by Sandy Nathan
“The storage sheds are here! On both sides!” Jeremy shouted as he tore boards off the inside of the barn. “Look at this stuff!”
Sure enough, the extra solar panels were stored there. They had enough panels to light a small city, had one still existed. Bud was impressed.
“I’m going to turn the vehicles into straight solar power when we get to the cliff,” Jeremy said. “We’ll fill them up with fuel here and take all the barrels of fuel we can, but we won’t need it much once we get there. I’ll start on the conversion right away.”
Sam never got off his chair. Most of the time he lay on a pad watching them. His fever was so high that you could practically see heat waves rise from him. The worse Sam got, the harder Jeremy worked. He felt what they all did: Sam might not make it.
It was funny what got to people. Bud had never seen Grace show anything but bravery and fortitude until they found a stash of her furniture in one of the sheds. It must have been stuff that was discarded from the house. He could see a broken table leg, torn upholstery, a chipped glass tabletop. She touched a settee—he knew it was a settee and not a sofa or couch because his wife had been redecorating and introduced him to the vocabulary of furniture. The settee was upholstered in brocade; he knew that, too.
Grace ran her hand over the curve of one arm. The fabric was so old; it would probably crumble if anyone sat on it. But the raw, sad look on her face touched him. He realized that she’d lost a glamorous life like Will Duane lived. Estates all over, designer clothes, fabulous trips, everything. Prestige. Power.
He’d see to it that they took most of the furniture, as well as everything else that was potentially useful. The flatbed trailer would help a lot.
Bud had been sure Wes would get the farm equipment going in no time once the solar panels charged the batteries for the duos. But it didn’t work that way. After a week of more drudgery and disappointment than anyone anticipated, they were packed up and ready to go—without the machines or solar panels. None of the engines would turn over.
Bud had spent his time gentling horses and getting them used to the travois. Everyone had pulled the stuff they could pull with the horses out of the barn and packed it. It was backbreaking work. They couldn’t fit everything they wanted to take on the travois and had to leave some of the most important things. Tempers were frayed from the work and the inescapable stench of the yellow powder. Several days passed. It seemed too much trouble to count them.
Bud and Wes rode out every evening, keeping track of the yellow crud. It was worse, and closer.
Finally, they were leaving. Everyone who could ride was mounted. A fleet of travois was attached to horses and loaded for the trip. The kids were strapped into horse-drawn drays, as were the three disabled people.
Bud stood next to Sam’s chair with a travois. Sam refused to be lifted into it. Bud held the horse, turning from side to side as though he were looking for somewhere to disappear. “I have sat here while ye slaved,” Sam said. “I have done nothin’ to help. How can I be yer chief, riding like a baby? I canna, and I will na’. Bud, get ma horse!”
“Sam, I know the last two weeks have been hard for you.” Grace bent over him. “No one thinks you were shirking. You have to stay off your feet. You don’t have any skin on your feet and legs. Bacteria can enter your wounds and you can’t stop it. People die of injuries like yours.”
“It dinna hurt, lady. I am fine.”
“You are not fine. And you do hurt. You’re taking antibiotics and pain medication.”
Bud’s calm voice cut through the tension. “Sam, if you ride a horse, you’ll have to get on and off a bunch of times in a day, not just once. You’ll have to hop on one foot getting on and land on one foot getting off. Your legs will rub on the stirrups and the leathers. The horse could fall down or buck you off. Please get in the travois …”
The sound of an engine coughing drowned out Bud’s voice. They looked in the direction of the machine barn.
Wes was so pissed off. He intended to get the fucking motors going, and they weren’t helping a bit. His head and arms were jammed into the center well of one of the AWD vehicles. He had the cover on the Duo-duo-duo-stupid battery open and was trying to uncouple the solar connection that had been charging it up, or so they thought. He and Jeremy had no real indication that the solar was doing anything. None of the dials on the instrument panel moved. Getting the jury-rigged contraption hooked up to the solar panels had been hell; uncoupling it was double hell.
“I think you should let it charge a little longer, Wes,” Jeremy said.
