CHAPTER 49
The once quiet roadside was chaos. Dry yellow dust filled the air, permeated with the odor of spent gunpowder. People milled around yelling and pulling curious children away; armed men approached on the road, and clamored onto the rooftop. As the road had no sidewalk, he scuttled in a half run alongside the buildings, holding onto his arm, until he ducked into an open door. The first room had blinding, mite-filled sunlight that streamed through a glassless window. It seemed unfurnished; he stumbled about. In the confusion, none of the armed men had seen him slip through the door.
The inside of his mouth was bone-dry and pain radiated through his left side. It was wet with his blood, some of which had already trickled and dried, staining his shirt down by the rib-cage. He staggered through the room, dizzy, and found a door, which he went through. A woman stood leaning against a counter in semi-darkness. Cracks in the wall emitted weak strips of sunlight. She was vaguely familiar, startled. She reached for a kitchen knife.
"I'm hurt bad…" Wade said. "Can you help?"
She stared at him for a moment. "Aren't you the one who came to get his girl?"
"My daughter, yeah…"
"Come with me." She was the lady who was selling potatoes outside. He was getting more dizzy; she led him by the arm out into the sun again.
"Help me," she said to someone. It seemed like a teenaged boy grabbed him by the good side. The air got furry and dark, then he blacked out.
###
He was being trundled along. He was on his back, covered by a sheet. Two people pushed him along a bumpy route. He heard whispering about "Get him to a doctor."
Then he was lifted upon a table inside a room. They tore the rest of his shirt off. The light was weak, as if powered by lantern, but the hands on his body assured. They mopped up the encrusted blood, then began to sew him up. Someone had him bite down on a stick, before the needle went in.
He murmured, "Put this on my wounds," and with his good hand, dug out the plastic bag of white powder from the Bible. He blacked out.
He found himself in a bigger wagon, laying beneath a canvas. He heard the clipped footfalls of the horses; voices. It was intensely hot. Thirst had robbed him of both voice and strength. He pushed the canvas partly off and whispered, "water." Someone put a canteen down and up to his mouth, and he gulped at it desperately until the trickle stopped and he ran out of breath. He saw the desert all around.
Then he was on a train; the sounds were familiar. The wheels scraping along the track and the shift and bump of the wooden flooring. It was hot and dusty inside, with a few open windows at eye level. He looked around; about a dozen silent people, all sitting down. Next to him, a canvas bag, his crossbow, and a quiver, containing a few arrows. He recalled what he had done with the rest of them.
He reached down into the bag and found a liter bottle of water. He drank it down and set it aside. A dust-covered, raggedly dressed teenage boy sat across from him.
"Where is the train going?" he asked him.
"West."
"Where west?"
"I don't know." The boy looked away; reluctant to converse with the man who looked like he'd been dragged behind a horse.
"Where did it leave from?"
"A town."
"What town."
"Phoenix. It used to be called."
Wade looked around, confused.
"How did I get here?"
"You was lyin' over there, when I got on."
Wade took another guzzle of the water. Rooting around, amazed, he found his army knife, wiped off and stored in its leather sleeve. He'd been looked after, meticulously, given the circumstances. He idly chewed a small package of crackers, savoring the salt.
"Want some?"
"Okay." He gave the open package to the boy.
"Where are you going?" he asked the kid.
"California," the boy said. "The ocean. My uncle lives there."
Wade got up, unsteadily with one arm. He wore a sling; the bandages were secure, in a tight wrap.
He ambled over and looked out the window. A baking brown desert, with sand dunes and greenish-brown mountains in the distance. The horizon glowed ruby red. He looked around at the others.
"Did anyone see an Indian, with a bone necklace, and a teenaged girl?"
They all shook their heads silently.
"Where's the end of the line on this train?"
An old man sat in the shadows, with a woman rocking an infant.
"South of L.A., where the Colorado flows into the sea. Follows old Highway 10 west."
