Opalescence

by Ron Rayborne

  So far.

  Tom looked over toward Little, lying still under the tree facing his way. It would be hard, truly hard to go that distance. The girl had been dragging for the last day and a half. Could he really expect her to go on? Should he perhaps leave her here, go fetch water himself and bring it back? He doubted that she would understand to wait for two days, for that’s what he expected it to take, at a premium pace. Three days seemed more likely in his depleted state. She could not be without water for that long.

  He decided they’d travel at night again, like they used to. If they could do most of it tonight, one, long, miserable effort — maybe.

  His feet sinking in the burning sands, Tom walked back down the hot dune. He sagged under the tree and lay back, drained and bone-tired. Little had her eyes closed and mouth open, breathing hard. Feeling a wave of love and pity for her, Tom took out the water bottle and poured the rest into her bowl, shaking out the last droplets and adding another salt tablet. Hearing it, she opened her eyes, looked, and then began to drink. Tom held the bowl for fear she would knock it over and lose some of the precious liquid.

  “Tonight, my friend,” he said.

  When evening fell and the temperatures dropped, the two left, and as they paced the drylands, feet dragging, kicking up dust, Tom kept a look out for more water. There was none. Still, the night was cool, and, desperate though they were, lovely. Both man and beast plodded, afraid to stop.

  The sun rose chill, but in a half-hour’s time, was hot again. Tom climbed another dune to look out and saw the blue; No, not a mirage, he told himself. It was closer now, perhaps ten miles away. He walked back to Little. She lay panting again in the checkered shadow of a dead tree. Tom knew she could not make it another day walking in this heat. He had to take a chance. He would go alone to the blue and bring some back. He told her then to stay, that he would return tomorrow with water. But when he began to walk off toward the South she dragged herself up and began to follow.

  “NO!” Tom shouted. “STAY! I’ll be back.” But again, she followed. This time Tom, angry, did something that surprised even him - he struck her. She looked surprised for a moment, then afraid. Tom’s eyes immediately welled up and he bent down and put his arms around her. “I’m sorry girl. I didn’t mean to hit you,” he said, holding her, tears wetting her fur, precious water spent for love. “I’m sorry that I brought you here, to this place to die. You’re the best friend a man could ever have.” Little sat again, panting heavily. “You have to stay.” A look passed over her, different from any expression he’d seen on that big face before. He didn’t know what it meant. Tom bent to kiss her head, but she was stiff. He pet and reassured her again that he was coming back. Then he stood, turned and left.

  An hour after leaving Little, Tom’s mouth grew dry. By two, it was his tongue, so moistureless it stuck to the roof of his mouth. By midday, his lips were cracked and bleeding. He’d not had a drink in a day. Hadn’t eaten in two, either, yet food was not his main thought. Tom was so thirsty he was in a torment for water. Still, he trudged on, his world focused on one thing and one thing only. Slowly, as the fluid left his body, its equilibrium fell out of balance. On his head he wore the hat to provide shade from the beating sun. But it also held the hot in. Every so often, he lifted the brim to let it out.

  There were frequent rests when Tom bent over, hands on knees, and panted. His head ached. He didn’t know that he was in the throes of heat exhaustion with heat stroke not far behind. He began to see things, visions of water that wasn’t there, giant black birds circling high overhead, someone following him. And he saw bones, a ceaseless array of bones and teeth along the shore. Mile after mile. After mile. More delusion.

  The day scorched on and the sun bore down mercilessly. It must be a hundred and thirty degrees out, he thought. Still, Tom put one foot in front of the other... in front of the other... in front of the other. By late afternoon, he sat down in the shade of a large rock, utterly spent. Dizzy, his head swimming and perception waning, he lay back. Nausea threatened him with dry heaves. If he gave up now, he thought, it would be easy. Just go to sleep.

  No. Again, he cursed his weakness. But when he tried to get up he found that he couldn’t, or he could, but only with the greatest difficulty. Wait, he told himself, wait until dusk. He thought about Little. Was she still waiting for him, or had she wandered off to an uncertain fate, convinced that he’d abandoned her? He couldn’t stop. Shakily, Tom stood, and trembling, he walked on; time, and consciousness, fading in and out.

