A Town Called Dust: The Territory 1

by Justin Woolley

  “There’s too much work on the farm,” Uncle had said. “You can read and write now, what else do you need?”

  But Squid knew there were lots of things he didn’t know yet and he wanted to learn them, like why were some numbers clean like four divide two and why were some messy like four divide three? How did people know how big to make the legs of a water tower so that they were strong enough? Could you really keep walking in a straight line and end up where you started from? He wanted to run away and go somewhere that would teach these things. He’d even got as far as packing a small sack with food from the kitchen and sneaking away in the middle of the night, but when he’d reached the front gate he’d just stood and stared at it for three hours. Uncle was right when he told him he didn’t have anywhere else to go. Besides, his uncle and aunt had been good to him, taking him in like they had done, raising him like their own son.

  “Squid!”

  Squid’s shoulders sank at the sound of Uncle’s repeated calling.

  “Dammit, boy!” Uncle called again, a short snap cracking with irritation. “Stop your daydreamin’ and come on. We got a whole paddock to turn!”

  That tone of voice meant Uncle was angry, although that went without saying. Uncle, like the sun, was always angry.

  “Sorry, Uncle,” Squid said as he hurried back toward the farmhouse, moving his uncoordinated body as fast as he could. He was a boy who certainly didn’t look his fifteen years. His arms and legs were too thin, his head was too big and his torso too small. The hessian bag shirt he wore hung heavily from his pointed shoulders, barely touching him again until it brushed the tops of his legs. He did have one redeeming feature, though. He was blessed with thick waves of black hair that shone with an almost blue luster. Usually his hair clung to his scalp with grease and sweat, but last night had been monthly bath night and now that it was freshly washed his hair flopped lazily across his forehead.

  Uncle stood on the front step of the farmhouse watching Squid approach. Uncle was a small man too, but not in the way of his nephew. He was short and stocky, a wine barrel with arms and legs. He wore a loose cotton shirt and pants. They were old and worn but still airy and soft compared with Squid’s rough hessian. His face was round beneath his balding brown hair, a dinner plate with the features crammed too close together in the center.

  “You deserve a bloody hidin’, boy,” Uncle said when Squid reached him. “We got market tomorrow.”

  Squid knew this.

  “And a whole paddock to turn before then.”

  Squid also knew this.

  “You’ve got no idea, do you, boy? All these years I raised you and you don’t know the first damned thing about dirt farmin’.”

  Squid had heard this more times than he could remember. As it happened, he knew an awful lot about dirt farming. His uncle never tired of reminding him that it was the most important job in the Territory. If the dirt farmers didn’t provide fertile soil, there would be no food. Dirt farmers were the only thing keeping people living out here. It was as simple as that. Squid mostly knew when Uncle was wrong, but in this he was right. It was no secret that nothing of value would grow in the red dust that spread away from them in every direction. Dirt farmers turned their fields, digging up the darker soil beneath, treating it with fertilizer, and selling it on to the farmers who grew crops. All this so they could survive out here in the middle of the endless red dirt beneath the blisteringly hot sun. It seemed to Squid that if it was so difficult to live out here then maybe they weren’t supposed to be here in the first place.

  The Sisters of Glorious God the Redeemer said the ground had been cursed during the time of the Reckoning, made infertile by God as punishment for the sins of mankind. People were forced to survive on cursed land because of whatever the Ancestors had done, as if the ghouls weren’t sufficient punishment. Squid had never actually seen a ghoul, but he’d heard the stories and sometimes stories were enough.

  “We’ve only got this afternoon to turn the field because you took so long on the wood,” Uncle said.

  “Yes, Uncle,” Squid answered, wondering what his uncle had been doing all morning, though he’d learned long ago that it was best not to ask these sorts of questions.

  “We’ll have to turn the field light now. That’s all we got time for.”

  “But if we turn it light it won’t be very good,” Squid said. “The farmers will complain.”

  “Let ’em complain,” Uncle said. “They can have it hard for a while.”

