The Rain (11 page)

            The man starts to walk down the slope but he doesn’t lower the gun, like he’s expecting me to try something at any moment. He tells me to call Russell out so he can look for himself. I say I don’t know if he’ll make it outside right now because he’s too weak. Do it, he tells me. I can’t just trust anyone, he says.

            “Russell, can you come out?” I ask. He must have been listening because he’s already crawling around the side of the tent on his hands and knees, and when he gets close to me he stands up, balancing on my shoulder for support.

            “We’re heading to Leadville,” is all Russell says. “Don’t mean to trespass.” It’s like he’s out of gas after that short crawl and admission. The man watches us both, wondering if we’re telling the truth. It must be our appearance that confirms it for him, because he lowers his gun and takes off his hood. He’s just a boy, not a man. He can’t be much older than me. But the back of my head tells me he’s beautiful. Dark eyes, hair falling across his face in a wet mess, and skin that’s alive, even from twenty feet away I can tell. He’s not dying. Bright life in his cheeks, his eyes.

            “Come on,” he says. “Can you make it up on your own?” Yea, I tell him. And he keeps his distance, never putting the gun away, but no longer keeping it aimed at us, and we walk up the hill together. The tent and canoe stay behind, sentenced to endure the rain, which seems to have gotten heavier a bit. But it doesn’t feel as cold all of the sudden. Marvolo, the dog, finally leaves his master’s side again and runs to us and circles around our legs, as if the rain is a playful thing to him, and we’re his best friends, even though he’s just met us. Every once in a while the boy looks back at me, and then Russell, who walks by leaning on me. I can’t tell if he’s mad we’re taking so long, or if he’s still wondering who we are, or where we came from, or what our intentions are. There’s no one left to trust, Russell started saying in South Dakota. Nobody. Face eater or not. But we’d trusted Cap’n Wallace. And we’d trusted Delly and  Jennifer. So I know there are exceptions to the rule, even if Russell won’t say it anymore. I watch the boy from behind, moving up the slope with ease. His body is fit, not emaciated like the rain does to people, like it’s done to Russell. He’s alive, and though he’s so far away from us, I feel a strange energy rolling off his body. It’s the warmth, somehow I can tell, even from all the way back here. He’s got it. It’s pulling me in.

We make our way up the slippery brown ridge and to a flat expanse where the tarps start to appear. At first I’m surprised when I see people going about their business, moving around, carrying bags, but then it starts happening so much it becomes common. The place is huge. Then I see a fire. And another. The place is alive. The boy slows down and Marvolo trails back to me. Russell just keeps breathing hard and staring at our feet, leaning against me. The boy stops me by walking right up to me and he puts his hand near my head. I flinch for a moment, then realize what he’s doing. He pushes my hood off so he can see my face. He smiles at me. Like there’s nothing wrong in the world, and we’re not surrounded by the great grave of the sea and the empty gray forever sky and the barren ridge of mud. And sickness and wet and cold. He tells me we’d better get Russell to the doctor. I’m still in shock, and wonder if this could all be a setup to eat us. But his gun’s lowered now, enough that I could jump on him and wrestle it free if I didn’t think the dog would bite my neck defending his master. But Marvolo seems as friendly as the boy, and runs around at our feet, endlessly excited to see strangers, licking my hand.

            I say we have some supplies in the tent, and I ask if we can trade our antibiotics for the fire I see under some of the tarps. Most of the blue tarps connect, fastened together by rope, stitched tightly to each other like a large quilt roof. Some of the tarp houses stand alone, not connected to the main artery. Then, as we push on and the boy doesn’t answer my question, I see some tin roof houses. The roofs are tiny ripples of aluminum, and the rain beats louder upon them than the tarps. Underneath, the people look as clean and healthy as the boy. It’s like I’ve been transported back to Indianapolis, the way this place feels. The life is filling me up. But Russell’s wary of all folks in the West, because he thinks the majority of them have become face eaters, and that’s what we’d been told on the
Sea Queen Marie
. But as I watch the boy in front of me, I can tell he’s not a face eater. He looks too content, sure of himself. Despite the stretch of nothing surrounding this village.

