“We’ve made it,” Julius calls from above.
The bush that looked so small below hides an opening in the rock face. Julius slips through the crevice, and Vane and Roger follow. The crevice opens into a narrow cave, dimly lit by spots of light filtering through the leaves of the mesquite. At the center, the cave is just tall enough for Roger to stand, although Julius bends his head a little. Roger cannot tell how far the cave goes back, and asks Julius.
“A few lengths,” says Julius, “then it shrinks into nothing. Un momento.”
Julius ducks his head, and his shadowy husk fades into that nothingness for a brief moment, until he reappears with an old hiking backpack with a bedroll fastened to it. Out of the backpack he produces a partial bottle of Johnny Walker and a glass tumbler. “A toast to a successful climb,” says Julius pouring out a shot’s worth and offering it to Roger, who imbibes without hesitation.
The glass is refilled with a more generous portion, or so Roger thinks, and presented to Vane who considers the brown liquid questioningly. “I’ve never had whiskey before.”
“I would offer you tequila, but my bar is woefully stocked,” Julius says.
Vane swirls the whiskey in the glass. “Is it gross?”
Julius shakes his head. “No, chica. Are you worried it might put hair on your chest?”
“I don’t know.”
Roger is on the verge of telling her not to feel pressured to drink it when she tilts back her head and quickly takes the shot. She winces, but acts as if it is no big deal.
“How do you know about this place, Julius?” Roger asks.
Julius is solemn. “I know these hills real well. I’ve walked these trails and climbed these hills since I was a kid. No one knows about this place, ‘cept me. And now you. I came here when the world first went to shit, and camped out a long time. Ate snake and sucked the blood. I could’ve stayed here forever. But, you know me.” Julius grins widely. “I like to talk, and I’m not so much of a listener.”
The whiskey warms Roger’s stomach and he feels it in his head a little. Vane feels it, too, and giggles. Roger has never heard her laugh before.
Julius reaches into his backpack again and pulls out a small oil lantern and a book of matches.
“Matches?” Roger doesn’t see them often. “Is that a magic bag? You got any rabbits in there?”
“I don’t like to waste them, but you’ve got to see this.” Julius lights the lantern and holds it high, revealing the wall of the cave to be a rock canvass. A crude drawing in earthy, red strokes depicts a figure amidst linked geometric diamonds. The figure holds a spear and looks upward to parallel zigzagging lines.
“How old are these?” Roger gently traces the drawing with his hand.
“Ancient. The people who drew these lived here thousands of years ago. My mother told me I was descended from them, mixed with blood from the Mescal People who came with their ships and their horses later. This man is a shaman, transforming into wolf.” The lantern light flickers across Julius’s face as he speaks. “The shaman is a healer, but people fear the wolf, although he is always loyal to his pack. No matter what.
“You see these?” Julius presses his palms against handprints outlined in black on the wall near the transformation depiction. “Almost a perfect match.”
“Are there more?”
“Not in this cave. But these are special. Aside from me, you two may be the only people to have viewed these since their creation.”
Julius sets the lantern down and unwraps the burlap roll he has carried all the way from camp. Roger expects to see firearms, booze, or pornography– all strictly regulated by the Freedom Republic. Instead, Julius reveals a small collection of comic books. “Wouldn’t want to have these tossed on the flames of freedom.” Julius picks up a comic with a grainy portrayal of Batman with his hands shackled, standing in fog. The top reads “Armageddon 2001.” “They’d get real particular about that,” says Julius pointing to the words. He flips through thoughtfully. “You should read it, if you get a chance. Pretty damn good comic book.”
Roger looks out the opening of the cave at the landscape where the Fort Davis hills dwindle into the rolling terrain. "You can see for a long ways up here."
"I used to sit up here at night and look for the Marfa lights," Julius says. "They appear mysteriously in the desert and no one knows why. I saw them once. Someday, I'll see them again.
