Never Too Far (5 page)

Despite the faint “shhhhh” of steady wind, the night was strangely quiet. The crickets had stopped chirping. Joe knew whenever crickets went silent it meant some kind of disturbance was in the air. That’s when he noticed something else. He couldn’t tell for sure, but he could’ve sworn the wind had a raspy sound to it. It was similar to the sound the wind made when a dust storm approached.

Joe flipped off his blanket and pulled on his boots. He scampered up the side of the shallow gully and gazed eastward. The stars in that direction were completely gone. The sky was black. That wasn’t a good sign. But maybe his fears were unfounded. Maybe it was rain coming instead of dust. Chances of that were slim. Dust was far more common than rain. He licked his finger and held it up to the wind for a few seconds before he wiped it on his tongue. It tasted like dust all right.

He didn’t know how much time he had, but he knew it might not be much. A dust storm moved with unpredictable speed. It was strong enough to scoop up chickens and sheep and even cows. Since the scrawny pregnant girl couldn’t weigh much more than a goat, Joe was afraid she’d be swept up and carried way. He had to get to her before the storm hit.

He turned and ran back into the gully, but he didn’t get very far. A sudden blast of wind shoved him to the ground. Flat on his face, he heard the wind whistling and screeching past his ears. When he lifted his head, he couldn’t see the pregnant girl anymore. All the dust whirled and whipped into a blinding black blizzard. He thought for sure she’d gotten snatched up in the duster. The wind lashed at his face. He went to call out to her, but he didn’t know what to say because he didn’t know her name. And even if he did, his voice would’ve gotten lost in the snarling wind. Nevertheless, he had to find her.

The thick blowing air seemed hell-bent on prying him loose and hurling him away. He kept his belly pressed to the ground and clawed his way over to where he hoped the pregnant girl was. He groped around until he finally grabbed a hard lump shaking against the wind. It was the girl. She was still there. The blanket flapped around her, so he jammed it beneath her. Then he wrapped her in his arms and used his body to shield her from the whipping dust.

In the dark cocoon he made, the pregnant girl poked her head out like a little bird and coughed. Joe caught only a glimpse of her before he pulled the blanket over her again. The wind slammed against his back. He felt his body rocking and quivering. His throat clenched and he gasped for air. He buried his face in the blanket next to the girl’s head to keep from breathing in any more dust. He could feel the grit on his teeth.

The horses, Lester and Sam, whinnied. For a very brief moment, Joe thought of charging out in the storm and un-tethering them so they could get away or at least so they wouldn’t get tangled up and injured. But he knew better than to do that. The duster would sweep him up in a second, sandpaper him raw, and gag him with enough dirt to kill him. Besides, he couldn’t leave the pregnant girl to fend for herself. He hoped the horses would survive.

Even though he breathed into the blanket, dust still sifted through the pores in the fabric.
The inside of his nose itched and his tongue was coated with dirt. The pregnant girl coughed again and he covered her head with his arm this time to help keep the dust from getting to her and clogging her lungs even more. His own lungs burned, so he held his breath. He counted to sixty and then breathed slowly into the blanket. He prayed the storm would pass soon.

Finally the night quieted down. The wind faded to a hushed breeze. The last of the flying dust floated and settled quietly to the ground. The stars and moon came out again.

Joe peeled the blanket back from the top of the pregnant girl’s head to see how she was doing. It was the first time he’d seen her without her hat on since they left home. In the moonlight, her yellow hair glowed. It was all he could see, really. He heard her breathing low and steady. He figured she was probably still sleeping. For a moment he simply listened to the comforting rhythm of her breaths, but then he became more aware of how truly close he was to her, close enough that he felt little strands of her hair brushing against his nose and cheeks. He could smell her hair’s sweet and dirty fragrance.