“A little longer and everyone will have left without us. We uncovered all this stuff, and we’re going to take it back to the cliff. We don’t have time to let it charge,” Wes snarled. The stench of the yellow powder had made him explosive.
“It won’t do any good to unhook it if it’s not charged, Wes.”
“But you said you didn’t know if it was charging. So who the fuck cares if I unhook it?”
“I care, Wes. I want to take everything as much as you do. Look. Give it ten more minutes.” Jeremy pointed at the clock on the vehicle’s dashboard, which was working. “I’ll see if I can crank up the solar power.” He walked to a system of linked panels and cable that fed into the engine. He fiddled with the cables, then turned a knob on a control board. “Tell me if anything happens.”
Wes felt a buzz in the AWD’s battery immediately. He quickly rehooked the connections that he’d been trying to unhook. “Now we got something.” The buzz was steady. “Why didn’t you do that to start with?”
“I was afraid the engine might blow up.”
Wes jumped back. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I just did.”
”You stinking son of a bitch!”
“You better be careful that my mother doesn’t hear you talking like that.”
Wes felt like lighting into Jeremy, but didn’t. “OK. I take it back. God save the queen.”
“What did you say?” Jeremy’s fists clenched and he took a step toward Wes.
“Hey, hey. I’m sorry. I’m just fucked up … a little nervous. I didn’t mean anything about your mother.”
“OK. What does it look like now?”
“What?”
“The meter on the electrical adapter. The thing that shows whether or not the battery is charging.”
“Oh.” Wes looked into the well in front of him. “It’s charging! I can see the needle rise!”
“Ten minutes and we’ll give it a try.”
They gave it a try. Wes turned the key in the ignition. Nothing.
Wes and Jeremy swore.
“The only thing it can be is the computer. There’s gotta be a loose chip or some bad code.” Jeremy whipped out one of his mini-computers and hooked it up to the center panel of the duo. “I’ve already tested everything, but not with the batteries charged. I’ll do it again. Come on, come on.”
Jeremy launched himself at the machine. He reminded Wes of one of the cow dogs on his family ranch. Once one of them locked onto a job, the only way to stop the animal was to shoot it.
Jeremy finally pulled away. “Try it now. There was a glitch in the code and a loose connection.”
Wes was almost afraid to turn the key. He shot a look at Jeremy.
“Go on. Try it.” Jeremy urged him, moving his hands like he was scooting Wes along.
Sucking in a breath, Wes hit the ignition. He could see Jeremy’s tense face next to him. The vehicle belched, then bucked, and settled into a rumbling purr.
“Yahoo! We got it!” Wesley shouted. “We’re on our way out of here!” Jeremy launched himself on Wes, giving him a bear hug. Wes recoiled. “Hey, man, that’s enough.” Then he just grinned. The engine ran rough, but it was running.
He drove the vehicle out of the sunken barn and into the open. Jeremy hung on the back. The two of them grinned widely. They drove up to Sam and Bud and Grace, honking the horn until they saw the effect it was having on the horses.
“Hey you guys, it works!” Wes shouted. “We can get them all going.”
Sam drifted in and out of a haze, feeling people moving around him, seeing the equipment being loaded and then moving. Two days had passed since Wesley and Jeremy had started the machines. Sam could see the fleet of farm vehicles in the center of a herd of loaded horses. The lady had told him they had a special conveyance for him.
“You’ll be safe, Sam,” she said. He had drifted too far away to hear the concern in her voice. And then what they’d rigged up to carry him heaved up in front of him.
“Hey, Sam! Climb in!” Wesley waved from the driver’s seat of the largest machine. Exhaust fumes and engine noise belched from it. The machine had a huge scooper on the front with a smaller scooper like a hand and arm on the back. It pulled a huge disked drag with the blades pulled up. On that, drums of fuel and as much hardware from the barn as they could pack were strapped down tight.
Wes drove to where Sam sat with Grace, the machine’s front bucket raised triumphantly. He stopped near Sam and lowered the bucket until it rested on the ground.