  “But isn’t that where we get our food from?” Squid asked.

  “Enough, I’ve told you how it’s gonna be.”

  “We could do another treatment of the soil in storage,” Squid said. “We could make it really good quality.”

  “Since when do you run this farm?” Uncle glared at Squid through beady brown eyes. His face seemed to swallow them up like two thumbtacks pressed into the round dough of his face.

  Squid was silent.

  “That’s what I thought,” Uncle said. “I want quantity, not quality. Now go get the horse.”

  The farm had three horses but Squid knew which one Uncle meant. He meant The Horse. Squid hated The Horse and The Horse hated him. He wasn’t really sure why this was, it was just the way it had always been, ever since the day Uncle had led the enormous animal through the farm’s front gate and it had stopped, snorted brutishly and stared at Squid with unwavering eyes.

  “I … um …” Squid started, grabbing at the key around his neck, using his fingers to push it into his palm.

  “Scared of a bloody horse,” Uncle said to no one in particular, and then turned his attention back to Squid. “I should feed you to the ghouls!”

  Uncle used to tell Squid stories of the ghouls. He would say that if Squid didn’t behave he was happy to take him all the way to the ghoul-proof fence, toss him over and leave him to be eaten. If a ghoul bit a person, the person became one of them, a snarling monster without a name. Considering his name was about the only thing Squid had, he didn’t want to lose it.

  Squid rounded the back of the stable behind the farmhouse, ducked under the fence and moved to the large open door. He slipped his head slowly around the corner, peering into the dimness of the stable, and let out a small squeak as he fell backward, landing in the dirt for the second time that afternoon. The Horse was there, right there, as if it had known Squid was coming. The animal looked at him through big brown eyes rimmed with white and snorted loudly, almost as if it were laughing.

  Squid stood, not taking his eyes off the giant beast of burden. He stepped sideways, inching toward where the halter and rope hung from a nail on the wall. He grabbed at them, and when they didn’t come down he hesitantly turned away to unhook them. When he looked back, The Horse was gone.

  Squid looked from side to side. There was only one thing Squid hated more than being face to face with The Horse, and that was not being face to face with The Horse. He walked out of the stable and was, in some small way, relieved to see The Horse standing just around the corner staring at him. Squid took a step toward it. It took one back. Squid stepped again. So did The Horse. This little game continued for fifteen steps.

  “What are you doing?!” Uncle called. “Just get the bloody thing!”

  Squid realized that, as was so often the case, it was either face Uncle or face The Horse. There was no contest. Squid chased The Horse around the dusty paddock for ten minutes before Uncle came over, snatched the rope from Squid’s hand and stalked toward The Horse. He grabbed the animal roughly by the mane and pulled its head down to his level, where he buckled the halter, attached the rope and led it out of the yard.

  “Useless,” he said as he passed Squid.

  Soon Squid and Uncle stood in the second of the farm’s three paddocks under the scorching afternoon sun. Squid dragged the turning plow over, ready to harness it to The Horse. Even though he could feel himself sweating, the sun, hot as a branding iron, lifted the sweat away instantly. The Horse watched Squid as Uncle
attached the harness to the plow. The Horse was blaming him for this, Squid could tell. He looked down, afraid of catching the dark stare of The Horse, when a bag of fertilizer hit him in the face. He looked at Uncle.

  “Follow behind,” Uncle said. “I’ll plow and you fertilize.”

  That’s how it went for the remainder of the afternoon. They worked their way up and down the paddock in the same pattern they always used. Up and back. Up and back. Uncle sat on the plow, whipping The Horse with the long reins, while Squid walked along behind, scattering the small round balls of fertilizer into the half-turned red dirt. He coughed intermittently as the plow lifted the top layer of dust into the air. His hands, coated with the black fertilizer, smelled like a blocked outhouse. He made the mistake more than once of wiping the red dust from his face, leaving the smell lingering under his nose for at least one trip up the paddock. Squid counted the steps: two hundred and twelve up, two hundred and thirty-six back. Uncle wasn’t plowing straight.

