The Wanderers

by Kate Ormand

  “Sure. We always do,” he retorted sardonically. “Until the day we don’t.”

  As they traveled that night, they found no waterholes and no desert wardens.

  At dawn, Hawkerman called Kean to the front of the trailer and walked with him a little way. Their throats were being sandpapered raw by lack of water, and it was hard to talk.

  “See out there?” Hawkerman croaked. “Sand. I steered us wrong.”

  “Yeah. Do we rest up? There’s no strength left in the team.”

  “One hot day lying around and maybe we’d find it hard to move again. That’s what happens. You try to rouse yourself, and you don’t quite make it. So you lie there. You’re still lying there same time next year.”

  “Where do we go? We can’t go into the sand, and we know what’s behind us. Nothing.”

  “Maybe. Think this way: in one direction, there will be water. We’ll take a couple of hours here. I need to think.”

  For some reason, Essa was cheerful. Kean put it down to dehydration: temporary madness, like in a greenback. “Why are we stopping?” she asked with a kind of gaiety.

  “It’s not for long.”

  “What about getting water?”

  “We have to rest up and get what strength we can. We might have one more day in us. We better had.”

  “I thought we were going on to get water. I was looking forward to it.”

  “You calm down. I’ll do your jobs for you, if you want. You’re burning up, and it isn’t even light yet.”

  “But we have to keep going! There’s water!”

  “Where is there water?” he asked patiently.

  “Out there. I was looking forward to it. I’m so thirsty.”

  She was pointing dead ahead, to where the color of the ground faded to yellow.

  Kean shook his head. “That’s sand. You’re still new to this.” Then he added, because he liked her so much, “I’m sorry we didn’t do better by you.”

  “There’s water out there.” She stated it as plain fact. Kean made his way back to Hawkerman.

  “Essa says there’s water. Out in the sands.”

  “What would she know about it.”

  “I think she might know something. She has this feeling.”

  “She’s ignorant about being a Wanderer. You like her, so you let yourself be persuaded.”

  “I heard it in her voice,” Kean persisted. “Look—it depends how bad you think our circumstances are.”

  Hawkerman gave him a long stare. “They’re bad.”

  Kean said, “Bad enough to look for water in the sand?”

  They stood there together, silent, in the Wanderer way.

  Hawkerman turned to the rest of the team. He called, “Pick up the trailer. We’re moving on.”

  Three hours later, well into the morning, well into the sand, they were near collapse. Essa staggered along at the front of the trailer, leading them. Optimism had died long ago. There was nothing to do but move on till they fell and could move no more.

  Then there was something different on the blank horizon. Kean saw it first, with that famed eyesight of his.

  A little later he said, “Desert wardens.”

  It was. A low-lying stand of the cacti growing in the barren landscape where they shouldn’t be, young and tender. The team gathered the last reserves of their strength and hauled the trailer all the long way to the carriers of life.

  When the first water had been extracted and drunk in careful quantity, Hawkerman went to Essa. He cautioned her gently, “Not too much. Not too fast.”

  She felt his hand on her shoulder.

  He said, “I do believe we have ourselves a Waterboy.”

  It confused Kean. He had felt protective about Essa, and now she had respect of a kind he had always wished for himself. For there was no doubt she was a Waterboy. She had the gift. Hawkerman had set her a series of tests, letting her guide the team when water began to run short, and she led them to it every time, often across great distances. They were all empowered by the talent she had; with water no longer a problem, they were a truly great team, invulnerable.

  She asked herself why and how, and found no answers. It was an affinity she had with the essential element, and that was all you could say about it.

  Not only did they find the cache, but ten days before that, they came to the place where Wailing Joe had had his narrow escape from the Long Ones. Smoke was used to drive out more of the snakes who had gathered and some serious excavations were made. There was another of those peculiar long skis down there, and some coiled steel springs, as well as more common bits and pieces.

