Wasteland Blues (9 page)

The big man went back to his kitchen, cursing all the way. John and Teddy got up and worked on the fire.

“I’m going with you,” said Leggy quietly.

Derek looked down at the old man, then at the knife in his hand. His knuckles had gone white around the haft. He stood for a moment, then tucked the knife back into its sheath. “I’m gonna take a piss,” he said, and strode outside.

Leggy sighed. It would be a Hell of a trip, that was for sure.

***

A dozen or so men made their way to the breakfast table. Leggy knew only a few of the older ones, but they’d all heard of him and wanted to shake his hand. Then he told Silas he’d be moving on. Silas nodded

“I’m sorry to see you go,” he said.

“Me too,” said Leggy, “but I want to do this.”

“I understand,” said Silas. He looked at the travelers. “You’ve got a good man here. You’re lucky. I expect he’ll see you through some tough scrapes.”

After breakfast, they gathered up their gear and thanked the Paladins, especially Silas and Corrin. Silas walked them outside and pointed them in the direction of the market, where they could buy a pack mule for the mountain journey. Then the Paladin mounted his bike. His engine barked to life, and they watched the plume of dust he left in his wake rise up into the morning sky.

Teddy turned back to the Paladin house, surprised to see Champer watching them from the kitchen window. The grizzled man winked at the oversized boy, and smiled.

“So long, fuckers,” called Teddy, smiling back at him.

Chapter Twelve

As they made their way to the market and its stables, Leggy gathered the boys around him. “Now listen fellas, you let me do the buyin’. Bedouins are sharp traders, and I don’t care how much cloth from the house of Caliph we have tied round our wrists, they’ll fleece us if they can.”

“So what are we supposed to do?” asked Derek.

“Watch and learn.”

But it turned out Leggy’s bargaining skills weren’t needed, for when they arrived at the stables they found Tariq waiting for them.

Teddy greeted the young boy with a glad cry, and scooped him into his massive arms. Tariq hugged him, then motioned to be put down.

Once on the ground, he bowed formally and said, “Please accept this gift, which we offer humbly as brother to brother.”

“What gift?” asked John.

Tariq grinned, and ran inside the stable. When he returned, he had a pair of mules in tow.

“This is Minna,” he said, “and this is Afha. We trust they will serve you well.”

“How’d you know we needed a donkey?” asked John.

Tariq shrugged. “You said you were going over the mountains and into the wastes.” He pointed to Leggy’s wheelchair. “That strange chair would never make it. You must ride, or be left behind. You will also need to carry extra rations. These mules can bear a great burden. They are small, but strong. Like me!”

Derek advanced on the mules and examined them. “This one looks all right,” he said, pointing to Minna, and stroking her white mane. “But this one’s a fucking mutie.” He pointed to Ahfa’s forehead, where a small third eye had grown. It had no lid, and no pupil, just a milky gray cataract that seemed to swirl like clouds in a wind, nestled into the brown fur of the animal’s brow.

“Please,” said Tariq, stroking Afha’s nose. “This is a very fortunate marking. It is good luck to travel with such a beast.”

“Sure,” said Derek, bending to examine Minna’s teeth. “If it’s such a good luck charm, why’re you giving it away?”

Leggy looked at Afha closely, then turned to Tariq. “Look kid, we appreciate the gesture, but I think one’s enough. I ain’t even sure how we’re going to feed and water this one, let alone two of them.”

Tariq furrowed his brow. “But these are desert asses. They can go days without drink or food. They are tough and canny. And they can smell moisture from miles away. They may be watering you, sir!”

Leggy laughed, stroking his chin. “You’re quite the salesman, kid. You’re a Bedouin, that’s for sure.”

But the kid was right. It made sense to have a pair of mules. For one, they could carry more water. And for another…an idea popped into Leggy’s head. With a pair of beasts, perhaps one of them could haul his chair. He never thought he’d want to cart the damn thing around with him, but now it came time to leave it behind, he’d grown accustomed to it. And it seemed infinitely more preferable than having to spend the rest of his life on the hard spine of a donkey.

He turned back to Tariq. “Okay, we’ll take ’em both.”