  It must be farther than ten miles, he pondered dully. Maybe fifteen. Pulling over a rise now, he stopped still. There it was in front of him. The lake, or more accurately, the big waterhole. His spirit tried to leap, but even that took too much energy. Walk.

  Step, by dragging step. Panting. Something was lying in the water near the edge. Some things. Enormous and black, they turned and looked at him, then rose at his fearless advance. Snarling. Vicious. Entelodonts. Three of them. Querulous, there were deep scars on each of their heads, injuries inflicted by the others whenever they were feeling testy, which was fairly often. They’d not eaten in a week and had camped out here anticipating the inevitable appearance of a thirsty animal. Something so parched that it would ignore the danger, trade its life for a taste of water. The trio came at him confidently. Without a second thought, Tom pulled out the pistol and, with unsteady hand, managed to shoot the lead one square in the forehead. It fell on the spot. The others jerked and stopped in their tracks. He shot again, this time at the ground in front of them, sending a spray of dirt in their faces. That was enough, and the giants were gone, running and squealing in anger, short, thin, black tails up in the air, onto the baking plain.

  Tom dropped his pack, fell at the water and was about to drink when a tiny thought encroached. Toiling, he sat, opened his pack and dug out the purifier and cup. Then he began filling it and drinking. One after another. Cup after cup. Shortly, a pain in his gut, he stopped. Instinctively, he knew that he would do more harm than good if he didn’t. He had to go slower, measure it out. And he did, yet he continued to drink. In an hour’s time, he was feeling better. Not a lot, but better. Next, since he’d not eaten in two days either, Tom walked to the black mountain of pig and cut off a chunk with his knife. In normal times he would be loath to do something like that, but this was an exception. “I’m sorry,” he said. Tom lifted the meat to his face and drank the warm, salty juice. It was what he needed. Then he cooked another large piece. That pig gave its life for mine, he thought. Thank you.

  Using a bowl, Tom buried the animal in mud to hide it from other predators, then he disrobed and waded into the pool, scrubbing himself clean with sand and washing his clothes. By sundown, he had improved. Should he continue on, he wondered briefly, on toward Julie, or should he go back for Little? He dismissed the perfidious notion at once; there was no way he could leave his friend. None. He had to go back. Little was a part of him, something he could no more abandon than his right arm. Tom filled every container he had with water and sliced off another large chunk of entelodont. It would be for Little. He left immediately.

  All night long he walked, though his body demanded sleep. Step after step. The extra weight was taxing. This time, though, he drank when he needed it. The crazy illusion of bones along the beach was still there, gleaming whitely in the full moonlight, and he marveled at it. It was morning when he dropped into the basin where he’d left the girl.

  She wasn’t there.

  “Little?” he called out, then “Little! ... Little!” There was no movement, no sound in response, nothing but the sun pounding down and heat waves climbing.

  Oh no, he thought. Had she left to go after him? Or perhaps his scolding of her, and then leaving, made her think that he was saying goodbye. Tom let go his pack and ran toward the dead tree. “LITTLE!” he yelled, “LITTLE!” Gone. Frantic, he ran to every bit of shelter he could see, trees, boulders, the side of the dune he’d climbed the day before.

/>   And there she was, a dark mound lying in a sliver of shade. She looked near death, rapid panting, tongue dry, swollen and hanging out the side of her mouth. The sun advancing over the sky had forced her to move from the even feebler shade of the dead tree to this spot on the lee side of the drift. She lifted her head faintly at his approach, even managing a weak wag of her tail, then lay it back down. Tom ran back to his pack and, grabbing it, raced toward the girl. He found her bowl and splashed water into it. She did not drink. Distraught, he opened her mouth and poured some in. He also poured some onto her head and fanned her with his hat, then a bit more into her mouth, encouraging her with comforting words. She swallowed. He poured more and she swallowed again. And again. After another swallow, she refused any more and simply lay, puffing. Terribly worried, Tom continued to fan, thinking it best not to force her.

