Chapter 22 fourth quarter

Decker bought a one-way ticket.The six-hour flight, with a short stop in Chicago, gave him plenty of time to think about what he was doing.His behavior was indeed out of the ordinary, and he could understand why his former boss was upset.Hell, even he was upset about it.Throughout his career he had been able to control himself, but now he was at the mercy of a whim. Santa Fe's airport is too small for jumbo jets.The closest major airport to Santa Fe is in Albuquerque.As the American Airlines MD-80 circled over the airport to land, Decker was shocked to see the yellow wilderness below.Baked by the scorching sun, the sand and rock stretched out to the bare hilltops in the distance.He said to himself, what else do you expect to see?New Mexico is a big desert.

At least the Albuquerque airport's small, four-story terminal has charm, with brightly colored Native American motifs adorning the interior walls.The efficiency of the airport is also quite high.It took Decker just 10 minutes to pull out his suitcase and go to the counter of the Avis car rental company, intending to rent a Dodge Warrior.It was the name of the car that aroused his interest. "Which is the best way to get to Santa Fe?" he asked the young woman behind the counter. The woman is Hispanic.She smiled brightly, and the expressive dark eyes seemed even more charming. "It depends on whether you want to take a shortcut or look at the scenery."

"Is the scenery here worth seeing?" "Definitely worth watching. If you have the time." "I have nothing but time." "Then you're in for a New Mexico vacation. Look at this map," she said, "go north on Route 25 for a few miles, then turn east onto Interstate 40, and after about 20 miles, Turn north on Turquoise Drive." The clerk traced the map with a felt-tip pen. "Do you like margaritas?" "love it." "Then stop in a small town called Madrid." She put the stress on the first syllable of the place name Madrid, as if to distinguish it from the capital of Spain in pronunciation. “Thirty years ago, the town was deserted, and now it’s an artist’s colony. There’s a crappy old house called The Mine Tavern, and the people in it boast that their margaritas are the best in the world. "

"is that true?" The woman just gave him another charming smile and handed him the car keys. Decker drove past a metal statue of two racehorses silhouetted outside the airport and followed the clerk's direction on his way.He noticed that buildings in Albuquerque seemed indistinguishable from those found elsewhere in the United States.Occasionally he saw a flat-roofed stucco house that seemed a bit like the adobe houses he'd seen on TV, but the buildings he saw mostly had pointed peaks and brick or wooden walls.He secretly worried that the TV show might have been exaggerated, that Santa Fe might be just like everywhere else.

Along Interstate 40, he drove through towering and jagged mountains.As he turned north onto the Turquoise Lane, things began to change along the roadside.Solitary log cabins and A-frame huts seem to be the norm.A little further on, there are few houses on the side of the road, and there are more and more plants-larch and dwarf pine, various low cacti, and a 6-foot-tall sage like sagebrush. shrub.The narrow road snaked behind the mountains he had just seen in Albuquerque, edging upwards, and it reminded Decker of the time the stewardess on the MD-80 had told him that Albuquerque was a mile-high mountain. Because it's 5,000 feet above sea level, like Denver; but Santa Fe is higher, it's 7,000 feet above sea level, so you have to climb up to get there.The flight attendant also told him that in the first few days, tourists would feel sluggish and have trouble breathing.She joked that a passenger once asked her if Santa Fe was at 7,000 feet year-round.

Decker didn't pay attention to how his body reacted to the height, but that was to be expected.He had been trained, after all, not to care about altitude when he parachuted down at 20,000 feet.What he noticed was that the air was extra fresh, the sky was extra blue, and the sun was extra bright.It dawned on him why a poster at the airport referred to New Mexico as the land where the sun dances.When he reached a plateau and looked to the left, a rolling desert landscape came into view.The great desert running north-south seemed to stretch for hundreds of miles, the west was wide and vast, and the mountains in the distance were more majestic than those near Albuquerque.The winding upward road took him through one sharp turn after another, and the views from many of the turns were even more spectacular.Decker felt like he was on top of the world.

