by R E Kearney
First, he could not afford big-truck, young-man insurance. Then, just buying gasoline cost too much. Unable to feed and insure his manly machine, he tried to sell it. Nobody wanted it. Even, his creditors refused to repossess it. He parked it. For most of its life, his mighty, macho machine sat surrounded by weeds as a yard ornament. Yet, although it is wheezing and rusted, and straining to go five miles per hour, driving his truck today restores a little of Rube’s male pride. At long last, he is riding high with a goal and a mission.
Scanning the countryside, Rube discovers he is surrounded by Death. Everywhere everything is dead. Bones bleaching in the scorching sun. Skeletons shining against the split, cracked and concrete-hard, burned bronze earth. Ahead, the horizon shimmers beneath the blazing sun.
Mile after mile, from nowhere to nothing, they rattle forward. No escape. No relief. No cloud in the sky. No shade on the ground. No water. No life. Only scorching heat inhabits these deserted lands.
Side to side, back and forth, Rube searches his present for his past. Years ago, as a teenager, he tended cattle grazing the rich buffalograss on these lands. Later, he labored as a hired hand helping farmers grow irrigated grain in a dry prairie they should never have cultivated. But, all of what once was is gone now. Years of no rain, bad crops and worse prices forced the ranchers and farmers, he had known, to abandon their lands. They left nothing behind. Sold everything they owned, and sometimes did not own, to survive.
Where Rube once baled alfalfa, crusty, salt-crystal trails cutting the soil into an endless jigsaw puzzle shimmer and sparkle in the sun. Water desperate farmers drained the aquifer to brine, but still did not stop irrigating until they had spread a sheet of salt. A patchwork of naked, rock-hard, salted clay blocks remains.
Now, as far as his eyes can see, he sees a baked, barren, void. This land is deader than his desert. Over grazed, over farmed, every bit of life sucked out of it. Then the endless fires exploded, engulfing all the animals and lands leaving this hard emptiness. An inferno so hot, it left no ash. Wastedlands.
The hot air frying the land outside his truck is far hotter inside. His air conditioner died years ago and the truck’s fan spews sand streaming on more stifling air. He and Merle are sitting in puddles of their own sweat.
Merle gulps down the last of his second beer of the trip. He salutes his accomplishment with a gusty belch. “You know, when I’m out here, I can drink beer all day and never stop to piss. I just sweat it out. Plus, it gives me a good buzz.”
Rube is sweltering. His ankle is throbbing and he is searching for something other than Merle’s belly gas blasts to distract his mind. “How far to Rechtsbrecher’s resort? That’s what people call Sheriff’s camp, isn’t it? Fett said it was.”
“Not far, but a long trip.” Merle replies from behind eyes closed to the bright sun. “And, don’t ever let Sheriff hear you say Rechtsbrecher’s resort. It’s a joke name, she don’t think is funny. Real name is Fort Morghan…county seat of Morghan County, when there was still counties. Now, Sheriff calls this whole area her shire and the old county courthouse and jail her shire court. Anyway, it’s bout ninety miles north of here. Take all night at this speed.”
“All night? I don’t think I can do this all night. This heat is making me dizzy. My ankle aches and my back is already screaming from the beating of this bouncing.” Rube stretches and shifts in his seat. “Why don’t I teach you and your buddies how to drive, so we can take turns?”
“Naw, looks like too much work to me.” Merle yawns.
“What about Eldon and Vern?” Stealing a look through his rear window, Rube discovers they are both asleep with their mustang’s reins tied to their belts.
“Not without Sheriff’s permission. Sheriff decides what you can do and what you can’t do.” Merle points his finger ahead. “When we get there you can ask Sheriff bout it, if you want…but, I ain’t. Really, you shouldn’t neither.”
“Why is that?”
“Sheriff’s boss…makes all decisions. Tells you what you do and when you do it. Don’t like interference or questions…” Merle shakes his head. “…specially questions. So, no need to even discuss it, anymore.”
No more questions. No more talk. Just an agonizingly slow, painful trudge north. Rube steers. Merle, Eldon and Verne snooze. Increasingly often, Rube also snoozes allowing his truck to wander ahead on its own. Heat fatigue sneaks into him, drooping his eyes closed. Even the dull throbbing of his ankle can no longer keep him awake. Only his tires falling into deep craters that pitch him side to side and against his door prevent him from disappearing into deep dreams. Awake. Asleep. Awake. Asleep.
