Desert Discord

by Henry D. Terrell

  The cumulus clouds were magnificently tall and black, with an ominous green cast around the edges, and were moving in fast. Flashes of lightning outlined the clouds. Another, closer flash was followed by a loud thunderclap. Suddenly, Apollo had the same thought that strikes everyone in West Texas when the rare storm blows in—are my car windows rolled up?

  He couldn’t be sure. It hadn’t rained in so long, he seldom thought about it. Keeping your windows rolled partway down kept the murderous summer heat to a minimum. He had to check his car.

  Apollo walked briskly toward the parking lot on the other side of the main art building. He spotted his Corvair coupe at the far end. He was almost to the car when the first drops of rain started hitting—enormous things that thumped the ground hard and bounced laterally as globs of dust. Sure enough, the windows were down. He opened the car door and quickly cranked up the window, then hopped into the car and leaned over to do the same thing to the passenger-side window.

  By the time he was halfway back to the main art building, he could hear the staccato sound of raindrops on the metal roof of the gymnasium 400 feet away. He looked back over his shoulders and was shocked to see the buildings on the other side of the athletic field vanishing in a dark gray mass of opaque rain. It was going to be a toad strangler. Apollo broke into a run. He hadn’t run in months, but he was motivated, and as he rounded the art building, he realized his chances of making it to the studio without being inundated were rapidly fading.

  As he huffed past the main building, a couple of the faculty members and a few students had gathered under the awning by a side entrance, watching the storm approach.

  “Apollo! Come on! This way!” It was Professor Blake, one of the art teachers.

  Apollo knew the guy was right. He changed course and sprinted for the doorway just as the rain went from light to hard to torrential. The others retreated into the building, but Blake held the door for him and Apollo leaped inside, chased by a wet whoosh of wind. With some difficulty, they pushed the door shut against the blast.

  “Whoa,” said Apollo. He shook his head like a wet dog and used his hands to squeegee water off his forearms. He was pretty wet but not soaked. The building was air-conditioned West Texas style, way beyond reason, and Apollo shivered in the chill.

  The building rattled from the howling wind, and the windows were washed in rainwater. Another enormous blast of thunder was followed by a sharp pop, and the power went off in the building.

  The small group, including Apollo, stood by the windows in the main lobby and tried to look out, but it was impossible to make out anything in the blinding deluge. The rain hit against the door so hard that a puddle of water seeped underneath, and a steady roar of rain came from the roof.

  “I have a transistor radio in my office,” said a teaching assistant. “I’m going to check if there’s a tornado warning.” He walked away, and some of the others drifted off. Apollo sat down in one of the lounge chairs in the waiting area. He still felt cold, but at least with the power off, the air movers weren’t blowing.

  He made small talk with Professor Blake, and waited. Twenty-five minutes later, the storm passed as quickly as it had come. The light from the windows grew brighter, and a strange quiet settled over everything. The lights blinked back on, and the air blowers started again.

  “Well, that was interesting,” said Blake. He got up and returned to his office, while Apollo stepped outside the main doors.

  The air was cool and smelled of ozone. Water was pooled everywhere, and the sun had come out again, reflected brilliantly on the parking lot, where steam rose from the asphalt. To get back to the fire room, Apollo would have to either walk across the wet grass or down a low sidewalk that was a couple of inches deep in water. He wondered if he should just wait. Or take his shoes off and wade barefoot.

  “Professor Piedman!” a voice called. It was the same TA who had left in search of a radio.

  “Yes?”

  “In all the excitement, I forgot to tell you. Your wife called about thirty minutes ago. She asked if you could call her at home as soon as possible. I didn’t know where you were.”

  “Oh. It’s okay. Thanks.” Apollo preferred to use the phone in the studio for private calls, but it might be quite awhile before all the standing rainwater ran off or soaked in. He walked back inside and headed for his office to call Ramona.

  She picked up after less than a full ring.

