the skull. If you’re to his side, you’ll swing into his temple or jaw. If you’re in front of him, you’ll break his nose. After that, you’ll continue your efforts with Marge until the man is on the ground, then you’ll kick and stomp him until he stops moving.
Your sister begrudgingly agrees to come to your aid if the man fights back, and she’ll help you duct tape his hands and legs together once he’s still. She offers to remain at the campsite and medically monitor him while you drive to a ranger station for help. But you explain, not without resentment, that you won’t be able to drive.
Though you’ll grip Marge with both hands, you anticipate your dainty wrists will break during the assault. You could reinforce them with splints made from duct tape and spare tent poles. But surely when you kill someone the police examine your hands and arms, and that might look like premeditation. It’ll all be worth it one day, you assure yourself, when your wrists would ache and you could tell your precious sister’s grandchildren: “Hmm, it’s about to rain. And I once had to single-handedly kill a man because your grandma’s a little bitch.”
After dinner, you set up your camping chairs near some large rocks you can take position behind if you see him coming. The sky is light enough that you’ll be able to spot him from a ways off but dark enough to allow for some stargazing. As per camping tradition, you lament the fact that your parents never taught either of you how to identify stars and constellations. Then you move on to pondering the man’s depraved motives, and your sister describes an elaborate booby trap she’d set for him had she the time and energy.
First, she’d dig a trench around your entire campsite, like a moat. Next, she’d gather sticks and sharpen one end of each into a crude, splintery point. She’d dip these points into the feces roiling in the pit toilets, plant them in the trench and then conceal it all under a layer of palm leaves. When the man tried to get to your tent, he’d fall into the trench and impale himself on the shit-encrusted spears. Your sister surmises he would consequently abandon his original objective and spend the remainder of his life staggering around the Valley of Fire until succumbing painfully to sepsis.
How even a motivated individual could find sticks and palm leaves in this barren desert, let alone dig a trench deep enough, is beyond you. She admits she got the idea from a Vietnam movie — so, yeah, it’s best suited for the jungle. Still, she continues with an edge to her voice, at least one wouldn’t have to stay up the whole night waiting for someone who probably wasn’t even coming. The shit stick moat would protect you both while you slept soundly in your nylon castle.
And with that, your sister proclaims she’s going to bed. “You can wake me if you see him coming” she adds as she zips herself inside the tent. You’ve come too far to turn back now so you spend the rest of the night in your camping chair clutching Marge, dozing off and waking with a start at every noise, until you hear your sister say “Guten Morgen.”
While she lights the camping stove to make coffee, you beat your rolled sleeping bag savagely with Marge. You imagine the white Mustang driving by just then and you making eye contact with the man, like a public masturbator, as you go to town. In your fantasy, the man is shocked to see you there and horrified to realize that you were there all night, waiting for him in the dark. You and big, bad Marge.