Transcontinental

by Brad Cook

  “Soon as you’re finished eating, it’s lights out.”

  “The sun just went down,” Leroy said more to himself than anything.

  “What was that?” Gerald asked.

  He clammed up.

  “What did you say?” Gerald demanded.

  Leroy looked to Ant, who stared back as if to say ‘Go ahead. Tell him.’

  “I said the sun just went down. I’m not tired yet.”

  “Boy, why the hell you think the sun sets at all? Hm?”

  “Watch your tone,” Ant warned him.

  “Or what?” Gerald snarled.

  “There is no alternative.”

  “I’ve been trained in hand-to-hand combat by the U.S. Military. Just try me.”

  “And I grew up in a war-torn Lebanon. I despise conflict, and do not wish to engage in it. However, my people lacked your tanks, technology, resources. You may have been taught hand-to-hand tactics, but I used them for my very survival,” Ant growled. “I assure you, there is a difference.”

  His eye twitching, Gerald seethed. “Lights out after you finish eating.”

  At that point Leroy vowed not to speak a word to the insane person, if at all. Sleeping was a good idea, now that he thought about it. He glanced around and saw Eddy and Maggie, both out cold already. It was hard imagine how anyone could sleep through Gerald’s sandpaper voice, especially when it was barely even night yet.

  Gerald noticed them sleeping, too. “See what I mean?”

  A silent minute later, their chili began to bubble out over the lid. Leroy reached out to grab it, but Ant seized his hand first.

  “Grab from the top. It is very hot.”

  He did. It was. He managed to set it down in front of him, fingertips ablaze. Beside him, Ant held out a spoon.

  “I have only one. You first.”

  “Thanks.” He took it, smiling meekly. “I’ma let it cool this time.”

  * * *

  The crinkling was driving Leroy insane.

  What seemed like hours ago, Ant had laid out a tarp for them to sleep on, but every time Leroy made the tiniest movement it was advertised for any and all to hear. Naturally, Ant had no problem falling—and staying—asleep. He seemed to approach everything with confidence and accomplish it with ease. Leroy wished he knew the secret.

  He was the only one awake. He laid on his right side, which he usually slept on, but even that didn’t feel right. Nothing felt right. Not a damn thing. He hated this jungle, hated the people in it, and couldn’t wait to leave.

  An astonishing number of mosquitos flitted around without a fire to repel them, made worse by the fact that every time he swatted at them the stupid tarp crinkled like a bag of potato chips. He bristled in the darkness.

  The sound of a train horn rang only in his ears. Forget sleeping, he wanted to catch out right then. He’d probably sleep better in a boxcar, anyway.

  Leroy imagined the sound of a train rushing down the tracks, the rhythmic clacking and thunking, the subtle jerkiness of the ride, and for the first time that night his eyelids grew heavy. His thoughts turned from sentences to words to images to feelings, until his consciousness slipped over the edge of reality and into an unthinking void.

  As he was dozing off, a rustling dragged him back to wakefulness. He felt like ripping that tarp out from underneath them and tossing it into the fire, until he realized that Gerald had put the fire out hours ago, and the tarp wasn’t the source of the rustling. He opened his eyes, but the tree canopy blocked out what little light the slim crescent moon bestowed.

  Leroy listened hard. It sounded like slow, careful footsteps. Probably somebody had to pee, he figured. Wonderful timing. He shut his eyes and tried to lose himself again in the soothing racket of a nonexistent locomotive.

  The footsteps stopped and a zipper, opened hesitantly, sounded over the din of the insects. Just as he’d suspected. He wished whoever it was would step further away, though; it sounded as if the pee-er was right next to him.

  Instead of a stream splashing the ground, though, he heard the jangly echo of keys shaking inside something metallic, maybe a can, followed by an audible scuffle. A man grunted as he was slammed to the ground, then groaned amid the sickening thud of punches being thrown.

  Leroy didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t see anything, and even if he could he didn’t want to get in the middle of a fight. Not with a crazy knife-wielding veteran hanging around. He considered calling out, but around him the others began to wake.

  The punches stopped, but the breathy groaning lingered, which turned to desperate shrieking and thrashing. It sent a chill through Leroy.