  The famous cache itself was a work of many days and nights. As they dug deeper, it became plain that the encampment that had stood there when the climate had been more temperate had been a fairly sizeable one. The yearly Seasons had buried it so deep there was no calculating how many years it could be mined profitably. On this visit, plastic panels were the articles Hawkerman most desired, the larger the better. Packing the trailer became a finely judged exercise, and he resolved to rebury the single awkwardly shaped ski and unearth it again on another visit.

  Kean said, “I want that.” He hardly knew it till he said it.

  Hawkerman grunted, “You’ve earned it, Kean,” and repacked the trailer again without further questions.

  That night was a rest night. Kean and Hawkerman stayed awake, and Hawkerman nodded for Kean to follow him out of the tent.

  It was a still, warm night, one of the few that occurred after the Season had departed.

  “What’s with you, Kean?” Hawkerman inquired.

  For many hours, Kean had asked himself the same question. “I’ve been thinking about transport,” he said at last.

  “Yes?”

  “The wind.”

  “Don’t get much wind except during the Season. And that ski thing, that wouldn’t travel well out here.”

  “If we had the other one … there’s the Big White.”

  “What’s the matter? Tired of being a Wanderer? Or tired of life?”

  “You said yourself, nothing’s going to change here.”

  “It might.” Hawkerman allowed himself a smile. “You could do something yourself to change things. Ever think about that?”

  “I used to think it might be good to live in the Pyramid. Two seconds inside it and I knew I was wrong. I don’t have any interest in it at all now, or what happens at the Lakes, either. But the idea of getting across the Big White, that does interest me, from the top of my head right down to my feet.”

  “That’s youth for you. Greedy, never satisfied.” But Hawkerman did not seem at all irritated when he said it. He looked out into the night. “You want to tackle the Big White, you need a Waterboy. No way without one.”

  “That’s it,” Kean said awkwardly. “That’s the thing. But … I couldn’t take her—it wouldn’t be right. Wouldn’t be fair to the team.”

  “Have you asked her?”

  “I thought you and me should talk first. I don’t want to hurt the team.”

  “The team needs rebuilding,” Hawkerman said slowly. “I knew that, and I just didn’t want to do it until I plain had to. See, Kean, that girl, she belongs to you as much as she does to the team—more, probably. You have a kind of history together.”

  “Yes,” said Kean, encouraged. “That’s true, isn’t it.”

  Hawkerman remarked dryly, “Only thing is, she belongs most to herself. You’ll have to ask her, not me.”

  “Yes. I thought I should ask you first, that’s all.”

  “No, you didn’t. You’re scared to ask her, ’case she says no. It’s natural.”

  Kean protested that he had no such worry. Hawkerman smiled disbelievingly and started back toward the tent. He said over his shoulder, so quietly that Kean could hardly hear him, “She’ll go with you. All you got to do is ask.”

  They were on their way back to the Lakes, and only half the year was gone. This year there was to be no second expediti
on.

  One evening Hawkerman gave the team his reasons. “I got to train new men into the team. And besides, there’s something near the Lakes that Kean wants to get his hands on—isn’t that right, Kean?”

  He meant the other long ski, which they had buried; he was teasing after his fashion, and Kean felt himself growing hot. He still hadn’t asked Essa if she would go with him on the attempt to cross the Big White. Every day he was going to speak to her about it, and every day he hadn’t. Why not? He couldn’t understand it, when they got on so well. Each morning when he woke, it seemed ridiculous that he still hadn’t broached the subject, and as the minutes passed, an invisible impediment presented itself, a barrier so strong that no amount of willpower could breach it.

  That night there was one of those rare thick frosts on the ground, and the team took time out from traveling to scrape up the ice for drinking water. Essa took the initiative and attached herself to Kean, making sure they drifted out of earshot of the others. As they scraped away and filled a plastic box with dirty frost, she asked with humorous curiosity, “What’s the big secret? What’s this thing you want that Hawkerman isn’t telling us about?”