            I can see beyond the tarp city now, past the last of the tin roof houses, and it’s all glistening brown. No trees and no rocks. Just bare soil that’s soaking in the endless rain. No man’s land out there. We walk right up to a large section of raised tarp where there are some wooden chairs and a table. Cans line a shelf and I can’t believe all the supplies I’m seeing. Rope, tape, cans, flashlights, knives, pans and pots, gasoline drums, dry towels, clothes, cardboard boxes that aren’t ruined by the wet, sealed up with god knows what inside.  

            “Wait here,” the boy says, and he looks at me as he says it, as if he wants to make sure he’s made eye contact with me. I tell him okay and get Russell to sit down in one of the chairs. Russell lays his head on the table, his arms wrapped around himself, and he mutters that we made it. I tell him we did, and that he’s going to get the help he needs. Marvolo stays with us and I pet his wet fur. He licks my hand and his tongue is warm. It’s like he’s never thought about the rain once. I notice some of the passersby looking in at us and I feel like we must look out of place, especially because of how dirty we look compared to everyone else. I haven’t seen myself in a mirror for a long time. I start to let the luxuries this place might hold in store for us creep into the secret place where I hide my desire—a fire, a hot meal, a shower, a warm bed.

After a long while of sitting and watching everything around us, the boy returns with an older man. This is my dad, he says. I introduce myself and he asks about our trip. I explain everything in ten minutes, all the way up from Philadelphia. I talk about where we’re going, Leadville, and the man tells me that we’ve landed ourselves in Utah, probably because of the crossing currents. He tells me that the southern Great Plains sweep east, into waterspout alley like we’d heard, but the northern Plains sweep west. And it’s no wonder that we ended up near King Mountain riding on a tiny canoe like his son told him we had come in on. Any face eaters on the way? he asks me. I tell him about how we lost Russell’s knife. Then the man comes over to Russell and tries to talk to him. I help.

            “Russell, I’m goin’ to get you over to the infirmary tent. Now you think you can stand up with me here a minute?” the old man asks. The old man is withered in his face, a false appearance of weakness, because he lifts Russell out of the chair with ease. And in a moment, with very little protest, they’re walking together through a network of tarps, tunnels protected from the rain. I can’t see a single hole in the roofs, just patches here and there. Panic rises in me and I move like I’m going to follow after them to make sure nothing happens to him. I’m tired, and relieved, but I can’t be lulled into a false sense of security and let him go with complete strangers.

            “Sit,” says the boy. “He’ll be fine.”

            “That’s your dad?” I ask, slowly sitting back down, realizing I have zero strength left.

            “Yep. He’ll get him whatever help we can give.”

            “We have some food and antibiotics,” I say, ready to rise and get the food sack from the canoe. He sits down on the chair across from me and puts his hand on mine to keep me still. Through the plastic I can feel how warm he is. His touch stops my thoughts dead in their tracks. He says not to worry about it. They help anyone who’s not one of the face eaters out here. It’s nothing I need to pay back. He takes his hand off and leans back.

I ask him about the place, this miracle island that’s saved us. He summarizes the history of what he calls Blue Island. He first came when he was thirteen from Salt Lake City. Since then, supplies are ferried across from Grandview Peak, where there are still trees that have been tarped over. A lot of Salt Lake City’s population is still up on that range he says. I ask him why they moved off then, and he says because the face eaters were getting worse. Because of the supplies, the bandits started coming from everywhere. At first just thieves, out to steal your gasoline, or your food, or your canvas and plastic. But after a while, the reports were coming in every few days. Mutilation, bodies floating by with teeth lacerations, half-finished corpse meals gone adrift. He says that now, the bandits have been coming even farther east, toward King Mountain, and the raids have been occurring much more frequently. That’s why he has to approach castaways with the gun. He says he didn’t mean to scare me.

            He asks me about Russell—who he is in relation to me, and how he got sick. I tell him Russell has a leg infection, and I’m afraid it may have come back. But it could be the exposure. He could be sick from the cold. He might have a fever, but I don’t know, because I’m no good at checking. Then he asks how I know Russell again, like I didn’t answer his question. Who is he to you? He doesn’t say it angrily. His tone is even cheery, a shocking contrast to the blight of our surroundings. But still I struggle to answer him. His dark eyes study me, his smooth bright face undimmed by the rain. He looks like he’s happy to be with me and it’s blindsiding me. He isn’t looking at me like the burden that could cost him his own life. Emotions rush up in me, and worry about Russell. I know I could say he’s my father, but I’m in love with him. I don’t know what to say. The idea of what love is supposed to be has been one confusing mess, but I can’t say that. Russell has helped me get to higher ground since I was little, I say. He’s pushed us all the way out here from the East. We’ve had each others’ backs for a long time, I say, and we’re going to Leadville together.

