by Rob Buckman
"No chance. We’re about twenty-five feet underground now. I've tried and there is no way you can see anything." His voice sounded very tired and Kat suspected he was running on nerves and nothing else. In a surprisingly short time, the cave became warm and the water started to bubble. Mike pulled instant coffee, powdered milk, and sugar out of a box, handing them to her.
"You'll find mugs and spoons in the other box.”
"Are there any clothes around this place?" She asked, shivering with cold.
"Look in one of the boxes. You'll find everything you need." Kat handed him a steaming mug, but before she could drink it, he opened one of his bags and pulled out a flask.
"Here, you need a drop of this in it." He poured a liberal amount of brandy into their mugs, toasting her before drinking.
Normally, Kat didn't drink brandy, but right now, it was the perfect thing to warm her up. Mike lay back after finishing his, trying to regain some strength, his eyes closed. He opened them as Kat took off the fur coat. Dropping it on the floor and standing on it. The fire and lamp light played over the curves of her body with shadow and light, turning it into a symphony in motion, her high breasts standing proud. The rose colored nipples hardening as he watched. She turned to face him, almost as if she knew he was watching and blew him a kiss. She felt unashamed before his adoring eyes, finding that she wanted him to look, to see all of her. The feeling it gave her inside was exciting and scary, like the time she'd worn a very small bikini to a pool party. Unlike her friends, she'd never dared take hers off. Partly, because she was a little shy, but mostly because she didn't want all the guys looking at her. Now she did, or at least one guy, Mike. Her first act, was to cut the collar off, being careful not to cut herself in the process and then throwing it into the corner.
"Shouldn't have done that!" he said sleepily.
"Why not?" she asked. "That bastard Hawkins forced it on me."
"On you it looked good," he said with a chuckle, his voice sounded fuzzy and distant. "It should have been made out of gold though. I like it..." His voice became soft, trailing off.
She looked at him in surprise, but he'd fallen asleep, exhaustion catching up with him finally. She found everything she needed in the boxes, and being almost Mike's size, the fit wasn't too bad. She dressed from the skin out, from thermal long-johns to boots. That done she went over and looked at Mike. He was a mess and so were his clothes. Checking first to see that there was extra clothing for him, she went back and began cutting his clothes off. There was no way she could undress him. Five minutes later, he was stripped naked and she was carefully washing his wounds, both were inflamed and swollen. They didn't look as if they were infected but she used liberal amounts of antibiotic on them before placing a fresh dressing over each. Sitting back, she looked at him, really seeing him for the first time, liking what she saw. Getting more hot water, she prepared to bath him from head to foot, but being a virgin did have its draw backs. Never in her life had she seen a grown man naked. So it was with both fear and excitement that she performed the task of washing him. She was able to look at every inch of his body without being coy or pretending she wasn't looking. Finishing, she covered him with a soft warm blanket and sat back considering what to do next. She found her thoughts going back, again and again to his body. Finding that she liked washing him, wishing she could do it again when he was awake. She had some idea where that would lead and wondering what it would be like to be held in those strong arms. To feel his hands running down her body, exploring where they wanted to... She pushed the thought away, biting her lip, concentrating on something else. Food, she thought. That reminded her that she was starving. Diving back into the boxes, she came up with rations, plus canned dog food. Mike had planned for everything. Feeding the wolves was easy. Open can, plop, mash and serve, neither Max nor Maxine being picky eaters. Next, she prepared a meal and ate it, following it up with a cup of coffee. It didn't take long for the food, coffee, brandy, and warm fire to go to work, finding herself nodding off. With only one bed, her choices were limited. It didn't take long before she made up her mind. Stripping down to her long johns, she crawled under the blankets with him. Cuddling up, she placed her arm around him as he rolled over against the wall. It wasn't long before she found that she was getting too warm, and feeling a little daring she stripped off the long johns, snuggling up against him again. He tossed and turned through the night; fading in and out of consciousness as the fever came, feeling cool hands bathing his body.
* * * * * *
Mike’s mind drifted in the gray twilight between sleep and awake. Disjointed bits of memory floated to the surface of his mind, vague and indistinct, others sharp and biting. He followed one back to where it had come from, remembering the smell of dust and the hot sun.
