by Roman Cesaro
They passed by the large city’s downtown area without stopping, and then floated beyond and away from it. People gradually became fewer and fewer along the riverbank, and the tall buildings receded into the western horizon as they continued downstream.
The sun was low and the humidity was high. Shadows grew longer as Robert strained his eyes toward the distant horizon, looking for more landmarks that were familiar. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with a dirty shirt and placed the shirt on his head for cover from the setting sun. His eyes narrowed to slits when he saw the faint outline of twin bridges across the river in the distance. This is where they would exit the river and begin the walk home.
“I can see it. Stop rowing,” said Robert .
Kyle and Alexis stopped rowing and turned around in their rafts.
“Straight ahead.” Robert quickly lifted his hand and pointed forward.
“What are we looking for?” asked Kyle.
“Twin bridges. Concrete pillars in the water, and steel frames.”
“That’s it? We’re done with the river?” asked Alexis.
“That’s it,” replied Robert , in a relaxed tone. “I’ll go ahead of you. Look for a concrete boat ramp on the right, just after the second bridge. Get close and throw me a rope. I’ll pull you onto the ramp.”
“Then what?” asked Kyle.
“Get out and kiss the ground.”
Robert turned his back toward the setting sun and pulled hard on the oars. The gap between him and the others widened with each stroke into the water. When he was closer to the boat ramp, he removed his oars from the oarlocks and began to paddle for the riverbank on the right. There were large ragged chunks of limestone around the foundation of the bridges. Regardless, he hugged the right edge of the river, bouncing off the jagged boulders at the river’s edge. He used his paddle to hook some of the rocks and pull himself nearer to the concrete boat ramp by the last bridge. The current curved toward the ramp near the last pillar in Robert ’s path. He pushed against the pillar with his oar, toward the ramp, and jumped into the shallow dirty water. His feet touched a submerged section of concrete. It was slippery from moss. The boat ramp went up at a gentle angle, to merge into the asphalt parking lot of a large roadside park. He took small steps in the water, tightly holding the raft by a short length of rope. When his legs cleared the water and he stepped onto dry concrete, he leapt forward, pulling his raft out of the water and securing it on dry ground.
He waved toward the others, and then cupped his hands to his mouth. “Bring it in tight. Get close to me and throw your rope.”
In quick succession, Kyle and Alexis paddled closer and threw their ropes to Robert . He pulled them to the ramp and the couple stepped from their rafts onto the concrete ramp, then onto dry land. Robert pulled their rafts completely out of the water and turned toward them. Kyle was on his knees in the green grass. He was bending over, kissing the ground.
“I wasn’t serious,” said Robert .
Kyle laughed and rolled to his back. Alexis knelt on the ground near her husband, smiling at his joy. He moved his arms and legs back and forth across the grass in unison, as if he was making a snow angel. She leaned closer to him, placing her head on his chest. She could hear his heartbeat. He lay motionless now, staring through the tree canopy above him at the remains of clear blue sky. The leaves moved gently in the breeze and the sound of the wind through the leaves was calming. He was remembering a summer day years ago when he first met Alexis. They went to a park for a picnic and when they were finished eating, they sat together on a blanket and watched the clear sapphire sky. That had been a perfect day in his memory. He remembered it well: that was the day when he knew he was in love.
Robert walked toward them, casting a long shadow across their bodies, and gave them a gentle nudge with a dirty wet boot. “Don’t get too comfortable. There’s work to be done.”
Kyle sat partially up and rested on his elbows. Alexis turned toward Robert and shaded her eyes from the setting sun.
“C’mon, we made it. Just relax for a minute,” said Kyle.
Robert shook his head. “Not a good idea.” Robert pointed to the highway less than fifty yards behind him. “Drag the rafts back away from that road. We need to get them behind all these trees. We can use those bushes back there for cover.” Robert turned back around and stroked his beard as he looked across the terrain. “Just in case people are using this road, and I bet they are.”
They were at a roadside park near the bridge, with covered areas for picnics and playground equipment under large shade trees. The grass was tall now and the area was obviously not maintained any longer, and most likely never would be again. They pulled the rafts through the tall grass and the thicket of trees, away from the bridge, to get cover behind some bushes. They were standing on flat river-bottom land. The area around them was grassy with clumps of bushes. Surrounding the area was farmland. They stopped behind some large bushes and felt secure enough to start a campfire. Robert went through the thicket of trees and found one that had been cut into short logs with a chainsaw. He easily kicked the bark off the logs because they had been lying there for months, decaying. The job never had never been finished. He rolled three of the large stumps back to camp to sit on. They sat by the fire and prodded the glowing embers for entertainment. Robert was deep in thought.
“Hey, Robert , you’re too quiet,” said Kyle.
Robert nodded as he stared into the fire.
“What’s wrong? Aren’t you happy?” asked Alexis. “We made it off the river. Aren’t we close to your home now?”
“I’m happy,” replied Robert , not looking away from the fire.
“You could have fooled me,” scoffed Kyle.
“I’m just thinking. I have a lot on my mind,” said Robert , still staring into the fire.