The boy looks confused at the mentioning of Leadville. It’s the second time I’ve mentioned it now, but the effect it has on Russell and me isn’t shared by him, I can tell. What’s in Leadville, he asks? I try to explain everything Russell and I believe in—it’s stopped raining there, the whole town is still above the water line. It’s the highest town in the United States. Not a tarp town, but a regular town with brick buildings and electrical power. The boy laughs until he realizes it’s hurting my feelings. It’s like he thinks I’m full of it, or I’ve been conned. But he doesn’t say any of that. Just that he’s met a few castaways from Colorado and they hadn’t wanted to go back that way. Said the whole region sweeps down from the Rockies with a great push, shoving everything east and into the great waterspout rapids. Where everything boils, and the water is more foam than brown. He thinks we’re crazy to push anywhere but west. But you fled from the west, I tell him. He tells me that they’re going to go back, that they’re building a great big barge. Something as big as a small island, along with a lot of smaller boats. And that they’re going to head straight out to the Sierra Nevada mountains. That’s where it’s at, he says. Then he looks me dead in the eyes and tells me I should come. I can’t believe what he’s asking, especially since I’ve just told him my whole life has been about Russell and me getting to Leadville. Everything depends on getting there. I tell him I can’t and I look away. I don’t know why he’s looking at me so long, and so hard, like something’s wrong with me. But I look up and he’s still there, watching me, half smiling too. You need a shower, he tells me. Come on. I can’t resist the thought, and I follow him. He leads me through a narrow strip of tarp. Then we come to a hanging flap and he tells me to get in. Turn the knob on the left. You’ll have hot water. I don’t know what to say, except that I can hardly believe him about the knob. That there’s hot water that will come out of this rusty pipe hanging over my head. There’s a hook in there that you can hang your clothes on. And I might have some stuff that’ll fit you when you’re done. Just holler for me, he says.

            I’m torn. Already I want to try to convince Russell that we need to stay here, with these people, and go with them, wherever they do, because they’ve got it all figured out. And as I hear the footsteps recede, I realize I don’t know the boy’s name. I call out to him.

            “What’s your name?” The comment is unnatural, because it seems entirely unnecessary. It’s like names that aren’t Russell or Tanner are just missing pieces of the veneer, inconsequential and unneeded until we reach Leadville. No point in knowing any of them. They haven’t mattered since the
Sea Queen Marie.

            “Dustin. I mean Dusty,” he says. Then he keeps on walking away.

I take off my clothes slowly, peeling first the plastic away, and then the wet cotton, dirtied and shredded in most places. I think I must really stink but I can’t tell. I think about how awful I must look. I look around and thank god there’s no mirror in here, just four blue walls and the silver pipe hanging over my head. I see my legs, my chest, my arms. They’re caked in brown. I think of Dusty, and then my razors in the food sack back in the tent. I almost run to get them, but then I stop—I’m naked. I feel exposed for the first time in forever. Open and alone. I turn the knob and the water comes out freezing cold and I jump back, thinking that it was too good to be true anyway. But then it starts to steam, and it gets too hot, and I have to turn the knob the other way. Then I get under it, and my whole body melts. There’s nothing to clean myself with so I use my hands and turn the water on as hot as I can stand it. How are they getting hot water? But I can’t stop to think it over, it feels too good. I run my hands over every part of my body and rub it all away, let the almost scalding water dissolve the dirt and grime and the rain. No welts on my legs, my arms. No rubber skin. I breathe easier. I open my mouth to the running water and let it pour inside. It bounces off my tongue and my shoulders, runs down my hair. Dirt-streaked water falls off me at first, but then it becomes clear. I stop thinking about what’s going to happen next, and every other thought. I become one with the water, and all I know or feel is the heat.