Tariq grinned. “I am very pleased. These beasts will serve you well.”

The travelers moved on to the market, where they outfitted themselves with extra food and water, which they split between Minna and Afha. Tariq had also given them a saddle for Afha, but Leggy wasn’t ready to mount up.

“Figure I’ll wait until the road runs out before I get on that donkey.”

***

They left Moses Springs at mid-morning, passing between the eastern gates with a nod to the guards, who regarded them curiously.

They followed the road up into the foothills. It was well-maintained and clearly marked, which led Leggy to believe that the Bedouins ventured into the Sierras more often than they let on.

For a time they thought that they’d heard the distant sound of engines behind them, whenever the wind turned. None of them had mentioned it, and assumed that the Paladins must patrol the roads leading up to the foothills. But eventually even the faraway rumble of the motorcycles was lost as they put Moses Springs farther and farther behind them.

***

The Paladins maintained a watch tower on Moses Peak, a small hill that rose up from the desert surrounding the town. It was from here that Silas watched the travelers slowly make their way through the foothills. He’d sent Corrin to shadow the band for half a day. It was a courtesy more than a necessity. The real dangers would start in the mountains proper and beyond, in the Wasteland.

How in the world had Nicodemus fallen in with this crew? Silas was unsure of it all. Unsure of those three untried souls so determinedly heading east. Unsure of his old teacher. Silas didn’t pretend to understand them or their reasons for this half-baked journey.

The one called John was scared of his own shadow but so devout he’d asked the Paladins if he could say a blessing over breakfast. Silas didn’t hold much to the boy’s religion—the Church of the Word was an old cult that clung on in the backward shanty towns and tribal villages. Still, he’d allowed the blessing because there was something saintly about the boy. Silas could see it, even if he wasn’t sure if that was necessarily a
good
thing or if it would be much help in the Wasteland.

And Teddy, the simpleton. His strength was to be admired. Silas had seen his share of strong men, but he couldn’t think of three combined that could match the dimwit’s might. He had no doubt that it would be one of their greatest assets in the unforgiving east. But beyond his muscles, the man-child seemed free of the gritty survival instinct that made self-preservation the first, and sometimes
only
, law.

But Derek…now there was a cause for worry. The boy was so full of anger, hatred, and rage that it genuinely frightened the Paladin. The fire that drove him could easily consume the whole band of travelers. And yet there was more than rage to him. He was crafty, observant, patient even.

Silas didn’t want to admit it to himself, but there was a dark glimmer to Derek, like the fire that draws the desert moths. Clearly he commanded the allegiance of John and Teddy. Maybe Nicodemus had been drawn in too. There would be a great many tests for them all in the desert, but Silas sensed that Derek had the most at stake. The boy had a troubled soul.

Then there was Nicodemus. His old teacher. A man whom Silas had believed to be more than twenty years dead. Resurfaced as a vagabond and a cripple, but still a teacher, a guardian…an adventurer. A man to be respected, yet his companions called him Leggy. It was a bad joke of a name. Why not just spit in his face? But Nicodemus just took it. Silas didn’t know what to think. Why had Nicodemus turned down the offer? Surely, this was a fool’s errand. Or a suicide mission.

But, “to each his own path.” That was something that Nicodemus had drilled into him.
Leggy
. He called himself Leggy now.

Silas put a pair of old binoculars to his eyes. He searched the foothills until he could make out a hint of movement among the brown peaks. The misfit band marched slowly forward, away from the setting sun. The teacher, the saint, the innocent, and the hero. The cripple, the fanatic, the retard, and the maniac.

Silas climbed down from the tower and mounted his bike. He stepped hard on the clutch, swung his roadhog around, and roared off back toward Moses Springs.

Chapter Thirteen

At dusk the travelers made camp in the lee of several huge boulders. Teddy, who had taken a liking to the mules, relieved Minna and Afha of their packs and then patted them down with his strong hands. Derek walked a wide circle around their small campsite, scouting the perimeter. He found no signs of bug nests and no signs that anyone had been here in a long time.

When he returned to camp, he found Teddy nearly hysterical with excitement. Leggy and John had already gathered around his brother and Afha the mule, which Derek took to be the cause of Teddy’s animation.