“Hey! Wake up! You’re off the road.” Merle punches Rube in his shoulder jarring him back to life.
Rube parks his creeping truck with his engine still running. “I need a break and so do your horses. Give them some water and a rest while I get some water and a walk.”
Merle grunts his disapproval, while simultaneously nodding his head in approval. Before Rube moves, Merle is out of the truck. Stretching and twisting his stiff back, he yells for Eldon and Vern to water the horses.
Rube slides from his seat and flops onto the ground. His legs are numb and without muscles. He is a limp lump of fat sizzling on the stovetop hot ground. Seizing the truck door, he hauls himself into a wobbling, stand. He props himself against the truck and watches the world whirl around his head. He vomits.
“Here drink this. You’ll feel better.” Vern shoves an opened, warm beer into Rube’s hand.
“I need water, not beer.” Rube attempts to return his beer.
“This is better’n water, cause it got minerals. Now drink it.” Vern shoves the beer can toward Rube’s mouth spurting warm, sticky, foamy liquid into Rube’s mouth, up his nose, across his neck and onto his chest.
“Idiot!” Rube swings his fist wildly toward Vern. He misses, loses his balance and smashes his face into the dirt.
Loudly laughing, Vern punches his boot into Rube’s side. “You’re pretty much worthless, old man. Don’t know what Sheriff wants you for. Not worth spit.”
“Shut up, Vern! Help me get him back into his truck. We need to go. Sheriff’ll be waiten on us and I don’t want her mad at me.” Merle bends past Vern, grasps Rube’s shoulders and pulls him to his knees. Grunting loudly, the two men help Rube climb back into his truck.
As soon as he is seated, Rube is rolling. Pounding his horn, he aims his truck at Vern lazily crossing his front bumper. Vern jumps and runs to cower behind Merle.
“Kick an old man when he’s down, will you? I’ll show you what an old man can do!” Rube shouts out his window, while turning his truck toward Vern huddling in Merle’s shadow.
Yelling stop, Merle thrusts both hands into the air. Rube slides to a stop with his front bumper inches from Merle. He accelerates his truck engine loudly and for long periods blasts his horn. Merle walks to the rider’s side door, leaving Vern to face Rube alone. Vern bows his head raises his hands beseechingly and backs away.
“Ok, he got your message. He’s not goin to mess with you no more.” Merle attempts to calm Rube as he climbs onto his seat. “Let him and Eldon get back in the truck and then let’s get back on the road. We need to get moven, cause Sheriff’s waiten…and I don’t want to keep Sheriff waiten. You don’t want to keep Sheriff waiten either, believe me.”
Somewhere between there and nowhere, Rube is not certain how far from civilization, he spots three shades straggling through the heat waves. He blinks his eyes and squints. Skin wrapped skeletons, they are vapors that materialize and disappear in the glare of the low-hanging, afternoon sun.
“Merle, I think I see three people over there.” Rube points in their direction. “Should we help them?”
Merle quickly scans where Rube points, then returns his attention ahead. “No, they ain’t our problem. Could be trouble. Could have Desert Fever. Lots of desert drifters dying from Desert Fever. If they make Fort Morghan, Sheriff’ll
take care of them. If they don’t…well…then…they’re just some more souls you never knowed. Full of specters and spirits out here. You don’t know them, now. You won’t miss them, later.”
Rube glances toward where he last saw the three. They are not there. Ghosts, just as Merle predicted.
Hours later, the burning sun deserts the desolate Desert Plains it created. Rube’s truck lights cut holes in the dark, revealing mile after mile after mile of bleak emptiness. He searches the night for some type of life - a snake or a lizard or a tarantula. No creature - slithering, walking or flying appears. A half-slice moon and a flood of stars become Rube’s only companions.
Rube shivers. His heat generated shroud of sweat is now chilling him. When the sun disappeared, the day’s heat soon followed. The desert night cold is refreshing. Rube’s senses awaken.
