Wasteland Blues
Page 25
“What happened?”
Leggy laughed. “It works, that’s what. We got juice, boy!”
Samuel started to climb into the back of the sand crawler, but Leggy waved him off. “You all stand back. Let Derek here get a feel for the wheel.”
The group moved away from the vehicle, giving Derek a wide berth. He looked at Leggy, who pointed to a lever that stuck up from a panel down by Derek’s right leg.
“I’ll wager this way is reverse, and this way is probably forward,” said Leggy, gesturing to the shifter. “Give it a try.”
Derek moved the lever. The sand crawler started to roll forward. Derek, meaning to press the brake, touched the wrong pedal with his foot. The sand crawler lurched forward then jerked to a halt as Derek found the brake. He looked sheepishly at Leggy, who had braced his arms on the dashboard. Derek expected the old man to taunt him.
Leggy just chuckled. “Don’t worry, son, you’ll get it. Just take it easy for now.”
The others watched as Derek grew more confident. Soon the crawler was sweeping through the motor pool, Derek steering with easy grace.
“That’ll do,” said Leggy as Derek rolled up to their waiting companions. “Hop aboard everybody. Ted, get them donkeys in the back and tie their halters, would ya?”
***
The bed of the crawler was metal and smooth, with a sand-colored canvas canopy over it to provide shade. Behind the cab was a bench seat that doubled as a storage locker. As Teddy and John struggled to get Minna and Afha into the flatbed, Samuel poked through the locker. It was neatly compartmentalized, and it held a tool set, a first aid kit, rope, a pair of flashlights similar to the battery-less one they’d left at Youslus’s cave, a dozen foil-wrapped packages of rations, a ten-liter water jug, and a funny-looking pistol. He hauled out the jug and passed it to John.
“I think there’s a spigot over there,” said Samuel, pointing to the far wall of the motor pool.
John carried the jug away to fill it up.
Then Samuel picked up the gun and tapped on the back window of the cab.
Leggy turned around.
“What’s this, Mr. Nicodemus?” asked Samuel, shouting to be heard through the glass.
“I believe that there is a flare pistol,” shouted Leggy. “Shoots a rocket in the sky that makes a big light, so’s people can find you if you ever get lost.”
Samuel nodded and placed it carefully back in the locker—he wasn’t sure who would come to find them, no matter how lost they were.
Derek stuck his head out of the driver’s window. “You all loaded up yet?”
“Okee-dokee, Der Der,” shouted Teddy, who was simultaneously tying Afha’s halter to the rail and giving his brothers a thumbs up.
John returned with the water, which they stowed under the seat.
Derek steered over to the elevator. Teddy hopped down to press the button and then hopped back in.
The group ascended in the miraculous elevator, rising out of the dark hole in the ground and into the bright, glaring sun of the great wastes. They set out on their road again, leaving the Folly of Man behind them.
***
Through trial and error Derek found that thirty was the top speed he could push from the crawler and still keep it on the road. The old asphalt was cracked and pitted with holes. The first time he’d hit a hole of substantial size, he’d nearly spilled his passengers from the cab. The speedometer had markings up to 100. His foot itched to push the go pedal down to the floor. He contented himself with the twin delights of forward motion and absolute control. Maybe later he’d let John drive—maybe.
The desert sped past, a hard-packed scrubland of pale brown. To his left, he saw the shoulders of a mountain range at the edge of the horizon and to his right a wide-open infinity of hot, dry emptiness. Leggy, fiddling with some controls on the dashboard, figured out a way to make cold air blow on them. It was a magnificent sensation.
His entire upbringing had taught Derek to respect the desert, because otherwise it would kill him. But something about the crawler, about the speed, about the sense of having such a powerful machine at his command infected him with a giddy hubris. He could outrun the Wasteland, outrun the heat and the dryness and the death. Derek flipped the bird at the scrubland outside the window.
For the first time in many, many days, he actually believed that they could make it to New York. Though he would rarely admit it to himself, he’d figured it for a fool’s errand from the very beginning—better to try and die in the attempt than to rot away in San Muyamo. But now, with his hands on the controls of this magnificent vehicle, he allowed himself a measure of hope.
He looked over at Leggy. The old man was asleep, his head tipped sideways against the passenger window, his mouth slack and drooling.
Derek turned his attention back to the road, savoring the sensation of movement in silence.
***
They stopped at dusk. Derek steered the crawler behind a trio of boulders that sat off the shoulder of the road. His passengers were happy to dismount, their bodies cramped and sore from the jarring ride. Sheba ran in circles around the camp, sniffing out a perimeter and barking happily. Minna and Afha nosed around the sagebrush that cropped up around the boulders.
“Goddam, that’s what I call travelin’!” said Derek. “If we tried to walk half that far in a day, we’d end up looking like Leggy.”
Teddy and John snorted, and even Leggy had to grin at the jibe. “It’s true,” he said, “ain’t no better way to get around.”
They set about making camp. John, Teddy, and Magdalena examined a nearby mesquite thicket for brushwood. Derek set out snares. Samuel scrambled up a boulder and surveyed the landscape. Leggy hoisted himself into the bed of the crawler to rummage through the supply trunk.