  That was all it took—someone else to make the first move. He began telling her about the skis, and how after his headlong dash in the attack wagon, he had seen a way of making a fast start on a trek over the Big White. Then of course he had to tell her of the others who had tried to get out of the valley over the many years, and how no one knew for sure if anyone had been successful—except maybe that man who’d ridden the bizarre animal … and … and there was no way he could avoid speaking of the essential condition for attempting such a journey: you had to have a Waterboy.

  The rest of the team had gone back to the trailer. They were alone out here.

  “You thought—what? I’d come with you?”

  “I thought … I thought I could ask you.”

  “And are you asking me?”

  “Yes. I am.”

  “But you haven’t.”

  “I did—just now.”

  “I could die, most like, if I do what you want me to—and you can’t even say, ‘Will you please come with me across the Big White?’”

  “‘Please’?”

  “Certainly ‘please.’ You’d have to say please.”

  It was absurd. He couldn’t do it.

  She said, “I’m cold out here. Just say it.”

  Well, put that way … They couldn’t stay out here forever, and she did look like she was getting very cold.

  “Yes … um … Essa. Would you—please—come with me and go across the Big White? If we can, that is.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  TWENTY-ONE

  They told Hawkerman. He said, “You talk about it some more, between yourselves. I won’t tell the others just yet. You could change your mind. That’s the point of having a mind—to make rational choices.”

  “But do you think we could make it?” Essa asked, subdued by his downbeat response.

  “I don’t have any information on the subject—how can I tell? One thing you should consider: you’ll need someone else along with you. Otherwise you might as well lie down and die right here.”

  He smiled at their disquiet, and Kean misinterpreted it. “You might come with us yourself?”

  Hawkerman shook his head. “It’s not the kind of odds I play.”

  “You were the one who made the attack on the Pyramid work. That was against all the odds.”

  “It was necessary.”

  “No,” Kean said positively. “You did it because it was the right thing to do. Because your brother would have died for nothing if you hadn’t.”

  “That’s a very fine way of looking at killing people. A lot of them innocent of bad intent.”

  “Well, it had to be done.”

  “Well, maybe it did, at that. Did you ever consider that if the Bleachers had destroyed the Lakes instead of the other way around, I’d have no one left to trade with?”

  “That wasn’t the reason.”

  “Well, it’s the only good reason I can think of. We’re getting off the point here.”

  You didn’t get anywhere when you tried to unearth good intentions in Hawkerman.

  The following weeks were difficult for Kean and Essa. They wanted to be together, and they wanted to avoid talk about it. Cara sensed the new feeling between them and put it down to, well, just what they did not want it to be put down to. It was difficult for them, and all the time they had this new inner nervousness, because they were going to risk their lives.

  The return trip to the Lakes was uneventful by Wanderer standards. Back in the settlement, they discovered the Bleachers had set up several trading posts, and Hawkerman reveled in haggling with such inexperienced dealers. With no time to manufacture them, plastics were in high demand, as he had suspected, and he did well, bartering goods mostly for food notes, which the Bleachers guaranteed to exchange for victuals at specified periods of time.

  There was a new order forming. Plenty of Lakesiders were employed helping with the Pyramid’s reconstruction, and the line between the two societies was blurring. Wailing Joe had been keeping an eye on things. “It mostly goes one way—as in, the Lakesiders working for the Bleachers. That’s where it’s all going to go wrong.”

  “They have a sense of purpose in the Pyramid, that’s the difference,” Hawkerman observed.

  On the plains a few nights later, they dug up the second big ski. On the way there, Hawkerman asked Kean and Essa if they had changed their minds. They had not. As the team settled down in the tent to sleep out the day, Hawkerman asked for their attention.

  “Kean and Essa are going to try to cross the Big White,” he said matter-of-factly. “And I am going to help them all I can.”

  It was the first time he had said that. Kean was pleased right through. It made the perilous undertaking seem possible.

  Hawkerman went on, “They will need another team member. Out of us, or from another source. Cara won’t go, so of the people here, that leaves Wil or Barb. Think about it.”

  Cara said, “How do you know I wouldn’t go?”

  Hawkerman answered, “Because I couldn’t let you.”