The old ‘Trailways’ buss jerked to a stop with a hiss of air brakes and a cloud of gray dust and for a moment Mike wondered why it had stopped here. The view outside the dusty window looked no different than it had for the last hundred miles or so. Flat gray desert stretched to the distant mountains, only half-seen through the summer heat waves and the haze: sagebrush, cactus, Joshua trees, and rocks, interspaced with old gullies that seemed to wander aimlessly through this parched land.
“Period!” The driver called as he looked over his shoulder.
It took a moment for Mike to realize that the driver was looking directly at him, and this was where he was supposed to get off. His heart sank. This was even worse than he’d expected. From the moment he’d got on the aircraft at London airport until now, and the agent had put him on the bus, he’d dreaded this moment, unknown fears threading their way through his mind. Without knowing what to expect, he’d imagined all sort of things, yet none of them came close to this. Reluctantly he grabbed his duffle and exited the bus, hearing the door hiss shut behind him. The bus rumbled off down the black asphalt in a cloud of dust and diesel smoke, quickly vanishing into the haze as if had never been. Mike took a long shaky breath, wishing he could go home again, but where was home now? His relations in England didn’t want him. To them he was an embarrassment, something to be kept out of sight, like an idiot child. Sometimes he felt torn between love and hate for his parents. Hate for them being killed in the car crash and leaving him to the tender mercies of his relations, and love for who they were and how much they had loved him. How much different his life would have been had they lived now that he’d finished school. He hadn’t minded being slightly different, half enjoying the notoriety of being part Apache. It gave him an odd standing with his friends, and his dark look did help where girls were concerned. That was another source of envy and maybe resentment with his school friends, as he had no trouble getting dates and discovering the intimacies of courtship. The fact that he got laid more times than anyone in school put him in a class by himself. Not that it mattered in the end. He could see the relief in their faces when he said his last goodbye but at least he wouldn’t have to hear the snide comments and the muttered ‘half-breed’ any more.
Dropping his duffle, he wiped sweat off his face and looked around. Nothing had changed. The oven hot desert still stretched to the horizon, all gray and brown, interspersed with black, sun-blasted piles of rock. The only thing to catch his eye was a dust devil wandering across the landscape. With nothing better to do, he sat down on his duffle and watched it, marveling at the structure of this miniature tornado as it danced away. An hour passed, and panting for breath in the hot still air, he tried to find shade behind a Joshua tree with little success. Thirst and dust turned his throat raw. He wished he’d picked up a couple of bottles of water at the last rest stop, not that he thought he’d be stuck out in the middle of a desert in the midday sun for hours on end not knowing where he was suppose to go. The trip from London’s Heathrow airport to New York, and then on to this was the last thing he expected, yet what had he expected? When his aunt informed him that he’d be going to live with his father’s parents in America at the end of school, his heart had jumped for joy.
He was going to see America, something he’d only read about in books and seen in movies. So far, he wasn’t impressed. Stories and movies of the old west never really caught the heat, dust or the drabness. Just when he thought this was the wrong place to get off the bus, and that he was about to die of thirst, he heard something. Mike struggled to his feet and, looking in the direction of the sound, saw a cloud of dust rushing toward him. This resolved itself into a rusty old pickup truck that pulled up beside him. For a moment, he couldn’t see a thing as the dust cloud caught up with the truck and settled over him. Coughing and waving his hand, he peered through the thinning cloud to see the driver, finding an old Indian wearing a flat brim hat looking at him from cold black eyes. Even as old as he looked, his long hair was as black as his eyes. For a moment, Mike remembered his mother’s hair, so long and just as black.
“Get in,” the old man called.
“Hello, sir… I’m Michael, Michael Grainger…” The old man just looked out through the windshield.
“Get in,” he said again.
“So much for a polite greeting.” Mike muttered to himself as he opened the rusting door. The hinges squealed in protest as he pulled the door open, then stuck half way due to a dent in the bodywork.
The moment he sat down, the old man gunned the engine and let out the clutch, slamming Mike back into the seat even before he got the door closed. It wrapped him on the knuckles instead as it closed by itself, and Mike swore. The old man handed him a cloth-covered canteen, and Mike eagerly sucked down half the contents before coming up for air. The old man just smiled slightly.
