The vending machine in the lobby made a sound like a dying refrigerator. Don Hudson stood in front of it with a quarter in his hand and didn't put it in.

Bill came out of Room 7 and leaned against the wall next to Don. He had been in Room 7 for two months. Don had been in Room 3 for three. They had never spoken until tonight.

Whiskey, Don said. He put the quarter in the machine. It clunked. The bottle fell. He retrieved it.

You fly? Bill asked. It wasn't really a question.

Don looked at him. Bill was thirty-five, maybe. Wore the same clothes every day. Had a scar on his chin that looked like a door handle.

Yeah, Don said.

Not like driving. Like flying.

I know what you mean.

They stood in the parking lot. The motel sign buzzed. Beyond the chain-link fence, the desert stretched out flat and gray under a sky that was the color of dirty dishwater. Somewhere out there, the test ranges started -- government land, no signs, no lights, just fences and warnings that nobody followed.

I used to fly for the Air Force, Don said. Cessnas. Recon work. Then I got out. Got divorced. Got a job at a gas station off Route 95. He opened the whiskey bottle. The cap came off with a sound like a small explosion. I still have a plane.

Where?

In my garage. Old crop duster. Stearman. Yellow. You ever see one?

Bill had. They were everywhere in movies. The ones with the biplane wings and the open cockpits and the pilots who looked like pilots were supposed to look.

I took it out, Don said. Last month. Took the keys from the base surplus store. They weren't locked. Nobody locks anything out there. He took a drink. I filled the tank. Started the engine. The sound -- you ever hear a radial engine start? It's like the earth remembers how to sing.

What did you fly to?

I don't know. Don looked out at the desert. I flew high. Higher than usual. The altimeter said twelve thousand. Then it stopped working. The needle just went to zero and stayed there. He took another drink. I lost direction. Not north or south. Direction. Like the map had changed while I was looking away.

Where were you?

I don't know. Don reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. His hands were rough, the knuckles scarred from years of fixing things that didn't want to be fixed. He scrolled to a photo and showed it to Bill.

It was a picture of ground. Gray, featureless, stretching to a horizon that curved slightly more than it should. No roads. No buildings. No trees. Just gray.

Looks like the desert, Bill said.

It could be the desert. It could be -- Don tapped the screen. I don't know.

They stood in silence. The vending machine hummed. A coyote yipped somewhere in the dark. Don's daughter Kate lived in Las Vegas, twenty minutes away. She worked as a secretary at a casino. Don had called her six months ago. She had answered. They had talked for four minutes. She had said she was fine. She had not asked him to come visit.

Why are you telling me this? Bill asked.

Don smiled. It was a tired smile. The kind that had been tired for a long time. Because nobody's going to believe a crazy man.

The next morning, Bill checked out of Room 7. He loaded his duffel bag into a car that had a dent in the passenger door and an air freshener shaped like a pine tree. Don was not in Room 3.

The receptionist came to the front desk with a key and a note. This guy's been gone since dawn, she said. Paid a month in advance. Cash.

The note was on a napkin from the diner across the street. One line, written in a handwriting that was careful but shaking:

I'm going to fly again.

Bill put the note in his pocket. He drove to the bus station. He didn't look back.

Out in the desert, past the chain-link fence and the warning signs, there was a yellow biplane sitting in a patch of dry grass. Its wings were folded. Its engine was cold. The tank was half full.

Don Hudson was not in the plane. But the desert was full of things you couldn't see, and sometimes they moved.