  “You’re only making it worse,” Gerald thundered in the dark.

  “Eddy!” Maggie screamed, apparently recognizing the voice of the victim.

  The tarp crinkled beside Leroy as Ant moved, and after a soft click the beam of a flashlight illuminated a patch of darkness. It located the source of the commotion and found Gerald straddling Eddy, hunched over his face with the bayonet knife pinched between two fingers, almost how Leroy held a pen.

  The light jostled wildly as Ant dropped it and dove toward Gerald, causing a chaotic blackout. Leroy scrambled for the flashlight as a third voice entered the guttural symphony. Picking it up, he frenziedly scanned the grounds for Ant, landing on a scene opposite what he’d witnessed a few seconds earlier. Ant had Gerald pinned to the ground, his own knife pressed against his neck.

  “Are you finished?” Ant roared at him.

  “Matter of fact I am.”

  The eerie calm in Gerald’s voice was terrifying to Leroy. He crept backward, away from the skirmish and the unhinged military man.

  Releasing him, Ant kept the knife and picked up Gerald’s open bag. “I will be holding on to your possessions for a while.”

  “Junkie bastard was stealing from me, just like I thought,” Gerald exclaimed as he picked himself up, breathing hard.

  Eddy moaned again, and Leroy shined the light his way as Maggie consoled him. Leroy noticed two trickles of blood trailing down Eddy’s nose, and brought the light to his face. On his forehead, Gerald had carved a crude ‘H’. Maggie screeched when she saw it. “What did you do?!”

  “Call it a favor,” Gerald said, propped up at the waist in the dirt. “Now everyone will know he’s a thieving hijacker.”

  “What did you do?!” Maggie repeated, wiping away the blood running down his face with her bare hand and inspecting the wound.

  “He did it to himself when he stole my property!” Gerald hissed.

  “What did he take?” Ant demanded.

  Leroy shined the flashlight back and forth between the two.

  “Doesn’t matter what he took, point is—”

  “Tell me now.”

  “Considering you’ve commandeered my bag, I don’t rightly know,” he admitted brusquely. “But if I had to guess, I’d say my purple heart.”

  Ant turned to Eddy. “Is this true?”

  Eddy winced as he grazed his forehead with his fingertips.

  “Of course it ain’t true,” Maggie said.

  “Eddy?” Ant said.

  “You ain’t gotta answer nothin’,” she told him.

  “Yeah, alright, I took it,” said Eddy.

  Maggie covered her face as she shook her head. “Loud-mouthed jackass.”

  “It was a bad call from the get-go, Mag. A man’s service to his country is nothing to tamper with.” He turned to the others. “Look, I messed up. But a man’s gotta provide. Don’t he? I gotta provide,” he reasoned.

  “Provide what, you junkie bastard? Smack?” Gerald chortled. “The joke’s on you, Jack. A purple heart is worth nothing more than simple sentimental value, a concept you clearly know are not familiar with.”

  “That is not how a man provides,” Ant insisted. Then he turned to Gerald. “Did it warrant scarring him for life, though? Really?”

  “He should feel lucky I let him keep his life.”

  “This is not Vietnam. Ther
e are rules.”

  “Like ‘do not steal?’”

  “And ‘do not harm others.’ You are just as guilty as he is.”

  “Long as we’ve established he’s guilty, I’m content.”

  “By responding to a petty crime with a more serious crime, you have elevated your own guilt beyond his,” Ant accused.

  Gerald glanced at Eddy. “I’ll have it back, now.”

  Eddy reached into his pocket, then hesitated. “Could you spare—”

  “Nothing for a punk like you,” Gerald sneered.

  Ant interjected. “You are both acting like children.”

  Eddy pulled the medal out of his pocket and examined it in his palm.

  “Give me my heart!”

  “No. Hand it to me,” Ant commanded.

  “Know what, I’ll let you two figure it out.” He tossed the purple heart at the ground between them. Gerald dove for it, but Ant was too quick; he flicked out his foot and bounced the medal into the air, then caught it with ease.

