Journey By Fire

by Bruce W. Perry

  "You're welcome to join me, all the way to Sierra Vista, to find my daughter. I like your company."

  "I like yours' too Wade."

  "You're a resilient whipper snapper, I mean, amidst all of this."

  "How kind of you."

  "I guess we should look for some food."

  "It's okay to look at the river a while."

  He opened his eyes and lifted his hat. She'd crossed her legs in the grass and offered her face up to the sun, which baked and reflected off the dark blue river. She had her eyes closed, a sleepy smile. The water flowed calmly past the embankment. You'd hear only an occasional trickle. It soothed him, the river, in that it was all its own and paid no heed to whatever business the humans left on its shoreline.

  Then he closed his eyes again and moved his leg over the map so it wouldn't blow away, and he fell off into a black sleep. He dreamt that he was with Lee in Ottawa, Canada, and it was hot and sultry, and they walked through strange streets at night trying to find the train station where Kara was to arrive but only getting more lost, and when he opened his eyes again it seemed only minutes had passed but he felt refreshed.

  He sat up. Phoebe was down on the grassy riverbank, talking with a man. He wore a cowboy hat and boots, and smoked a cigarette. It seemed to be a friendly conversation; he smiled and flicked the cigarette away into the reeds. How can you do that? Wade thought, while living in the age of fires?

  Phoebe asked him questions, then she smiled and dug her hands into her pants pockets and walked back up the embankment. Across the river, near the far bank, he watched a wooden raft float by, carrying a few seated people and a guy in the stern steering it with a long tiller. It looked like the raft used 55-gallon drums for flotation. The river depth, at least at this point, couldn't support much bigger boats, he thought. They'd have to travel leanly, as the rafts won't leave room for many provisions–it wasn't like having a tractor trailer at their disposal.

  He hadn't given up on the truck 100 percent, not yet.

  He got up and took one more look at his map, following the course of the river southwest past Moab and into the Utah desert. It will be quick, unless the river runs dry, he thought, and it could potentially be nice traveling on the river. Divine, as Phoebe put it. And maybe safer. He folded up his map again, and put it away in the backpack. Then Phoebe and he walked over to a plain wooden building that the gatekeeper had said was working as a kind of general store. Wade still had the gold coins he'd packed in a small cloth bag that tied at the end.

  They all could get started again, after they'd reached a kind of end of the line in the truck.

  "You can buy tickets for one of those rafts," Phoebe said. "They leave once a week, I think he said."

  "That all? Where do they sell the tickets?"

  "At the store." Wade wanted to leave right away. He saw an old beaten and dusty Harley parked outside. On the back of the seat was strapped a small rucksack and the folded-up Corsair blanket he'd seen the man with.

  Wade hadn't put the Corsairs behind him at all, it was just that the others had decided to stop talking about it. They walked up from the grassy riverbank and he stepped up onto a wooden platform out in front of the building and Wade pushed a door aside and they both walked inside the store.

  It was humid inside and moats of dust floated through a square of sunshine. The wooden floor was sawdusted. Sitting off to the side at a round table was the man they'd given a ride to, next to another man who wore a black scarf around his long, graying greasy hair. They were hunched over whisky glasses and drinking from a dark bottle of Bacardi rum. Wade shot a glance their way, then headed for the counter.

  "We're here about the raft tickets. We need at least two on the next one."

  "We're sold out," the woman behind the counter said, perfunctorily. She was short and squat and wore an apron. She had a blunt, dismissive air. "Nothing till next week. Need anything else?"

  "No." Wade heard a chair scrape across the floor as one of the men got up. People came through the door behind him.

  "When's the boat leaving next week?"

  "Thursday."

  "What's today?"

  "Wednesday."

  "So one's leaving tomorrow?"

  "As I said, fella, that one's sold out. Those two men bought the last two tickets."

  "Where do the rafts go?"

  "Lake Powell."

  "What about beyond that, like to Lake Mead?"