“We should probably head back soon,” says Roger.
“After we satisfy our hunger, yes. While I sort some things out here, why don’t you get a head-start down the hill and start a small fire to heat our lunches?” Julius tosses Roger the matches. “Use these.”
“Sure.”
“Vane, come help me sort these out.”
Vane’s eyes are large and dark and glimmer in the lantern light. In the shadows she is a painting, an ancient pictograph in living flesh, clothed in worn jeans and a cotton t-shirt that is a size too large. Her dark, smooth hair piles over her shoulders and waves before her eyes. Roger sees her. Sees the bedroll and Julius’s tall frame.
“Or come with me, and collect wood for the fire.”
Vane thanks him for the sentiment, with the subtlest of expressions, but in word, declines.
“I will stay.”
{}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}
The mountain ridges become quiet silhouettes before the setting sun, footsteps the only sound in the valley’s trail. Vane leads, this time, pulled toward camp by the last rays of day, a low song on her lips. Julius is several paces behind with Roger, quiet, for once but not for long. His mouth is made for speaking.
“She is a bird,” he says with admiration.
Roger’s silence over the return trip is born out of pensiveness. He keeps wanting to speak, but catches himself each time. Reservation has served him well over the years following the First Apocalypse, but something has stirred him.
To Julius, Roger’s silence is Roger being Roger—his eyes are fixed ahead—so it is a surprise when Roger speaks.
“I’m concerned for her when The Enlisted arrive to camp.”
“For Vane? She’s not on their radar. She is a bird that flits from here to there; it’s of no consequence. Why should they take notice of her?”
“You haven’t been so subtle with her at the camp.”
Julius smiles, still, but his eyes harden and fix themselves straight ahead. “I’m careful enough. Paltrow is emasculate. What will he do? Wag his finger from his horse he likes to parade around on? The cowardly dog knows better than to provoke me.
“Provoke you? What about her? Even cowardly dogs find their opportunity to bite. And I’m worried more about the arrival of The Enlisted. You know what they’re capable of.”
“Some Pony Express guy tells us a White Texan is going to come and get us, and I’m supposed to be shaking in my boots? Look around; we are in the living definition of nowhere. Why the hell would The Enlisted and the White Texan, should this boogey man even exist, ride their asses all the way out here?”
“So Paltrow’s not a threat. And the White Texan is a myth. Do you think getting her pregnant will do her well?”
“Sweet, prudish Roger. Matches aren’t the only amenity I keep in my sack.” Julius grins, slapping Roger on the back and calling ahead to Vane. “Slow down, chica! Don’t get away from us.” His hand still resting on Roger’s shoulder, he lowers his voice and speaks confidentially. “She is a lovely, young thing, but don’t forget you have someone else to worry about. How would Esther feel about your misplaced concerns?”
Part Two: Enlisted
Chapter 10: Welcome to The Freedom Republic
“Best Little Warehouse in Texas,” round scripted letters announce across the metal broadside of the building. Roger chuckles despite himself, a release from building tension. It is funny to him— a joke that he gets. Or it’s the heat blasting him like a furnace from the distorted sun above and the shimmering blacktop below; an insanity brought on by his immersion in insanity.
Roger has seen many memorable sights in the miles he has followed the raised highway through the once sleepy city, and perhaps the city is resting once again, although evidence of turmoil presents itself all along Route 77:
Heaped bodies with ominous, scrawled cardboard signs.
Car lots with all the tires slashed.
Burned out buildings with smoke still seeping from the embers.
Broken windows and graffiti.
And perhaps most memorable, the shirtless bodies hanging from various signage, including a big blue Walmart Supercenter one, black crosses spray painted across the chests, hands and feet zip-tied.
What Roger does not see may be the strangest: living people. Although he feels watched, with every darkened, kicked-out window square staring down at him. But he sees no one. Cautious at first, thinking about each upcoming block, turn and corner, he has settled into a steady pace that has carried him almost through the city. He thinks of things to say to Dixie, realizes she is not there, but says them anyway. The emptiness of the words mixes with the dripping of his sweat and stepping of his feet, one after another, after another.
