Wasteland Blues (6 page)

Chapter Six

John’s eyes popped open and he sat up. Something was wrong. The fat sun was just poking over the horizon. An acrid stench hit his nostrils and he was suddenly aware of a rushing, roaring sound in the distance. His first thought was of bugs, boiling from their nest to drag them all down into darkness.

“Oh, Lord,” he shrieked rolling over and pounding on Teddy’s chest. “Wake up! Wake up. Teddy, wake up!” John pounded on the giant’s shoulder—Good Lord, he was as solid as a rock.

Climbing to his knees, John peered into the distance toward the strange rushing sound, just as the enormous man-child began to stir. The rumble grew louder. There was a rustling from the Bedouin wagon and the woman and her boy poked their heads outside of the canvas cover, speaking rapidly in their own language.

Now Teddy sat up.

“Wakey time, Der?” The giant rubbed his eyes and looked around. He was as startled as John to discover that his brother was nowhere in sight. Neither was Leggy.

John stood up just as the harsh, bright light of fire suddenly filled the camp. A hot wind caressed his cheeks and ruffled his hair. He squinted his eyes and peered into the distance just as the world quickly grew to unbelievable brightness—without warning the sky was filled with flame and the smell of burning. Hot ash and fiery debris began to rain down all around them. An explosive thunder pounded his ears.

John was dazzled. Had the angels returned to once again render the Word and purge the land? Had he and his companions proven unworthy?

He clutched the cross at his neck and fell to his knees. The ground began to tremble and shake. One of the caravan wheels buckled and slipped off its block, causing the wagon to tilt. The wood creaked and moaned as the wind built to a gale.

Suddenly a plume of fire erupted from the ground not a hundred yards from the camp, a blazing tongue screaming toward the sky. It grew to an impossible height, until John thought that it would lick the bottoms of the thick, low clouds that filled the morning sky. The plume twisted and writhed, a giant, fiery snake thrusting itself out of the ground and into the world. It grew in length and intensity, burning more and more brightly with every passing second.

John held his cross on its chain out in front of him, as if to ward off an unknowable evil, or to identify himself to the Rapturers as a true believer, as one of the Saved. He opened his mouth to utter a prayer of repentance and humility, but only gagged and coughed as a concussive blast drove a wall of thick, black smoke directly over him, enveloping the camp, enveloping the world. John was blinded. His breath was robbed from him and his lungs filled with a foul acrid burn. Bathed in heat, he felt his hair singe and his skin shrivel.

Teddy cried in the suffocating swell.

And then the thick of it was past. The air cleared until John could just make out the shadow of the caravan and the staggering, flailing giant. He could hear the cries of the woman and child inside the listing, tented wagon. He gagged and choked, retching onto the ground, as the smoke continued to clear.

The plume of fire still reached up toward the sky, but now it seemed somehow diminished—either that, or it was merely dulled by the still lingering banks of smoke and haze.

John stood up, still retching—long dry heaves that reeked of the toxicity of the cloud.

When he looked up he saw the unmistakable silhouette of a figure rushing toward him, seemingly from out of the plume itself. It was as wide as it was tall and appeared to be winged. It did not so much run as it seemed to
glide
over the ground toward the camp. Closer and closer, faster and faster.

John watched and within moments the blurry silhouette took form. He discerned its dark shape—two dark shapes, really—from the black smoke and fiery glare behind them: It was Leggy in his wheelchair, hanging on for dear life, long hair and singed serape billowing in the wind. And Derek was behind him, gripping the chair by its rusty handles, leaning forward and pushing, running,
charging
for all he was worth. He was on fire—small flames danced upon his shoulders, licked at his cheeks and played along the lengths of his arms.

“Whooooooo-hooooooooo-wheeeeeeeeee!” cried Leggy, his mouth open and his face turned up toward the blazing sky. He gasped and gulped for air and hollered defiantly to the Heavens. “Yeeeeeee-haw!”

Derek let go of the chair and dropped to the ground, rolling and sliding, desperately smothering the flames that were trying to devour his back and reach for his hair. The wheelchair continued to roll forward until Leggy brought it to a skidding halt in front of John.

“Whoopie! Just like old times,” he shrieked. “You missed all the excitement, Johnny-boy. Heh, heh. Now help me find some water. I’m parched. Oh, and we gotta put out Derek.” The old man hitched his thumb and pointed back toward his comrade, who by now was standing and brushing the dust and char from his smoldering clothes.

Derek’s hair was singed and his cheeks covered with dark, oily ash. Smoke rose from his clothes and patches of his army jacket smoldered. He opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off as Teddy tackled him, smothering his brother in a terrified embrace.

“
Der-Der! Fire and smoke…
Burned my eyes…Couldn’t see….”

Derek patted his brother on the back and tried to escape his worried bear hug. “It’s okay now, Teddy. The fire’s all gone.”

***

“To tell the truth,” said Leggy, cracking an egg into the pan suspended over the campfire, “I don’t rightly know
what
happened.” He paused and cracked several more eggs into the pan, added some salt, some Bedouin spices, and gave the concoction a brisk stir.

