The Zona

by Nathan L. Yocum

  Pious picked a steak out of the frying pan with calloused fingers. He laid it on a wood slab and offered it to Terence. Terence took the slab with his left hand and sat on the floor. He released the hammer from his pistol and strung it back around his neck. Pious plated the remaining steaks without acknowledging the firearm. He sat by the stove. A slab was placed near Lead, who remained unconscious despite the smell. Pious and Terence continued to regard each other with nervous apprehension.

  “I can tell by your gray hair that you were a grown man before the Storms,” Pious said. “What was your livelihood?”

  Terence picked up the steak, looked it over, and put it back on the slab. Pious poured water into an earthen mug. He pushed the mug toward Terence. Pious swigged from the pitcher directly.

  “There isn’t time to tell it all, nor would I want to. I lived in a place called San Diego, a city empire near the old Pacific line. I was a school teacher. I had a family.” Terence smiled in the brief reflection of a good past. He drank the water and savored it. “All those things are gone and don’t matter and never again will. It’s not the life this one is,” Terence said.

  “I apologize if my question brought harm.” Pious said.

  The men ate in silence disturbed only by Lead’s dream whispers, urgent and incoherent.

  “I said, I apologize,” Pious declared, agitated at Terence’s silence.

  “I accept, no harm done. It’s just not a story I want to tell,” Terence replied. He worked on his steak with hands and teeth and then paused. “You ever hear the story of Job?”

  Pious took a bite of his steak and shook his head.

  “It’s a book of the Old Testament.” Terence said. “Job was a man who lived a long time ago, before the technology and knowing were created and lost. Job was a righteous man, a wealthy farmer who loved God true in his heart. God knew Job was his best man and was proud to have a servant so clean. One day God was talking with Satan.”

  Pious’ face flushed crimson at the mention of the Devil. Terence continued.

  “God and Satan were talking about what makes a man holy or unholy. Satan told God that it was suffering that made men unholy and comfortable men, men who lived life without worry, could afford to live a life free of sin. As an example, Satan spoke of Job. He offered a bet with God. He wagered that if he were to take away Job’s comfort, Job would curse God’s name and turn against him. Job would embrace sin and forsake God like the other sinners of low means and birth. God took the bet.”

  The words made Pious nervous. The parish pastors never spoke of God and Satan consorting directly.

  “So Satan waved his claw and destroyed Job’s life. His evil infected and slew Job’s children and cattle. His crops withered and turned to ashes. Coins and jewels vanished from his coffers. His soft robes unwound into brittle thread. His house collapsed into a pile of rotten timber and insects. His hair fell out and his body was plagued with hissing boils.

  Job clothed himself in burlap sacking which hurt his tender skin and sores. He walked into his field and sat among the ashes and contemplated his undoing. Friends from distant lands visited Job, but when they saw what had become of him, they were upset.

  ‘What sin hath thou committed, Job? Why hath God smote thee?’ They asked.

  Job replied, ‘To my knowledge I have committed no sin. If any of thee hath knowledge of my sin, please speak it.’

  The friends looked down on Job, hideous, dressed in burlap, wallowing in ashes.

  ‘We have not beheld thy sin, but what God hath done to thee is proof enough of the evil thou hath committed. The righteous and innocent never need fear suffering and the wrath of God. Thou art an awful man to be stricken so.’

  And with that they left Job to his misery. Job pondered and prayed but his suffering and agony was ceaseless. Finally Job raised his fist to the heavens.

  ‘Why have thou forsaken me Lord? Why must I, one righteous and without sin, suffer loss? Why must I live on in pain and be scorned and humiliated by my friends?’

  Job had finally sinned; he’d questioned God’s infinite grace, which angered God. God came down to Job and stood before him.

  ‘Who are you to question me?’ He said. ‘I created the universe and all life. Everything you’ve see before, everything you’ve ever thought, everything that’s ever existed, everything that will be until the end of the days, tis all here because I say it is to be, for my own reasons. Who are you to question what I do? Who are you to question my infinite wisdom? Your mind is not able to understand all that I do. I know this because it was I who created your mind.’