Decker reminded himself over and over that Madrid's accent was on the first syllable.It is a small village of huts and board houses, mostly remnants of the counterculture movement of the 1960s.The village stretched out on the edge of a narrow wooded valley bordering on the right a hillside covered with coal seams.It is because of the coal here that people built this small village at the beginning of this century.The Mine Tavern is a crumbling two-story wooden building with peeling paint.It is probably the largest building in the village. It is located at the foot of the undulating hillside on the right side of the town, just at the junction of the hillside and the village, and it is easy to find.

Decker stopped the Dodge Warrior, locked the doors, and watched a group of bikers in leather jackets pass by.The group stopped at a house on the road ahead, unwrapped folded panels and unfinished paintings, and carried them inside.Decker grinned and walked up the steps leading to the tavern's enclosed porch.As he walked, there was a hollow thump under his feet.He opened a creaking screen door and walked in.The inside is simply a miniature miniature of the salon at the beginning of this century.There's a stage inside, and the world's currencies are pinned to the wall behind the bar.

The dimly lit place was half full of people, talking loudly and enthusiastically.Decker sat down at an empty table and saw cowboy hats, tattoos, and beaded necklaces everywhere.In stark contrast to the high efficiency of the Albuquerque airport, he waited a long time before a man with a ponytail and an apron carrying a tray walked towards him unhurriedly.Be patient, Decker told himself, and use this as a decompression chamber. The waiter's jeans were torn at the knee. “I was told that you guys have the best margaritas in the world,” Decker said. “It’s definitely not true.” "Taste it and you'll know."

"Give me a drink." "What do you want to eat?" "What do you have?" “Chicken nuggets for lunch. But it’s mid-afternoon, so what else? Try nachos.” The nachos had Monterey Jack, green salsa, string beans, lettuce, tomato and green peppers.The green peppers were so hot that Decker burst into tears.He felt that he was about to be burned to death, and he thought that if he had eaten this kind of food two days ago, his stomach would definitely hurt unbearably. The margaritas were the best he'd ever had. "What is the secret of this wine?" "One and one-quarter ounces of fine tequila, made from 100 percent blue agave; three-quarters of an ounce of orange liqueur; one and a half ounces of freshly squeezed lemon juice; Plus a fresh wedge of lime."

Decker pursed his lips, savoring the wine cheerfully.The salt foam on the rim of the wine glass touched his lips, he licked it, and asked for another glass.After his second drink, he thought about asking for another, but he wasn't sure how alcohol would do to him at this altitude.He didn't want to hurt anyone while driving; besides, he wanted to find Santa Fe. After tipping the waiter 25 percent, Decker walked out of the saloon feeling the same faintly drunk he'd felt for years.He looked up at the sinking red sun, then at his dive watch—it was almost 4:30—and put on his Ray-Ban sunglasses and got into the Dodge Warrior.If anything, it seems that the air is cleaner, the sky is bluer, and the sun is brighter.He drove away from the town and drove along the winding narrow road.Along the way he saw more larches and dwarf pines, and that kind of sagebrush-like shrub he was trying to figure out what to call it.He noticed that the color of the land here has changed, from being dominated by yellow to red, orange and brown.The plants are also more lush.He came to a high turn that led downhill to the left, from which he could see for miles.Far ahead, on a higher ground, clustered among the hills were small buildings that looked like miniatures of a children's toy village.Behind the hilly terrain, towering mountains of breathtaking beauty.On Decker's map, the mountain was called "The Blood of Christ."Under the sunlight, those buildings appear golden yellow, as if they have magical powers.Decker remembered the motto on New Mexico license plates: Land of Magic.The beauty, surrounded by lush dwarf pines, beckoned to Decker.He had no doubt at all that it was exactly where he was going.