By nightfall they had a good fire going. After some debate, they decided to eat from the store of supplies they’d brought from Moses Springs and save the strange, foil-wrapped food in the crawler’s trunk for later.
“What about them snares?” asked Derek.
“We’ll see what’s in ’em in the morning,” said Leggy. “Wouldn’t mind a little skinned hare for breakfast.”
After eating, they stayed around the fire. No one spoke—they were weary from the travel and from the ordeal under the ground. Samuel was the first to succumb to sleep, followed quickly by Teddy, then Derek soon after.
Only Leggy was awake to notice when John and Magdalena quietly moved their bedrolls to the crawler’s flatbed.
“Good,” he thought, laying on his back, watching the magnificent night sky. “Let them have their time. Let’s all have an interlude—a bit of rest from our worries.” Then he took his own advice, and sank into sleep.
***
In the morning they checked the snares. Leggy would have to wait for a taste of hare—all they found in the wires was a trio of desert gophers. “Sand rats,” said Leggy, rolling his eyes. The old man skinned and cooked them anyway and then shared them out. Samuel took one bite—the flesh was gritty and gamey, little better than a mouthful of sand. He tossed the remainder to Sheba and then rooted around in one of the panniers for a better option.
Derek watched the boy and shook his head. “Goddam, kid. If my dad ever saw me throw meat to a dog and then go look for somethin’ better, I wouldn’t have teeth to eat with.”
Samuel looked up from the supply chest, a hard roll and a dried apple in hand. “It tastes bad,” he said.
Derek laughed. John, who was watching carefully, winced at the sound.
“Sure it tastes bad,” said Derek. He took a bite off the bone and swallowed it. “It tastes like shit. But you don’t ever waste food. Ever. You understand me?”
Samuel looked at Derek for a long moment. The others held their breath. Then Samuel dropped his head. “I’m sorry,” he said
quietly. “I understand.”
“What do you understand?” said Derek.
Samuel glanced at the others, but no one moved to intervene. Then he looked at the ground. “I understand not to waste food.”
“Even if it tastes bad?” said Derek, mimicking Samuel’s high-pitched voice.
“Yes,” said Samuel. He dumped his breakfast back in the panniers and then walked away.
“Fuckin’ mutie,” muttered Derek. He tossed the bones on the cookfire and stood up. “Well, what’re we waitin’ for? Let’s get this goddam party rolling.”
***
As the crawler rolled on down the road, John moved next to Samuel. They, along with Magdalena, Teddy and the animals, shared the flatbed of the crawler.
The little boy kicked sullenly at the storage locker. The flatbed had a canvas cover to keep off the sun, and Samuel had removed his makeshift turban. John stared at the smooth, veiny skin stretched over the boy’s oddly shaped skull.
“Hey, Sam. Maggie said I should come and talk to you.” John had to raise his voice to be heard over the noise of their rough passage.
Samuel didn’t look up. He continued kicking the locker.
“I mean, in case you were feelin’ bad or something.”
Samuel turned his head away.
John sighed. He waited a minute and then said, “You grew up in that bunker, right?”
Samuel looked up. That wasn’t a question he’d expected. “It wasn’t a bunker. It was an underground research center with built-in living facilities.”
“But you lived there your whole life?”
“Yes,” said Samuel.
“You ever spend any time above ground?”
“A few times. Karen…my caretaker brought me up for a geology lesson. Once, before the war, we camped out for a night.”
Before the war? How old was this kid? John wondered. By all accounts, the War proper had been a little more or a little less than a century ago. And Samuel looked like a child—sounded and acted like a child, but…before the bombs fell? Christ! “Did you ever go hungry? Ever miss a meal?”
Samuel looked back down at his feet. “No.”
“Ever had to fight someone for your food?”
Samuel shook his head.
John sighed. “Well that’s my point. You had it easy back in the…the research center. But nothing’s easy out here. If Derek’s harsh on you it’s because he’s right. He’s tryin’ to teach you.”
Now Samuel looked up at John. “But why does he hate me?”
“He don’t hate you,” said John, though he wasn’t sure it was true. “You got things to learn, and he’s teachin’ you the only way he knows how.”
“Bullshit,” shouted Samuel, and the expletive surprised them both. “I can feel his hate,” said the boy. “If I fell off this crawler he wouldn’t even slow down if you and Mr. Nicodemus weren’t around.”
John pursed his lips. “Listen, Sam. I don’t know what you can feel, but I know Derek. I grew up with him. This is just his way with people.”
“It’s not his way with you. Or Maggie. Or Mr. Nicodemus.”
John laughed. “Sam, you think Leggy volunteered for this trip? No sir. Derek up and kidnapped that old man.”
“Kidnapped?” said Samuel.
“Put a knife to his throat, tied him up, and pushed him right out of San Muyamo.”
“But why?”
“Well, that’s a good question,” said John. “Sometimes he does stuff just because he gets so angry it makes him crazy. But other times there’s a good reason behind the craziness. Like takin’ Leggy. It took me a while to figure out, but now I understand. It was for me and Teddy.”
Samuel shook his head. “What do you mean?”
