I hear really heavy breathing and open my eyes. Something is nudging against the other end of the tent. It’s breathing hard, in bursts. Something wants to get in. I look at the tent wall and see a silhouette moving along the outside of the tent. The floor of the tent is covered in water. I have no idea what time it is or how long we’ve been sleeping. Then the shape moves again, walking close to our heads. It huffs, pushing a long snout into the canvas. It’s a dog.
“Russell,” I say. “There’s a dog outside the tent.” I shake him a little. It must have wandered down from the tarps. I can’t believe they’ve got a dog living here, and as much as I want to meet it, I’m scared it might want to eat us, or that it might bark and send the tarpers to our tent. Maybe they’re already here, right behind the dog. Watching it investigate us for them. I prod Russell until I get a reaction out of him. Surprisingly, he sits up on his own and looks at the dog.
“I’ll be damned,” he says. It’s like he’s feeling all better until he coughs. The dog jumps back and barks once. Russell responds by heading to the tent flap, opening it and poking his head out.
“What are you doing?” I ask him, questioning his sanity. But he shushes the dog, calling it to him. I don’t want it to attract attention, he says. How do you know people aren’t with it already? I ask. I don’t, he says. Then the dog pokes its head into the tent. It’s a dirty blond mutt. Its fur is soaked through but it doesn’t look cold. It starts to wag its tail now that it’s pushed itself into the tent some, and before Russell can calm it further it starts to lick him. Good boy, Russell says. He’s smiling, like he hasn’t done in days. He’s getting better. The antibiotics must be working. The dog pushes its wet body past Russell as soon as it gets in far enough to see me. A giant tongue lolls out and slides across my cheek, then my nose, and then my mouth. I back up and spit for a second, but he’s persistent and pushes in again, happy for some reason to meet me.
“Alright, let’s go boy, out,” Russell says, tugging the dog’s chest a bit, trying to point it around, back out into the rain. It doesn’t seem to want to go and Russell doesn’t have the strength to make it. I can’t believe this creature. Everything around us is awful, bitter cold, gray, desperate, and this dog is in ecstasy at meeting two strangers who, as likely as not, would eat him for food before pet him. But he stays with us, wagging his tail, expecting something like love. And I think of the veneer, almost enough to ask Russell about it, but he’s just getting better, and it’s too soon. But I really want to ask because I think of something—the dog seems to have it. Love. So what could the veneer be then, if it’s supposed to be a creation of humanity and yet animals have part of it in them? Maybe it’s a lot simpler than that. Or maybe love isn’t even a part of the veneer like Russell says it is. Maybe it transcends the veneer. Maybe things will work out in the end. I almost trick myself into thinking we’re in Leadville. And then I hear the shout.
It comes from up the hill, a distance away, but clear as day even despite the smacking of the rain on the roof of our tent. The dog jerks his head at the shout. “Marvolo!” it comes again. The dog looks confused, unsure whether he really wants to leave so soon after meeting us. The call comes for the third time, this time, “Voley!” The dog darts out through the tent flap. Through the canvas I watch his silhouette bound up the ridge and well out of sight, and then I hear talking. It’s his master, asking him what he’s found. I turn to Russell, wondering if he’s well enough to fight if we have to. Have your knife? I ask him again. He starts looking in his pocket but can’t find it. I remember now. Shit, it’s in the guy, isn’t it? I say. Stuck in his chest, floating somewhere out on the canvas brown. There’s only mine now. I almost give it to him, but he doesn’t look like he’d be any good with it. He’s just strong enough to sit up and talk, but not to fight anyone off.
“He’s coming,” I say as the silhouette of a person appears, coming down the ridge the way the dog left.
Russell tries to move to the edge of the tent, but he does it so slowly and awkwardly that he slips on the rain that’s pooled on the canvas floor. “Shit.” He asks me what the island looked like, where I think we are. I tell him I have no idea, but I describe the blue tarps, all connected at the top of the island’s highest ridge, like one of the tarp cities we saw in Sioux Falls. How big is the island? he asks. I tell him I have no idea because I’ve only seen it from the front. But it looked pretty big. And the tarps stretched on and on. That’s a good thing, right? Means it can’t be face eaters, I say. Right, he says. But he’s not convincing. Give me your knife, he says. I tell him no.
“Who’s in there?” calls the dog’s master from a safe distance in case we’re maniacs. But we’re not, and he might be the maniac. Stay, says Russell. Give me the knife. You stay, I tell him. I’ve kept him alive for two days, and I can’t bring myself to let him risk his life now, after coming through all that. I stand a better chance of protecting us now and he knows it. All I can think as I step out of the tent, knife in my hand, is that this person might have fire to share. That thought alone bears me out into the rain, and I stand up and turn, looking up the hill. The soaked dog is wagging its tail next to a man holding a gun. He’s young, but I can’t tell how young, because he’s in a full plastic suit, one much better than mine. He’s pointing a rifle right at me, unconcerned with the rain that’s hitting it, waiting for me to say something—to identify myself. He asks again who we are. Don’t move and tell me who you are.