"How long does it take?"
"We'll be there in a few hours." The train rumbled along its route with purpose, he was glad, and never made another stop in the desert.
PART IV: THE SEA
CHAPTER 50
He sat back against the wall of the railcar, before the wheels screeched and the train slowed. He stood up, went over to the open window. He thought he smelled the sea. There were more trees than sand, including a few palms leaning into a breeze off the water. The air was cool, briny. Squinting into the sunshine, Wade could see nothing threatening, like camps or barbed wire, yet.
He picked up his things; he heard the heavy wooden doors of the freight cars slide open. People had begun to disembark with meagre belongings, and walk in groups alongside the tracks. Finally, the door of his own freight car slid open; he joined the line at the exit, then he hopped gingerly down onto the black railroad bed. They were in California.
Down a hill and through a woods, he could see the pale blue, sunlit ocean. The hills were crowded, thousands of people moved about either toward the beaches, or inland. He saw troops, directing traffic, and organizing groups of people. They had brown uniforms trimmed in red. Some of the people were leaving on buses; others got back on the train, but far fewer than had gotten off.
A long line of people, hundreds, awaited a docked freighter. The Pacific, eggshell blue and with a perfect swell breaking meters offshore, lay beneath the rail yard. He scoured the crowd for Kara and Ironcloud. Nothing but preoccupied, unfamiliar faces. People who were looking for other people, like him. He joined the line for the freighter; it made more sense for them to have gone to the sea, for a passage north. They came west, and they wouldn't have turned back. Or they're waiting for him here, he thought.
He asked the person in front of him, "Where is this ship going?"
"North. Towards the Bay area. They want people up there–the rumor is that they need laborers for the city and farms. The cleanups; the firefighting. They're trying to grow vegetables again."
"Who does? Who's in charge?"
"The Chinese. They've taken over these parts."
"Is it violent? Are they rounding people up?" He looked back around at the troops, nudging people towards lines, watching over the crowds. They had a calmness bordering on arrogance. A quiet, iron authority. "Do people have freedom of movement?"
The man lit a cigarette and blew the smoke the other way, as if to dismiss the confusion and chaos.
"See for yourself–you can go where you want, within limits, I suppose. They're not charging for the ship. It's better than under the regime, that's for sure. I haven't seen any forced labor or prison camps…so far. No rough stuff."
"Is this the only ship?"
"No. One leaves about once a week. I've heard."
So Kara and Ironcloud could have been on an earlier freighter, he thought. He continued to scour the crowds for them; the sunny hillsides.
"What's going on in L.A.?"
"There is no L.A. It burned, then it flooded in a cyclone. It was a giant squatter's camp, then these troops cleared it out."
"Cleared it out…"
"A lot of them died, the residents…" the man said, looking away. Wade was sick of smelling his cigarette smoke. He was going to go search the crowds further.
He kept his eyes trained on the people gathered at the shoreline. "You haven't seen an Indian and a young girl, have you?" he asked, uselessly, in his
mind.
"No," the man said. "But I hope you find them."
She's safe, Wade said to himself. He trusted Ironcloud. They'd freed her from bondage, he knew that much. She was alive, and now she was on the move, in a general direction homeward. He reasoned, they would make an effort to find a central location and wait for Wade.
He left and walked the dirt pathways, the crowded hills with grass whitened by the sun. He thought of the bullet that smashed his shoulder; he'd be with Kara if it wasn't for that. Then again, she could have caught a bullet, or he could have gotten one in the head, so he supposed things had worked out, better than they might have.
He couldn't find them so he returned to the line. After several minutes, he shuffled up the metal gangway and onto the freighter.
The boat seemed a bit of a tinpot, he thought, with a rusted hull and pealing paint. Everything on it was iron-hard, and showed the beating the ocean had given it. He wondered where they scored the diesel for it, or maybe the antiquated vessel ran on coal. He could feel the thrumming engines in the metal deck; the hydrocarbon exhaust was thick in the air. It was every man for himself to find comfort inside; he chose outdoors, on the deck.