  Job was awestruck. Here he was, in the presence of his Creator, who was scolding him for complaining about suffering. Job said the first thing which came to mind.

  ‘I’m sorry my Lord, I did not mean to offend.’

  God looked upon Job and smiled.

  ‘I forgive you.’ He said and swept his arm over Job and fields around him.

  Job’s skin healed as did his lands. New cattle and crops sprung from the earth, and a new home fell from the sky. Over time Job and his wife conceived new children; daughters whose beauty was legendary.” Terence took a long drink from his mug. “Nobody knew what the wager was for, only that God lost.”

  Pious looked at the uneaten remainder of his steak.

  “Why did you tell me this story, Preacher?”

  “You asked me where I’m from, what I used to be. I lived in a place that no longer exists. I had a wife and child who are dead. I don’t know why. I’ve never known why and I’ll never understand why. I am Job.” Terence stood up from the table. The early morning sun flooded the room with light.

  “I must sleep now. I put you in charge of the well-being of myself and my bound.” Terence stretched his body on the hardwood floor. He slipped the gun back into his pocket.

  “I trust your Christian judgment in keeping the safety of your guests.” Terence closed his eyes and immediately fell into a deep sleep.

  V. The river border provides a means of escape and contemplation

  Eliphaz discovered the sled trail just before midday. Philip hadn’t known much, but he’d known Terence’s starting point. He had screamed it into the night sky prior to his untimely demise. The information had provided the genesis of the Crusader’s search.

  Eliphaz and his soldiers tracked Terence’s egress from Havasu to the mine shaft. From the mine, the sled trail was an easy pick. It ran a straight line through sand and brush alike. The trail ended abruptly at one of the desert’s numerous rock hills.

  Eliphaz looked to the hill and the trail and the bits rock. His heart told him this was a dead end. He found the palm fronds stacked in a woyote den, safe from the wind.

  “Comb the hill for signs of a camp, then circle the hill for an exit trail.” He commanded his men.

  “Where did I lose them?” He whispered to himself.

  Pious doused Terence with the pitcher of water.

  Terence groaned and spat and rolled to his feet. His body ached. Terence’s blurred vision cleared to find Lead awake and sitting on the other side of the room. His wrists and ankles were still bound. Fever sweat glistened on his face and chest. Pious sat in a chair with the ax across his lap.

  “Keep your hands out of your pockets, sir. I don’t want to commit error and if you reach for your gun I will strike you dead,” Pious said. “Your bound mumbles in fever about being a Preacher, you don’t talk like one. I’ll have the truth or both your lives with God as my witness. Are you a Preacher?”

  Terence knelt and placed his palms on the hardwood floor. “Does it matter? You’ve taken us in. We were both Preachers but now we’re not. The men who pursue us are Crusaders. We are at odds with the Church who’ll see us as goodmen or dead or both.”

  The news landed heavily on Pious. He stood and shifted the ax from hand to hand, not sure what to do next.

  ”I’ve sinned in giving you aid,” Pious said.

  “That’s true, and I’m sorry for it,” Tere
nce replied.

  Pious looked around his house like a trapped animal.

  “Be calm, son. I’ve meant you no harm in coming but know the harm I’ve brought. Listen to my words and take them as wisdom. Leave us here. Get yourself to the Havasu Parish in all haste and confess to the Pastor that you were tricked by a man claiming to be a Preacher. Tell them that we left heading south, for our trail leaving here will be in that direction. Tell them that you were forced to feed us under arms, for I am armed. Do this now and live a good life, for if the Crusaders find you here with us your life will surely be forfeit.”

  Pious circled Terence, keeping frightened eyes on him until he reached the front door.

  “I wish you Godspeed and forgiveness sirs. May your sins be resolved swiftly,” Pious said and backed out of door, the early sun shone behind his head a yellow cloudless sky. Pious flung his ax into a patch of tumbleweed, and ran towards Havasu Parish.