Now, the city is mostly behind him, and tension is replaced by both anticipation and dread as he pictures his walk multiplied before him in countless segments of sunrises and sunsets.
“Take advantage of the cooler air,” he says to no one, the sun setting to his left, behind the vastness of half a continent. “Keep on walking.” Somewhere to his right the even greater vastness of the ocean presses against an unseen shore.
“Or perhaps I should be walking at night, to avoid the heat,” he says, and almost adds “What do you think?” before remembering Dixie is not there.
“Either way, I can’t walk much more.” Roger attunes to potential places to rest, but as he drags on nothing is especially appealing. He passes through a water tower of a town, and still nothing suits him. Under the highway where it crosses an intersection feels too open. Houses and other structures feel too unknown. More exposed options incur thoughts of snakes, scorpions and gators. Indecision leads to more steps and fewer options. Wide open, flat farmland now surrounds with wind turbines towering in the indeterminable distance and the occasional palm dotting the in-between.
And then, a raindrop. A smattering of raindrops. Downpour.
Roger spots an SUV parked along the side of the road. It suddenly seems like an ideal option as his weary legs jog him up to it. The vehicle is unmolested, unoccupied and unlocked—meeting all of his criteria. Recline in the front or sprawl out in the back? He opts for the back, maybe it is less visible from the road. With a seat folded flat, he can almost stretch his legs all the way out, but not just quite. It only bothers him temporarily, for he is soon asleep under the white noise of rain pelting steel and glass.
Dixie come back don’t you go out to that water some gator is going to eat you up for a snack. Ernesto and his guns blazing, ping-ping-ping stagger and fall, black crosses, black crosses and those faces always looking down what does a hot day smell like, putrid, breath in the sleeve and taste the salt again, the aching, the waiting, the aching…
Esther in a blue dress,
Esther in a blue dress,
Over her head
Something presses against Roger’s temple.
“Rise and shine,” says a nasty voice. The light shining through the windshield creates little rainbows on the dashboard.
Chapter 11: Captured
The cloth stuffed in Roger’s mouth tastes like cigarettes, and the zip ties cut into his wrists and ankles. The voice has returned and addresses the cages.
“The jury is here, boys.” The owner of the voice is a small man wearing rimless glasses and tall black boots. He struts down the narrow corridor, faintly illuminated by the light coming through the rectangular panels high above. The room is a receiving area for an office supply store, judging by the merchandise strewn about. The cages, once used for securing electronics, are crammed with people, mostly young and middle-aged men.
“You first.” The small man points out a wiry youth with a shaved head to his booted and hatted companions. Keys rattle and doors clank. In the back, a rolling steel door lifts revealing three man-sized black figures, and one small, outlined in searing white light. Roger smells a wave of heat, trash and pavement from outside roll in.
A clerk’s desk, cleared of its receipts and inventory papers is positioned just inside the receiving door. The figure in the middle holds the hand of the smallest, and takes a seat before the desk, keeping the small one close. The remaining two take up stances on either side.
The youth with the shaved head is dragged before the desk. Roger’s eyes adjust to the brightness as he watches from his cage.
“Hello, son,” says the man in the middle. His booted foot rests casually on his knee, and his hands are folded over his rancher’s shirt. The youth, maybe nineteen, stares aggressively with the rag bulging from his mouth, first at the rancher, and then the dark-skinned child at his side, a girl.
“Take that out.” The rancher’s voice is gravel. “Now, tell me son, are you penitent?”
The youth wets his lips and spits to the side. “Penitent for what?”
The rancher’s face is grim. “I’ll only ask you one more time, son. Are you penitent?”
“I didn’t do nothing.”
The rancher gently shakes his head. “Tell it to God.”
