The Road North

by Phillip D Granath

  “How is he doing?” Kyle asked.

  “The same, asleep but still breathing,” Coal replied.

  “I’m going to try and open her up and make up for some lost time.”

  “It’s your call Tonto, but be careful, this country may look a lot like home, but it ain’t, this desert is different.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean just look at the road.” Coal replied.

  Kyle peered down the roadway ahead of him, it ran nearly straight for as far as the eye could see, except for a patch here and there covered in shifting sand.

  “I don’t see anything,” Kyle replied.

  “Down south we only see sand like that when something blocks the wind and lets it pile up.”

  “Yeah, like the cars we saw on the road just outside of town.”

  “Yeah like that, only here the sand is everywhere, and it’s not your normal sand, it’s that real fine shit. What my people call caliche dust.”

  “Ok, does that matter?”

  “I don’t know,” Coal replied, “it just seems odd, wrong somehow to see it all over out here. Usually, the first strong breeze blows it away.”

  “Well right now we got bigger things to worry about than the type of sand that’s filling up the damn desert, I’m going to open her up.”

  “Go for it Tonto, only take a swig of this first,” Coal replied offering the brown bottle again.

  Kyle accepted the bottle, knowing that the alcohol was about the last thing that either of them should be drinking. But as the scavenger tipped the bottle back and felt the burning liquid roll over his parched tongue, he had to admit that it felt good. Kyle, like most people, had grown accustomed to living on the edge, surviving on the barest amounts of food and water at one point or another over the years. But even he could tell his thirst was growing steadily more insistent, it had been nearly eight hours since they had sipped their cups of bitter coffee back at the diner. Kyle glanced at Miles again, he couldn’t even imagine how much worse it must be for the old man, having suffered so much blood loss. The Colorado river had to be nearly 50 miles ahead of them still Kyle thought, and while Miles may still die, getting water in the old man could only improve his odds.

  “Hold on,” Kyle said.

  The scavenger steadily pressed the accelerator to the floor, and the buggy responded, quickly picking up speed. A small stretch of the fine windblown sand lay across the road ahead, and Kyle slowed, at first considering going around it, but when the buggy’s wheels rolled through it effortlessly, he pressed on through. The fine caliche dust rose in a thick cloud behind them, but the drifts of sand seemed to present no real obstacle for the rover, so Kyle accelerated again.

  For nearly an hour they raced across the desert, making up the time just as Miles had promised that morning. To their east, a series of broken ridges dotted the landscape, while to the west the land began to steadily rise, but Kyle could see no hills or mountains beyond. And then ahead of them he saw a faded green sign, marking a road leading to the west, It read “Grand Canyon Scenic Overlook .5 Miles.” The scavenger had seen the canyon before, when he was a boy, there were few school aged children in Arizona hadn’t. But today they had no time for sightseeing, and they raced past. Whether Coal hadn’t noticed the sign or more than likely, simply didn’t care Kyle couldn’t say.

  After another half an hour, Kyle knew they had to be nearing the Marble Canyon crossing and hopefully with its water. Ahead of them, the land began to subtly change as more rocky outcroppings and ridges of windblown sand began to appear. Kyle quickly realized he was looking at smaller crevices and canyons, offshoots from the main canyon. Most of them looked to end well short of the roadway, and the line of pavement ahead of them appeared unbroken, but instinctively he began to slow the buggy. Then from next to him, Coal spoke, “Hey Kyle, you know all that loose sand we been seeing around here?”

  “Yeah, the stuff you called caliche?”

  “Yeah that stuff, well I think I figured out why it’s fucking everywhere.”

  “Yeah, why is that?” Kyle asked.

  “Have a look.”