  "What do you think we are, Greyhound? That's a kind of no man's land out there. Maybe another outfit's gotten started. Don't know; it's none of my business anyhow."

  "What about Vegas? It's close to Lake Mead."

  "What about it? There is no more Las Vegas. It's gone, I heard, back to the desert. The Mexicalis and gangs have taken over, and the coyotes, and the Indians…" Then when he didn't reply right way she said facetiously, "Oh sorry, the Native Americans."

  He looked over his shoulder and the two men were leaving. The one he didn't know had a bandage on the back of his neck caked with dried blood, and he laughed and nodded toward Wade and shoved a cigarette into his mouth as they swung through the door into the scorching afternoon.

  CHAPTER 14

  Phoebe wandered to the other end of the counter and she gazed at the motley collection of goods arranged on the shelves above it. Nestle's Quick, Gold Medal Flour, Saltines, Campbell's Soup, Kellogg's Corn Flakes, dusty bottles of rotgut bourbon and rum, cans of peas and carrots, powdered milk, a small pile of Mars and Snickers bars; a few iron skillets and tea pots, and a battery-powered alarm clock (Wade had to laugh at that one–there was no "time" anymore). They even had an aluminum can of extra-virgin olive oil.

  "I want that biscuit mix," she looked at Wade hopefully. "…And the olive oil."

  "How much?" he said. "And six tickets on the raft for next week."

  "What do you have?"

  "What do you take?"

  "Cash and valuables–no junk. This isn't a pawn shop."

  He pulled out a piece of gold bullion–a Canadian Maple Leaf–from a pocket in his backpack and placed it on the counter in front of the woman.

  "Think that's enough?" she said.

  "That's more than enough–how much cash you looking for?"

  "Hundred each for the raft tickets and forty for the oil and flour."

  "What you got right there is worth about a thousand or more–in fact, you owe me some change."

  "We don't give change here."

  Wade looked up at the shelves. "How 'bout that box of Saltines and the bag of coffee too. And some peas and carrots…" He placed his hand over the gold coin.

  "Let me see that," she said. He moved his hand away and she picked up the coin and stared at it in the light. "Heavy enough," she huffed, then glanced back skeptically at her shelf of goods. Phoebe put her open backpack on the counter.

  "C'mon Martha," she said. "You're not gonna get a better deal than that. That coins' worth a lot in the world, unless you're planning on spending the rest of your life in River City."

  "How did you know my name was Martha?"

  Phoebe reached out and ran her index finger along the woman's left forearm, which carried a tiny tattoo. Martha looked at Phoebe for a moment, and Wade noticed a measure of gruffness and hostility flake away from her.

  "Okay," she said, and she went to the shelf and pulled down the flour, coffee, and canned goods and silently placed them on the counter near Phoebe's bag. Phoebe didn't have room for the olive oil, so Wade put it in his backpack, then the lady handed them six tickets of the kind you used to get at the county fair, the red ones with the little border decoration inside. "Don't lose those," the lady said. "We don't reissue tickets on the Colorado."

  Phoebe and Wade walked outside. The guy in the black head scarf and tight greasy bluejeans leaned back against the motorcycle in the sun. He didn't say anything until they'd walked past, but Wade knew he would.

  "My, my," he said. His voice was whispered and impudent. "One fine chikita." He stub
bed his butt out on the motorcycle seat, then crossed his arms.

  "Where did you come from?" Wade said.

  "Leavenworth, Kansas. Ran outta gas. But I wouldn't a' bought those tickets if I knew things were lookin' up in River City, right sweetheart?" He smiled at Phoebe, his eyes avoiding Wade's on purpose. He had a hungry, filthy smile. "Name's Gillis. What's yours'?"

  "Fuck off," Phoebe said.

  "Let me handle it," Wade said, under his breath. "You got that blanket from a farmer, your friend said. He said you were hurt, back on the road. He was lying through his teeth. Where is your friend, by the way?"

  "I dunno." The man seemed suddenly sullen.

  "He told me all about your visit to the Corsair's."