“We’re friendly, not face eaters. Heading to Colorado and got lost coming out of the Bighorns.”
“You came all the way down from the Bighorns in that?” he says, his face half concealed under the plastic hood he’s wearing, once bright green, but now dirtied to a brownish tint. He’s looking at the canoe at the end of the nylon rope. The sea is attempting to bury it.
“Yea,” I say. Russell coughs violently in the tent. After he’s finished coughing, the man, unmoving and keeping the gun trained on me, his dog still obediently at his side, says “Who’s we?”
“Me and Russell. My name’s Tanner. He’s really sick. We have some antibiotics and food if you have fire.”
The man starts to walk down the slope but he doesn’t lower the gun, like he’s expecting me to try something at any moment. He tells me to call Russell out so he can look for himself. I say I don’t know if he’ll make it outside right now because he’s too weak. Do it, he tells me. I can’t just trust anyone, he says.
“Russell, can you come out?” I ask. He must have been listening because he’s already crawling around the side of the tent on his hands and knees, and when he gets close to me he stands up, balancing on my shoulder for support.
“We’re heading to Leadville,” is all Russell says. “Don’t mean to trespass.” It’s like he’s out of gas after that short crawl and admission. The man watches us both, wondering if we’re telling the truth. It must be our appearance that confirms it for him, because he lowers his gun and takes off his hood. He’s just a boy, not a man. He can’t be much older than me. But the back of my head tells me he’s beautiful. Dark eyes, hair falling across his face in a wet mess, and skin that’s alive, even from twenty feet away I can tell. He’s not dying. Bright life in his cheeks, his eyes.
“Come on,” he says. “Can you make it up on your own?” Yea, I tell him. And he keeps his distance, never putting the gun away, but no longer keeping it aimed at us, and we walk up the hill together. The tent and canoe stay behind, sentenced to endure the rain, which seems to have gotten heavier a bit. But it doesn’t feel as cold all of the sudden. Marvolo, the dog, finally leaves his master’s side again and runs to us and circles around our legs, as if the rain is a playful thing to him, and we’re his best friends, even though he’s just met us. Every once in a while the boy looks back at me, and then Russell, who walks by leaning on me. I can’t tell if he’s mad we’re taking so long, or if he’s still wondering who we are, or where we came from, or what our intentions are. There’s no one left to trust, Russ
ell started saying in South Dakota. Nobody. Face eater or not. But we’d trusted Cap’n Wallace. And we’d trusted Delly and Jennifer. So I know there are exceptions to the rule, even if Russell won’t say it anymore. I watch the boy from behind, moving up the slope with ease. His body is fit, not emaciated like the rain does to people, like it’s done to Russell. He’s alive, and though he’s so far away from us, I feel a strange energy rolling off his body. It’s the warmth, somehow I can tell, even from all the way back here. He’s got it. It’s pulling me in.
We make our way up the slippery brown ridge and to a flat expanse where the tarps start to appear. At first I’m surprised when I see people going about their business, moving around, carrying bags, but then it starts happening so much it becomes common. The place is huge. Then I see a fire. And another. The place is alive. The boy slows down and Marvolo trails back to me. Russell just keeps breathing hard and staring at our feet, leaning against me. The boy stops me by walking right up to me and he puts his hand near my head. I flinch for a moment, then realize what he’s doing. He pushes my hood off so he can see my face. He smiles at me. Like there’s nothing wrong in the world, and we’re not surrounded by the great grave of the sea and the empty gray forever sky and the barren ridge of mud. And sickness and wet and cold. He tells me we’d better get Russell to the doctor. I’m still in shock, and wonder if this could all be a setup to eat us. But his gun’s lowered now, enough that I could jump on him and wrestle it free if I didn’t think the dog would bite my neck defending his master. But Marvolo seems as friendly as the boy, and runs around at our feet, endlessly excited to see strangers, licking my hand.
I say we have some supplies in the tent, and I ask if we can trade our antibiotics for the fire I see under some of the tarps. Most of the blue tarps connect, fastened together by rope, stitched tightly to each other like a large quilt roof. Some of the tarp houses stand alone, not connected to the main artery. Then, as we push on and the boy doesn’t answer my question, I see some tin roof houses. The roofs are tiny ripples of aluminum, and the rain beats louder upon them than the tarps. Underneath, the people look as clean and healthy as the boy. It’s like I’ve been transported back to Indianapolis, the way this place feels. The life is filling me up. But Russell’s wary of all folks in the West, because he thinks the majority of them have become face eaters, and that’s what we’d been told on the Sea Queen Marie. But as I watch the boy in front of me, I can tell he’s not a face eater. He looks too content, sure of himself. Despite the stretch of nothing surrounding this village.