“Look, Der! Look at this,” shouted Teddy.

He showed his brother a pebble in one great hand. Then he put both hands behind his back, then made a show of bringing them out front again, fists closed. The guessing stone. Teddy could be amused for hours with the game. Derek remembered Teddy playing the game with his mother when he was still a child. His brother shrieked with delight whenever he’d guessed the right hand. Now Derek thought Teddy wanted to play with him, but he was wrong. Teddy was holding both fists out to the mutant donkey.

“Which hand, horsey? Which hand?” asked Teddy, his face nearly split in two with a grin.

“Jesus H. Christ, Teddy,” said Derek. “Are you getting stupider on me?” He raised a hand to cuff his brother, but John tugged at his sleeve.

“No wait,” he said. “Watch.”

Derek watched. Afha stared at Teddy’s meaty fists, the milky cataract of his superfluous eye roiling. Then the donkey reached out and nuzzled Teddy’s right hand.

“Hee hee hee,” shrieked Teddy.
He opened his right hand. The pebble was on his palm.

“Come on,” scoffed Derek. “It’s just luck.”

“I don’t know,” said Leggy, stroking his beard. “Your brother’s done it ten times already, and the donkey’s got it right every time.”

“Oh bullshit,” said Derek. “Did you all just get radiation poisoning?”

“See for y’self,” said Leggy.

Teddy played several more times, and each time Afha chose the hand that held the pebble.

Then Teddy said, “Okay horsey, last time now. Okay? Last time.” He put both hands behind his back, and fixed his face with a look of exaggerated seriousness.

Derek instantly recognized the look—it was Teddy’s “I’m trying to fool you” face. Derek sighed. Teddy never understood that if he really wanted to trick someone, he should keep up that shit-eating grin.

With his hands still behind his back, Teddy leaned over to his brother and stage-whispered in his ear.

“I put the stone in my pants, Der,” he said, the veneer of his serious face nearly cracking. He composed himself and brought both fists out from behind his back.

Afha stood and stared at Teddy, blowing through his nostrils. Then he backed away two paces, shook his head, and whinnied.

“Pick, horsey. Pick a hand,” sang Teddy. He waggled each fist enticingly, but the donkey would not pick a hand.

Finally Teddy opened his hands. They were both empty. Afha brayed, and Teddy clapped.

“He knew! He knew I played sneaky,” shouted Teddy. “Smart horsey!”

“I’ll be damned,” said Leggy.

“The Lord be praised,” said John.

“Get straight,” said Derek. “The Bedouins probably taught it how to play games. Or maybe the stone smells funny.”

“It does now,” said Leggy, watching Teddy fish in his drawers for the pebble.

Then Leggy looked up. The sky above was gradually being hidden by a thick gauze of gray haze, and the sun was going down fast.

“We better see about a fire. Looks like it’s going to be a dark night.”

Leggy was right. The darkness fell fast, and a haze above them hid the stars and moon. They were terribly glad when orange flames began to eat greedily at the deadwood they’d gathered.

The scraggly remains of dead, twisted trees provided copious firewood, and they stacked a supply that would keep the fire hot and bright all night long if they wanted it to.

Nights had grown steadily colder as they ascended the foothills, and they huddled close around the fire, glad for the boulders that threw back the warmth of the flames. The darkness was utterly complete outside the small ring of light—no moon, no stars, only an invisible landscape hidden behind a black curtain.

“I gotta piss,” said John, “but I’m afraid if I go too far, I’ll never find you all again.”

“Sidle on up to the edge of the firelight and aim yourself away from us,” said Leggy. “You’ll be all right. Just don’t piss on the mules.”

***

As John urinated, he stared into the darkness, straining to see anything at all in the void. He seemed to pee for hours, and he didn’t like the way his urine just vanished into the night. He felt as if he were standing at the very edge of a chasm, that if he stepped forward he’d tumble from a high precipice and fall headfirst into the darkness and never stop.

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,” he whispered, trying to calm himself. But the words died on his lips as he detected movement in the distance, fluttery and uneven. He rubbed his eyes, thinking perhaps he was imagining it. But then he heard a sound, a soft chuffing sound, and it was getting closer. His bladder clenched closed with fear.