“Make sure you stick your head out the window when you throw up. Otherwise you clean the cab.” Mike shot him a look, just before he felt his stomach heave and threw up, only just managed to get his head out the window in time.
“Sip,” was the only thing the old man said. They drove in silence after that and he did what he was told and sipped the remaining water. They drove for an hour, gradually climbing into the hills where at least it was a little cooler. After negotiating a rough dirt track, they rounded a shoulder of the hill and pulled into the driveway of a single story ‘ranch’ style house. For some added reason only known to the old man, the roof of the house was covered with sand, gravel and rocks of one size or another. The outside didn’t give Mike much hope there’d be anything remotely resembling air-conditioning. He was right, but surprised to find the inside of the house clean and comfortable with solid rustic furniture and colorful rugs on the floor. Hides of one sort or another adorned the walls with a few antlers between them. These weren’t just for decoration and the old man hung his hat on one set by the door, while two others had weapons on them.
“Dagot’ee, Michael. Welcome home.” A dark skinned older woman greeted him. “You can call me Nana.”
“Hello, Nana.” Mike held his hand out, but instead of shaking hands, the woman gathered him in her arms and hugged him. For a moment, Mike felt uncomfortable, as hugging wasn’t something done a lot in England, except between very close friends. For a moment loneliness and the loss of his parents swept over him, and he returned the hug.
The woman showed him to his room, chatting away as she helped him unpack, asking him this and that, and generally making him feel welcome. Dinner was simple, steak and eggs with fried potatoes on the side, and it wasn’t long afterwards he was sound asleep, exhausted from his long trip.
“Too white.” The old man said looking in the door of the bedroom as his wife pulled the covers up over the sleeping boy.
“Be kind Papa. He’s just a kid, and he is your grandson.”
“True, but I don’t know his heart.”
* * * * * *
Mike awoke with a slight headache, wondering where he was. He should be in bed at his grandfather’s house but he wasn’t. He looked around and shivered. All he could see was scrub colored desert in every direction in the early morning sun. He shivered again, partly from fear, partly due to the dawn chill and the fact he was naked. Sitting up, he drew his knees up and wrapped his arms around his legs to try and get warm, a slight sob escaping his lips. This had to be another cruel joke by the young men on the reservation. It wasn’t good enough to beat the crap out of him every time he was in town and then steal his wallet, sneakers and jacket, or whatever else he had on him at the time. This went beyond that to something deadly. Even so, he noticed a pile of clothes on the ground beside him, finding a pair of leather pants, knee high leather boots, a rough cotton shirt and a leather jerkin. He dressed quickly to ward off the chill, finding a belt with a bowie knife, a small canteen of water and a leather pouch. This contained a large strip of cloth, several feet of rawhide and two odd looking rocks wrapped in a piece of tanned leather, none of which made any sense to him. He had no idea what he was supposed to do with these things, but hung the bag over his shoulder by the strap. He looked around again in the strengthening light to see if he could see anything familiar but other than some low, rocky hills nearby, nothing stood out. The hills gave him an idea and he stood and headed towards them. From the top, he might be able to see something, or at least in which direction to head. Even after his few years in the boy scouts, nothing he’d learned prepared him for this. He was alone in the middle of nowhere with just a small canteen of water. In the hundred and twenty degree heat, that wouldn’t last long. That meant he’d have to find water soon, or he’d die. Surely his grandfather would come looking for him once it was discovered he was missing. That didn’t explain how whoever it was had gotten him out of the house without his grandfather knowing, or how they’d drugged him, as that must be what it was, otherwise he would have woken up when they moved him, let alone stripped him naked. Climbing the steep slope was harder than it looked, as in places, he’d climb three steps up and slip back two. It wasn’t long before he was panting for breath and desperate for a drink of water. A short rest cured one, and he managed to resist the other until he reached the top.
