Miles checked on each of his patients every few minutes, listening for their breathing and trying to check for a pulse. Placing one hand on Kyle’s chest and taking hold of his wrist between his thumb and forefinger. The Scavenger’s breath came regularly and deeply, but his pulse was fast it seemed. Miles didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad. He then shifted over to examine Pauli. He had bandaged her wounds as best he could during their escape, now finally the blood loss seemed to have stopped. He gripped her wrist between his thumb and forefingers again just as he done with Kyle and found a pulse. He placed a hand on her chest but couldn’t tell if she was breathing or not, immediately concerned he went to find her pulse again. He quickly found it, and this time it seemed faster, maybe even stronger.
“Stay with us girl,” Miles whispered. “We’ll get the Doc back, and she’ll fix you right up. You just have to hold on.”
Her hand seemed cold and clammy, so he wrapped the blanket around her tighter. Miles heard a strange sound from outside of the wagon and froze, the sound of steel on steel. Miles scooped up his rifle and crawled to the back of the wagon carefully peering out. He didn’t see anything unusual, but a moment later he heard the sound again, this time definitely coming from the huge door. He carefully lowered himself down from the wagon and hobbled over to stand in front of the steel monster, with Juan joining him a moment later. The pair watched as the door slowly began to rise. Inch by inch the massive piece of metal climbed upward, Mile’s heart beating faster with each passing moment. The light crept higher and higher into the shadows, revealing more and more of the steel floored interior. Then suddenly the door stopped rising, little more than a foot off the ground.
“Coal?” Miles called out concerned.
A moment later the Indian rolled out from under the door and came to rest flat on his back at their feet. Sweat beading across his brow and staining his shirt.
“I’m spent, you’re up old man, your arms ain't crippled,” Coal said with a groan.
“What did you find?” Miles demanded barely able to contain his excitement.
“Uhhh…water, the most upper body intensive workout I’ve had to do in a long time and lots of useless space stuff,” Coal offered closing his eyes where he lay.
Miles couldn’t take it any longer, he leaned his pipe rifle up against the steel door, painfully lowered himself to his stomach and crawled inside. A moment later he called back out.
“Juan, the flares. Quickly now,” with that, the boy ran back to the wagon.
“I call dibs on the tarp and the space car,” Coal shouted. “If Kyle wakes up I want him to see how much cooler my new ride is than his. If he doesn't we can bury him in the tarp,” he added with a grin, but even Miles could tell the humor was forced.
“He’s not going to die!” Miles yelled back from the darkness.
“Well whether he lives or dies, keep your eyes open for anything we can boil water in,” Coal shouted in reply and then hauled himself to his feet.
The half-breed walked back towards the wagon. Juan raced passed him with a pair of old road flares clutched in his hand. Coal climbed inside the wagon to check on Kyle. The Scavenger was breathing deeply, and Coal could see his eyes twitching back and forth feverishly beneath his closed lids. Coal wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or not.
The Indian turned to regard Pauli and didn’t like what he saw. Her skin was even paler than normal; her chest didn’t heave with breath in the slightest. He placed a hand on her forehead, and she felt cold. Leaning forward Coal peeled back her eyelid and casually flicked her eyeball with his middle finger. Her eye didn’t twitch; the iris didn’t even dilate. Coal released her eyelids, and they slowly slid together only to stop and remain partially open.
“Well shit,” Coal said to himself.
He reached down and pulled up the bloody blanket to cover Pauli’s face. Coal turned to leave the wagon, but before he stepped out, he paused for a moment.
“Thank you for what you did. You saved me and I never really did thank you for that. You saved Juan and maybe Miles today too when the shooting started. You probably saved Kyle as well, giving him your blood like you did. You were a real class act lady,” with that Coal jumped down from the back of the wagon and went to get the tarp.