All this was avoidable, he thought, with a bitter detachment. Everything that's transpired, for the masses of suffering people in this region. They knew global warming was happening; it was as plain as the nose on someone's face. Every year was hotter than the last. They knew exactly what were the levels of CO2 and methane that spelled catastrophe, as well as how to cut the emissions. Inertia and status quo ruled the world, however. Now chaos did.
He found a place where he could sit down, in a sea breeze. He still wore the boony hat, which had somehow survived all the miles he covered. He looked around once more for a familiar face, then still drowsy from blood-loss and travel, put his head back and closed his eyes. He passed out.
Phoebe Tate came onboard, with Wiley in tow. Wade struggled to his feet. He waved with his good arm. She looked fresh, vibrant, despite everything. She rushed forward toward him across the deck, all smiles, bright eyes, and hair flopping around.
"Where's your daughter?" she said, eyes wide. "I heard!"
"You heard what?"
"That you got your daughter back! I want to meet her!"
"She escaped, yeah, we got separated…"
"But you'll find her again!"
"I will. What about you? How come you're not in Glen Canyon?"
"Oh, I got sick of it. Needed a change."
"They broke up," Wiley said, ruefully. Wade shook Wiley's hand. "Looks like you broke a wing," Wiley quipped to him.
"It's healing. Where're you going? Got a specific destination?"
"Same place you are," Wiley said. "Same place…"
Phoebe looked at him thoughtfully, in a way he found penetrating.
"I'm so glad you're alive," she said. "I prayed for you when you left the river. I remembered the dark road in Colorado, when you pulled over for me. It was a moment in time. The moments that make all the difference in the world. We went through a lot together, and we became close.
"I saw you kill, and I said to myself, that's not the Michael Wade I know. Not the true one. He's not a killer by nature; he's a kind man, at the core. The world changed, not him; he had to change with it, to find his daughter. The men who held Kara, did you kill them?"
"You bet I did."
"You had to."
"I need to find my daughter for good."
"You will," she said. "She wears the Saint Michael medal. Remember that, from the old days?"
"I do. Years ago, I came back from a fishing trip once, down in Florida, with a bad case of Staph, on my back. An infection, came home with it. Kara was only a baby, an infant. Right after that, she had her first epileptic seizure. She kept having them, dozens per day–we felt helpless. Lee and I. I blamed myself. I thought she got sick from me. The doctors told me the epilepsy wasn't related, but I was sure it was my fault, with the timing of it. She was so helpless, lying in bed with the fits. That's why I had to get her back. It's why I had to do everything I could to save her."
A loud clanging on deck startled him. He opened his eyes. They were serving watery potato chowder to the crowd on deck out of a big heated steel container. He stood up to eat.
CHAPTER 51
The freighter pitched in the open seas. People were getting sick on deck, over the sides. Wade clung to the rail with one hand. It felt different, to be cold. He watched the hull rise up in a swell, then strike back into the sea, lifting a spray of froth that felt like mist. A bulbous, angry cloud drifted over them, then there was rain. He joined a group of people pushed against some steel bulwark, but the rain was brief. It subsided, then he returned to his place in the sun.
He could still see the coastline, appearing in and out of a shroud of fog. He didn't have a map of California. But he knew that even going only 20 knots, they'd be within range of Monterey Peninsula by evening. The sea voyage had already gone about eight hours.
Phoebe's and Wiley's presences were still palpable for him. Somehow he thought he'd see them again.
That chowder they'd served had been like prison gruel. He thought of Ironcloud, and the heart and liver that had been a banquet by comparison.
Then came a loud, vibratory shudder from the stern. There was a crack, like lightening had struck, or a big transformer had blown out and sizzled. Black smoke poured from the stern behind them. People screamed.