  "Yeah? He did?" Wade glanced around that baking patch of land and things had emptied out somewhat. The woodsmoke had meandered away from the white sun, which beat down onto the ground mercilessly.

  "What'd you give in return for that blanket?"

  "Nothin'."

  "That all, huh?"

  "We didn't bother."

  Wade put down the backpack and fingered around the pocket where he kept his pistol.

  "Wade…" Phoebe said steadily.

  "…We gave nothin' back but the kindness of strangers." The man was trying to feign boredom, and he took a toothpick out of his breast pocket and went at his front teeth. "You see, as I said we come from Kansas all the way, we was a little threadbare. Toasted. Traveled out. We get there…nice people. Nice family. The Corsair's, you say? These must be generous parts, here in River City. That makes us lucky, doesn't it partner?"

  "You said 'nice family.' But your friend said they didn't have any kids. Did you see any kids?"

  The smirk vanished from the man's face. "Oh, they had kids."

  They looked at each other for about thirty seconds without saying anything or blinking.

  "By the way, I gotta go. It's been nice chattin' wit ya," he said, flippantly.

  The man dropped his toothpick and leaned forward, and in a loud motion that startled Phoebe, pulled a steel sword from a leather sheath attached to side of the motorcycle. "I really need to get this sharpened, and I heard they truly had a real smithy around here. It's been a long time since they had smithies, 'aint it? Real ones, know what they doin'? So I'm goin' to pay him a visit. I really hope I see you all later…especially you miss." Then he nodded at Phoebe and using the sword like a walking stick, half-limped his away across the dirt past the general store, and into a vacant area between it and another building.

  "You watch my backpack," Wade said.

  ###

  No one was around outside by the river or the store building, and it was like some kind of siesta had taken place, he figured. They were down by the riverbank. He had the pistol to the head of Gillis, up against the black scarf. He had his foot firmly on the small of the man's back. Gillis was pleading with him. He made sure he had the steel right up against the man's skull.

  "I'm going to show you as much mercy as you showed the Corsair family."

  "Get off! You're making a mistake." Wade dug heavier into the man's back until he shut up.

  "I know you did it. You used that sword on them. You're an animal. It's your kind that's ruined the world." The sword lay discarded nearby in the dust and the grass where Wade threw it after he caught up with Gillis. "You're lower than an animal. You used that sword on children."

  The man strained to turn his head to Wade; he had slobber on his beard, and his greasy hair plastered with sweat to his face. He grimaced and spat in the dirt, like an angry mongrel. Wade noticed a raft of timber floating past on the river. Someone must be using those logs, he thought, pressing the barrel of the gun into Gillis' head; yet the timber is on its own way to Moab.

  "Wade!" he heard behind him, and he looked over his left shoulder and through the tall wavy grass saw Phoebe watching at the top of the hill. The timber knocked together with loud raps and cracks and he swore it made the wind come up off the river, and he smelled the woody scent and the man squirmed under the gun and he pulled the trigger once.

  He was still conserving ammo. The wind blew hard through the grass but the riverbank was silent. The man's head had jumped when he pulled the trigger, then the body sagged. He didn't want to put Gillis in the river, so he dragged him into what was probably a flood wash and covered the body with rocks. Phoebe had turned and walked away. He went through the pockets first and found the two red tickets for tomorrow. The coyotes would take care of the rest, he thought.

  PART II: THE RIVER

  CHAPTER 15

  They waited six days before leaving. He'd given the two tickets to the first Mom and group of kids he saw. They could use them, or sell them; he just didn't want them wasted.

  They lit a campfire by the river, and it was a clear night. They were all going, including Wiley, the next morning. They were antsy; he mostly spent the week gathering food and other essentials such as plastic water containers and matches for the trip, packing and repacking and gazing at his map and trying to predict the movements of his daughter, somewhere in the desert.

  He'd asked around a bit on the street and in the general store. He had Kara's picture with him, but everyone was either staying put or going south. No one had come up from Arizona or Mexico.