  Leroy put the light on his face. “Football,” Ant shrugged. He held the purple heart out to Gerald. “Allow me to put this back for you.” Ant rummaged through the bag until he found the presentation case. “Leroy, shine it this way.” As he opened the case, a folded paper tumbled out.

  “You have no right to meddle with my property! Put it back!”

  Ant held up the knife to keep Gerald at bay, unfolded the paper with the other hand. Reading from it, he said, “Lieutenant Colonel Timothy L. Donovan. Republic of Korea, nineteen fifty-two.” Ant looked up at Gerald. “Funny, you look a little young to have served in Korea.” He placed the contents back in the case and zipped the bag shut.

  “He was—”

  “It does not matter who he was. Not to me, at least. Now, you are going to sit right there,” Ant pointed, “until daybreak, at which time I will return your possessions and you will depart this jungle.”

  “Phony old asshole,” Maggie squawked.

  “The same goes for you two. When the sun rises, you are gone,” Ant said.

  “Like hell we are,” Eddy said.

  “Must I remind you that you initiated this conflict? Now sleep. Or go. I do not care which. But nary an impolite word shall be spoken before morning.”

  Ant grabbed Gerald’s bag and set it behind him, then pulled a lighter out of his own and stuck it into the pit. The leftover kindling smoldered until the larger pieces of wood finally caught, the flames gradually enabling sight.

  “You’re just inviting unwanted attention,” Gerald snapped.

  “Good. Perhaps they will apprehend you for assault.” A few feet further out from the group Ant sat against a tree, each leg covering a bag.

  Overwhelmed by the situation, Leroy laid back down on the tarp. The violence seemed to shut part of him down, just like when Woods had threatened him with the gun. He couldn’t think, couldn’t speak, he could hardly react. All he wanted was to curl up and sleep.

  “Perhaps you would like to utilize Gerald’s sleeping bag, Leroy, as you do not seem fond of the tarp. I doubt he would mind, right Gerald?”

  “Be my guest,” Gerald answered with salt in his voice.

  Leroy felt awkward slipping into the sleeping bag, but if he wanted to get any sleep, he knew it was his best chance. He twisted onto his right side, rested his head on his hands, and shut down.

  Sitting where Ant had pointed earlier, Gerald glowered.

  Ant smiled at him. “Pleasant dreams.”

  * * *

  Leroy was surprised when he awakened. Not because he awoke to Ant’s eyes boring into him, or because he and Ant were the only two left in the jungle, but because it meant he had slept. He sure didn’t feel like he had. His head throbbed, and there was a strange pain in his spine.

  In the same spot he’d assumed last night, Ant looked worse than Leroy.

  “You get any sleep?”

  “That would defeat the purpose of supervising.”

  “How’d you get them to leave?”

  Ant shouldered his bag. “We need to leave, too.”

  As always, Ant led, and Leroy followed.

  “How long ago did everyone leave?”

  “Approximately two hours.”

  “You could’a slept that whole time.”

  “It would not have been safe,” Ant admonished. “We do not know what Gerald is capable of, even relieved of his knife.”

  “Wait, you kept his knife?” Leroy was again astounded by Ant’s boldness, which he lamented his lack of. “How the hell’d you pull that off?”

  “Gerald is a military man, he knows when he is defeated. Without his knife, he lacked the leverage to make requests, let alone demands.” Ant slipped the knife out of his waistband. “A fine souvenir, really.”

  “So you threatened him with his own knife.”

  “I had no intention of using it.”

  “Isn’t that bad? Like, you stooped to his level?”

  “I was keeping the peace. One must have leverage to do so.”

  “Leverage. Right. And what if he had another weapon?”

  “I rummaged through his bag. There was none.”

  “Could’a had one in a pocket. Or in his waistband.”

  “Evidently, he did not.”

  “What if he did, though? He could’a had a gun. Could’a shot you.”

  “What was my alternative? Let him carve Eddy like a turkey?”

  “We should’a just ran. You made an enemy.”

  “Somebody had to stop him. I did.”

  “One day you’re gonna hit a brick wall, someone you can’t stop.”

  “And on that day, I will rest easy with a clean conscience.”

  “I thought jungles were safe. Everyone’s a friend in the jungle, you said.”