“Sam, get in.” Wes grinned. “Best seat in the house. I’ll be your chauffeur.”
Sam, wan and pale, gazed at the machine.
“It’s a backhoe loader,” Wesley shouted. “The bucket in front is balanced by all the stuff I’m pulling behind. I can keep you up there the whole way. C’mon. It beats a travois.”
“It’s a good idea, Sam,” Grace said. “I’ll put the pads inside and cover you with a tarp. You can rest while we’re traveling.”
Sam acquiesced. He hadn’t slept well for days, falling into black dreams. He shivered and could feel his cheeks flaming. He allowed Jeremy and Henry to lift him into the bucket.
“Here are your antibiotics. And the pain pills and water,” Grace said.
“I’m fine, lady. Dinna worry.” His face felt leaden. He hurt all over. He wouldn’t let them know. He would not be a burden.
Wes raised the bucket and they were off.
Sam grabbed at the sides of the bucket when the vehicle rumbled forward. The machine looked huge when he first saw it, and it seemed more enormous when he rode in it. The sound it made running and the feel of it moving rattled his bones and made his feet ache. He pulled himself up and looked over the edge. The others spread out before him.
The lady had told him the names of all the vehicles. Lena and James drove the two tractors. They pulled trailers full of things he didn’t have words for. There was a truck. Its back was covered with something like a small house. That must hold the babies and the three people from the village. The truck pulled a trailer jammed with more things. Jeremy drove something like a car, which pulled a vehicle similar to itself. A mule, Jeremy had called it. Both were loaded. Bud, Henry, and Grace rode horses while leading horses with travois. A bunch of horses pulling drays ran along with them, loose.
Sam lay back, dizzy. He felt the way he had when he had first gotten out of the underground when he’d wanted to scream and throw himself on the ground. His body felt hot. The sun bore down. They had covered him with a tarp, but it magnified the sun’s heat.
He tried to look backward at Wesley, but could only see the roof of the machine behind him. Wesley couldn’t see him, and he couldn’t see Wesley. Sam didn’t trust Wesley. Would he drop the bucket and throw Sam out?
He shivered as the hours passed and the sun baked him under the tarp. He drifted in and out, thinking and being awake, and then being fuzzy. Not knowing where he was or why. He needed water, but was too weak to get it. His legs flamed like the fire was still burning them.
His eyes closed. He was in the spider queen’s chamber. Sam Big hung there, his lower legs nipped off, screaming for Sam to kill him. And then he was hanging there, legs cut off below the knee, screaming like Sam. The queen ate his legs silently.
He was tunneled deep into the earth, smiling. He’d recovered the Book and his packet of jewels. Emily’s ring. He put them into his suit, fastening it up. And then flames and heat enveloped him. His goggles fused to his suit. He was dying, burning up. He struggled to breathe, fighting to live. No air. He could hear himself choking, his throat closing.
Then he didn’t remember anything.
58
Where the hell was Wesley going? Bud looked out ahead of the caravan. Wes was just a speck on the horizon. Bud lifted his hat and held its brim in his teeth, wiping his forehead with the back of his arm and then replacing his hat. They were in danger of liquefying out in the sun. He looked around the struggling caravan. The vehicles weren’t quite road-worthy. Jeremy had to stop every ten minutes to fix something.
His job was no picnic, either. Ponying two horses and riding the one he was on with a stupid English saddle wasn’t easy. Lead ropes and reins filled his hands. The saddle had no horn to dally a lead line around, nothing to tie anything to. They’d been traveling for hours. His horse kept turning toward the horse on its right, ears pinned back, mouth opened to bite.
“Settle down, buddy,” he said. “We’re all a little testy.” Some worse than others, he thought. It was hard to lose sight of a gigantic machine on a flat plain studded with oak trees, but Wes had nearly pulled it off. He was so far ahead of the slow-moving horses and farm vehicles that he’d almost disappeared.
What was he thinking? Wes was supposed to keep them in sight and keep his mind on Sam’s condition every minute. The backhoe loader was so much more powerful than the other vehicles that it pulled ahead of them with no trouble. It reminded Bud of the famous race that Secretariat had won; he was so far ahead that the pack was only a memory.