Barely a minute passed. He pushed against the crowd that fled to the bow of the boat; he wanted to see what had happened. The ship seemed to be drifting. He reached the stern and craned over the railing. He saw crewmen lowering wooden lifeboats with thick ropes and pulleys into the swollen seas. Soldiers in the brown uniforms pushed back the crowd; then panic. The boat listed. Clouds of the black oily smoke clouded the deck. She was going down.
He took his canvas bag and his bow and joined a crowd that choked the stairs leading below-deck. When he reached the bottom deck, he continued to press along the railing until he reached another flight of stairs. The ship listed hard starboard. He ran into the man he stood behind in the ship line, who recognized him. The man leaned dissolutely against the rail; he made eye contact with Wade.
"They're scuttling the boat," he said, bitterly. "They set charges back there. They're letting her go to the bottom, to thin out the refugees. I could have taken the bus–I knew it!" Then he and Wade were swallowed in the crowd that surged toward the next flight of stairs. Wade had the bow and bag slung over his good shoulder, and he fought not to be trampled. He found himself on the lower deck.
He looked over the side at the overcrowded lifeboats, already pulling away heartlessly. Mostly full of soldiers and crewmen. The boat then listed acutely to starboard. People fell from the upper decks, somersaulting into the choppy waters. Making sure everything was secure on his body, everything precious, including the crossbow, Wade draped his leg over the railing, and jumped overboard.
CHAPTER 52
Kara and Ironcloud had finally reached the California coast. It was a place they could stop, eat, and rest. Kara Wade was quiet, and since they'd barely escaped on horses, she was agreeable about the route Ironcloud took: first to the west on the horses, then he sold them for a pocket full of dollars, and they boarded the train. The freight cars took them past the desolation of Yuma, Arizona, and they'd ended up in Tijuana, which was a massive refugee camp of escapees from all points of the compass.
Ironcloud thought Michael Wade was dead. In fact, he was sure of it. He sensed a special responsibility for the daughter, and he thought he could get her over the Canadian border up north and eventually onto another train. Wade had mentioned Ottawa, Canada.
People were resourceful. A wagon train had formed. In actuality, it was a motley collection of mountainbikes, single horses, and horse-drawn wagons. There was even a rickety old school bus that had some diesel. All these people who'd wanted to go north had banded together. Some people simply walked next
to the wagons. Ironcloud got a place in a wagon with Kara. They had food, water, and they were going in the right direction. Ironcloud told her that Wade would head west, and they'd keep an eye peeled for him the whole time.
There was a chance, if small, that they would run into each other. If he was alive. Civilization was in such bad shape that there were only a few places that people congregated regionally; the open-air train depots, the ports, and the makeshift refugee camps. They all had roughly hewn resources for looking for someone, like public wall boards where you could pin a picture and a note.
Ironcloud kept dreaming of returning to Arizona and his girl Marina. He kept his spirits up by imagining her beautiful face. Once they'd made love on a leather skin laid on the ground in the hills, and she'd said she felt his heart beating through his chest, and that told her he was a good man. He didn't forget that Wade pulled him out of the desert. He saw that Kara cried to herself sometimes in the wagon.
But Kara was also talking to and making friends with other young girls. He saw her picking flowers in the fields with them next to the wagons.
It took them two weeks. They followed the Pacific Coast north. The soldiers watched them passively. The crazies seemed to have gone somewhere else; they weren't attacked or harassed. If a wagon broke down, they all stopped and fixed it. There were occasional disagreements, but no one went on and left an individual, or a broken wagon. No one was abandoned. People were remarkably stoic and relentless, he thought, like Comanches. The view of the ocean was beautiful from the hills. They'd finally made a beach; it wasn't ruined, or massed with people. It was called San Luis Obispo, someone said.
CHAPTER 53
They were fortunate the sun shined. Everyone on the boat was soaked from sea spray, or from having been in the ocean, like Wade.
Journey By Fire, Part 2: Escape From Tonto Basin Page 8