John pushed his hair back from his face. “That anger in Derek, it’s like this machine. It’s powerful. And it drives him. It will drive him from here to New York, even if it means going for days and days without food or shelter. Even if it means crawling a thousand miles on his hands and knees.”
“But me and Teddy, we ain’t like him. We’re baggage. We’re draggin’ along behind him, lettin’ his engine pull us.”
“So he wants to get rid of you too?” asked Samuel.
“Nah, nothin’ like that,” said John. “He wants us to make it. The difference is that if it came down to it, Derek could get to New York by himself. He could do it alone. But not me, and not Teddy. If we were alone out here, we’d be vulture food in about three days. So that’s why he took Leggy. The old man knows stuff, stuff that gives me and Teddy a chance, a slim chance, to survive. The old man’s here to carry the baggage.”
Samuel was quiet for a long while. John let him be. The boy was smart enough to figure out how he fit into the picture.
“And I’m baggage, too,” said Samuel. “Another person dragging along behind him.”
John nodded. “Derek don’t hate you. Hate’s too personal. You got to put a lot of thought, a lot of feeling, into hatin’ someone.”
Samuel thought that, on this point, John was wrong—he was quite certain that Derek hated him, that hating was easy for him.
“But I saved him,” whimpered Samuel. “I saved you all.... If it wasn’t for me, you’d be museum exhibits.”
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t wait around for him to send a thank-you card,” said John.
“Maybe next time I’ll save everybody but him,” said the boy.
John laughed, but inside the idea bothered him. He feared that Sam was serious.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
On their fourth day from the museum, Derek let John take a turn at the wheel. He rode up front for an hour, keeping an eye on him, but John quickly mastered the basic operations. Once Derek was confident that John wouldn’t wreck the crawler, he had him pull over. Derek climbed out and let Maggie and Samuel ride on the bench seat next to John. Sheba also leapt into the front seat with her master.
“Check this out,” said Derek, once everyone was settled. He reached across the two passengers and flipped the switch for the cold air blower.
“Praise the Lord!” shouted John as the deliciously chilled air swirled around him. Maggie reached out a hand to feel the current that pushed out from the blower and sighed.
“Merry Christmas,” said Derek with a wry grin. He slammed the door and climbed up onto the flatbed, pushing past the mules who sat with their halters tied to the side rail. He squeezed onto the bench seat between Teddy and Leggy then turned around and tapped on the rear window of the cab.
“Fire it up, and let’s roll!”
The vehicle lurched forward, and quickly they were on their way again. As the sand crawler rumbled and shook down the road, Leggy grimaced.
“A Hell of a lot more comfortable in there,” said the old man, jerking his thumb at the cab.
“Gettin’ soft already, huh?” said Derek. But he was glad that the old man had said it first.
***
Just before noon the road passed between a pair of rocky hills. Shadows fell on the vehicle. Derek poked his head out of the canvas canopy and scanned the hillsides.
“I could use a rest stop,” said Leggy, “if that’s what you’re lookin’ for.”
“I am,” said Derek. “But let’s wait till we get through this. I don’t like the idea of bein’ boxed in between these hills.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” said Leggy. He had to piss bad, and the rattling of the sand crawler wasn’t helping matters. But he was pleased to see Derek being cautious, and he certainly wasn’t going to discourage it.
Ten minutes later, the hills began to slope gently downward, and soon the crawler emerged onto open road again. Derek turned to tap on the glass and signal a halt when Afha, the donkey, wobbled to his feet and began to bray.
Suddenly, the ground on both sides of the road erupted in a flurry of segmented legs and clacking mandibles.
“Bugs!” shouted Teddy as the donkey went wild with panic.
“Go go go go go!” screamed Derek, pounding on the rear window of the cab. John had also seen the creatures scuttling up out of the ground. He slammed the go pedal to the floor. The crawler leapt forward. Leggy tumbled down the length of the flatbed and crashed into Afha, knocking the donkey down.
A bug slashed through the canopy, hissing as it scrambled into the flatbed. Teddy struck at it with a wrench that had fallen loose but couldn’t get his full force behind a blow, the crawler was jostling so badly.
A second bug skittered up over the tailgate and landed on top of Afha and Leggy, who were still in a tangle. A third leaped onto the canopy above their heads—they could see it writhing, a wormy shadow through the canvas.
Derek skidded down the flatbed to help the old man, who was in as much danger from Afha’s hooves as he was from the bug. The crawler bounced once—a high, hard jolt that nearly threw Derek out of the flatbed. John was driving straight over the bugs in his path. Derek grabbed for a railing as the crawler bounced twice more. The impact flipped the giant insect in the flatbed onto its back. Before it could turn over, Derek snatched his knife from his wrist sheath and drove it repeatedly into the creature’s soft underbelly.
Leggy wormed free of the donkey. He grabbed the tailgate and pulled himself to his knees. Dozens of bugs were in pursuit, hissing and chattering, but the sand crawler was outpacing them.
Suddenly, the crawler stopped short. Leggy slid up the length of the bed and slammed into the bench seat.
“What the fuck!” shouted Derek, who had also fallen over. “Drive, you asshole, drive!”