  She smiled one of her rare smiles. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve said in years.”

  He was embarrassed, though not displeased.

  “Anyway. Have yourselves a think.”

  That seemed to be that for now, until Barb declared suddenly, “I’ll go. Happy to.”

  Essa went red and felt furious. Said nothing. It was Cara who put the question. “Why would you want to, Barb?”

  “Because Ax died.”

  It seemed reason enough. Kean knew the etiquette of the situation. “We’d be glad of your company, Barb. You’d make a difference.”

  Barb thought aloud, “There wouldn’t be a team leader. Too few of us. We’d take decisions jointly.”

  “I wouldn’t want it any other way,” Kean answered. “Essa?”

  “Yes …” And all at once, she was comfortable with the idea. In some ways, better a woman than another man. Barb was no threat. She was remote and suffering and needed to make the journey for her own reasons—it was nothing to do with Kean. Essa got up and went to Barb and touched her shoulder. “There’s no one I’d be more pleased to have along.”

  It was the right thing to say and do. Barb smiled and it was done.

  Hawkerman pondered. “Shame Cancher’s dead. We need some skills to make a wagon. Old Joe’s past it.”

  Everyone sat up and began to talk, oblivious to the growing heat in the tent. Unable to speak, Wil listened enthusiastically, and smiled and nodded vehemently to make his own contributions.

  Hawkerman thought they had better keep the venture to themselves. “The ideal is, no one even notices. We ’specially don’t let anyone know there’s a Waterboy in the valley. People would tell us Essa has to stay for the good of everyone else.”

  “Secret is best,” Barb agreed.r />
  Hawkerman went on, “If you’re using the winds to get you going, we got about three months to prepare. I think for the Season we better find ourselves a base away from the Lakes.”

  Cara came in with, “No one knows how big the Big White is. It’s not a wagon you want, it’s a trailer—only purpose-built.”

  They talked for some minutes more, building a picture of this wonder vehicle on long skis, with optional wheels. They were a team, pulling together to achieve something. It was a good feeling, and for that time in the stifling tent, the nervousness left Kean and Essa.

  It came back, however: a haunting fear that you could easily confuse with a premonition of failure.

  There were plenty of men to choose from when it came to picking new recruits for the team. In the battle at the Pyramid, many crews had lost members. Whole new teams had formed and gone out, raw and argumentative. Other Wanderers were more cautious about their futures, and Hawkerman could have seen fifty more men than he did, if he had not made it a rule that he would consider no one who was defecting from a still-functioning team. He was looking for three to join, and the first two were easy enough to decide on: Creaser and Wideboy.

  Creaser was from one of the disbanded teams, a tall, lugubrious man of thirty-odd, known for his amazing stamina. Wideboy was a novice not yet twenty years of age, and he was just what his name said, wide, and the widest thing of all was his grin. Hawkerman liked to have one big man on the team, and this good-natured hulk fit the bill and then some. Kean took to him at once.

  After that, candidates were much of a muchness. Hawkerman was offered bribes, and he had to fight and beat one man who took offense at being thought unworthy of the team.

  “I’ve had enough of this,” Hawkerman sighed as Cara dabbed away at a cut above his eyebrow. “I’m not big enough or young enough anymore to go scuffling with every poor fool who has a grievance.”

  So temporarily he gave up looking for team members, and instead began looking for someone who could help with designing and building Kean’s trailer.

  He wanted the very best man, and that turned out to be one of the least popular traders in the whole of the Lakes.

  For some reason, Hardly-There had escaped renaming since being born tiny, two months premature. Possibly no one could be bothered, including Hardly-There himself. That he had survived his early entry into the world was no surprise when you knew him; his name could have been abbreviated very simply to “Hard.” A chunky nugget of a man, he had a crabby, unbending nature, and even Hawkerman could not best him in a deal. Since the death of his notoriously ferocious woman in the fighting at the Pyramid, he was worse-natured than ever, although the private joke among his neighbors was that it should have made him cheerier.