“Something’s coming,” he whispered breathlessly. He hurriedly buttoned himself into his pants again and scooted toward the fire. “Something’s coming outta that darkness.”

“Huh?” said Derek.

“What’d you see?” asked Leggy.

“Not sure I
saw
anything,” said John. “But I heard something. Sounds like, like wind.”

“Get this fire out,” said Leggy, his voice urgent.

“Are you crazy?” said Derek. “We’ll be blind out here.”

“Yeah, but so will whatever’s comin’ for us,” said Leggy. He removed his heavy serape to beat out the fire, but then stopped.

Suddenly they heard the noise. It sounded like wind. Or like sheets hung to dry on a line, snapping and cracking in a gust.

Leggy lifted his serape, but at that instant wings exploded out of the darkness all around them, beating and flapping madly over the fire. Musty, cobwebby tendrils brushed against their necks and faces.

Teddy howled in fear, throwing his hands up over his head. Minna and Ahfa joined in, braying with terror. John watched in gape-eyed horror and wonder as a dozen or more of the creatures swooped and dove around them.

The creatures were nearly man-sized, with large, papery wings marked in swirling patterns of black and gray. Their faces were oval, with almond-shaped eyes and small mouths. Their cylindrical bodies looked like elongated infants wrapped in swaddling blankets. Six slender, jointed legs sprouted from wrinkled abdomens and writhed manically. Their wings beat the air as they swooped, turned and hovered over the fire.

“Angels,” whispered John in awe. “Are they angels?”

“No, you dumb shit,” shouted Derek. “They’re bugs!”

“Moths,” shouted Leggy. “Put out the goddamn fire! They’re attracted to the light.” He tried again to flip his serape over the campfire, but one of the swooping creatures knocked it aside.

Derek snatched a blazing branch from the fire, leapt to his feet, and smashed one of the creatures to the ground. It shrieked in agony as its papery wings ignited in flame. Derek beat down another with wild swings.

The creature fell at John’s feet, and he watched in horror as the thing writhed in the dirt, its almond eyes wide with pain, its wrinkled torso flaring like a match. It locked its eyes on John, its mouth moving pathetically. John could feel the pain and confusion in the creature’s death gaze, but he did nothing, merely watched as fire engulfed its face and head, reducing its body quickly to black ash.

Derek killed three more before the creatures, still swooping and diving toward the camp fire, lifted themselves out of reach.

Leggy tumbled out of his chair, recovered his serape and finally smothered the blaze. Derek scattered the hot coals and ash with several savage kicks. Darkness engulfed them, broken only by the orange glow of scattered bits of smoldering wood, which winked out one by one as they cooled. They could hear the creatures still troubling the air above them, but soon the noise of beating wings died away as the things moved off.

“Everybody all right?” asked Leggy in the stillness.

“I’m okay,” said Derek.

“Me too,” said Teddy, his fear gone now that the bugs had departed.

“I…I’m here,” said John, his voice hoarse.

The half-charred corpse of the moth was lost to the darkness, but he could still see it in his mind. No creature deserved to die as horribly as these had. It just wasn’t right. And what if they were more than just bugs? Their resemblance to angels—at least what John imagined angels to look like—disturbed him. Surely their poor treatment of these creatures would come back to them somehow. Not just to Derek, but all of them.

“I expect the mules bolted,” said Leggy. “I didn’t hobble them very securely.”

“No,” said Teddy. “Horsies are still here. They don’t run away.”

From the darkness, Ahfa snorted as if in affirmation.

“Well that’s one good bit of news,” Leggy said. “Fellas, we’re gonna have to do without a fire for the rest of the night. I hope you all ain’t afraid of the dark.”

“I’m not,” said Teddy, but they could all hear the lie in his voice.

“The dark doesn’t worry me, but what about the cold?” asked John. “I can already feel a chill creeping into my bones.”

“That we can do somethin’ about,” said Leggy. “Let’s all gather up close, fellas. Just follow the sound of my voice.”

