I thought a moment and shrugged. “Can you remember the way back?”
“Yes,” Robin said. “Or we could just follow our steps or look for something familiar.”
“You have to be kidding. Familiar?” Teal said. “It all looks the same.”
“We'll look for our steps. We'll get back there to that place, I'm sure,” Robin insisted. “And then we could follow whatever road they took, or hopefully whatever is left of the tire tracks.”
“Okay,” I said. “Let's try.”
We began to walk back. For a while we did see signs of our steps, but the wind had come up and the sand was beginning to flow like waves in the sea. Soon, it was as if we had dropped a tablespoon of water in the ocean and then tried to find it again. Teal was screaming and complaining constantly, but the wind took her voice off as well.
At a particularly large clump of bushes and near some cacti, I paused to give us a rest, then took a second swig of my canteen. We hovered around each other.
“Are you sure we're not going too far on the right?” Robin asked me.
“No, I'm not sure. I'm not sure of anything anymore.”
“What does that mean?” Teal cried. “You don't know where you're going now?”
“I'm not your desert guide, you know. I'm no better at finding my way around here than you are.”
“But you're leading us and we're following.”
“So you lead,” I said.
“I'm so tired,” Teal replied instead of arguing. “Can we take a longer rest?”
“We're going to burn up out here,” Robin reminded her. “Look at your legs. Look at mine.”
I nodded and reached into Natani's healing bag to come out with the ointment he had once used on them. They recognized it immediately and began to smear it on their legs and arms and each other's neck, neither complaining about how it made them look now.
“Do your faces, too,” I advised. I took some and put it on my own.
“Why are you doing that? Natani calls you daughter of the sun because you're black, doesn't he?” Teal asked, sounding jealous.
It made me smile. “Yes. I have an advantage out here, but black people do get sunburn and do get skin cancers. My daddy told me that and I never forgot it.”
Teal looked skeptical.
“You know . . .” Robin said, looking around and watching the wind roll dried brush over the sand. It bounced and flew with such ease. “Maybe we should follow Natani's advice about traveling in the desert and wait until the sun goes down.”
“What are you talking about?” Teal said sharply. “If we don't get back to the van, they might think we're lost and leave without us or something and then we'll really be lost.”
“If they were really worrying about that, Teal, they wouldn't have left us out here like this,” I said. “I doubt very much that they're sitting in some hot van waiting to see if we'll make it back. Robin's right. It's harder to travel in the desert now.”
“Well, what are we going to do?”
“Have lunch,” I said, “and then burrow under the sand and take a nap.”
“What? I'm not burrowing under any sand. That's disgusting, and who knows what sort of things will be crawling all over us.”
“Suit yourself.” I opened one of the nutritional bars.
Robin did the same. Petulantly, Teal followed. She reached for her canteen again, and I held out my hand.
“You're drinking too much too fast.”
“So?”
“Look around. I don't see any restaurants. If you run out of water way ahead of us, we'll have to give you some of our own and then we'll all suffer more.”
Teal looked at Robin, then tightened the cap on her canteen and stuffed it back into her bag.
Using the bag, I began to dig myself a ditch in the sand. Robin did the same, and soon we were low enough to cover ourselves with sand and keep the sun off our exposed legs and arms especially. Teal watched, still stubborn. I put the bag over my face and closed my eyes. The wind continued to blow around us.
“This is insane!” Teal screamed.
However, it wasn't long before we heard her start to dig, mumbling and complaining all the while.
“You're listening to a crazy old Indian. Maybe this is wrong,” she said.
Neither Robin nor I answered.
We heard her scream in frustration and then she was quiet. Soon, I did feel cooler, not cool, but cooler, and it was enough to permit me to close my eyes and seek some rest. Soon I surprised myself and actually fell asleep.
I woke first and not because I was fully rested before Robin and Teal. I felt something on my stomach and then on my chest. When I opened my eyes, the sun was almost completely down behind the mountains in the distance, but it was light enough for me to realize I was looking at the side of the head of a Gila monster, the poisonous lizard. I did not move a muscle. Eyeing me, it didn't move. My heart began to pound so hard, I was sure that would frighten it.
But it was Teal's scream that did that. She had woken and sat up and saw it on me. The creature scurried off and disappeared quickly.
“What was that?” she asked. Robin sat up and wiped her face.
“Gila monster,” I said, amazed at how casual I sounded about it. “Okay, we each take another drink of water and then we continue.”
As we started walking again, the sun continued to descend. Soon night began to slide over the desert sky and stars popped out brightly. There was no moonlight, but the sky was so clear that the starlight was enough to illuminate the desert. The sand glistened and the silhouetted cacti seemed to look even more like soldiers at attention.
Robin was the first to hear the coyotes. I was too deep in thought and Teal's ears were full of her own stream of constant moans and complaints, curses and cries.
“Look,” Robin shouted, pointing to her right.
We stopped. A pack of coyotes was moving rapidly parallel to us, but not coming at us.
“Oh, my God,” Teal said. “Do you think they want to eat us?”