The evening wind began to shift and a small gust blew smoke toward Robert ’s face. He turned away from the fire and stepped back, wafting the smoke away with his hands. Standing there, he cast his eyes from the supplies in the rafts to his two companions and back again. He did not know how they were going to be able to carry everything with them to his house. They were walking now, not floating all the supplies.
“Any ideas on how we move all this stuff down the road?” asked Robert .
Kyle and Alexis turned their gaze toward the rafts. Each was silent in their contemplation.
“You don’t think we could carry it all?” Kyle finally asked.
Robert shook his head and looked at Kyle’s right hand. It was getting better, but it was not totally healed. Kyle saw what he was looking at and subconsciously clenched his fist to test his grip. He knew that Robert was right.
“How far is it from here?” asked Alexis.
“My house? That would be at least thirty miles.”
Kyle groaned and slid into his raft pulling the tarp across himself. “I’ll sleep on it. We’ll figure it out.”
Alexis leaned forward. The crucifix on her necklace hung straight down away from her body. It turned in the breeze sending reflections from the fire in small flashes of light. She knelt to the ground and closed her eyes, holding her hands together with the shiny golden cross held tightly between her palms. Robert heard the faint whispers of her prayers. The words were indiscernible. After making the sign on the cross, she kissed the crucifix and sat back on the log.
“What did you do?” asked Robert .
“I prayed for help.”
Robert looked around. “Nothing happened.”
Alexis snapped her head around and stared into his eyes. She did not blink. Sternly, Alexis said, “I am a Christian, and accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.”
There was an awkward silence. Robert said nothing in response. She never looked away from him.
“I don’t question my faith,” Alexis continued, “and I have a personal relationship with God. I pray when I need help and God speaks to me.”
“What does God’s voice sound like?”
/> Robert saw that she had grasped the cross hanging from her necklace again. The firelight revealed that her grip was so tight that her knuckles were blanched. Now Alexis’s eyes narrowed to slits. Her body language was screaming at him.
“I will pray for you,” Alexis said, scornfully, through clenched teeth.
Robert grabbed the rifle by his side and stood up. “Good night, Alexis.” He turned away and walked toward the raft that he would sleep in one last time.
When he turned to walk away, Alexis spoke loudly. She wanted Robert to hear her. “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”
Robert stopped and turned around to face Alexis again. He held up his rifle and said to her, “You fear no evil because of this. Pray for more bullets, Alexis.”
He went to the raft, covered himself with a dirty blanket, and went to sleep.
At the break of dawn, Robert felt someone shaking him. “Hey, wake up.” He sat up and rubbed his face, trying to wake himself further.
“What is it?”
“I went over there to take a crap by those bushes, and found two bodies,” said Kyle, trying not to gag as he remembered the smell.
Robert stood up and looked around. “There is nothing around here. Where’d they come from?”
“I don’t know.” Kyle paused, his empty stomach beginning to churn as the revolting image of the rotting corpses entered his mind. “It looked like a woman and a baby.”
Robert closed his eyes and thought of his children again. He was repressing the frenzy of anxiety trying to explode from his viscera. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes.
“Did they have anything with them? A backpack, supplies, anything?”
“I didn’t notice anything,” said Kyle, trying to suppress the image. He had seen a corpse with long blonde hair. It appeared to be wearing women’s clothing and was bloated and insect infested. Her arms were holding an infant in the same state of decay.
Robert grabbed his rifle. “Let’s look around.”
Kyle took him to the clump of bushes that concealed the bodies. Behind a large bush, Kyle pointed to the bloated corpses. Robert saw the baby and gagged. He turned away, bent at the waist, and almost vomited. After a few moments, he wiped the saliva from the corner of his mouth and circled the bush to get the wind to his back. The smell was horrible. As he rotated his position around the bush, he noticed something lying in the tall grass. It was a bicycle with an infant trailer attached. She had tried to conceal it from the road, behind a large bush. The grass had grown taller since the bike had been hidden there. No tracks were visible in the prairie grass. He looked back at the dead woman and noticed a bicycle helmet nearby.
Kyle went to the bike and began to inspect it.
“Let’s take it. Maybe we can use it,” said Robert .
Kyle had already lifted the bike upright and was pushing his thumb down on the tread. It went down to the metal rim.
“Flat tire,” said Kyle.
“Damn it!” said Robert . “Look for a patch kit. I see a pouch hanging from the seat.”
“There is a bag inside the little baby trailer. I’ll look through that, too,” said Kyle.
The small pouch had a folding tool for a bicycle, but no patch kit. The bag in the trailer had an empty water bottle, one diaper, and a small hand air pump.
“We’ll figure something out. Let’s get it back to our camp,” said Robert .
Alexis was awake by the time they got back. She was turned away from the men, putting some wood on the fire.
“Hey, look what we found,” said Kyle to his wife.
Alexis turned around to look.
“There were two dead bodies near it. It looked like a mother and her baby, really sad,” said Kyle, pointing in the direction of the distant bushes. “She hid the bike. It looks like she got a flat tire, couldn’t fix it, and died hiding.”