He worried about her waking up and being alarmed by how close he was, so he gently eased his arms from around her and kicked through a drift of dust that ran up his backside. Stars graveled the black sky. Mounds of black dust shone in the moonlight. After he stood up, his lungs suddenly rattled and convulsed. He hacked up a thick wad of black mucus that he spit on the ground. When he looked around he realized he had bigger worries. The wagon was overturned and the bonnet torn off and blown away. He got a sick feeling when he realized all their supplies might’ve blown away.

He felt even worse when he saw Lester and Sam. Both horses were collapsed and caked in dust. Their tongues hung out and their eyes were goopy with dirt. They looked awful. Joe brushed them off the best he could. Hard chunks of plastered dust fell crumbling to the ground. He needed to get them water to drink, fast.

He ran to the overturned wagon, hoping some water was there, but nothing lay spilled in the immediate area. Nothing turned up when he dug through a nearby dust drift either. He was getting frantic now. Without water soon, Sam and Lester wouldn’t hold on much longer. He searched the scoured land for any signs of the water buckets. He stumbled around, hunched over, zigzagging like a drunken man. He found some of their supplies strewn here and there, but he didn’t bother picking them up. He’d have to get them later.

He scrambled farther and farther away until he almost gave up hope. Then he miraculously found the water bota, which was made from a dried cow stomach, and a few paces away he discovered one of the five-gallon buckets of water. He staggered back to the gully. The heavy bucket knocked against the side of his knee.

When he got to the horses, he gripped the plastic lid on the bucket. It made a cracking sound as it tore loose. He dunked the bota in the water and filled it. He squirted some water over the horses’ heads before he wiggled the nozzle inside Sam’s lip
s. The horse’s nostrils flared as it gasped for air. Joe squeezed the bota until it was empty. Water dribbled out Sam’s mouth.

“Come on, Sam,” Joe pleaded.

Sam’s purplish tongue slid out for a second to lick the moisture on his lips.

“That a boy,” Joe said. 

After he gave him another botaful of water, Joe did the same for Lester, who revived much quicker than Sam. Lester was moving his head as if just waking up. Joe sat back on his haunches and took a deep breath. He looked at the overturned wagon again. He didn’t want to think about what they may have lost, but he couldn’t help it after a startling thought hit him. He was afraid the bundle of diesel had flipped over and some of the precious fuel had leaked out the cap. Every drop was indispensable. He needed it all to get as much money as he could, enough to keep his family secure for as long as possible. Maybe forever.

At the overturned wagon, he crawled through the front window and pulled up the floorboards to the secret compartment. He didn’t smell any fumes. The deerskins weren’t damp. When he shook the bundle, he was happy to hear the diesel slosh inside.

After a while, the pregnant girl crawled out from beneath her blanket. She looked half alive. A tangle of hair was knotted around her face. She held her crushed hat in one hand. She lifted it up and scrunched it on her head, but she didn’t get it on straight, and the hat was twisted to one side. She staggered toward him in the moonlight. When she got to within a few feet of him, she stopped with a jolt, as if she’d run into something. She coughed and retched. Her round belly seemed to rise into her chest and then drop down again.

“Are you okay?” Joe said.

He tried to touch her shoulders, but she stepped away. She stood there for a moment until she must’ve felt better. Then she walked past him and over to the horses. She knelt down slowly on both knees in front of Lester. She looked so small next to his big anvil-like head. She spread her tiny hands over his broad face and gently wiped the dirt from his ears and the dirty goop from his eyes. She slid her fingers into his gaping nostrils and scooped out the dirt and gunk blocking the passages. All the while, she kept murmuring something that Joe couldn’t catch because of how whispery soft her voice was. In fact, he wasn’t even sure they were actual words. It sounded more like mumbling than anything else. Whatever it was, it helped revive Sam. After she finished with him, she moved on to Lester. She cleaned him the same way, ears and eyes and nostrils, and made those soft murmuring sounds in his ears.

In the morning, they dug the wagon out, scooped the dust dunes out of the cab, and gathered all their scattered belongings. Joe tried to determine how much they had lost. They had only one bucket of water left, a few scraps of firewood, and a few jars of food that hadn’t broken. He couldn’t find his hat either. It was gone. Further searching turned up the bag of pinole. The sack of dried meat was nowhere to be found, nor was the fishing pole and bow and arrows. Luckily, the rifle still lay on the ground where he had fallen asleep the night before.