I can see beyond the tarp city now, past the last of the tin roof houses, and it’s all glistening brown. No trees and no rocks. Just bare soil that’s soaking in the endless rain. No man’s land out there. We walk right up to a large section of raised tarp where there are some wooden chairs and a table. Cans line a shelf and I can’t believe all the supplies I’m seeing. Rope, tape, cans, flashlights, knives, pans and pots, gasoline drums, dry towels, clothes, cardboard boxes that aren’t ruined by the wet, sealed up with god knows what inside.
“Wait here,” the boy says, and he looks at me as he says it, as if he wants to make sure he’s made eye contact with me. I tell him okay and get Russell to sit down in one of the chairs. Russell lays his head on the table, his arms wrapped around himself, and he mutters that we made it. I tell him we did, and that he’s going to get the help he needs. Marvolo stays with us and I pet his wet fur. He licks my hand and his tongue is warm. It’s like he’s never thought about the rain once. I notice some of the passersby looking in at us and I feel like we must look out of place, especially because of how dirty we look compared to everyone else. I haven’t seen myself in a mirror for a long time. I start to let the luxuries this place might hold in store for us creep into the secret place where I hide my desire—a fire, a hot meal, a shower, a warm bed.
After a long while of sitting and watching everything around us, the boy returns with an older man. This is my dad, he says. I introduce myself and he asks about our trip. I explain everything in ten minutes, all the way up from Philadelphia. I talk about where we’re going, Leadville, and the man tells me that we’ve landed ourselves in Utah, probably because of the crossing currents. He tells me that the southern Great Plains sweep east, into waterspout alley like we’d heard, but the northern Plains sweep west. And it’s no wonder that we ended up near King Mountain riding on a tiny canoe like his son told him we had come in on. Any face eaters on the way? he asks me. I tell him about how we lost Russell’s knife. Then the man comes over to Russell and tries to talk to him. I help.
“Russell, I’m goin’ to get you over to the infirmary tent. Now you think you can stand up with me here a minute?” the old man asks. The old man is withered in his face, a false appearance of weakness, because he lifts Russell out of the chair with ease. And in a moment, with very little protest, they’re walking together through a network of tarps, tunnels protected from the rain. I can’t see a single hole in the roofs, just patches here and there. Panic rises in me and I move like I’m going to follow after them to make sure nothing happens to him. I’m tired, and relieved, but I can’t be lulled into a false sense of security and let him go with complete strangers.
“Sit,” says the boy. “He’ll be fine.”
“That’s your dad?” I ask, slowly sitting back down, realizing I have zero strength left.
“Yep. He’ll get him whatever help we can give.”
“We have some food and antibiotics,” I say, ready to rise and get the food sack from the canoe. He sits down on the chair across from me and puts his hand on mine to keep me still. Through the plastic I can feel how warm he is. His touch stops my thoughts dead in their tracks. He says not to worry about it. They help anyone who’s not one of the face eaters out here. It’s nothing I need to pay back. He takes his hand off and leans back.
I ask him about the place, this miracle island that’s saved us. He summarizes the history of what he calls Blue Island. He first came when he was thirteen from Salt Lake City. Since then, supplies are ferried across from Grandview Peak, where there are still trees that have been tarped over. A lot of Salt Lake City’s population is still up on that range he says. I ask him why they moved off then, and he says because the face eaters were getting worse. Because of the supplies, the bandits started coming from everywhere. At first just thieves, out to steal your gasoline, or your food, or your canvas and plastic. But after a while, the reports were coming in every few days. Mutilation, bodies floating by with teeth lacerations, half-finished corpse meals gone adrift. He says that now, the bandits have been coming even farther east, toward King Mountain, and the raids have been occurring much more frequently. That’s why he has to approach castaways with the gun. He says he didn’t mean to scare me.
He asks me about Russell—who he is in relation to me, and how he got sick. I tell him Russell has a leg infection, and I’m afraid it may have come back. But it could be the exposure. He could be sick from the cold. He might have a fever, but I don’t know, because I’m no good at checking. Then he asks how I know Russell again, like I didn’t answer his question. Who is he to you? He doesn’t say it angrily. His tone is even cheery, a shocking contrast to the blight of our surroundings. But still I struggle to answer him. His dark eyes study me, his smooth bright face undimmed by the rain. He looks like he’s happy to be with me and it’s blindsiding me. He isn’t looking at me like the burden that could cost him his own life. Emotions rush up in me, and worry about Russell. I know I could say he’s my father, but I’m in love with him. I don’t know what to say. The idea of what love is supposed to be has been one confusing mess, but I can’t say that. Russell has helped me get to higher ground since I was little, I say. He’s pushed us all the way out here from the East. We’ve had each others’ backs for a long time, I say, and we’re going to Leadville together.
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