Hunger and Thirst

by Wightman, Wayne

  Jack nodded at the mountains. “That's where I'll be in a week, somewhere around the crest. Then, over to the coast.”

  “And after you get there, where will you be?”

  “That's always the question. It may be a same old place because it'll be the same old me. But it might not be.”

  “It's already October. The weather will be unpredictable.”

  “I thought it was still September. Well, I can't say I've kept close track. Your offer of a coat sounds even better.”

  “I've heard from travelers that there are gangs up there. 'Nations' they grandly call themselves. Gangs of halfwit rednecks who smoke datura. You’d have to travel at night, and be lucky.”

  “People like that are everyplace. My last fellow traveler, for example. But if it's October, I need to be on the other side before November.”

  “Excuse me a moment.” Natalie stood and went inside. Jack heard her go downstairs and return a half minute later, carrying the leather disk with the finger bones on it. “I wanted to ask if it's too late for you to cross the mountains — if you don't mind. I mean, it's your future I'd be asking about.”

  “Go ahead. What do those things do?”

  “Sometimes they can tell me what's going to happen. Sometimes they protect me this way.”

  “Mysterious.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Handy to have around.”

  “You can't imagine. There are two things I wanted to ask. First, is it too late for you to start for the mountains. Okay?”

  “Do it.”

  Natalie settled the disk on her lap. Closer up, Jack could see it was marked with lines and symbols that were unfamiliar to him. She clasped the bones between her hands, held them still a moment, then dropped them on the disk.

  To Jack, it looked like a random scatter of the six pieces.

  “It's unequivocal,” she said. “Yes, it is too late. There will be snow before you cross the summit. A lot of snow.”

  “Are those ever wrong?”

  “Never, but sometimes they don't tell me everything. I know there'll be a lot of snow, but I don't know if there might be a path cut through it—but I wouldn't count on that. I'll forgive you for not believing what they do.”

  “I'm willing to be convinced.”

  “All right. This wasn't my second question, but to convince you....” She scooped up the bones, held them a moment, and dropped them again. “Artie is over in that direction and he'll come up to the house a few minutes before or after eight this evening.”

  “We'll see.”

  “You'll see.”

  “He and I should be back on the road at eight. There's a good moon tonight.”

  “Thus we return to my original second question. Should I open my bottle of brandy?” She scooped and dropped them again.

  Again, to Jack, it looked like another random drop.

  She put the leather disk and bones aside. “I haven't used the brandy glasses in so long. I hope they're clean.”

  “Actual brandy?”

  “Afterward you can decide if you want me to pack up some food and water for you — and the coat — or if you would like stay here for the evening.”

  The flat offer stunned him. All his words went wobbly. After a few seconds, he got his voice to say, “Well, I have to see if Artie shows up... at eight.”

  “By then it will be dark and starting to get cold. Jack, can I remind you that you could've died today. I would imagine that takes a lot out of a person. If you start out this evening, you know you'll have to find a place to rest within a couple of hours.”

  “Probably in a ditch.”

  “I suppose some ditches may be comfortable. Or you could stay here and sleep in a bed. With a pillow, one of those puffy white things you put your head on. Not often found in ditches.”

  “I haven't slept in a bed in a couple of years. I've slept on mattresses a few times since then, but I usually had to put my tarp over them.”

  “My mattress is very clean.” She went back into the house for the brandy.

  Sitting alone for a minute on her second floor deck, facing west, Jack made his decision. If she was a psychopath, she was a very good one. If he awakened in the middle of the night, netted and tied down, he would try not to complain.

  ....

  It was excellent brandy, as far as Jack could tell.

  The mountain horizon was still outlined against the deep blue sky, and the stars were coming out. Natalie's hair was like a black aura around her head.

  Jack said, “I had a small bottle of bourbon about six months ago,” he said. “Still sealed. I traded it for a bag of cat food.”

  “Bourbon for cat food?”