Leggy hummed a creaky old tune as Teddy, John, and Derek clambered blindly toward him. There were a few moments of stumbling about. Teddy stepped on John’s foot hard enough to bring tears to his eyes, and Derek tripped over Leggy’s wheelchair with a curse, but soon they were close enough to hold hands, even if they couldn’t see each other.

“Okay now,” said Leggy, “we just lie down back to front and use each other’s body heat to stay warm. I done it a few times before when I was runnin’ freight and got into a spot where we couldn’t light any fires. I’d rather be bunkin’ down with a nice full-figured gal than you smelly lot, but it beats freezin’.”

And so they bundled themselves together on the hard ground, with Derek and John bookended by Teddy and Leggy.

“Who’s teeth are chatterin’?” asked Leggy.

“Me,” said Derek. “I don’t think this is workin’.”

“Just give it a minute,” said Leggy. “You’ll warm up, and you’ll probably fall asleep before you know it.”

“Shit,” said Derek. “It’s so goddamn dark I could probably sleep with my eyes open.”

Teddy and Leggy laughed, but John was silent. The episode with the moths troubled him, and he too thought he’d never get warm. But within a few minutes he realized that Leggy was right about body heat. Teddy was practically a blast furnace, and soon John felt drowsy. He desperately wanted to fall asleep and not wake up until daylight, so that he could forget this strange, dark night.

But sleep eluded him, and he lay in a restless despair while his companions snored around him. His long vigil was finally broken as the sky lightened, and the first fingers of dawn reached slowly over the Sierras.

***

They marched farther into the foothills that day, watching the landscape around them slowly transform. Gone were the brown sagebrush and the desiccated tumbleweeds that rolled like bony fingers across the cracked earth. The desert plain gradually transformed to rocky soil, from which grew sparse clumps of grass and low shrubs that Leggy called gorseberry. Rocks and boulders poked up from the earth, their hard faces crusted with pale white and blue lichen. Now and then they passed through stands of scraggly pine. The trees stood no higher than ten or twelve feet, but they were a wonder to the boys, for whom a tree meant the gnarled and stunted Joshuas.

They spotted numerous creatures in the brush and stones all around them—scampering brown lizards, brown-furred rodents, and flights of small birds. Teddy spotted a hawk high overhead, gracefully hovering on an updraft.

In the late afternoon, Leggy suggested they set up camp early, to try and bag some of the wildlife scurrying about. Derek set out traps while the others gathered brushwood and hunted up water. Then they rested. Leggy put his pipe in his mouth but didn’t light it. He felt content to sit in his chair and just be. A soothing bliss had fallen over him, better than anything he’d ever poured out of a bottle, and he wanted to fill himself up with it, to brim with it, because he knew what lay on the other side of the mountains.

A blasted waste, a nightmare territory.

Thoughts of what was to come crowded his mind, but with an effort he shoved them aside. That was for another time. Now, he would simply sit and watch the light change, and feel cool, moist air kissing his cheeks.

Derek checked his traps at dusk, but they were empty. “May not get anything till morning,” he said. “May not get anything at all.”

“No matter,” said Leggy. “We still got rations.”

They made supper over a hot, bright fire, then sat back to watch the flames.

The night was clear, and a brilliant moon held court over a thousand bright stars strewn across the sky. The group drifted off to sleep without bothering to set a watch.

***

Near midnight, Leggy roused his companions from sleep.

“Look,” he said, pointing up toward the moon.

They could see, on the horizon, a strange fluttering cloud, which slowly resolved itself. It was the moths, dozens of them, an indeterminate distance away. The creatures were high up in the sky, and seemed to be straining to reach the moon itself, their papery wings beating inexhaustibly in the thin air.

John watched the creatures. From a distance they looked even more like angels. It looked like they were trying to fly back to Heaven. Something stirred in him, a mixture of sadness and joy.

Back home, the Elders had spoken longingly of Heaven. They said Heaven should be the goal of every man, woman, and child. In Heaven there would be no more pain, no more hurt, no more desperation. Only milk and honey in plenty, and white light, and cool days that went on forever. And these angels were trying to reach it.

“What are they doing?” asked Derek.

“Don’t know,” said Leggy. “But it looks like they’re attracted to the light of the moon. Like they’re trying to fly to it.”