  The scavenger looked away from the road, his eyes going first to the bounty-hunter and then the ridgeline to their east. At first, Kyle had trouble making sense of what he was seeing, the broken ridges were covered in the shade, as a massive brown wall towered over them. The wall ran for as far as the eye could see and it seemed alive, a swirling mass colored with every shade of the desert imaginable. It was as if the land had suddenly come alive, woken by their intrusion and it seemed very, very angry. And as the towering wall moved forward engulfing the line of broken hills. Kyle suddenly realized just how quickly it was moving and heading straight for them. The scavenger had seen enough, he slammed on the gas and in a squeal of the plastic tires the buggy launched forward.

  “What in the fuck is that?” Kyle screamed.

  “I think it’s called a habood or habeeb maybe? I’m not sure.”

  “What do you mean you’re not sure?”

  “It ain’t my language pale face, it’s from a whole different desert, on a different continent!”

  “Well then what is it doing here?”

  “I don’t know, but in about 30 seconds you can ask it yourself!”

  Racing down the highway, Kyle hazarded a glance to his left and saw that his friend was right, in less than a minute the wall of sand would overtake them. He didn’t have any idea how long a storm like this could last, hours or days, but what he did know was that either way it was time that Miles didn’t have.

  “We’re going to push through!” Kyle screamed into the wind.

  “Of course we are because that sounds like a terrible idea, which are the only ones we ever have!”

  “Well if it isn’t broke,” Kyle offered.

  If the bounty-hunter made a reply Kyle didn’t hear it, the wind picked up considerably just then pelting them with a fine spray of stinging sand. The scavenger ducked down as far as he could and still continue to drive trying to shield his face from the windblown sand. Next, to him, Coal tied a bandana around Mile’s nose and mouth and then his own. Kyle slipped on his own mask and his shades seconds before the wall of sand swallowed them completely.

  For Kyle it was a living nightmare, the world was plunged into an eerie half-light as the sand-choked out the sun. While every bit of his exposed skin began to burn as if it was on fire. He pulled his long sleeves down trying to cover his arms, but it did little good, the sand seemed to blow right through the worn fabric. The road in front of them quickly vanished, a result of the darkness and the sand. Kyle was forced to slow and then after a moment he flicked on the row of led headlights on the buggy’s grill, but it did little good, he could barely see a dozen feet ahead of them.

  Coal screamed something next to him, but Kyle couldn’t make out a word. The bounty-hunter finally leaned in closer and shouted, “We need to find cover, a ditch or an outcropping of rocks, anything!”

  “It can only be a few miles to the crossing, we can make it! We need to make it!”

  “I seem to remember a great big canyon right around here somewhere. Water ain't going to do Miles any good if you get lost and drive us off a cliff before we can find it!”

  “We keep going, I can do this, all we have to do is stay on the road, and it should lead us…”

  At that moment, the roadway that Kyle was willing to bet their lives on collapsed beneath them.

  Juan lay on the top bunk of his bed, thumbing through one of his tattered comics, just as he had a thousand times before. Alan lay in the bottom bunk, in what until a few days ago had been Mile’s bed. With the help of the Grease Monkeys, they finished reassembling the pump that afternoon and tomorrow morning they would fire her boiler again. Though aside from Juan, only Anna and the council knew that it may be for the last time. In the bunk below Juan heard Allen turn another page and heard the boy scoff for what must have been the hundredth time.

  “I just don’t get it, J
uan. I mean you’re telling me that this guy is supposed to have all of these powers and just uses them to save people? And they’re not even his own people, they are just like strangers? And people believed in this sort of stuff back then?”

  Juan shook his head, he introduced Allen to his collection of comics that afternoon, and though the dark-haired boy loudly voiced his disbelief in the heroes’ motivations and questioned every plot line, he had also read through nearly two dozen comics over the last few hours. Juan scrawled a few quick words on a page of his notebook and held it down for Allen to see.

  “Yeah, yeah I know it was all make-believe or fiction or whatever, but I mean it’s not even believable. In this one, the guy in the cape flies to a whole other world to rescue these people, but they’re not even people, they’re not even human, they’re green for fuck's sake!”

  Juan flipped back a few pages in his notebook and held it down again.