“We better be more than a memory, Wes,” Bud whispered. “You’re playing with Sam’s life.”
The plain became utterly still and clear. No movement, no birdsong. Golden meadows, big oaks dotted around like gnarled-up giants. Blue sky. Sun. The little dot carrying Wes and Sam in the far distance. Flat and eerie. The scene stilled and sharpened again, becoming a super-real vision of meadow and oak.
The center of the scene ripped open the way it sometimes did when Grandfather was with him. The shaman pulled you into his reality, a reality that showed you the truth of everything, no matter how far away it was, and no matter how dense the cloud of lies around it. Bud found himself in that mystical state. He knew what was in Wes’s mind more clearly than he knew his own thoughts. It was like the old days in the Mogollon Bowl, when the spirit warriors were so close they practically were each other. He couldn’t believe what Wes was thinking.
Wesley drove straight ahead, punching it. At first, the drone of the engine and the machine’s jolting absorbed all his attention. After a while, the monotony of the rough ride blocked out the world and his mind roamed.
How did I end up here? he thought. I’m an international movie star. I’m booked for the next seven years. No Indian has ever made what I make. Tribes don’t make what I make, even with casinos. If I don’t get back soon, no one will hire me again. I’ll lose it all.
My life has been shit since I was born. I was a squalling brown brat on a dirt ranch. We worked our asses off, for what? So I can get yanked out here to rescue freaks?
Why do things like this always happen to me? Wouldn’t you think I’d get some slack once in a while? On one lousy thing? I was a spirit warrior, for Christ’s sake. That should count for something.
He looked at the bucket in front of him. The tarp prevented him from seeing his passenger. Even without the cover, he wouldn’t have seen Sam. He was nestled in the bottom of the deep bucket. If Sam needed him, he’d have to move enough to get Wes’s attention. Wesley had vowed to keep an eye out for movement down there. He had seen Sam’s terrible condition when they put him in the bucket.
The guy was going to die. Anyone could see that. Why were they pretending they could save him? He was probably dead already. And there was not one lousy thing anyone could do about it.
Fuck, Wes thought, jerking as he hit every rock and gully. His brown arms were sprea
d, gripping the steering wheel. He felt as powerful as he ever had been, lean and spare.
The one good thing about all the work and the lousy food was that his water weight was down and his muscles even better defined. He looked the way he had back on the set, with no dietician telling him what to eat. He didn’t need that bullshit. Wes knew how to keep himself fit.
The forest was up in front of them somewhere. They’d turn left, north, and head along it until they could see the cliff. How stupid all this was. He was busting his ass to get home, when home was a stone-age dwelling that his ancestors had built a million years before and abandoned.
He punched it, driving harder than he had all day. Anything to get out of there. The others could catch up.
“Damn it to hell, Wes!” Bud cursed. “You’re a tragedy queen!” Wesley had been the purest man Bud had ever known, a shaman of shamans, sure to be Grandfather’s successor. Now he was Wesley, the superstar who drove back to the cliff with a dying man in his bucket—and didn’t care.
Bud leaned over and tied up the lead lines of the horses he was ponying “Henry, watch these two,” he shouted. Not waiting to hear Henry’s answer, Bud galloped to the truck carrying the children and rescued people. Martin had the side window open and was screaming out of it, milky blind eyes reflecting the sunlight.
“He’s dyin’. Sam’s dyin’. Ye gotta get to him.”
“That’s right, Martin, we gotta go.”
Mel stopped the truck and stuck his head out the window. “What’s the matter?” He was red-faced and sweaty.
“Sam’s in big trouble and Wes don’t seem to know it. We gotta get up there.” Bud waved in Wesley’s direction. “I need Martin for the healin’ an’ I need Jeremy.” He looked around frantically. “There he is. You get him an’ Martin up to Wesley as fast as you can.”
“It’s rough ground. I might break an axle.”
“You get ‘em there, or I’ll break you.” Bud glared at Mel.