Coal buried Pauli not far from the Mesa, in a shaded spot near some heavy brush. He supposed most folks wouldn’t have exactly considered the spot picturesque, but since he was the one that would have to sweat while digging the grave his was the only opinion that mattered. He buried her a few feet deep wrapped in the clear plastic tarp, then mounded the earth up and covered it with a layer of rocks. When he was done, Coal turned and walked away without a word. He glanced back at the grave over his shoulder and had a thought.
With all of the years of bounty work, of just fighting and surviving he had honestly lost track of the number of men he had killed. Yet this was the first grave he had ever dug, everyone else he had left lying where they fell, after stripping them of whatever they had worthwhile of course. Some he had even separated from their heads if the work required it. Why dig this grave now? Hell, why was he even standing here now? Why hadn’t he just dumped the man and the boy off somewhere and pushed on? Why did he care that Pauli and Dante were dead? That Anna was dead or maybe worse right now? Coal walked slowly back towards the wagon deep in thought.
Coal heard running feet approach, and his head snapped up. Juan was running towards him the boy grinning from ear to ear and carrying a glass beaker. The boy stopped in front of him and offered up the beaker full of water. Coal accepted the beaker with a nod, the outside was covered in with black soot and the vessel still warm. While he had been out digging graves, Miles hadn’t been idle it seemed. The half-breed took a long slow sip, the water still nearly too hot to drink. Juan stood there still just standing and grinning at him.
“Did you water the horses?” Coal asked when he finished his drink.
Juan’s perpetual grin was gone, and he slowly shook his head in reply.
“Juan, the horses can’t take care of themselves and most of the time they work a hell of a lot harder than you or I. We always see to the horses first,” Coal said handing back the still mostly full beaker to the boy.
“Give this to the horses, that half a milk jug should still be the wagon somewhere. See that they both get equal parts and we will get them more after that. See to it,” Coal said, and the boy was off running for the wagon and grinning widely again.
He found himself grinning as he watched the boy run. Not even a week ago Coal didn’t know these people, but now here he stood, chased by his enemies, fighting for his life and actually starting to give a shit. He shook his head and walked back towards the mesa as he passed by the wagon he shouted in at his still unconscious friend.
“This is all your fucking fault, Kyle!”
Just outside of the heavy door Miles sat tending to a small fire, half a dozen glass beakers in different shapes and sizes were full of water and clustered around it. If the old man had heard Coal’s outburst, he didn’t mention it.
“Where have you been Coal?” Miles asked simply.
“Burying Pauli,” Coal replied looking down at him.
Miles just nodded and after a moment added. “I suspected as much, it’s a shame.”
“Yeah life’s a bitch,” Coal said not sure what else to say and then after an awkward silence asked.
“How was the scavenging? Find anything worthwhile?”
“A bit, these for one,” Miles said gesturing towards the array of beakers bubbling next to the flames.
Miles turned awkwardly and gestured back to a small pile of treasures he had made just outside of the door. “A couple boxes of Chemical lights, way past their prime but it seems that I can get every other one to work if I shake the piss out of it. A few cargo straps that may come in handy. A very futuristic set of hand tools. They look like the kind of thing an Astronaut would use to pick up soil samples maybe.”
Turning bac
k to face Coal, Miles started to grin and reaching into the pocket of his overalls he produced two rolls of duct tape. “And of course, the big money.”
Coal returned the old man’s smile and nodded in agreement. “Just as useful as ever and even more rare.”
Miles looked down at the rolls of tape in his hands and was quiet for a moment and then asked, “What now?”
“We keep boiling water, make sure the horses and all of us get a chance to drink their fill. Find something that we can carry more of it in. I think Dante’s bag of rat meat is still in the wagon, we should make up a broth or something for supper,” Coal replied kneeling down and poking at the flames.
“So you intend to stay here?” Miles asked looking up at him.
“Yeah, for now. The horses need a night’s rest, same as us. This is as good a place as any and I have a feeling Rory and his men have given up the chase,” Coal said.
“Why would you think that?” Miles asked.