  “I get it, he’s a hero, but shouldn’t a hero be looking out for his own people first?” Allen replied.

  Juan didn’t bother to reply, he just lay in bed staring at the shack’s rusty tin roof. The comics had given the boys something to momentarily distract them from the failing pump, and the allowed Juan to lower his guard around the boy at least for a time. While it was a nice respite from Juan’s constant sense of distrust, the conversations had told him something deeper about the newcomer. For Allen everything was a confrontation, every situation had to have a winner, and a loser, and the people around you were either your friends or your enemies. Juan could only guess that the boy learned that mentality on the streets, it was vicious and sad and almost…how would Miles have put it? Tribal.

  “Have you ever noticed how almost all of the people in these comics are white?”

  Sometime later, after the lamp had burned down, a breeze blew in from the desert. The wind was gentle enough, but it was still enough to rattle the roofing just above Juan’s head. The mute boy startled awake and looked around confused at first before another gust blew in repeating the rattling sound.

  “Relax Juan, it’s just the night wind. Think of it as the desert’s way of saying goodnight,” Allen said.

  Juan just shook his head, the desert winds use to always pick up at night, before the drought that is. Then they became less frequent, more random, but also more intense. The first few years of the drought people had hoped that the winds would mean a storm would follow and with it rain. But the rain never came, and soon enough people stopped hoping. Just then a sudden gust blew in, banging and rattling the metal roofing louder than before and just at its peak, Juan heard a sudden loud pop.

  The mute boy leaped from his bed in an instant, landing on the floor next to the bunk bed and was nearly gutted for his trouble. Allen rolled from his bed, one hand up in a fist while the other was held back, coiled like a snake and clutching his knife. For a moment the two boys looked at each other in suspicion, before Allen slowly lowered the blade. Juan raised a hand and pointing to his ear he made his hand into a finger gun.

  “I heard it too, but that wasn’t a gunshot.”

  Juan turned and scooping up the lamp from the table ran outside with Allen close behind him. The desert wind continued blowing up dust and rattling the shack and the compound’s walls alike. Then a moment later they were joined by Jasper running from the main gate and carrying a lantern of his own.

  “Did you fucking hear that?” he shouted over the breeze.

  “We did, what was it?” Allen replied.

  “Hell if I know, I thought maybe it was a gunshot at first but none of my guys saw shit and we ain’t under attack.”

  Ignoring them Juan walked directly towards the pump carrying the lantern, he took a dozen steps before he slowed and then finally stopped. Allen and Jasper caught up with him a moment later.

  “Everything alright kid?” Jasper asked.

  Juan blinked twice and then looked between them as if he was trying to remember something he had forgotten. The mute boy shook his head and then suddenly his eyes went wide and looked first down at the ground and at the darkness all around them. The Juan took off at a run, no longer racing towards the pump, but the base of the water tower just beyond it. Allen and Jasper caught up to him a moment later as Juan came to a sudden stop at the base of the tower and stared down at the ground with a look of horror. The one-inch thick steel cable that had once been secured to the support beam was gone and in its place now hung just a three-foot length, its end torn and frayed.

  “What the fuck?” Jasper asked.

  Juan held his light up as high as he could, about two feet above the broken support cable the beam itself was starting to bend, the six-inch wide piece of steel was warped and misshapen. Juan shook his head in disbelief, but before Allen or Jasper could say a word, he was moving again, this time running beneath the tower.

  “Maybe not the best idea!” Jasper shouted after him, but Juan was gone followed a moment later by Allen.

  The boys reached the opposite side of the tower, and Juan found exactly what he had feared, the opposite cable was still in place, but instead of being taut the thick cable hung loose, drooping against the support beam. Juan raised his lantern once more, and as he suspected the beam above was starting to warp as well, however, this one was starting to lean outward. Jasper arrived a moment later, having run around the base of the tower. He stopped and looked down at the loose cable, “Well, that can’t be good.” As if to emphasise the Black Jacket’s point the wind picked up again and at that moment a deep and unsettling groan came from the darkness above them.