  Lead drifted in and out of dreams. His body radiated heat that refused to cool in early morning air. Dirt coated his chest and arms thick, like a tailored shirt. Terence tipped flat warm water into his mouth. Droplets ran down Lead’s chest, streaking the layers of dirt.

  “We need to go now.” Terence whispered as he untied the binds. “Can you rise up, Preacher?”

  “Lead, my name is Lead.” Lead leaned his shoulder against the wall and forced his legs to hold up his body.

  Terence wrapped the remaining steaks in plastic bags and stuffed them into a knapsack. He pilfered a jar of water from the pantry and a trench coat from the bedroom.

  “We’re going to the South Storm Boarder.” Terence said, throwing the coat to Lead.

  Lead heard the words but did not comprehend them. His concentration was dedicated to holding his body up against the cabin wall. Lead draped the trench coat over his shoulders and pulled his arms through the sleeves. Terence looped Lead’s arm around his neck and pulled him away from the wall. The two hobbled into the furnace heat of the desert.

  Lead’s mind took him to a blissful place away from reality. He saw everything from afar, detached, floating in light winds while his body plodded along.

  The sun shone warm. Distant lines of smoke gave proof of far away domiciles. Terence dragged Lead to the dry banks of the Colorado River. The river waters cut through the desert brush and layers of baked clay and mud. Terence dropped Lead onto the riverbed clay. He sat and caught his wind and scanned the riverbank for floatable logs.

  Lead’s body burned and ached with fever. The wound in his shoulder was puckered and runny. Red lines crawled across his chest, reaching for his heart like demon’s fingers. The coolness of wet clay brought Lead back to reality.

  “Where are we going?” He whispered.

  “I know a healer not far from here. You need medicine.” Terence held his hand to Lead. “The water’s close.”

  Lead took the hand and regained his feet. They stumbled to the river’s edge. The waters shown yellow from shallow mud and the sky reflected like filthy glass. Sun bleached logs stood like teeth and marked high tides lines of favorable days.

  Terence tied a rawhide loop around one of the driftwood logs and rolled it into the current. He tied his knapsack to a branch on the dry side and the two waded in. Terence guided Lead’s arm through the hoop.

  “Don’t let go of the log,” Terence said.

  Terence and Lead drifted towards the deep center of the river. The water was blood warm; it cleansed Lead’s skin and soothed his wound. The edges of Lead’s trench coat floated around him. His mind envisioned fish nipping at his boots.

  The two floated south with the current. They passed through a canyon cut by older, stronger waters and glaciers before that. Lead stared at the canyon’s edge, at the silhouettes of boulders and brush. A mountain goat looked down at him, strong and unmoving.

  “They’re beautiful because they can live on anything.” Terence said, looking at the same creature. “They lived here before we did, they’ll be here when we’re gone.”

  Lead nodded off, the infection tapped his strength. Warm waters embraced him. He awoke coughing and sputtering, having dipped too low. The sun’s placement showed the time to be late afternoon. Terence floated next to him, both hands holding his knapsack over the water.

  “Fall asleep again under water and you’ll wake in the Lord’s arms.” Terence said with grin.

  “What do you know of the Lord?” Lead said. “You’re a Church deserter. The Church gave you Cain’s Mark. You are a sinner.”

  Terence contemplated. The river current crackled. Stunted trees and shrubs at the river’s edge nodded with wind.

  “Yes, but my sin wasn’t against God. My sin was against the Church. Church and God ain’t the same thing. From what I know, God’s perfect. The Church makes mistakes.” Terence kicked his feet to straighten the log in the current. “God’s about order, Church is about power, as best as I can figure, to be against one is not to be against the other.”

  One of his Lead’s boots scraped against a river stone. He put his other arm through the rawhide loop.

  “The word of God comes through the Church. If the Church were wrong, God would smite the Church and find a new hand to do his will,” Lead said.

  Terence laughed. “By God! The great contradiction, if the Church is wrong, then God would fix the Church, yeah? But what about free will? God granted us free will; or rather we took free will when we ate from the Tree of Knowledge.”