  Even as Squid worked, he knew it was pointless. They weren’t turning the field deep enough to get decent soil. You could fertilize the topsoil with all the toilet-smelling black powder you wanted and still nothing would grow in it.

  *

  Uncle was driving the plow over the last unturned dust in the field when the final glimpse of the sun dropped into retirement for the day. Squid could feel the fingers of the night air working their way into his hessian sack. Winter had definitely come early this year; the nights were fast becoming cold. He shivered, goose bumps covering his skin. Here, in the land of permanent suntan, a cold they hadn’t felt in a long time was coming.

  The Horse, after many long hours of work, looked accusingly at Squid as if he had been the one constantly whipping down on the reins. Squid pulled the drawstring closed on the last bag of fertilizer and tossed it on the ground as Uncle dismounted from the plow. Uncle arched his back and let out a long groan, rubbing his backside.

  “Tough afternoon,” he said.

  Squid’s legs ached, but he said nothing.

  “I want to get to market early in the mornin’, Squid,” Uncle said to him, “so we can get a good spot.”

  “We’ll need some advantage,” Squid said.

  “And what are you meaning by that, boy?”

  Uncle pulled his chubby fingers into a fist and Squid slunk back from an anticipated blow.

  “I … I just meant that it’s best to get an advantage over the other sellers. Like you always say,” Squid blurted out. “You’re always right.”

  Uncle’s fist unfurled. “Yes,” he said, “I am. Now, if we’re gonna get away early we need to be ready to load at first light.”

  “Sure,” Squid said, because for once his Uncle’s demands seemed reasonable. It was a bit of a trip into town so it made sense to get loaded up as soon as they could.

  “One paddock of dirt is already barreled up and just needs to be loaded onto the carriage, but this paddock here,” Uncle gestured around, “is still sittin’ on the ground.”

  Squid’s heart sank. Uncle looked at him and smiled, his round cheeks pushing his eyes half-closed.

  “You better get goin’, maggot.”

  There was no moon in the sky that night but the stars were out in all their glory, sprinkles of light clustered around a brilliant white stripe across the sky. Squid looked back over what he could see of the paddock in the colorless light. The field was turned far too lightly. They may as well have spent the whole afternoon kicking the dirt over with their feet. The deeper the turn, the better the dirt, but that meant a slower plow and usually two or three runs. There was no time to fix it now.

  The Horse snorted as it looked at Squid, its front right foot scraping the dirt. Squid wished, not for the first time, that he wasn’t afraid. He wanted to be brave enough to stand up to Uncle, to stand up to The Horse, and especially to stand up to that gate so he could escape and go back to school.

  “You already hate me so I guess I might as well tell you we’re gonna be out here a while longer,” Squid said to The Horse as he removed the plow from the harness, ready to attach the dirt loader. It was designed to run along the ground, the fertilized dirt moving up an old tin chute and into a wooden barrel. Squid dragged the loader over, thankful for the physical work now as the cold night air pressed in on him. His stomach growled its objection; he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. He lifted an empty barrel up onto the platform, tied it down and moved the chute into position. Squid had been through this routine so many times in his life that it was all but automatic. He wondered if he could sleep and still manage to maneuver the equipment around the paddock. Squid stepped forward to grab The Horse’s harness, and the animal took a step away. Squid sighed.

  CHAPTER 2

  Squid awoke to the familiar spray of morning light through the cracks in the walls. He watched the gentle swarms of red dust dance in the streamers of light for a few moments. His head was heavy with an insistent dull ache. He felt like he hadn’t slept at all. It had only been a few hours from dawn when he’d finished collecting the turned dirt and he could barely remember stumbling into the small outhouse he called his bedroom.

  He twisted around, levering himself onto his feet. His mattress, so worn and thin that it was little more than torn material and missing cushion, was doubled over so that it would fit in the cramped space and even Squid, as small as he was, needed to curl up to fit on it. He slipped off his bed clothes, an old fertilizer bag with holes cut for his head and arms, and stretched out his body.