“Well they started the day with fourteen, Kyle said he killed a couple in his little raid and spooked their horses. It was only five that hit us at the cache, counting Rory. Must have been all he could muster up and we managed to give as bad as we got in that little shit show,” Coal explained.
“I killed a man,” Miles said quietly.
“Yeah, I got another. The other two were wounded, I even left Rory with a new beauty mark to remember me with,” Coal paused and grinned and then continued.
“I think after getting the Rangers chewed to pieces and losing that many horses that Rory can’t go back to town empty-handed. I think Murphy would have him skinned alive. A doctor doesn’t make that bad a consolation prize,” Coal added.
“You think they’ll keep her alive then?” Miles asked.
“I don’t know for sure, but maybe,” Coal said standing again.
Miles looked up at him and said. “You know if Kyle wakes up, he’ll want to go and get her back.”
“Maybe,” Coal said but knew the words were true.
“He’ll die trying,” Miles continued, and Coal simply nodded again.
“We could always tell him she’s dead. That Rory ran her down, killed her after he was out. For all we know it could be the truth,” Miles said.
Coal looked down at the old man and was quiet for a moment. “You would do that? Lie to your partner like that? About this?”
Miles nodded in reply. “I would, I’m a father Coal, and I don’t get the luxury of thinking about just myself anymore. The best chance that Juan, me, you, and Kyle have got is if we load up with as much water as we can carry and go North.” To highlight the point Juan appeared around the edge of the wagon, walking back and carrying the now empty beaker.
Coal looked at the boy and then back down at Miles. “We’ll wait for Kyle to decide,” he said simply.
“And if he doesn’t wake up?” Miles asked.
“Then we go North,” Coal replied and dropping to the ground crawled back into the darkness of the garage.
Over the next hour, the men took turns tending the fire and working the mechanism of the door. Coal made it a point to check in on Kyle each time he crawled out of the darkness of the facility. Juan busied himself by fetching water from the pool, the inner door was still only open about 10 inches making it much easier for the boy to slide in and out than anyone else. At one-point Miles tried to talk Coal into squeezing back inside and opening the door wider. With his mangled leg, the old man couldn’t slide through the narrow gap, but Coal declined.
“Jacking open one door for the day is plenty, besides Kyle already picked the insides clean, you just want to be a tourist,” the Indian said and wouldn’t hear any more about it.
It was midafternoon when the bottom of the heavy door finally rose to the point where it was flush with its frame, a loud steel pop echoed from the door through the structure. Some unseen mechanism had apparently secured it in place.
“What now?” Miles asked.
Coal knew the first spare minutes that they had the old man would start in again on him widening the damn inner door.
“You start on supper,” Coal replied and then after a moment added. “I’m going to bring the wagon and the team in, keep them in the shade and out of sight. I doubt anybody would stumble upon us out here, but no point at taking the chance.”
Miles looked around the equipment bay. “Is there enough room?” he asked.
“There will be when we push my space Jalopy outside,” Coal said with a grin and Miles just groaned in response.
Coal walked around the vehicle taking a closer look at it for the first time. The four wheels weren’t rubber but a hard-black plastic, with dozens of lengths of what looked like steel rod running from the outer edge to the hub. Airless apparently which made sense to Coal, since Triple-A would be a couple million miles away. The body itself was some type of black fiberglass? The term Carbon Fiber came from somewhere in the way back of Coal’s memory, but he wasn’t sure if that was even a real thing or just some science fiction nonsense. The black body was sleek and sat low, the hard-plastic seats were laid back, with the driver and his co-pilot nearly laying instead of sitting. The vehicle had no doors you simply stepped over the low side and crawled in. A series of black plastic roll bars crisscrossed over the top of the open cab provided hand holds.
“How come this thing is so damn cool looking? Everything I can remember about moon cars made them look like failed Erector Set projects?” Coal asked not really expecting an answer.