  “Hey,” said Apollo, “one of my assistants said you’d …”

  “Janey is gone!” said Ramona. “She took off.”

  “You mean … she ran away?”

  “Yes … I mean, probably. I don’t know. She is definitely gone. She left a note, and you need to see it.”

  “Okay,” said Apollo. “Where did she say she was going?”

  “She didn’t, but … you need to see it. I called the police.”

  “Have you tried her friends?” asked Apollo. “What’s that one kid’s name? You know, Sadie or whoever …”

  “She’s not at any of her friends’. I called everybody I could think of. The note says … well, you really need to see it. Can you come home now?”

  “I was trying to get some work done, but … I suppose I could …”

  “Apollo, please come!”

  “All right.”

  Now that the rain had moved on and the sun was out, the air was growing hotter and steamier by the minute. Lydia Moon knocked on the steel outer doors of the fire room.

  “Dr. Piedman!” she called. She knocked again, louder.

  Her friend Maria was with her. “Do you think he’s gone?” she asked.

  “He said he’d be in the studio all afternoon,” said Lydia. She tried the door and it was unlocked. “Dr. Piedman? Hello! I need to get my book.” Lydia had left one of her art textbooks in the studio a few days earlier.

  She opened the door and stepped inside. “Hello!” she said again. “That’s weird. He usually locks up when he leaves. I guess we can go in.”

  The two girls went through the small outer room and into Apollo’s personal studio area. A work in progress was on the big easel, facing away from them. Several paintings, drawings, and studies were propped up on the floor or taped to the walls. Maria walked around looking at the art while Lydia searched for her book. She found it on a folding table along one wall.

  “Hey, look at this,” said Maria. She stood on the other side of the big easel. “This is kind of creepy.”

  Lydia came around to see. A two-by-three-foot canvas was there, still smelling of fresh acrylic paint.

  “Oh, Lord,” said Lydia.

  It was a self-portrait, the saddest one Lydia had ever seen. The face was undeniably Professor Piedman’s, but it appeared to be decaying, flesh rotting away and falling in chunks. The eyes were terrifying and terrified, wide with a mix of horror and grief. In the picture, he wore a white shirt, loose like a shroud. Most disturbing of all, around his neck was a noose, knotted with a series of loops, hanging loosely, one hand holding the rope up. The other end of the rope was out of the frame, but it curved up at the edge of the portrait as if it were tied to something high just out of sight.

  “That is really awful,” said Maria. “Have you seen this one before?”

  “No, never,” said Lydia. “It looks finished, but he’s never had it out before. He signed it, so it must be finished. He never signs something unless he’s done with it.”

  She looked closely at the signature, highly stylized but legible, and the date.

  AS Piedman

  1920–1970

  “Do you think he’s saying he’s going to die?” asked Maria.

  “Oh, God, I don’t know.” Lydia looked around, and her eyes fell on a closed door in the back of the studio, which led to a large storeroom for art supplies. “Oh, no. You don’t suppose …”

  “Maybe we should call somebody,” said Maria.

  “I have to look,” said Lydia.

  “Please don’t!” said Maria. “L
et’s call somebody.”

  Though she was afraid of that door, of what might be behind it, Lydia had to know what was there. Waiting was pointless. She walked straight to the door, opened it a few inches, then glanced inside. It was too dark. She opened it wider but couldn’t make anything out, though it seemed there was a large white human shape in the back near the wall. She didn’t want to turn on the light, but she searched for the switch blindly with her hand, found it, held her breath, and flipped it on.

  In the brilliant light, the white shape proved to be an artist’s smock, draped over a small stepladder that was folded against the back wall. The storeroom was crowded with portable easels, tripods, and blank canvases, but there was no Apollo.

  “Thank God,” said Maria. “Lydia, do you think we should say something to somebody?”

  “I don’t know. Let’s get out of here.” Lydia turned off the light and shut the storeroom door, picked up her book, and the two girls left the building, closing the big door behind them. Outside, the air was stifling as the hot sun struck wet concrete and asphalt.