Enveloped by the heavens, he imagines himself lost in space. A slow, low-flying astronaut, he locks his eyes on one particularly bright star sparkling low on the horizon. He names it Skypilot and releases his imagination to soar to it in a flight of fantasy. On and on he rolls, but he is never nearer.
At long last, the dawn sun and Fort Morghan arrive together. Finally, they are here. Merle, Eldon and Vern stretch, groan and return to life. Rube straightens in his seat. He brushes his hair into place. He is eager to begin his new adventure.
Nearing the settlement, Rube’s deep sigh of relief catches in his throat. His excitement disappears in a cloud of smoke. Acres of blackened, ash covered ground tells Rube that a prairie fire attacked the town, recently. To his left, the flames devoured a mobile home park, leaving row after row of frames and axles glued to the ground in their melted tires. Tendrils of smoke rise from melted metal sculptures. On his right, onetime blocks of small houses are smoldering clumps of charcoal.
Beyond the burned zone, Fort Morghan is a decaying corpse. Sun burned-bare brush, forsaken furniture, discarded debris and trash surround abandoned, disintegrating, buildings. Tumble weeds wander the streets. Once an oasis with ten thousand residents, the desert is gnawing this town into a shriveled husk.
“Turn left up there.” Merle startles Rube with his unexpected directions. Concentrating on his driving, he did not realize Merle was awake.
“Ok.” Rube scans right then left. “What happened here? Where is everybody?”
“Gone, disappeared along with our water. Denver dammed our river and stole our water from underneath us.” Merle points ahead. “North boundary is a dusty ditch that used to be the Platte River. Denver sucks it all up now. We get nothing. Drilled into our aquifer, too, and drained it. Left us with saltwater. I hate Denver.”
Rube maneuvers his truck past a fallen tree blocking a portion of the intersection where he turns left. “So, how do you live out here without any water?”
“ICC…just like Squalor. The International Commerce Consortium’s Throughway-Hyperloop 76 runs past us.” Merle chops his right hand through the air. “Whoosh! Right past us. ICC shut down our depot eleven years ago when the sugar beet plant burnt down. Nobody stops here, cept dole deliveries. Everybody else…zoom straight into Denver. I hate Denver.”
The deeper into Fort Morghan Rube drives, the more dispirited he grows. Large clumps of greasy, long-haired, big bellied, bearded men slouch in the shade of crumbling shacks and dead trees. Emptied, beer and soda containers surround them, littering the dust. Their lifeless, no-hope eyes shadow his passing. Rube searches for women or children. He discovers none.
Rube jerks his thumb toward the idle men. “Certainly looks like they drink lots of beer.”
“Nothing much else to do round here. Beers free. Keeps them fat and sleepy.” Merle yawns and burps. “Too many men with too little to do. Not needed for breeding. Not needed for feeding. Just not needed.”
“Who are those guys?” Rube waves away Merle’s burp.
“Ejects, desert drifters and posse. They’re homeless. Wander in here cause they got run out of everywhere else. Lost their birthright allowances. Nowhere else to stay.” Merle waves at the loungers. Two of them nod in response. “Those two are some of Sheriff’s Posse Comitatus. Waiten for work orders, I magine.”
“And what about women…children and women?” Rube sweeps his hand toward the few, still, standing structures. “I don’t see no women. Young men get mean without women and children to care about. I know about not having a woman…aching for a child…somebody else to consider. Gave me a hard heart. For a long time, I was like you…acting tough…callous, because I was alone. Men need women…a family.”
“Gone. They’re all gone. Ain’t been no women round here for long as I remember. Run off to the city.” Merle grumbles. “Denver stole our water and our women. I hate Denver.”
“So, it’s the same here as Squalor. The ICC feeds you and waters you. Just like castrated cattle...like the steers and sheep, I raised for slaughter once upon a time, long ago.” Rube hisses bitterly.
Merle shakes his finger. “No, not zakley…not here. Here, ICC delivers to Sheriff. Sheriff controls all ICC supplied solar power, food and water…distributes it according to service and loyalty. If you want to eat, you do what Sheriff tells you to do when Sheriff tells you to do it.”
Ahead a Sheriff’s knight runs into the street waving his arms frantically. He shoves his hand into the air, signaling Rube to halt. Rube rolls to a stop several yards from the hand waver.