  “It was very good cat food. We both liked it.” He looked across at her. He thought he could spend a lot of time looking at her. “Have your bones told you I would stay?”

  “I want your bones to tell me.”

  He got up and followed after her back downstairs. There, the music was louder, fuller.

  “I haven't heard music like this since I had a home... whenever ago.”

  In the orange light of the several candles around the room, she stopped in the middle of the floor. She held her arms toward him. “Will you dance with me? I haven't danced in years.”

  “My mother taught me some steps when I was thirteen. She said it would impress girls if I knew how to dance.”

  “It will impress me,” she said quietly. She stood near him. Nearer.

  “I'll step on you.”

  “I'll tell you if it hurts.” He felt her breath across his face when she spoke. Her hair blacked out everything but her face. Her face.

  He took her one hand and placed his other on the small of her back, on the low curve over her spine. His heart drummed in his ears. When she touched the side of her forehead to his temple, Jack no longer heard the music.

  They danced, they bumped toes and knees, but they danced.

  “I thought today I might die,” he whispered to her. “I never thought I'd hear music again... or dance... or eat till I was full.... Thank you for my life.”

  She put both arms around him. Her face suddenly appeared out of the blackness of her hair. Her breath bathed his face. He kissed her in a rush, and lingered.

  “Today was our lucky day,” she said. “But I need to tell you, it's eight o'clock and Artie is waiting for you.”

  He held to her.

  She gave him the look he was starting to recognize — sly, slightly amused, and sure of herself. “You should check. It's my credibility, you know.”

  He held to her and whispered, “I just want you to know — if I wake up chewing the asphalt, you've been a wonderful hallucination. And if I'm already dead and I'm in heaven, those Baptists in Missouri really sold this place short.”

  Natalie gave him a slow kiss.

  “Did that feel like you were dead?”

  “No, it didn't.”

  “I'm not finished convincing you, either.” She separated herself. “When you check for Artie, you should take this.” She had already put several pieces of rabbit on a small plate on the bar. She handed it to him. “I'm sure he's hungry.”

  He opened the front door.

  Artie looked up at him, wide-eyed and expectant.

  “Hey, pal.” He put the dish under his nose. “It's getting cold out. Want to come in, sleep with a roof over your head? Maybe we could work out a warm breakfast for you.”

  Natalie came up behind Jack.

  Artie dropped his head and ears and hissed fiercely.

  “Artie—”

  But he wasn't there anymore.

  “He doesn't like strangers,” Natalie said.

  “Usually with good reason. Artie! I worry about coyotes getting him. Artie!”

  “You'll have to trust him to take care of himself tonight.”

  “I guess.” After a final hesitation, he closed the door.

  “One advantage he'll have is that predators tend to avoid my little outpost. Do you believ
e my bones now?”

  One look into her face and he would have believed anything she said. “You have wonderful bones.” He felt them under his hands. “And eyes. And hair.”

  “Stay with me tonight. Tomorrow, you can leave, or stay a few days, or as long as you want, Jack. But stay with me tonight. Then you can go anytime you want.”

  “I'll stay.”

  She circled the room and blew out the candles. She took his hand when she came back to him and led him down the short hall to her darker bedroom. Moonlight from the windows showed him a neat, stark room with only a white sheet covering the bed.

  “I'm so glad you're finally here, Jack. I've been waiting for you a long time.”

  Kneeling on the bed, facing each other, she pulled his shirt open, popping off the buttons. In the moonlight-marked room, buttons clicked on the floor and rolled away. Jack caught his breath.

  ....

  The next day, Jack and Natalie walked through the desert scrub, taking their time. He sometimes held her hand or touched her hair. She sometimes affectionately bumped him with her hip. He told her about Hewitt.

  “There are too many people like that.”

  “How long have you lived here?”

  “Quite a while. Long enough to know all my neighbors.”

  “Every single one of them?”