“Probably, but as I understand from what Natani told me, they are cowards,” I said.
“Cowards in a pack create their own courage,” Robin said wisely, “but as long as we look strong, they'll keep their distance, I'm sure.”
“I'm glad you're sure. How do we show them we're strong and unafraid of them?” Teal asked.
We all thought a moment.
“Let's start singing,” I said. “What do we all know?”
“Singing? Are you crazy?”
“No, she's right,” Robin said. “How about the national anthem? We all know that. We've heard it enough at school.”
“The anthem? You're kidding,” Teal said.
“No, no, look. See how the cacti are already standing at attention.”
“Huh?”
“Good idea,” I said.
We started walking again and Robin began to sing as loudly as she could.
“Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light. . .”
Teal reluctantly joined in and soon our voices carried over the desert. None of us could reach the high notes and our sad attempts brought some laughter.
“Let's play ball,” Robin shouted when we finished.
We walked on and soon lost sight of the coyotes.
“See, it worked,” I told Teal.
“They weren't afraid of us. They just couldn't stand our singing,” she said.
We laughed again, and then, when we reached the top of a knoll, I decided we should rest and eat another nutritional bar.
“It's time for dinner,” I declared, and folded my legs. They did the same.
“Wait, wait,” Teal cried, holding her hand out. “No one eats without thanking everyone else and saying I'm sorry.”
“Exactly,” Robin said, and did it. I did the same and then Teal did and we laughed again.
“Do you think Mindy and Gia are sick with worry over us by now?” Teal asked.
“No. I think they're sick about hav
ing to do all the dishes and clean the table and whatever else we did together,” Robin told her.
“I didn't mind the work so much. I just mind someone telling me I have to do it or I don't get to eat,” Teal said.
“Come on,” I said. “You minded the work. When did you ever really work? You told us about your maids and your servants.”
“Well.. . okay, I hated the work.”
“I can't understand you,” Robin said. “You had so much. Why did you get yourself into so much trouble all the time?”
“I had a big house and my family has lots of money, but I just didn't feel like I belonged. It's hard to describe.”
“No, it's not,” I said. “Blood doesn't make family.”
“What does?” Teal asked me.
I shook my head. “I don't know.”
“Love,” Robin said. “As corny as it sounds, real love, someone who cares about you as much as, if not more than, he or she cares about himself. That's what a mother's supposed to be,” she said bitterly.
“But,” she added after chewing some of her bar, “I guess she was brought up without love so she didn't know how to give it to me. Anyway, I'm tired of hating her. Hate is exhausting.”
We were all quiet. Her words seemed to settle the same way in us all.
“I don't think there was anything I wanted more than my mother and father and my brother to love me,” Teal said.
“Why is it that the one thing we all need more than anything, we all have a hard time giving to each other?” Robin asked.
I had no answer.
I finished my bar and lay back with my head on my hands and looked up at the sky blazing with stars.
“If you lie back like this,” I said, “and concentrate on the stars, you can feel like you're falling into them and not looking up. Try it.”
They did and agreed.
I told them about Natani and the shell. I had told Teal but she had mocked it back on the ranch. Now she listened as attentively as Robin did.
“I guess you have to be out here to understand what he meant,” Teal admitted.
“It gives you some power, some control over yourself, something they can't take from you,” I told them.
“I'd like to learn more about that,” Robin said.
“Maybe we are, right now,” Teal commented, and again we were all silent.
It was funny, I thought, but out here, with our lives really still in some great danger, we had suddenly grown closer to each other than we had back at the ranch where we suffered so many of the same fears and punishments. Here, at least for a little while, we were unable to be too selfish. What happened to one of us happened to all of us.
“We're going to make it out of here,” I suddenly declared.
“Yes,” Robin agreed. “We will.”
“We will,” Teal repeated.
“Everyone ready?”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Robin said, saluting. Teal started to struggle with her surely painful ankle, and Robin reached out to help her.
“Thanks,” she said.
We stood up, fixed our packs, and started to walk again.
“We need a new song,” Robin declared. "I've got one. It's one of my mother's, one she wrote herself. She'd never believe I remember it and would sing it, because I used to make so much fun of it, but here I go.
My heart is a prison and you 've got the key, But darlin' there's no prisoner I'd rather be. So build up those walls and chain me to your heart, For darlin', oh darlin', we can never be apart.
“That's corny,” Teal screamed. “But I like it. Keep singing. It'll keep the vultures away.”
I laughed.
Robin continued to sing. She had a good voice and she put real feeling into the words, too, I thought, and then suddenly I was jealous.
She was reaching back, thinking of her mother, connecting with her, even this far away.
That was something at least.
I wished I had a song in my heart. I wished for it more than I even wished to get out of this desert trap.
For I knew, if 1 had a song like that, there wasn't a desert hot enough or long enough to defeat me.
We walked on.
The stars following us.
The night circling with all the creatures that had fled the heat emerging and I'm sure wondering who we were.
It was a question on our own lips.
Who are we?