  “Maria, there’s something I never told you,” said Lydia. “I never told anybody. But Dr. Piedman kind of … I guess … hit on me the other day.”

  “Hit on you? You mean like propositioned you?”

  “Not really, not exactly,” said Lydia. “He just … it was weird. He never touched me, but suddenly just out of the blue he told me he loved me and wanted me to go away with him.”

  “Wow,” said Maria. “He was serious? He’s married.”

  “I know,” said Lydia, “but his marriage is strange—at least that’s what I hear. His wife and he can see other people if they want. I heard his wife even let her boyfriend move in.”

  “That’s sick.”

  “I don’t know. People can do whatever they want. But I don’t know why he thought I’d leave and go somewhere with him. Anyway, I just acted like it was a joke and laughed. He laughed too, like he was just kidding. But it was really weird. Neither of us mentioned it again. But after that, I made sure I was never alone with him.”

  “I think maybe you should tell somebody,” said Maria. “He might be planning to do something terrible, like kill himself.”

  “I don’t know. I wouldn’t know what to say,” said Lydia. “He’s an artist. He does strange stuff sometimes. That’s what artists do. He’ll be really mad if I tell anybody what we found. I know he didn’t want people to see that picture, not yet.”

  “I wish I hadn’t seen it.”

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  – 43 –

  The Infrequent Rivers

  Timothy Kaufman was dying, and was too far gone to pretend otherwise. He had made it through a night and a day and another night, walking mile after mile, unsure of the direction or where he was trying to go. On the first night, trying to put as much distance between himself and the ranch house as possible, he had stumbled badly twice. The second time he landed hard on a clump of prickly pear and impaled his upper right arm with a dozen painful spines. He had cursed and plucked out the sharp needles as best he could in the dark, then huddled against a stony sand pile and tried to sleep.

  Late on that first night, after he had nodded off from exhaustion, Timothy woke to see the half moon rising, bright orange in the field of thick stars. He stood up. He didn’t know anything about the stars, though he vaguely knew that the north star would let him keep a southward trek, if he had been able to identify it. But with the moonrise, Timothy knew which way was east, at least for the time being, so he could walk and keep moving south if he kept the moon on his left.

  Why south? Because if he had walked east to find the highway to Wink, he figured that’s where the thugs would be looking for him, and if they found him he’d end up dead like Jerry. Timothy hadn’t seen the murder, but he had heard the shot reverberate across the desert as he ran away from the house. He had guessed what happened. Erycca was probably dead too, and Timothy would share her fate unless he found a way out of here. He knew that there were highways running east-west, and eventually he might come across one of them. In truth, he was lost. He couldn’t find his way back to the main road if he’d wanted to.

  So, aching and weary, he got up, brushed the dirt off the seat of his pants, and started walking again. In the moonlight, he could avoid the worst obstacles and make some progress. Every time he came to the top of a low hill, he looked all around for any sign of lights. Nothing. The horizon was black in all directions. He kept walking.

  After a few hours, the moon was high, and he could no longer be certain of his direction; he was too tired to continue anyway. He collapsed and tried to sleep in a shallow sandy wash until morning. He was thirsty.

  The sun was beautiful and heartening when it rose, but soon it became deadly. Timothy tried to keep walking, but he was so parched his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, and his strength failed. After he had stumbled a few miles, with no sign that he was even in the twentieth century, he crawled into the meager shade of a scrub oak and lay down to die. As he drifted in and out of consciousness, he thought, They will never even find my body. He thought about his girlfriend, who was probably dead, and it was his fault. I’m sorry, Erycca.

  When evening came, Timothy was still alive, so he got up. The rocks and sand were warm from the baking sun, but he got the idea that if he managed to walk to the top of a low hill with a rocky ridge that stood in the middle distance, he could at least get the first cool breeze of the night. He staggered uphill, weaving like a drunken man, but he kept going.