Then he reached back and removed a large, flat steel plate that had been fastened to the back of his chair. He held it in front of him like a shield. “It was this that saved us, though. I’ll tell ya
that
fer sure,” he smirked, holding up the metal plate and lowering his head to demonstrate how he had used it to shield him and Derek from the flames.

The face of the plate was badly charred, and before that it had been weathered and rusted, but John could just make out the vague remnants of red lettering across its surface:

TEXACO

“Found it by the entrance to the nest,” Leggy continued. “And good thing we did, too. We’d’ve been roasted alive without it. I don’t know what it could mean, though—we ain’t nowhere near Texas.”

“But what about the nest?” asked John.

“We never even saw a bug,” said Derek. “We creeped right up to the hole—”

“More of a crack
,
” offered Leggy.

“And did the deed,” said Derek.

“How?” demanded John.

“Well, back in the day there used to be these things called IEDs,” said Leggy, tending the eggs. “Improvised Explosive Devices. It’s a fancy way to say we soaked rags with gas, then stuffed ’em into the jerrycans, lit ’em, and kicked ’em down the hole.”

“Then we ran like sons of bitches,” said Derek.

“There’s no way two cans of gas would blow like that,” said John.

“No sir,” said Leggy, spooning out eggs all around. “The bugs must’ve dug their nest over an oil well or something—or maybe the nest was just full of bug farts.”

Teddy laughed. “Bug farts!” He made a gassy noise with his lips and tongue. Tariq, the young Bedouin boy, giggled. Raina silenced the boy with a hard look.

“Anyway,” said Leggy, “the nest is dead. Now we can turn our attention back to the road. I’d say we eat, pack up, and get rollin’.”

“How many mules survived the attack?” Derek asked.

“Just one,” said John, “wandering over there past those cacti.”

“Must’ve been the one Teddy was tied to,” suggested Leggy. “We’ll use him.”

John frowned. “One donkey to pull an entire wagon?”

The group was silent. After a time, Teddy spoke. “I want to ride in the tent, Der.”

Leggy rubbed his chin. “That donkey’ll have enough strength to get us to Moses Spring, maybe,” he said. “If we’re lucky. If we take it slow. Once we get there, I doubt that he’ll ever be good for anything again. But I think he just might be able to get us there. Or at least close. And then, if it comes to it….” The old man glanced at Teddy. “But it won’t come to it. We can always abandon the wagon.”

Tariq started to protest but Raina put out a hand to stifle her son.

“That ass’ll make it to Moses,” Derek said grimly, “if we beat him hard enough.”

Leggy nodded. They spent another hour or two discussing giant insects, high explosives, and the potential endurance of one lowly donkey.

***

Raina and Tariq sat between Teddy and John the entire time, saying little. They had not protested when Derek had rummaged through the wagon and discovered a caged hen and her eggs. And Raina had held a hand to quiet her son as Derek had plucked the hen itself from its cage and broken its scrawny neck.

These men were dangerous, Raina had explained to her child the night before. Although they had rescued them from the bugs, they were still not to be trusted. It was best to remain silent, to let them have their way until the remains of the caravan reached Moses Spring. There, they would find other Bedouins who would be willing and obligated to come to the aid of their kidnapped clan-cousins.

Chapter Seven

By mid-morning they loaded the wagon with just enough supplies to get them to Moses Springs. Everything else had to be left to the desert—there was no way the donkey could carry it all.

All that morning, Raina and Tariq had worked. First, they constructed a simple pyre. They gathered the bodies of their caravan-mates and burned them. Then they set about emptying the wagon. They buried most valuable items—some jewelry, tools, and strange gadgets that none of the boys could identify. Everything else they heaped into a pile away from the road and planted a small flag with their tribe’s crest next to it.

They wished to one day reclaim their goods, but Raina didn’t hold out much hope. Any Bedouin who came across the goods would honor the flag and leave the wares unmolested, or even return them to Moses Springs. But there were other desert wanderers—scavengers, thieves, nomads—who would make off with everything they could carry. At least the buried items might go undiscovered until they could return.

“Mother,” said Tariq, “I will walk beside the wagon. That way we can store a few more goods, yes?”

She stroked her boy’s cheek. “Thank you my brave son, but I want you near me. Your life is more valuable than a few extra pots and blankets.” She crouched down to look into his eyes. “Remember this—don’t ever let your possessions encumber you. A man who can’t cast his goods aside to save his own life is a man enslaved. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Good. Now, how will we remember where we’ve hidden these things?”

“They are one hundred paces from where the road bends,” said Tariq. “From here I can see a rock formation that looks like the face of an old man with a big nose. And we have marked the spot with a stone the size of a water jug, and scratched our sign onto its underside.”

“Well done. Now we’ll return to the wagon. Stay near me and keep alert. Soon we’ll be with our family again.”

***

When they returned, Raina invited each of the men to choose items from the pile.

“It is the least form of repayment,” said Raina.