  It had taken a couple of days for Phoebe to speak to him. She'd had enough of killing; he already knew that. So had he, for that matter. Somehow, she'd had the idea that she could handle Gillis herself, and on that matter he was in deep disagreement.

  He sat by the crackling fire eating a can of peas. He ate straight out of the can with a spoon; they were small and sweet. Some butter would have been perfect, he thought. They all ate them with cuts from a ham that Carmen had found and for which they traded all but a few batches of their potatoes. The ham was salty and contained veins of delicious fat. They couldn't have carried the spuds on the raft anyways.

  He stared at Phoebe across the fire; he didn't want her silence to last. He couldn't take that. He ate his peas and looked up at her thoughtfully. Carmen had handed her a piece of crusty bread they'd bought "in town." They were dipping it into the olive oil. The wavy flame lit up facets of her face.

  "Do you believe in God?" he said.

  "I've always believed in God," she said, quietly holding her bread. "My parents didn't. I loved them dearly. They were eco-heathens, [she said that facetiously] but I needed to know somebody was looking after me, somebody else, somebody holy. I still do, especially now."

  "I know you don't think I'm God-fearing," he said. "But we all need to know that there's something else other than this, that this isn't all it is. I think that's where I am now. I've been reading in that Bible." He reached behind his backpack where it lay next to where he sat in the dirt. He pulled the Bible out from behind it. He wasn't a believer, in the strict sense, just because he read random Bible passages, he thought.

  They never went to church at home in Vermont; it was the farthest thing from their minds. There weren't too many other books to read here, frankly. But the fear had grown in him, and he needed at least to be distracted from it, the this: the soulless marauders roaming the scorched land, the insipid, empty regime, and the plight of children, and the fact that he of all people had to kill. They all needed to be saved and redeemed.

  He put on his glasses and read a passage out loud. "This part here, the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all… It's about what happens to all people being an accident. They can't take credit for it, or be blamed. It's in Ecclesiastes. That's how I see it, anyhow."

  "It's not your fault," Phoebe said. "At any rate, let's put it behind us." The river moved past them below in the night. You knew it was there in the dark, purple and alive and solemn. And that you'd be on it tomorrow.

  ###

  The wooden raft was about 350 square feet, Wade figur
ed, sizable for the depth of the river. The water had gone down in the drought and moved slowly south among riffles and small rapids. The floor of the raft was made of plywood. For flotation, it had a combination of logs and 55-gallon drums, and even some Styrofoam glued to around its edges. It seemed sturdy enough, to him. It had a little compartment with a mast and canvas top that looked a bit like a sail, even though it only acted like one when the wind was right. They already had the current to move them downstream, even though Wade had heard it was only a few miles per hour.

  Right next to the mast was a large green plastic drum full of potable water, and a jug to use for ladling hung from a chain attached to the container.

  All of them were on the raft with one man on the tiller; his name was Winston Jones. "Everyone calls me Jonesy," he said when they first met. He had short cropped white hair; strong forearms, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and he seemed dependable. He wore a floppy hat and talked a lot when they first met him; he seemed happy to have a group of nice people this time to take down the river. He had big hands and he was strong. Jonesy said Wade could probably take the tiller some, plus others.

  Jonesy didn't even look at their tickets. He said they actually had one other stop before they got to Lake Powell, and that was just past Moab at the intersection of the Green River.

  Wade didn't think there was room for anymore, but Jonesy thought he had a chance to pick up more ticket fare. Pepe was curious about the tiller and sat cross-legged beside it. Jonesy called him "captain." He let Pepe hold the tiller. It felt good to be floating away from Colorado, even though Wade didn't know what they were going into.

  It was a one-way trip as far as Jonesy was concerned. He was just going to sell the raft or live off it when he got to Lake Powell.

  It was desert country that they were heading into, and only becoming more so. Wade didn't know what they and people like Jonesy were going to live on once they got there. It was next to impossible to grow anything in that terrain, and the only water resources for hundreds of miles around were in the river or the lake.