  It was deep twilight when he reached the ridge, perhaps seventy-five feet higher than the surrounding flatlands. The cool air flowed out of the west, and as he turned to face it, he saw, far away, the twinkle of electric lights, dozens of them lined up along the horizon. Along the points of light was a yellow glow, which didn’t remain static but glowed brighter in some places and then faded, while glowing brighter in other places.

  It’s an oilfield, he thought. And the yellow glow was from gas flares, enormous sheets of bright flame that emerged from stacks fifty feet high. It must be far, far away. I’ll never reach it.

  With no better plan, Timothy started walking toward the lights, staggering, slipping. When he could walk no more and couldn’t see his hand in front of his face, he stopped to rest and await the moonrise. But when it finally came, and the land around him spread out in a pale colorless landscape, he was too weak to move.

  Dying is a boring thing, he thought.

  However, during the long night he did not die, and another day came. He was too weak to look for shade, but by chance he had ended up for the night in the shadow of a six-foot-high mesquite stand, and was shielded from the sun for at least part of the morning. Tim lay on his side as the air grew hotter. Finally, the sun began to strike his body, and even in this semi-coherent state, it was too unpleasant to stay where he was.

  Timothy stood up, surprised that he could still do so. He started walking in the general direction of the lights he’d seen the night before. He made it a few hundred feet and then fainted.

  The wind woke him. It had begun to gust furiously, blowing sand up his nostrils. He turned his head and put his hand over his face, not sure where he was. The rumble of thunder roused him. Could it be? He turned around and blinked, his eyes too dry to produce tears, but he saw the thunderheads, black and threatening, rolling in fast. He sat and waited for the rain.

  At first, it just teased him, pelting the land around him with large drops, but soon the rain fell hard, and he tilted his head back and opened wide to let the water in. He swallowed, choked, and swallowed again as the lightning blasted around him. Almost instantly, with just a little water entering his body, his head began to clear.

  I need a better way to do this.

  Timothy was soaked to the skin. With some difficulty, he peeled off his T-shirt and held it up over his head, then wrung it out with both hands so that water poured into his mouth. It tasted like dirt and sweat, and was wonder
ful. He stood up and held the shirt wide again, then wrung it out again into his open mouth. Two dozen times he repeated the process as the storm raged, filling his stomach with the best water he had ever known.

  Then the rain ended, and the opportunity passed. But Timothy Kaufman was hydrated and alive. He squeezed and sucked the last drops of water out of his filthy shirt, and put it back on. It was sharply cold against his skin. He wished he could have saved water in some kind of bottle or jar, but there was nothing out here.

  Timothy turned to the west and started walking. His boots squished. In less than half a mile, he came to a dry creek or draw, whatever you call a bone-dry channel occasionally carved by water. Even after the recent deluge, there was no flowing water, but there were a lot of puddles here and there in rock depressions. He decided to climb down into the cut and follow the river, such as it was, in a general westerly direction. It had to come out somewhere. He could dip his shirt into the shallow pools as he went.

  Some twenty-four miles to the northeast, Apollo Piedman was in desperate trouble. He’d lived in Duro a dozen years and knew that you don’t try to make it across Beechnut Draw when it was flooded. On those rare days when the floodwaters came, the town was effectively bisected, and there was nothing anyone could do but wait half an hour until the waters subsided. But the phone call from his wife had unnerved him, and he went for it.

  First, he had driven south to Millard Street, but when he got to Beechnut he found that a sheriff’s car was parked at an angle with its lights flashing. Out in the intersection, the water was almost to the bottom of the stop signs. Apollo turned around and drove back north for several blocks, upstream of the flood. He approached the draw again from 37th Street, where the street was wider and shallower, and nothing blocked his way. The water didn’t look quite as deep, but it was hard to judge. The intersection was six lanes wide, but the water was over the curb, and there were no reference points other than street signs sticking out of the water. A prudent man would have waited. Apollo drove into it.