He couldn’t imagine what would’ve happened if they hadn’t found the gully to protect them. Out on the flat desolate land, the duster would’ve stripped them bare and choked them to death. 

Joe decided they should stay in the gully for another day so Lester and Sam had more time to recuperate. It meant one less day in finding water, which the horses had already half-consumed. Joe filled the bota until it was bulging for him and the pregnant girl. Then he let the horses drink the rest. Later, he got the old map out of the rusty glove compartment. He wanted to see how close they were to the river and the bridge they needed to cross. The map was the one that Frank brought back from Chikowa. Joe unfolded it and found the faded black line for the road and the faded blue one for the river. He knew they had to be close.

Chapter 11

The next day was even hotter. Some kind of breeze might’ve been a nice reprieve. The air was as stagnant and stifling as the hayloft back home. Joe kept Lester and Sam moving at an easy pace so they wouldn’t get exhausted. He stopped now and again and squirted water into their drooling mouths from the bota.

Up ahead in the heat waves, Joe thought he saw what looked like a farm, but it was all too blurry to know for sure. There appeared to be the shape of a barn along with a house and a thin wiggly tower that could’ve been a windmill.

Frank said to beware of mirages, so Joe reserved judgment until they got closer. He kept waiting for the mirage to go away. He blinked his eyes several times, but the image didn’t disappear. Matter of fact, it seemed to grow clearer with each passing minute. Maybe it wasn’t a mirage after all. Maybe it was the real thing. Joe got excited, especially for a chance to replenish their supplies. He imagined fresh water from the windmill and a little family with homemade food that they’d graciously share.

When they finally got close enough, there was no mistaking it was a farm or what was left of one. Joe steered the wagon past a string of slanting fence posts, which were half-buried in mounds of dust that were carved with ripples made by the wind. The bodies of two dried-up cows stuck out of a drift. Their ribs had cracked through the brittle skin and their hipbones protruded like plow blades. The small house nearby didn’t look much better. The walls and the roof were gashed with holes. Out back was a faltering windmill with no blades, and off to the side was a short building with a dust drift pushed against it. The place looked completely abandoned.

Joe couldn’t help but think that this was what could happen to his family someday. It was just like Frank and Dad said—when the land was scorched to nothing but blowing dust and no amount of money could change it. However, this place was out in the middle of nowhere. Their farm was close to a river and a still-functioning town. It couldn’t possibly shrivel up like this.

They moved on. By mid-afternoon, Joe dozed off, only to jolt awake and squint into the melting distance. He blinked and tried to focus. The sky and the burnt ground remained hazy. He didn’t know what he was seeing, so he made his eyes go fuzzy to give them a rest, but that only made him doze off again. The next time he awoke, it took him a minute to realize the wagon had stopped and the girl wasn’t in the cab with him.

When he finally saw her, she was standing out in front of the horses, staring over a lip of earth. A hot breeze blew her dress against the back of her stick legs.

Joe jumped out of the wagon, but the instant his feet hit the ground, his legs buckled
and he fell. His muscles were so stiff and cramped from sitting in the wagon for hours and hours that they were basically useless. He tried to stand up, but his legs still felt rubbery. He swayed backward a little before he stumbled forward and landed on his knees again. This time he hobbled a few steps on his stumps and then fell flat on his face. 

The girl stood there watching him flail about without even lifting a finger to help. He pushed himself up and stared at her.

“You could’ve given me a hand,” he said.

He got to his feet slowly, just in case his legs decided to betray him again. Then she led him to the crumbling lip of earth. She pointed down a sheer six-foot drop to a smooth plane of moving water.

“Wow,” Joe said.

They’d made it to the river, Joe thought. The other side was lined with small trees and pale grass. Along the bank were sandbars that rose above the smooth water like the white bellies of floating bodies. He looked up and down the river.