  “I may have missed a few.” She pointed. “Over there, under those rocks is a family of rattlesnakes. They sun themselves on warm days like this. They’re very civilized rattlesnakes, unlike your friend Hewitt. If we don't bother them, they’ll pretend we don't exist. How did you annoy Hewitt?”

  “I had something he wanted.”

  “And to think, human beings used to be insulted by their relationship to apes. I imagine a lot of the people you've met would gladly trade places with monkeys.”

  “Yesterday, I would have.”

  “My rattlesnakes live their quiet lives and are not concerned about you or what you have unless you bother them. In the old days, they were hated and brave men killed them in competitions. When the overlords arrive, let's hope they're a bit more humane.”

  Natalie bent down and pushed aside a tiny cluster of blue flowers. There was a mouse hole beneath it.

  “My little family of kangaroo rats live here. She has four pups. Look at this.” She took two steps to the side. Beside a string of pea-sized yellow flowers lay a flat stone. She carefully tilted it. Beneath were two pale green translucent scorpions. She slowly replaced it and took his arm and they strolled on. “People always think the desert is a dead ugly place.”

  He could only see her.

  Very faint, carried lightly on the air, they heard barking... dogs barking... and coming closer.

  “Wild dogs,” she said. “They hunt coyotes and other dogs — and anything else they want.”

  “I hadn't heard anything about wild dogs out here.”

  “They could be local. They rarely come close.”

  “Do they hunt people?”

  “It's happened.” She casually scanned the south. “It's a beautiful place, isn't it.”

  “If one doesn't get killed or eaten alive.”

  “Most of us will have a final unpleasantness. It's part of the deal, isn't it. But aside from that momentary, personal event, all this remains the same. Even in our absence. Sometimes out here, I stand and hold my breath and see what the world will look like after I'm dead.”

  “I never thought of doing that.”

  She looked at him a moment and then by his hand pulled him closer. “You're cute.”

  ....

  He sat on a wooden folding chair in her bathroom. Six candles had been lit and placed around, high and low. She had him turned with his head tilted back over the sink. He had already shaved and she had trimmed his hair to a civilized appearance. Now she massaged shampoo into his scalp.

  “I never felt.... I love this,” he mumbled. Talking was useless. She stood in front of him, her shirt brushing his face. Her smell enveloped him. Jack could barely talk. “I had... no.... idea.”

  When she finished toweling his hair dry, she combed it back with her fingers.

  “Are you finished?” he said. His voice was almost a croak.

  “I'm just starting.”

  ....

  Jack stood on the upstairs deck, alone, drinking coffee and gazing at the Sierra Nevada. After a few days of cool weather in the desert, the mountains had streaks of snow down their peaks. It was cool, bordering on cold, but Jack was wearing an undershirt, shirt, and sweater. He almost felt civilized.

  Whenever he went outside, he always looked for Artie and called to him. He never saw him. But food was left by the front door at eight every evening. By morning it was gone. Whether Artie or some other animal had eaten it was unknown. He missed Artie. When he thought about it, he really missed Artie. He had once been all set to die with him.

  He went back inside, found his old backpack, which he now realized had a distinctly used odor, and pulled out his dogeared packet of flower seeds. California poppies. He was going to plant them someday, hadn't known when, but he knew now.

  Near the front door, he found a stick and cut a shallow furrow in the dirt. While pressing the seed into the soil, it occured to him that this didn't look like typical desert soil. It seemed to have peat in it. He wondered how she did that. Where did she get peat in the middle of Nevada?

  “I've always wanted flowers,” Natalie said.

  Jack jumped and spun to face her. He closed his mouth. “Sorry. Survival reflexes. I didn't hear you.”

  “I'm the quiet type.”

  “Usually.”

  She knelt beside him and patted soil over the seeds. “You didn't tell me you fixed the leak in the water tank. Or did our aliens from Area 51 creep up in the night and fix it?”

  “Had to be aliens.”

