Calves Followed by Cicadas by Patricia Ann Bowen

Calves Followed by Cicadas by Patricia Ann Bowen

Chyna Lewis leaned on the counter, exhausted, looking forward to the end of her lunch shift at the Mojave Diner. Summers were the worst times to live in the desert; though tourist traffic slowed in the off-season, the dry heat sucked all the energy out of this gal. Still, the patrons were lively, gossiping about who did what to get ready for the tourists, nursing their coffees and iced teas; one little kid ran up and down the aisle of faded green leather booths, pretending to be a cicada, buzzing and humming and flapping his arms.  Chyna was ready to “accidentally” trip him in the service of a little peace and quiet.

Residents of the small town were a tough-as-boot-leather group. Almost every one of them, including Jake, their part-time mayor and part-time sheriff, labored in the tourist business, and they made most of their annual income in the more temperate months of spring and fall. Some rented out to hikers the tiny houses in the woods that used to be old hog sheds from Jamie Jameson’s farm; others played VRBO hosts to city-based writers hooked on AC, who didn’t think to open windows to suck in a breeze. The largest group they catered to were bird watchers chasing sightings of everything from bald eagles to mountain bluebirds, all of which dined on the local Apache cicadas. Speaking of which, Jen Wiley had a booking lined up for a group of entomologists from Harvard wanting to study the damned noisy bugs. Now it was late August, last chance to be a tad lazy, and anticipation of cool breezes and cooler cash filled the air.

All conversation suddenly silenced when a deafening “Thud…BOOM!” sounded in the far distance. The cicada kid crawled under his mother’s table while she pulled out her phone, ready to document any potential happening. “Thud…BOOM!” It came again. This time the plates on the shelf rattled like a pit of vipers. The two men and one woman at Jake’s corner booth rose in unison, drew their handguns, and walked toward the door. “What the…” Chyna whispered. Again, “Thud…BOOM!” A hairline crack crept up the window beside Jen’s booth…

“Lock up behind us, Chyna,” Jake yelled as they went out the door. “We’ll get this taken care of.” All five of the burly crew hefted themselves into Jake’s black Durango and drove east toward the mysterious sounds, a cloud of dust in their wake.

For eighteen minutes and twenty miles, Jake and them followed the noise until they almost drove past two well-camouflaged military helicopters on the ground and four drones above them, circling the site. But none of the people milling about appeared to be military. More like a bunch of college kids sporting ragged shorts, nose rings and ragged hair.

“What the…” Jake said, well above a whisper. “You all stay here in the car. If you see anything that doesn’t look right, or they start to circle around me, come out one at a time with your Glock pointed straight at ‘em.”

Jake left the engine running so his ad-hoc team wouldn’t roast here in the desert without their AC. He strolled, hand on his holster, toward the oldest-looking dude who hadn’t yet seen thirty. “Name’s Sheriff Jake Gittings. You in charge here?”

The man put out his hand. “No sir, I’m just one of the go-fers, Sam Spellman. You want Shari Andresen, our director. Here she comes now.”

“Pleased to meet ya,” said the tall thin woman with a ponytail down to her waist. “What’s the trouble, officer?”

“You the folks makin’ all the noise? We got regulations about such stuff out here.”

Shari looked around at the endlessly empty desert horizon, pretty sure this guy was blowing smoke, but he was the one with the gun. “Sorry if we disturbed anyone, or broke any laws. We received official permission from the Utah Film Office to test our sound equipment out here where we didn’t think it would bother anybody. The paperwork is in the copter if you want to see it.”

“That’s all well and good, but sound carries out here, and I can’t have you scaring off our vacation trade, all our campers and hikers and naturists. No doubt especially the birders will go berserk about spooking the wildlife and want their deposits back. They’re due to start coming here to Mojave in around a week or so.”

Shari nodded to Sam, and he retrieved the State documents while the crew roamed around collecting info from their drones and turning dials on their equipment. It all looked proper, but Jake grunted about not being notified about a deal that could disrupt his town’s livelihood, alarm the tourists, and maybe keep them from ever coming back to the Mojave.

“Can’t argue with the State office, now that it’s already signed and sealed. Tell me more about what you’re doing here, and how long we have to listen to your boom-booms.”

“Come over here in the shade, officer,” Shari said. As he followed her, Jake talked into his shoulder mic to his folks in the car that everything was A-Okay and they could stand down, and then took a plastic bottle of cold water the woman fished from a beat-up Yeti cooler and handed to him. “We’re making an indie film about global warming, about icebergs calving, with the noises they make when they fall and split. We need a site to record the loudest possible decibels in flat terrain without anything that might generate an echo.”

Jake rubbed the stubble on his tanned face. “You’re telling me you’re making a movie about icebergs in the Mojave Desert?”

Shari laughed. “Just simulating the sounds they make. They’re being recorded for CGI and then later pulled together in the studio with an AGI script. The other important sound we want to capture is that of your cicadas. They’re the loudest of anywhere out here, and we want to close our film with that sound… a sound of summer where ice previously covered the land.”

“CG what?” Jake stuttered.

“Sorry, too much insider shorthand. CGI stands for computer-generated imagery, like a cartoon, but it looks more realistic. Then another computer helps us write the script so it’s accurate and it appeals to the broadest audience.”

“How long you gonna be here?”

“We’ll be gone before your tourists get here, Sheriff. Two days and nights are all we need at the most, as long as the cicadas cooperate.”

“Oh, they always do. Even the big deal bug guys from Harvard are betting their trip on it.”

When the officers got back into the Durango Jake gave an order to his two men. “Slip back out here tonight and see if they’re passing around any weed or stronger stuff. Keep your heads down until you got the goods on ‘em. We could use the extra fines in the till to kick off the season.”

“What if they don’t got any?” the younger deputy asked.

“Make sure they do,” Jake replied.

Back at the diner, Jake banged on the door until Chyna let him and his squad back in. The diners crowded around while Jake gave them the Cliff Notes version of the film crew and the noises they created and recorded for their soundtracks. Then he took Chyna aside and vented to her while he chugged more ice water.

“Those folks at the State Capitol go around me every chance they get. What’s the use of being in public service? They sign off on icebergs in the desert, followed by cicadas. Fools. What’s in it for the town? For you and me? And who’s gonna pay for your cracked window?”

“Forget about it. It’s just the Mojave, Jake.”

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Patricia Ann Bowen 2025