While Kyle spoke, Robert wasted no time. He was already removing the front tire to inspect the damage. He turned the wheel in his hands, closely inspecting the tread. “I see it.” Robert put the tread closer to his face. “It looks like a thorn from a locust tree.” He pulled the sharp thorn out. “Damn locust trees,” said Robert , as he tossed the thorn into the fire.
“Any ideas?” asked Kyle.
“I’m thinking.” Robert was sitting on the ground with his knees pulled toward his chest. He closed his eyes and lowered his face to his knees. His mind was racing for a solution. If they could get the bike to roll on the road, they could use it to carry what was on the rafts. Still deep in thought, he looked up and noticed that Alexis was standing several feet away, staring at him. She was tapping the cross on her chest. He wondered if she was trying to say something with the gesture, but he ignored it and continued to think.
Robert used the bicycle tool, shimmed the tire from the rim, and removed the flat inner tube. He stared at the hole in the tube. It looked so small.
“Tree sap. Could we put tree sap on it and plug the hole?” asked Kyle.
“I don’t think so. It’ll have to hold a lot of pressure,” said Robert .
“What are you talking about?” Alexis stood by them to see what the tire looked like. “That’s it?” asked Alexis. “I’ve never fixed a tire, but can’t you put superglue on the hole and cover it with a piece of plastic.”
Robert looked at her with wide eyes. “You have superglue?”
“One small bottle. I’ll get it.”
Robert placed the inner tube flat on the ground. He put one large drop of glue directly on the small puncture in the tube. Then he placed a small piece of plastic that he cut from the tarp over the hole and pressed with the heel of his hand. After several minutes he let go, placed the inner tube back on the rim, and shimmed the tire tread back on the wheel. He put the wheel’s front axle back on the fork and pushed the quick release lever down, locking the wheel to the frame. Using the hand pump, he slowly inflated the tire.
“That did it. Kyle, take it to the parking lot and I’ll drag the rafts over to you. We’ll load up and leave.”
Kyle looked toward the parking lot and asked, “What do you think the woman that owned this bike was hiding from?”
“Exactly what we are going to walk into.”
Kyle walked away with the bicycle and Robert watched the bike and its little trailer cut through the tall grass, bouncing across the bumpy trail to the parking lot.
“You see Robert , my prayers are answered,” said Alexis, tucking the cross back into her shirt.
“What did you pray for?”
“Help.”
“And that’s why we have the bike?”
“Yes.”
Robert scowled when he thought of the dead mother holding the rotten corpse of her child, both being consumed by insects.
“We have the bike because someone left it there, and then they died. One of them was an infant. Is that part of God’s plan?”
“The Lord works in mysterious ways and I don’t question my faith. I’ll keep praying for you.”
Robert draped the rifle over his shoulder and said, “Tell God we need bullets.”
Robert saw Alexis kneel again and pray. He did not know what she was praying for and did not ask. The rafts needed to be taken to the parking lot and that was what he did. He dragged them over to Kyle and dropped them beside the bicycle. The asphalt was slowly warming in the morning sunshine.
“Tie the bags together and balance them over the bike frame like saddle bags. Stuff as much as you can into the little child trailer and we’ll drag the suitcases behind us,” said Robert , as he looked back toward the river.
They walked away from the roadside park leaving the three rafts behind them. The gusty wind lifted the front of the empty rafts up, and then let them drop back down to the ground. It reminded Robert of stallions rearing up in a corral. Like stallions with boundless energy, wanting to run free on the open range.
They began the long walk out of the river valley. In the distance, the road crested in front of them. It was the first of many hilltops where they would stop to use the binoculars to examine the unfolding landscape, scanning from left to right and then back again, looking for any foul thing.
The afternoon sun was hot. Its heat reflected off the black asphalt and back up to the three weary travelers. The heat and the weight of their belongings soon began to feel unbearable. There was no shade or mercy from the sun. As the sun grew higher, their pace grew slower.
“I have to rest,” pleaded Alexis. She was already trailing behind Robert and Kyle.
“We can’t stop here.” Robert held his hand to his forehead for shade and judged the angle of the sun in the sky. “We’ll stop when we find shade. I promise you.”
“Can you please slow down? I can’t keep up with you.”
Both men stopped and looked back at Alexis. She was far behind and struggling on the hot pavement. They nodded to each other, stopped, and patiently waited for Alexis to catch up with them. Alexis was moving slowly, struggling with the heavy suitcase. Kyle removed the binoculars and went to the crest of the hill to scan the landscape before them. Robert looked back at Alexis and watched her trudge slowly along. He wanted to help, but he was holding the bicycle laden with their supplies. Looking past Alexis to the distant hill behind them, he saw something move. A dark object was at the top of the previous hill. It appeared to be a car. He stared at the object and it moved again. He looked toward Kyle, who was coming back to rejoin them.
At Kyle’s approach, Robert pointed to the hill behind them and said, “Look.”
Kyle brought the dark object into focus, “It’s a car. I see a man standing by it.” Kyle put the strap around his neck and let the binoculars hang free. He rested his hands on his hips. “When I looked ahead I saw a car in the road. It was across both lanes and looked like the front end was wrecked.”