He topped out on a ridge and his heart sank. The view wasn’t much better than down below, just more hills, sage brush and rocks, sun-blasted black from the heat. A sip of water didn’t do much for his thirst except wet his mouth, but he dared not drink any more. With a sigh that was more of a sob, he started along the ridge line looking for anything that would help. By now, the sun was well above the horizon and pouring its daily quota of heat on the barren landscape. By noon, he had to stop as the heat was getting too intense and he was panting for breath. Finding a bit of shade behind a rock outcropping, he treated himself to another mouthful of water before settling down to wait out the sun. For a while, he dozed, only waking long enough to move into the shade as the sun passed over its zenith and found him again. Walking to nowhere in this heat was insane so he didn’t bother, but as the sun went down he decided to move. It was still hot, and the light breeze felt like he was standing in the doorway of an open blast furnace. A few miles further on, he looked down into a canyon, seeing an old water course. That could mean there was water somewhere nearby; it didn’t look promising. It didn’t help as he couldn’t find a way down the steep sides of the hills, and as darkness fell his only option was to hunker down under an overhanging rock and wait for dawn. He did take the precaution of sweeping out the ground with a stick in case a rattle snake had taken up residence before him. Nothing jumped or slithered out, and scooping a shallow pit, he tried to make himself comfortable. He’d read that it gets cold in the desert at night. Something to do with no vegetation to hold the heat, not that he cared what the reason. As the temperature dropped, he dug deeper until he hit rock then lay in the pit and covered himself with the sand. That helped but he wasn’t exactly warm. True night fell and the sky blazed with stars over his head but he had no appreciation for the beauty and, feeling sorry for himself, he cried himself to sleep. His thirst was worse in the morning, even with the chill still in the air, and he took one long drink. That done he searched for a way down into the narrow canyon, hoping it would be cooler down there out of the sun.
As the canyon ran north to south by the position of the rising sun, the bottom would only be exposed to the direct rays for about three to four hours at the most. He left skin in several places on his climb down, almost falling a couple of times, but at last, he made it. For a while, he sat in the shade and tried not to think about taking another drink, but it was hard. The canyon didn’t seem to offer much in the way of encouragement, but he felt it would be better to go up the old stream bed than down. For a while, it was cooler down here but as the day dragged on the heat rose. While he walked, following the twists and turns between the canyon walls, something buzzed by him. The first few times he didn’t really notice, but after several insects flew by, he stopped and took notice. A quick swat, and one of them fell to the ground and he saw it was a bee. It walked around in a circle for a moment before taking off and following the others up the canyon.
His forehead pulled into a puzzled frown as he tried to think about the significance of the bees. He knew he’d read something about that somewhere but for a while he couldn’t place it. Then he did, Louis L'Amour. He remembered reading about bees in one of his westerns and that they built their nest near water. If bees were here, then water had to be nearby. Much encouraged, Mike speeded up but much to his dismay, the canyon narrowed even further and the old river bed started climbing up into the hills. In some places it was a tight squeeze to get through, or crawl on his hands, knees and belly to continue, as unlike the bees he couldn’t fly over. In the end, he managed to climb the last steep part in a series of giant steps, and topped out on a mesa, laughing as he did. One look and he drained the canteen, his worries about water over. Before him lay a small grass and tree covered meadow with a small lake at the center, what his grandfather called a ‘tank’. Somewhat refreshed, Mike walked around the top of the Mesa, which covered about half an acre of fairly flat ground with the tank at the center. He discovered that someone had lived up here in the past from the look of what remained of a wickiup, an old camp fire and some clay pots, and evidence that whoever it was had grown corn and squash. That brought up the question of food and how hungry he was. Other that the few strips of beef jerky in the pouch, there was nothing else to eat. He slaked his thirst at the tank and continued exploring around the lake. This was only a hundred feet across but looked deep in the center. Rabbit tracks and droppings along with those of birds and what was clearly a snake made him view the place a little differently. With a full canteen, he could only travel about one or two days at the most from this place, and then he had to know where he was going. Just taking off and walking was tantamount to a death sentence. What he could do was travel for a day in one direction and scout the land. If there was nothing there, he could then make it back with the water he had left. It was a plan, but it depended on him finding something to eat. The rabbit track gave him an idea, but he didn’t want to end up like Elmer Fudd chasing Bugs Bunny all over the Mesa.