The men in flannel shirts kick the youth down, taking no interest in his pleading, or that a child looks on from behind the desk. The small man with black boots and glasses perks up like a terrier, licking his thin lips. He stands above the prostrate youth, caressing a length of chain before whipping it down in repeated strokes.
“I’m sorry,” screams the youth under the blows. “I’m penitent! I’m penitent!”
“Too late for that,” says the small man, gloating as he continues to bring down the chain, against flesh, against floor, against blood, against all. The little tyrant loves his duty, and it shines in his black eyes.
“Dyne,” the rancher says calmly, “that’s enough.”
The black-booted tyrant represses himself as the men in flannel strip the youth of his tattered and bloodied shirt and spray paint a black cross over his chest. He is heaved, still alive, over the side of a roll-off container just outside.
Roger recalls the black-crossed bodies hanging from signs and shudders. So this is how it ends.
Another man is brought before the jury, and asked the same question.
“Are you penitent?”
“Yes. Very much so,” says the man.
“And what is your crime?” The rancher asks with calculating eyes.
The man thinks for a moment before responding. “I’m sure I am guilty of many crimes, some I know of, and maybe some I don’t. But I’m penitent, for all of them.”
“Have you raped?”
“No.”
“Have you killed?”
The man hesitates. “Only to defend myself. But it’s still a sin.”
The rancher mulls this over as the two men at his side remain silent. “Are you marked?”
“I… I’m not sure I understand.”
“Do you have any tattoos?”
“Yes, one.” The man trembles. “On my chest.”
“Take off his shirt.”
A small dragon is inked on the man’s left breast. The rancher frowns.
“Tattoos are a defacement of man’s natural-born form, a subversion of God’s own reflection. And to ink a representation of Satan’s form, son, that doesn’t sit well.
“You’re right. But I’m penitent— I swear that I am.” The man’s gaze drifts to the container waiting outside.
The rancher reflects before speaking. “Then you may earn your forgiveness. But the mark, it must be erased.”
Two flannel-shirted men grab him up and hold him still as Dyne retrieves a hot poker from a charcoal grill. The held man closes his eyes and grimaces, waiting, screaming only as the offending tattoo
is seared off. His chest is painted with a cross, too, but his is red and he is led past the roll-off container and out of sight.
A third man is brought out by Dyne, already shirtless, sleeved in tattoos, and thorny branches growing up his back and over the nape of his neck. “I am penitent,” he cries out, before the rancher has an opportunity to speak. “I am penitent.”
“I would clean your skin, but you would not survive it.” The rancher motions him to the side. “You may take your pleas directly to God.”
The man sobs as he is beaten and crossed in black. “I am penitent,” he repeats, again and again until he can speak no more and is dumped into the roll-off container with the first man.
Roger watches as the process continues, some receiving black crosses and others red. Each time the man with the glasses nears, he braces for selection, but another is chosen. When every other man has been judged, crossed, and removed, the little tyrant approaches.
“Didn’t think you’d miss your turn, did you?” Dyne smiles. “Let me guess. Penitent?”
Roger stands before the desk. Until now, the men behind it have been backlit by the daylight streaming through the receiving door. The two standing on the sides are silent, haven’t said a word since the inquisition began. The girl appears unaffected by the previous violence, looking bored and wishing she could do something else. The man in the middle, the rancher, kicked back in his chair, looks Roger up and down with his gray-blue eyes.
“You’re not from around here, are you son?” The rancher’s expression is inscrutable; hard lines dug deep into tanned, spotted leather skin frame a sense of neutrality.
“No.” Roger gives the rancher what he asks, nothing more and nothing less.
The rancher leans in over the desk and tilts his hat up. The white, straw hat is banded with a strip of snakeskin leather. A bolo tie hangs over his worn denim shirt with rolled-up sleeves. “So?” He asks. “Where is it you’re from?”
Letters from the Apocalypse (Book 1) Page 6