  “Regrettably, the rules I spoke of are from another, more decent era, increasingly separated from the modern age.” Ant slowed to let Leroy catch up. “Last night was a fluke. It was a poisoned atmosphere. Ultimately, I blame myself. I should have taken us elsewhere as soon as Gerald raised his knife.”

  “He cut up that man’s head,” Leroy uttered, avoiding the lumpy roots of the smaller palmetto bushes. “What kinda psycho does that?”

  “To be fair, Eddy did steal from him.”

  “You’re defending him?”

  “I could never. The bastard slept like a baby last night,” Ant said through gritted teeth. “I am saying Gerald had every right to hold Eddy accountable for what he did. However, instead of justice, Gerald sought vengeance.” Ant hiked onward. “There is nothing to gain from vengeance. Trust me.”

  “So what about Eddy? You think Gerald will get him?”

  “I doubt it. I gave he and Maggie a half hour head start before I returned Gerald’s possessions. He would be a fool to pursue them.”

  As they passed through the last of the palmetto brush, the tail end of a train pulled away from the undersized station, horn blaring.

  “You think that was ours?” Leroy asked.

  “That train was southbound, which is where we came from. Best case scenario we want northeast, but north or east will work.”

  The prospect of waiting hours potentially for another train ride that would take hours longer made Leroy weary to his bones and sapped his motivation. “Why’d we leave the jungle if we gotta wait more? At least it was shady,” he whined.

  Turning back, Ant said “You ask a lot of questions, you know that?”

  Funny, he’d never heard that before. He supposed he had come out of his shell around Ant. “Sorry. There’s things I gotta know, so I ask.”

  “Frustrating as it may be to those around you, curiosity is a beneficial quality,” Ant said. “We left because a train pulled onto the northbound tracks beyond the station shortly before you awakened.”

  Ant led Leroy through the station to a vending machine where he purchased three packets of powdered donuts with change, offering one to Leroy, who turned it down on the basis that they were dry and plain. Tearing
the plastic and popping a donut into his mouth, Ant approached an idle crewman.

  “Excuse me,” Ant said through crumbs, swallowing hard. “Do you know where the northbound train is headed?”

  “Just up to Fallon,” the man said curtly.

  Ant clapped his hands together, startling the crewman. “Beautiful! That route passes right through Reno.” Holding the door open for Leroy, he said “I am convinced you are good luck. I have never caught out with such ease.”

  Leroy didn’t know whether to say ‘thank you’ or deny the compliment, because it didn’t ring true for him. Still, he grinned.

  Chapter 5

  Reno, NV

  One of them had to stay awake and look for the sign.

  It wouldn’t have been fair to ask Ant to do it after he’d spent the night playing sheriff. Still, it’d taken effort not to. Leroy ached, mind, body, and soul, as he clung to the side wall of the empty gondola, watching Ant doze at the bottom, jealous of his dreaming. He slept flat on his back, arms sprawled. Leroy could never sleep like that.

  Before passing out, Ant had ordered Leroy to keep an eye out for the road sign upon crossing into Nevada; which could be a challenge, he’d claimed, because the sign sat atop an embankment nearer the highway than the tracks, although the warm hues of the painted sunset should be distinguishable from the earthy sand and pine backdrop.

  So for an indeterminable length of time he’d sat clinging to the wall, craning his head in observance. To add to the list of ailments afflicting him, a sore stiffness had developed in his neck and shoulder from the awkward position. He was on the cusp of waking Ant and asking him if he knew where the hell they were, when flashes of red between trees caught his eye. Focusing, he saw the sunset Ant had spoken of, as well as a lone prospector with a pickaxe, surveying the land before him. In that moment, Leroy felt like the prospector. He’d come from afar on the off chance that he might find gold in these hills. Welcome to Nevada, indeed.

  * * *

  Standing on the strip, Leroy was overwhelmed, gawking at the playful cityscape surrounding him. It wasn’t until that moment, as he absorbed the curves and textures and lines and shapes, that he realized buildings could be beautiful, not just practical. The best ones, he realized, were probably both. He wondered if he could design a building, lines intersecting and shapes falling into place in his imagination, but he quickly put it out of his mind.