“About 40 years of science and you have to remember this was a private firm, hoping to win government contracts. Sexy sells even in the world of science,” Miles replied and a moment later appeared on the opposite side of the vehicle.
Coal simple nodded and lowered himself into the driver’s seat. Most of it was familiar enough, steering wheel, a gas pedal, and a break. A shifter on the middle consul was a simple t-handle with 4 positions forward into D, a P in which it currently sat then an N and finally R. Coal looked around for just a moment, something seemed odd about the layout.
“Does this whole thing seem, I don’t know, kind of big to you?” Coal asked, and Miles just smiled.
“It’s intended to be driven with a space suit on Coal, you would be quite a bit bulkier, and it would be harder to move. See here?” Miles said reaching into the vehicle and pointing to a few steel hose connectors located in the center console where the cup holders would usually be.
“Connectors for your suit probably has an onboard oxygen tank somewhere,” Miles said.
“No windshield,” Coal noted.
“No rain and very little atmosphere where this thing was going,” Miles pointed out.
On a lark, Coal pushed the gear shift all the way forward and then slammed down on the gas pedal. An audible click was all he got in response as if a switch was being thrown, it repeated every time he pushed the pedal down. Miles just looked at the half-breed and frowned.
“Hey, it was worth a shot,” Coal said and then yelled. “Juan, get over her little man, time for your first driving lesson.”
Coal lowered Juan into the driver’s seat, the small boy in the oversized cockpit looked ridicules. If it hadn’t been for the low angle of the seat, Juan wouldn’t have even been able to reach the useless pedals. Coal leaned over and pulled the gear shifter back to N.
“Now Juan it's really simple, you just hold the wheel straight and me and Miles here we’ll provide all of the horsepower. I’m not going to lie to you, this is a big day, chicks dig cars, your whole world is about to change,” Coal explained. Juan just looked at him nodding but with an obvious look of confusion on his face.
Coal joined Miles at the back of the vehicle both got ready to push. “I’m just going, to be honest Coal, I may only get one step and then fall flat on my face,” Miles said a bit ashamed.
“No problem, just fall forward and push as you fall,” Coal replied and then shouted.
“On your marks, get set, go!” and with that, the two men push
ed forward.
The space buggy proved remarkably light, and it rolled forward easily, it cleared the doorway and rolled down the gentle slope. It's momentum pulling it forward even more than Mile’s or Coal’s pushing. The vehicle rolled about 50 feet before the ground leveled off and it came to a stop. Coal walked around to the driver’s side, he could already see Juan wore a big grin and was gesturing wildly.
“How did you like that big man?” Coal asked. Juan looked up at him and then down at the dash. A dozen black plastic switches lined the dash, some labeled but many not. One, in particular, had caught the boy’s attention, it was labeled C.R.T.S., and a green LED dimly glowed above it. Coal blinked and then leaned forward to shade the dash with his hand. Sure enough, the LED was lit, and then a moment later the green light faded and went out.
“Hey Miles. What color was that light you said you were looking for?” Coal asked.
Hours later, after the sun had set Coal and Juan sat next to the fire, they took turns passing back and forth a beaker of rat meat broth. Each sucking down the warm juice and scooping out smaller pieces of the stringy meat with their fingers. Miles hadn’t eaten yet; in fact, the old man hadn’t even left the space car since Coal had seen the green light. With Juan’s help, Coal had moved the wagon and horses inside the equipment bay, with Kyle continuing to sleep soundly in the back of the wagon.
The old man had become obsessed Coal realized, first he had walked around the vehicle and looked at every piece from every possible angle. Then he had crawled inside and systematically pushed every switch off and then on again at least a dozen times. That’s when Miles had found the binder, wedged between the passenger seat and the console. It was 3 inches thick and filled with oversized laminated pages designed for use with gloved spacesuit hands. The old man had called for Juan to bring him a hand full of the chem lights and there the old man had stayed, sitting in the passenger seat and reading the book in the glow of the red light.
To Cross a Wasteland Page 38