  “Juan, what do we do?” Allen asked.

  The mute boy didn’t move, in truth, Juan had no idea what to do. In all of the years he had lived with Miles, years filled with the old man’s incessant rambling, lecturing and even bitching about the pump, as far as he could tell, Miles had never considered what would happen if the tower itself should suddenly fail. For the first time since the old man’s departure, Juan felt as if he was completely on his own.

  “Juan?” Allen repeated.

  The boy shook his head as if trying to clear away an unpleasant thought and then turning back to face Allen and Jasper he began to write furiously. The first note he tore off and handed to Jasper.

  Bring in all your men and send for more, we are going to need all the help we can get! HURRY!

  The Black Jacket sergeant read the note and then nodded once before running into the darkness already shouting for his men. The second note he thrust into Allen’s hands.

  Back in the shed, bring back every length of cable, cargo strap and come-along you can find!

  Allen hesitated for just a moment, looking between the note and Juan as if trying to decide what he should do. Juan snapped his fingers in front of the larger boys face and pointed toward the shed. Allen stared at him for a moment and then turned and began to run towards the shed. Juan watched him disappear into the darkness. Then he turned and looking back up at the deformed beam above him suddenly wished that he had a voice to swear with.

  The next 30 minutes went by in a frantic blur with Jasper cursing and shouting orders to the Black Jackets in the darkness and Juan running back and forth, checking lines and resetting anchor points by the light of a few flickering lamps. Juan couldn’t help but feel relief at the chaotic pace, it left him little time to reflect on the fact that he had no idea what he was doing. He was a teenager, not an engineer, and while a moment didn’t pass in which he wished Miles would suddenly appear, a little voice in the back of his head reminded him, neither was the old man, at least not that kind of engineer. Juan was left to do the best he could, and in the end, his plan was simple enough. Allen climbed each of the tower’s legs in the darkness, moving faster than most could have climbed them in broad daylight. He climbed dragging a guide rope and then with that pulled a replacement line up behind him. Once the new line was secured in place above the damaged section Juan and the Black Jackets would tighten the line as much as they could and then secure it
in place. They used whatever they could find, sections of chain, rusted lengths of cable and brightly colored cargo straps.

  They tied off two new lines to each of the damaged legs, but as Juan stood trying to catch his breath and wondering what else he could do the breeze picked up again. Somewhere in the darkness above them, the old tower groaned softly in reply, and Juan couldn’t help but imagine the massive structure swaying above them, teetering on the edge of collapse. A few of the other men must have felt it as well, as several of the Black jackets began to cautiously back away from the tower.

  “You all stay right the fuck where you are! Any Black Jacket I catch taking as much as a single step backward goes on trial for deserting his post! You hear me ladies? That a capital crime, that means you’ll fucking hang!” Jasper shouted at his men.

  Juan didn’t know if the Sergeant was serious, but the reaction throughout his men was immediate. Those that looked on the verge of running looked down at their feet while others took a few steps towards the tower. Content, at least for the moment, that none of his men would run Jasper turned and rejoined Allen and Juan.

  “That should keep them in line. What do we do now?” he asked.

  Juan nodded and scribbled a quick note in his notebook. Any word from The Council?

  “I sent a runner, but he hasn’t come back yet.”

  Juan shook his head in frustration, he didn’t have the experience dealing with the council like Miles did, but even he knew they would want to debate and talk over what to do next. Somehow he doubted he would hear anything back from then before sunrise. Just then the tower shuttered again, and the three men stared up into the darkness. With that Juan was suddenly convinced that whatever was going to happen, would be all over by sunrise.

  “I don’t get it! I mean what the fuck happened?” Jasper asked.

  “What do you mean?” Allen replied.

  “I mean this fucking tower has been standing for years, fucking decades and everything has been peachy, now this!”