Would we ever really know?
Perhaps if we do get out of here, I thought, perhaps then, we would.
With every step I took, with the heat fleeing and the cold descending, I longed for the comfort of Natani's drum, for I knew in my heart dangers were lurking in the patches of new darkness around and in front of us.
However, I really wasn't a stranger to all this.
I had known poisonous creatures all my life. Just like here, they lurked in the shadows, waiting to strike.
The shadows that hid them on the street were cut from the same blood-hungry darkness.
And just like in my city, we couldn't get home without walking through them.
Broken Wings 2 - Midnight Flight
Natani's Lesson
The tie later it became out in the desert night, the brighter it grew because more and more stars seemed to appear, and those that had appeared were bigger and seemed closer. At one point when we reached the top of a hill, I looked up and felt as if something, some power, could lift me at any moment and send me flying into space as if I had become a rocket.
I was tired, and my throat was dry. My legs ached, especially in the calf muscles, but at that moment, I had a wonderful sense of pleasure. I was truly in Natani's shell. I felt part of all that was around me. There was still no sign of anyone, no lights in the distance, no sounds, no reason to be hopeful, but I had gone beyond panic and anger and found some other place to rest my emotions. It was truly as if I was rising above the hardship and misery.
“Why in hell are you standing there and smiling?” Teal asked as Robin helped her up and beside me.
I turned to her.
I had become the desert tortoise and she had become the desert rat. It was truly as though Natani were standing there beside me.
“I know we're in trouble, but look at how beautiful it is out here,” I said.
“Oh, brother. I'll take you to Disneyland as soon as we get home,” Teal said. “All expenses paid. You'll stay at the best hotel they have.”
“Somehow, I don't think it will be the same thing.”
“No. It won't because we'll have the biggest, softest king-size beds, a plush bathroom, and lobster and steak and big fat rich desserts for dinner, and we'll swim in a magnificent large pool and in our skimpy bikinis drive boys mad with lust and desire.”
“Is that what you like to do?” Robin asked “So do you, so don't put on any goody-goody acts,” Teal told her.
I thought they would begin another one of their chatty arguments, but instead, Robin smiled and shrugged.
“Sometimes,” she admitted. “Phoebe?”
“I don't even own a bathing suit,” I said. “Where would I have used it?”
“As soon as we're out of here, I'm buying you one,” Teal vowed.
“And where are you getting all this money for five-star vacations and clothes and travel?” Robin asked.
“I'll blackmail my brother or something, but I'll get it.”
“You know if you keep talking like that, Dr. Foreman is going to think you're not cured,” Robin said.
We all laughed, but then, as we continued to look out into the desert darkness where pockets of thick shadows disguised what lay ahead, our laughter wound down into smiles that faded.
“I don't think we're heading in the right direction,” Robin said. “From this perspective, we should be able to see something out there, don't you think?”
“I don't know. Maybe in the morning.”
“Are we going to stop and sleep now?” Teal asked. I heard the hope in her voice.
<
br /> “The more we walk now, the less we'll have to do in the heat,” I said. “We'll stop midday tomorrow and take another long rest. Maybe we'll find some real shade.”
“Or water.”
“Yeah,” Robin said. “I'm sure there's a fountain out there somewhere just waiting for us.”
I started down the hill. Teal groaned with disappointment, but followed Robin. For a while we trekked in silence. I wasn't watching Teal and didn't realize she was not only falling behind, but because she was closing her eyes too often, she was wandering too far to the right, practically walking in her sleep. Robin, like me, was plodding along, lost in thought and not paying attention to Teal either.
Suddenly, we heard a frightening rattle sound and then Teal's scream. When we turned around to look, she was five yards or so off our trail and she had walked right into a low bush under which a sidewinder rattlesnake was concealed. It had given a warning, but she had either snapped to attention too late or lost her bearing and stepped too closely to it.
Robin and I saw it whipping from side to side in its flight, its body gleaming until it disappeared under a rock almost as if it was ashamed of the damage it had caused. For a moment neither of us could move. A cold wave of panic turned our feet into fifty-pound dead weights. Teal had fallen to her side and was screaming in such a high-pitched voice, it seemed to be coming from inside my own ears. She had her hands around her leg and was rocking.
Both Robin and I got hold of ourselves and charged at her.
“What happened?” Robin screamed.
“It just bit me. I'm going to die! A rattlesnake bit me. I'm dying, I'm dying!”
I fought back the panic that was trying to climb up my legs as if I had stepped into a pool of ice water. Then, Natani's instructions came back to me. I turned in a new panic. What could I use to lance a wound? We had no knives.
Teal's screams were vibrating my very bones.
“Calm her down!” I screamed at Robin, and reached into the bush under which the snake had been resting. I broke off the thickest branch I could, then took it to a rock and worked on sharpening the edge.
“I'm going to die.”
“If you don't settle down, you will,” I screamed back at her as I worked. “You're making your heart race and that's sending the poison out over your body faster. Stop it!”
Broken Wings 2 - Midnight Flight Page 26