  “You know, you don't have to fix things, or plant flowers, to earn your keep. Your just being here is enough. These will be beautiful in the spring. Maybe you'll want to see them come up.”

  “I think I will.”

  ....

  In the evening, cold wind blew around the house. Jack worried about Artie and often walked around the house calling him, but he never appeared.

  Inside, in front of the fire, he fanned the cold out of his clothes and waited for the heat soak in. He remembered too many nights going to sleep shivering, waking up cold, walking all day cold....

  Natalie stood on the other side of the counter, in the kitchen, putting together something to eat.

  “You haven't told me,” he said, “how you got your finger bones. Whose fingers?”

  “If you knew, you might like me less.”

  “We were all different people in the past. I'd like to know. I'd like to understand better what it is that you do with them.”

  She came around the counter and stood next to him, to warm herself before the fire.

  “My mother had finger bones. It was a family secret, but it seemed normal to me. Like a kid, I kept asking for my own, and when I was eight or nine, she explained how I would have to get them, if I wanted them. At eight or nine, it was a bit shocking and took a while to sink in.”

  The fire had started to burn low. She placed several pieces of an old board on the coals.

  “My mother already knew that a man... a stranger... was going to try to hurt me while I was away from the house, while I was out hunting. She told me that I should think about him as I would another animal, like a coyote or bear. If he tried to harm me, that was how I was to treat him.”

  “She let you go out, knowing someone was going to hurt you?”

  “Someone would try to hurt me. When it came time, I wanted to go.”

  “You wanted to go?”

  “The exuberance of youth.” She smiled. “He surprised me. He came out of nowhere, ran into me with his shoulder, and when I was down, he tried to smother me with his hands. He had both hands over my mouth and nose, trying to keep me from screaming or to smother me — and I bi
t him, a lot. He stood over me screaming that he was going to kill me. He reached for his knife, as my mother said he would, and then I used his fingers—”

  “Which you had bitten off.”

  She pressed her lips together. “Yes,” she said. “That is what I did. It was a bit of a mess. I spit one out, grabbed the other one and threw them at him. I'd seen my mother do that once when she was about to be crushed by a three-hundred-pound sow. I threw them at him and he froze where he stood. He could move only his eyes.”

  The fire now burned hot. The pause lingered.

  “And then you killed him.”

  She said nothing.

  She looked at him solemnly. “Jack, I'll tell you this in short words and you can rethink how long you want to stay. I took three more fingers. My mother boiled the flesh off them and put them in a bag for me. I slept well that night.” She was looking down and her hair hid her face. “That's your Natalie. Those are his bones over there. Make your plans accordingly.” She sounded like she was talking about disease.

  “You're the same person you were ten minutes ago. I loved you then, I love you now. Ask your bones if you've changed my mind.” He decided to say what she had probably guessed. “Someday I'd like to see the Pacific. Maybe we could both go and see the ocean, live somewhere green, with trees.”

  She put her arms around him. “My place is here, in the desert. With you here, it's the best place on earth. Everything is better. I like getting up in the morning. I like the hunting and collecting and fixing. I love going to bed at night. Before, those were just things I did. Since you've been here, my bones work better than before, and....” She almost looked embarrassed. “I confess I have asked about you. It wasn't polite to intrude on your privacy, but I did ask if you loved me.” She nuzzled him. “I'm just afraid if you know too much about me you'd not trust me, or be afraid of me.”

  “We've both done things it'd be best the other didn't know. Everyone's like that. And I have no interest in leaving. If did, I'd tell you.”

  “You'd be a nice guy, like your mother taught you.”

  “I try.”

  “I wish I could thank her.”

  ....

  On the counter were five apples, a grapefruit, and two bottles of wine, lined up like trophies.

  Natalie passed by Jack and let her fingers drag across his shoulder. Today, typically, she was in a white shirt and jeans. She went out to her utility room where he heard her moving things around, getting ready to go meet a traveler. Jack sat reading one of twenty-year-old magazines she had. He knew she would return, sit by him—