  “How does that fit?” Lead asked.

  “Let me ask you, does Jesus sit on God’s right hand?” Terence asked.

  “Yes.” Lead replied.

  “And what does he do there?” Terence asked.

  “He judges the quick and the dead.” Lead said.

  “So Jesus, our Lord, judges us when we die, he looks back upon our lives and determines if we are worthy of the glorious afterlife, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “But, according to the Church, if a person does wrong, the Lord will intervene through the Church, right?”

  “Yes.” Lead replied.

  Lead looked away from Terence, back to the canyon walls.

  “So we’ve established that God and Jesus judge us for our actions and we’ve established that God interferes with our actions through the Church if we do wrong. So let me ask you, Preacher, why does Jesus judge the quick and the dead if he and his father step in and alter the bad behavior of man?”

  “I don’t understand,” Lead said.

  “If the Church is right in correcting our actions through the will of God, then why do God and Jesus still judge us in the afterlife? If we are properly controlled and checked by our Lord through the Church, then entrance into heaven should be assured without judgment, right?”

  Lead was silent.

  “The way I see it, they both can’t be right. Bible says you’ll be judged in the afterlife based on what you do in this life. The Church says its actions are right because God sanctions them and if God didn’t he’d smite them dead. But if God corrected every little wrong we committed in this life, he and his son would have nothing to judge later on.”

  Lead looked back to Terence, the old man’s argument made his fearful.

  “The Book says the Anti-Christ will speak of blasphemes,” Lead said.

  “The Book says a lot of things, but if I were the Anti-Christ I sure as hell wouldn’t be strapped to a log floating down the Colorado fearing the bullet of a man who may or may not be tracking us down this river.” Terence shifted to get a better hold of his knapsack. “Believe me or don’t. Just consider my words, Preacher.”

  Lead was silent again. The men continued floating past the remains of homes and the remnants of civilized life.

  Lead woke to the stars and navy blue of the early evening sky. Terence was hauling them up a gravel shore. In the distance the winds of the Storm Border whipped trees and cracked stones over boulders.

  “Stay put,” Terence said. He untied his knapsack and disappeared into the bru
sh.

  Lead lay on his back. He ran his hands over river stones. The waters had cooled his fever. His body was still strange and unbalanced, but the fear that he would die was gone. Lead smiled at the stars. He would live. He would continue on. The sky’s light ebbed and locusts chirped their songs from the brush. Lead lay still. The river stones and his drenched coat soothed his fevered skin. The locusts filled night with their alien callings.

  Lead woke on a bed that shifted and rolled with his weight. His eyes scanned a room of white-washed walls and boarded-up windows. Cotton sheets scratched his skin. A lanky, gray-haired stranger stared at him from across the room. His were eyes hidden behind reflective lenses.

  “Hi, uh, good morning,” the man said nervously, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

  The man’s glasses sagged slightly on his face. The frames were squared off and wound with adhesive tape. Lead sat up and felt a dull pain in his left shoulder. He pressed his hand against his wound. It had been packed in a thick poultice.

  “We beat the infection,” the man said. He pulled a brown bottle from the pocket of his blue jeans.

  “Penicillin, I make it here. Makes you pretty lucky I guess.” The man’s face froze as he realized the error of what he said. The Church had long ago decreed that the use of drugs was offensive to God as it fought against his inclination to cull the sinner and save the righteous. Preachers put men to blanket for such offenses.

  “What’s Penicillin?” Lead asked.

  “It’s a drug. It kills infection. I’m sorry.” The man looked around the room, as though searching for a place to hide.

  “Never heard of it,” Lead said. “Where am I?”

  “C.R.A.S.S.,” the man replied. “Colorado River Aqueduct Science Station, California side. We monitor storms, look for patterns, chart strength or winds and the like.” The stranger was visibly relieved to change the subject.

  Lead searched the room again with his eyes.

  “So we’re out of the Zona?”