  ~ The day sweltered ~

  Five long minutes later, Little, grunting with effort, rolled onto her chest. Tom, awash in relief, cradled the bowl for her. With difficulty, she drank.

  “Good girl!” Tom said, tearfully. “You drink all you need.” He opened his pack and got out the chunk of meat he’d brought her, then cut off a piece. It sliced easily with his knife. He placed it before her. She ignored it. He poured more water, crushing and dissolving a salt tablet in it. She drank. When he worried that she was drinking too much, he held off, and stroking, continued to talk gently to her. As the minutes fell by, and Little was rehydrating, Tom was amazed to see that her tongue was shrinking.

  At last, she lay back on her side and closed her eyes, happy that her human had returned. Tom stretched out in the dust beside her, and together they slumbered the rest of the long, hot day in the shade of the dune.

  By evening, they were well enough to find better cover where they would rest until the following evening. Tom wanted to take advantage of the cool nights. Still, he was cognizant that they needed to get to the pond as soon as possible. The water and food he had left should just last till then. Hopefully, they would find more water holes after that.

  They sweated out the next day. Just being. Existing. Recuperating under the white-hot star without thought. It seemed the world waited with them. That night they were ready and once more returned to their quest.

  “A very strange phenomenon. There are bones everywhere along the shore and within the waters of the coast. A variety of bones. And teeth. Especially teeth. Millions of them. Billions perhaps. Sharp, some very large, big as my hand, resembling those of that thing that nearly had us for lunch. We go, crunching over them, and the bones just keep coming. There is no end in sight.”

  After miles of nocturnal walking, tripping and puzzling over the teeth and bones, Tom thought to check with the PinPointer, and switched on the overlay. It could be done without activating the beacon. He saw their location on the map screen, his blinking blue light. He was in what would become central California. There was a word near the blue light. Placing his fingers on the screen, he expanded and brought the word closer.

  Sharktooth Hill

  Tom tapped on the word and the information came up.

  STH “bonebed.” An accumulation of terrestrial, and especially, marine osseous deposits, averaging 200 bones per square meter. Famous for the abundance of shark’s teeth found therein. Thought to have been formed sometime between 15.9-15.2 million years ago. It is unknown precisely what caused the massive buildup. Hypotheses range from calving grounds, volcanic or red tide poisoning, shark predation, massive acid rain, near surface magmatic hotspot, which superheated the waters, gradual buildup over millennia, or some combination thereof. Slow, steady accumulation, via time and tide, is the currently favored view.

  There was a picture of a man holding a large tooth, and next to that, a sketch of the animal it came from. A mammoth shark. Tom was astonished. It was the same beast that had attacked them. Carcharocles megalodon. It was gigantic. The memory of it made him shudder.

  By daylight, they had again reached the water hole. This time no entelodont stood guard, except the dead one under a now hardened mound of dried mud. Other Barstovian denizens were there though, camels and a rough-looking species of antelope with scraggly fur, drinking and lying by the waters. At the sight of Little they retreated. The girl, however, wasn’t interested. Instead, she headed immediately toward the water, where she lay, and lapped at the life-giving fluid. Tom, too, drank until sated.

  After drinking, the aelurodon began to nose around. There was something here. Then she found it. It was buried in a mound of mud. She dug at it until the big black thing was partially unearthed, then began to feast. She didn’t object when Tom walked over and cut out some large pieces of choice meat and draped them over a willow pole he’d erected above a fire. The tips of the flame just reached the bottoms of the meat, but went higher as he heaped more dry wood on. Fat dripped, crackling on the coals. He sat in a shade and watched the rivers of diaphanous heat shimmer upwards, rising at times to turn the meat over, or snatch a bite to eat.

  Even here, a quarter-mile from the shallow sea edge, there were sharks teeth. Shiny and perfect, they were uniformly distributed in the searing white sands around him. He could merely push hands into it to find them.

  A shadow fell over the land and Tom looked up. Clouds were slipping by from the North and had just covered the sun’s scorching face. Behind were more. Dark and full. A cooling breeze followed. It tossed his dirty hair and fluttered his torn shirt, blowing the oppressiveness away.

