I opened my trunk and checked my spare, which was looking a bit soggy in itself. I wrestled it out and bounced it on the pavement. Not wonderful, but I decided it would get me as far as the nearest service station, which I remembered seeing a few miles down the road. This is why I jog and bust my hump lifting weights, so I can cope with life's little inconveniences. At least I wasn't wearing heels and panty hose and I didn't have glossy fingernails to wreck in the process.

Meanwhile, the flatbed had turned out onto the highway and had come to a stop a hundred yards behind me. A dozen male farmworkers hopped off the back of the truck and rearranged themselves. They seemed amused at my predicament and called out suggestions in an alien tongue. I couldn't really translate, but I got the gist. I didn't think they were giving any actual pointers on how to change a flat. They seemed like a good-natured bunch, too weary from the short hoe to do me any harm. I rolled my eyes and waved at them dismissively. This netted me a wolf whistle from a guy grabbing his crotch.

I tuned them out and set to work, cussing like a stevedore as the flatbed pulled away. At times like this, I tend to talk to myself, coaching myself through. It was midafternoon and the sun was beating down on me. The air was dry, the quiet unbroken. I don't know the desert well. To my untutored eye, the landscape seemed unpopulated. At ground level, where I sat wielding my crescent wrench, all I could see was a dead mesquite tree a few feet away. I've been told that if you listen closely, you can hear the clicks of the wood-boring beetles that tunnel through the dead wood to lay their eggs.

I settled down to work, letting the isolation envelop me. Little by little, I became accustomed to the stillness in the same manner that eyes become accustomed to dark. I picked up the drone of an occasional insect and noticed then the foraging warblers catching bugs on the fly. The true citizens of the Mojave emerge from their lairs by night: rattlesnakes and lizards, jackrabbits, quail, the owl and the Harris hawk, the desert fox and the ground squirrel, all searching for prey, angling to eat each other in a relentless predatory sequence that begins with the termites and ends with the coyote. This is not a place I'd want to unroll my sleeping bag and lay my little head down. The sun spiders alone will scare you out of ten years' growth.

By 3:20, I'd successfully completed the task. I rolled the flat tire around to the front of the car so I could hoist it into my trunk. I could hear a foreign body rattle around inside, a rock or a nail by the sound of it. I checked for the puncture, running my fingers around the circumference of the tire. The hole was in the sidewall-a ragged perforation not quite the size of my little fingertip. I blinked at it, feeling chilled, not wanting to believe my eyes. It looked like a bullet hole. An involuntary sound escaped as I was overtaken by one of those rolling shudders you experienced as a kid on leaving a dark room. I lifted my head. I surveyed the countryside. No one. Nothing. Not another car in sight. I wanted out of there.

I hoisted the tire and shoved it into my trunk. Swiftly, I gathered the jack and my crescent wrench, moved around to the driver's side and got in. I started the engine and rammed into gear, pulling back onto the highway. I drove faster than I should have, given the condition of my spare, but I didn't like the idea of being out there by myself. It had to have been the guy in the pickup truck. He'd passed me just as the blowout occurred. Of course, a rock might have caused the damage, but I couldn't think how it could have penetrated the sidewall, leaving such a nice neat hole in its wake.

The first service station I passed was out of business. The gas pumps were still standing, but the windows were broken and graffiti, in a garland, had been sprayed along the foundation. Local advertisers were using the supporting columns for their poster art and a real estate company announced in bold print that the property could be leased. Fat chance.

On the outskirts of Niland, at the intersection of Main Street and the Salton Highway, I found a small station selling one of those peculiar brands of gasoline that makes your car engine burp. I put some air in the spare tire and dropped off the fiat.

"I've got some business to take care of at the Slabs," I said. "Any way you can do this in the next hour and a half?"

He studied the tire. The look he gave me suggested that he'd come to the same conclusion I had, but he made no comment. He said he'd pull the tire off the rim and have it patched by the time I returned. I was guessing I'd be back by five o'clock. I didn't want to imagine myself out in the desert once the sun went down. I gave him a ten for his trouble and told him I'd pay for the repair when I got back. I hopped in my car and then leaned my head out in his direction. "Where's the road to the Slabs?"