“Wait here till we’re ready to lead you on in.” Merle directs, as he hops out of the truck.
Eldon and Vern jump to the ground and yank their horse blankets and saddles from the truck’s bed. Ordering them to hurry, Merle grabs his own riding gear and lifts it onto his mustang. Experienced riders, the three have their horses saddled, cinched and mounted in minutes. Their speed impresses retired, rodeo rider Rube.
“Follow me!” Merle commands, as he rides past Rube to the front of his truck. Eldon and Vern position themselves on the left and right sides of the truck.
With his escort trotting alongside, Rube proceeds to the curious knight, who orders him to halt. Beginning with the truck’s front bumper and ending with the rear bumper, the knight carefully inspects the vehicle, inch after inch. Completing his visual inspection, he raps his knuckles against its metal exterior.
Dragging his fingers across the truck’s side, so they squeak, he returns to question Rube. “Interesting…uh…thing you have here. Whatcha call it?”
As he prepares to answer him, Rube notices that his badge does not identify him as just a knight. Instead, his badge declares him to be a Knight of the Shire. With a smirk, Rube briefly explains. “Well…uh…knight of the shire, this…thing…as you call it, is a gasoline guzzling, pick-up truck that is much older than you are. Now, I’ve been told that your Sheriff’s waiting for it, so you may want to step out of our way and let us go. Eh, knight?”
“Yes sir!” The young knight rushes blindly backward colliding with the hindquarters of Eldon’s mustang. Startled, the horse jumps forward and kicks, slamming his hoof into the knight’s hip smashing him to the pavement.
“Now, that’s what I call horse power.” Rube yells, as he and his escorts, rumble forward. Eldon and Vern shrug their shoulders at each other, not understanding the meaning of Rube’s term - horse power.
Beyond the fallen knight, the scenery immediately transforms from deserted, crumpling shacks into the rural refuge, Rube expected. The trash and the vagrants are gone. The buildings are old, but they are painted and in good repair. From their exteriors, Rube presumes that the houses’ interiors are well maintained. Scattered among the buildings are short Horsebean trees and some Chinese Pistache bushes. It is not lush, but it is not hopeless, either.
After passing a block of warehouses protected by an intimidatingly tall, metal, fence, Merle leads Rube to the left. Shire Stores reads the sign above the entrance into the outer warehouse. Five destitute appearing men wait on line outside the warehouse entrance. Sixteen mustangs loiter in the warehouse st
able.”
Another knight is standing just beyond the corner securing the gate into the warehouse sector. He waves them forward. Progressing down the street, Merle, Eldon and Vern stiffen their backs and straighten in their saddles. Rube notices that even their mustangs appear to walk a little statelier through the next block.
With great flourish, Merle directs Rube to again drive left, proudly shouting. “You’re here!”
Spreading before Rube is a wide, deep, red brick building centered in an empty plaza of concrete. A large sign in front of the building proclaims, Sheriff Rechtsbrecher Shire Court. Two flag poles front her Shire Court’s entrance. Rube does not recognize either of the flags dripping limply around the poles.
Merle waves for Rube to continue ahead then he turns and trots away. Eldon and Vern spur their mounts to join him. Rube drives on alone.
Rube parks his truck with its front wheels against the sidewalk, as close to the Shire Court building as possible. He is disappointed. Too long a ride for too little. Visually searching the complex and the building, he finds no signs of life. Sheriff’s Shire Court appears as desolate as the wastedlands of the Desert Plains she rules.
THE OATH
Behind walls hide many secrets. Entering the Shire Court building, Rube steps into a world starkly different from the simmering Fort Morghan rotting outside. Clean, cool and carefully controlled is Rube’s first reaction. He grins. At last, the Sheriff’s Fort Morghan he expected, he has found.
A sentry knight named Jubal standing watch at the door, excitedly greets Rube. “Follow me. We been waiten for you. Put some food, water and clean clothes for you in your room. Sheriff says you’ll be stayen in room thirteen. Private room. You must be important.”
Rube shakes his head. “Not sure it’s me or my truck that’s important. But, my truck won’t fit in your room, so I’ll take it. Does it have a shower and bed, too?”