  In the corner of the outhouse was a dark wooden box with patterns carved into the lid, thirty-six leaves in symmetrical spirals that met in the middle. Squid ran his fingers over the smooth rises and falls in the polished wood. He opened the box, taking out his good shirt and pants. Squid had two sets of clothes: the rough hessian he wore around the farm and a cotton shirt and pants for wearing in public, or in the event that Aunt and Uncle ever received visitors, something that had happened twice in the fifteen years he’d lived on the farm. At least if he ever got up the courage to run away it wouldn’t take long to pack.

  Squid picked up the tin cup that sat in the dirt next to his bed. Inside, on a fraying string coiled like a snake, was his key. He lifted it out, letting it dangle in front of his eyes. It was a small thing, really, and different from most keys he’d ever seen before. It had an oval end, about the size of a person’s thumb, green and worn, and then a metal shaft ending in an intricately cut pattern of squares.

  The key had belonged to his mother. Squid had been given it several years ago. He’d begun asking more and more questions about his parents and Uncle had reluctantly agreed to go into the attic and pull down the old basket he’d been delivered in. Squid had seen the key between the folds of the dusty blanket and asked to keep it. Uncle hadn’t cared. As far as he was concerned it was just a piece of junk. But to Squid this key unlocked some tiny proof that his parents had once existed.

  Squid put the key around his neck and pulled on his clothes. He took a moment to inspect himself, then spat on the palm of his hand and rubbed at a mysterious stain on the front of his shirt, making it worse. Hopefully Aunt wouldn’t notice. He kicked the door of the outhouse, not out of anger, just because sometimes it tended to stick, and when he’d got it open he walked toward the farmhouse. He was surprised to see Uncle already by the storage shed loading barrels of dirt onto the wagon. Squid could smell the familiar waft of freshly fertilized soil. In some ways it disgusted him but in other ways it was like a stinky old friend.

  “I thought I told you to get up early,” Uncle said, lifting a barrel onto the wagon.

  “It is early,” Squid replied accurately.

  Uncle looked at him, scratched his nose and turned away. Not even a snap. Not so much as a “shut your mouth” or a “keep talkin’ back and you’ll get a hidin’.” Uncle wrapped his arms around another barrel and groaned with exaggerated effort as he lifted it onto the wagon, dropping it with a thud. The wagon bounced on its twin axle
s.

  “Go inside and get some breakfast,” Uncle said, “then get back out here and help me load these barrels.”

  Squid looked at Uncle. His face was straining. His cramped features seemed to twist around the word that squeezed its way out through his mouth.

  “Please.”

  Squid felt like a horse had kicked him, a horse wearing giant feather slippers. The only time Uncle ever said please was at the market. If a farmer approached them asking for some barrels of dirt Uncle would turn to Squid and say: “Fetch the good man his dirt.” Then Uncle would smile, and with a little glint in his eye he would add, “Only the finest for him please.”

  Squid knew those pleases weren’t for him, but this please, this one just now, could only have been meant for him. Squid turned quickly, just to be certain there was no one else around. Uncle’s face was taut, as if the word had tasted bitter on his tongue.

  “Hurry up then.”

  Perplexed, Squid walked into the farmhouse. The faint clicking of dancing knitting needles was coming from the corner. Aunt looked up at him. Her hair was a tangle of black streaked with more than a little distinguished gray. Her features were fine, she may even have been attractive once, but now her skin looked as though she had spent too long in the bath.

  Not for the first time, Squid wondered why she always knitted. The days rarely got cold enough for Uncle to wear the patterned woolen jumpers she made.

  “Your breakfast is on the counter,” she said.

  Aunt never had breakfast ready for him but, nonetheless, there on the thick wooden counter was a chipped dinner plate. He pushed it experimentally with his finger; it seemed real. There were two boiled potatoes on the side of the plate and lying teasingly next to them was a slice of what Squid was certain was Uncle’s honeyed ham. He looked back at Aunt.