  “Yes ... Oh please, yes,” Tom said, watching the sky. It seemed a battle, and briefly the sun shone again in patches, threatening a full reemergence. Yet, the growing mantle of clouds would not be stopped. They were filling the heights and blowing south.

  The fire still burned, but now it was brighter in contrast to the darkening atmosphere. Tiny pinpricks of moisture fell on his face and hands. Tom, worried that the sky would open up and spoil the meat, went to check on it. It was well done. Both sides. With a willow skewer he lifted them off the pole and laid them on a still hot rock. Then he fetched his pack and found something to wrap them in; an old, torn shirt, which he’d cleaned and kept. He wrapped each one, then folded the cloth around them. Juice and oils began to show through. He’d need to wash the pack at some point to remove the odor, lest it attract something he did not want to attract. He zipped it up, then looked around for somewhere to duck out of the rain, which began lightly to fall.

  There was a mass of boulders with mesquite growing in between two of them. In the center was a sheltered area. Tom, slinging the pack over his shoulders, ran toward it. Though the pack was water-resistant, and he himself could use another wash, he felt an instinctual desire to be out of the weather. Under cover, he dropped to his haunches to wait it out. Little, seeing him run, ran after him. She sniffed at the pack, then licked his face.

  This is mine, girl, Tom thought. But don’t worry, I’ll cut you more before we go. The rain began to come down harder now, causing the fire to sputter and sizz. After a time it went out, leaving glowing red coals. By and by, though, they too gave up the ghost, with only smoke to ascend skywards.

  Rain fell for half an hour, then the clouds were gone above and the sun beamed, though now with less intensity. In the distance, Tom could see great sheets of water still falling, slowly at an angle, to the ground. He prayed it meant that there would be drinking water available through this desert like land. Little went back to her entelodont, gorging herself until her sides bulged. Tom removed one of his fat steaks and ate it all, licking his fingers at the end of it, satisfied. In minutes, his eyes began to droop. He lay down in the dry sand under the boulders, using the pack as a pillow, and closing his eyes, slept the sleep of the dead.

  A day after the pond, on a cool, blue morning, Tom and Little came upon a mighty river. The map told them that it was the Kern. Apparently, other rivers that would have flowed separately down their own paths to the Temblor and provide them with water, had, for some reason, instead joined the main far upstream to b
ecome this roaring torrent. It explained the dry patch they’d walked through. Before it reached the sea it became a broad, fan-shaped delta.

  Yet again, Tom was presented with a body of water they had to cross. This time, however, when he walked to the marshy edge, he saw that, though wide, it was not terribly deep and could, in fact, be negotiated. The presence of various terrestrial wildlife standing on reedy mounds at certain points within attested to its shallowness. The solution for he and Little was quicker than the first time too. Tom found a thick, flattish piece of driftwood, roughly five feet long by four wide that would serve as their craft. Then he located a long, thin log that had been felled by some Zygolophodon. This he stripped of branches and bark: the rafting pole. And, without further ado, they boarded her.

  The voyage was serene and uneventful, lasting an hour or so. Only the pole as it hit the water, the occasional plop and tinkle of frogs and turtles jumping in from boulders, floating bits of wood and vegetation, and the call of bay birds breaking the hush. They stayed close to shore, in waters much too shallow for the Temblor’s larger marine denizens. Though the water increased in swiftness as they approached midpoint, this was offset by the Kern’s width. As they rafted by, a solitary, and now peaceful Paleoparadoxia lifted its heavy head mid-mastication, mouth full of reeds hanging down on either side, to gaze at them, then, failing to comprehend, went back to its grazing. A group of Blastomeryx, diminutive hornless ruminants with downward facing tusks, swam to and stood on a little island of flattened sedge, munching something there. Brightly colored dragonflies and hummingbirds danced and zoomed just over the glassy, clear waters, their depths teeming with moss and fish. Shafts of sun, now kind and lovely, shone through trees, which grew on a narrow peninsula that tapered into blue tranquility.