“Don’t go crazy, fellas,” said Leggy as the boys made for the pile. “We’re supposed to be travelin’ light.” For himself he took only a whetstone and a mirror. The mirror was slightly bigger than a playing card, and fit inside a leather pouch that could be worn around the neck.

“What the Hell you want to look at yourself for?” asked Derek.

“For when I want to remember what handsome is,” said Leggy. “It’s easy for a man to forget when all he sees is your pokes.”

John fished through the pile until he found a new bedroll and a container of matches. Teddy chose a large blanket with intricate patterns weaved in red, gold, and black thread. He also found a flute-shaped instrument. It produced a reedy wail that Derek found instantly annoying, but Teddy wouldn’t give it up.

Derek found a silver bracelet, fashioned like a serpent swallowing its own tail. As he put it on his wrist, his eye caught site of a smooth cylinder, perhaps eight inches long. He bent to pick it up, thinking it was another musical instrument. Maybe it made a better sound than the one Teddy had fixed his heart on. But he was surprised by its weight. It was hollow, and it was made of brass, not wood. As he picked it up, a smaller cylinder slid out so that the whole tube was now a foot long. One end was stopped with glass, and the other end had a strange, cup-like fixture attached to it.

“Ho now,” said Leggy, wheeling over to Derek. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Don’t know,” said Derek. “What do you think it is?”

Leggy took it and put the cup to his eye. “Lord a’mighty,” he said. “It’s a spyglass. Come and see, boys.”

They crowded around him. “This here is a device for making things far away seem closer. You set your eye on this end and point the other end at whatever it is you want to see. Go ahead and give it a try.”

One by one the boys put the device to their eyes. Each gasped in amazement as distant objects suddenly sprang into clear view.

“Hallelujah!” said John. “I can see prickles on that cactus, and it must be three or four hundred yards from here.”

“How’s it work?” asked Derek.

Leggy scratched his head. “Don’t quite know,” he said. “It’s got pieces of glass in it called lenses, sort of like spectacles. You fellas know what spectacles are, don’t ya?”

“Sure,” said Derek. “My father had specs. It made the words seem bigger on the page.”

“Well, that’s it then,” said Leggy. “It’s in the way they shape the lenses. But that’s a powerful tool you got. Take good care of it.”

“I will,” said Derek, snatching it from Teddy, who wanted to see how far up the donkey’s nostril he could look.

***

They set off at a slow pace, but still faster than they could’ve traveled on foot. The boys stayed in the shadow of the tent, happy to let the donkey do all the work. Raina steered the wagon, her son at her side. They had both swaddled themselves against the sun. The landscape rolled past with dreary regularity.

“I don’t think them Bedouins have to worry about too many people makin’ off with their stuff,” said John, scanning the baked, blasted earth and dry hills in the distance. “Who on earth could live out here?”

“You’d be surprised,” said Leggy, swigging water from a fat, gurgling skin. “This place is a damn garden compared to the Wasteland. I’ll wager that pile’ll be picked clean by sundown.”

No one said much as they traveled. They halted briefly at midday to water the donkey and eat a sparse meal, then rolled on again. All that day they met no one on the road. They halted again just after sundown. Raina steered the wagon into a small copse of Joshua trees. She hobbled the donkey and then rubbed the beast down. Tariq gathered brushwood for a fire. John helped, but the rest of the group stayed put.

Raina poked her head into the tent. “There’s a cistern near here. Will you help?”

Derek clapped Teddy on the back. “Go haul us some water, okay, Ted?” They loaded the boy with skins and a few pots. Tariq led him to the cistern.

Once the fire was going, Derek and Leggy got out of the wagon. They let Raina cook their meal, and lay back and looked into the night sky. The evening was less clear than the night before, but stars were scattered across the horizon. Without the Bedouin’s strange music, it was eerily silent.

John read quietly from the Book of Exodus.

Tariq taught Teddy how to play a song on the pipe. The reedy wailing filled the quiet and seemed to fit somehow with the somber mood of the night. The shrill, hollow notes undulated upward into the darkness, like the smoke from the campfire.

For the first time in a long while, Derek felt something like peace in his heart. The scene was downright…domestic. There was food, and fire, and companionship. He remembered that sometimes it had been like this with his mother and father, that once upon a time he had felt safe and content.

Suddenly an overwhelming feeling of loss welled up in him—not for that San Muyamo shithole, but for the early days of his life. He’d been a bright child, beloved by his mother and older brother, and the hope of his father. Before he’d proven himself to be a failure in his father’s eyes, before the knot of resentment had been looped and tied into his guts, growing tighter each year. Before his mother had gotten so sick that she withdrew into delirium and violent seizures. A time when Teddy’s childishness had been appropriate and not an embarrassment, before Derek’s hands had turned to fists, first to beat anyone who mocked his brother, and then to beat his brother for being so mockable.

Derek stifled a sob. He stood up, eyes bleary, and stumbled away from the fire. “Gotta piss,” he mumbled, and fled into the darkness.