The Darkest Path

by Jeff Hirsch

  “You know how you read in history books about people like George Washington and Alexander the Great, and you get to thinking that’s the only place folks like that live? In books. Well, I saw Nathan Hill standing not one mile from the front and I’m here to tell you, he’s one of them. He talked to those boys for hours and when he was done, it was like…” Grey’s eyes shone as he remembered. “It was like all their lives they had been living on dust, and someone finally gave them a drink of water. Mark my words, the minute California falls, this whole thing is as good as over.” Grey laughed a little to himself. “So I guess it won’t matter where you end up, huh?”

  Static came through the radio mounted over our heads. Bear woofed at it, and Grey reached up and switched it off, leaving just the rumble of engines around us in the dark.

  “So if you’re such a true believer, why do you help people like me?”

  Grey shrugged.

  “You’ve done it before, right?”

  Grey glanced up at me and then went back to petting Bear. “Hill and the beacons,” he said slowly. “They’re smarter men than me. I know that. But I don’t like giving folks the Choice. Simple as that. People ought to come to the Path on their own. Give ’em the chance and they will.”

  Grey reached across the cab to smooth down a curled piece of tape on the dash. It was holding up a picture of a pretty, fine-boned woman with a heart-shaped face and springy curls.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe I also just got a feeling for people who aren’t where they want to be.”

  Grey tapped his fingertip against the dash, then sprang up suddenly, like he was snapping himself awake.

  “Man, we cannot be stopping this long.” Grey snatched the radio and keyed the mic. “Patel. This is Solomon. I can feel those Fed drones circling, my friend. What is it? Private Weims spot another weaponized tumbleweed up there?”

  The radio crackled with static. A few seconds later a heavily accented voice came back. “Nope. It’s a roadblock this time, Sol.”

  “A roadblock?” Grey said, then lifted the transmitter again. “What are they looking for, Patel?”

  Static filled the cab as Grey waited. Bear sat up, suddenly alert. The air in the cab seemed heavier now. I put my hand on Bear’s shoulder and held on tight.

  “Yo, Mr. Patel!”

  “Sorry. Just through it now,” Patel said. “They’re looking for a kid, Sol. A kid and a dog.”

  11

  Both of us sat mute until the convoy moved again, this time at a painful crawl. I was holding Bear down in my lap, but he was anxious and shaky, trying to throw me off.

  “How many until they hit us?” I asked.

  “We’re tenth in line,” he said. “But Vasquez is third. Soon as he hears what they’re looking for…”

  “Can we run?” I asked. “It’s dark. Maybe—”

  “No. They’ll see.” Grey pulled aside a set of curtains behind us that led to a cramped room filled with a blanket and pillows. “There’s a cutout panel at the bottom of the sleeping quarters. It leads outside to the space between the cab and the trailer.”

  “What about Bear? They’ll hear him. I can’t—”

  “I’ll hold on to him. Once we’re through the roadblock, I’ll slow down enough for you to run and I’ll let Bear out too.”

  I started to go, but Grey held me back.

  “Listen,” he said. “There’s a man named Wade who lives in a little speck of a town called Bride Creek. Runs the post office, so he’s got a truck and a tech dispensation. He’s helped runners like you cross over into Wyoming before. I haven’t heard anything from him in a few years, but he’s a good man.”

  Grey pushed a map into my hand. There was a small town circled in northwest Utah.

  “I’m heading east, Grey. I can’t—”

  “There’s a lot of desert between here and Wyoming, and a lot of Path. If you’re smart, you’ll go west and take the ride.”

  Brake lights went out ahead of us and we moved up another space.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “See if I’m as slick as I like to think I am. Now go!”

  My eyes met Bear’s as I sank into the back. He was shuffling from paw to paw and whining, nearly frantic. I took his shoulder and squeezed, trying to pass him all the reassurance I could.

  I grabbed my pack and dug to the bottom of the compartment. Once I found the outline of a panel, I pushed it open and was hit with a blast of desert air mixed with the stink of diesel. The truck shook as Grey hit the gas and moved one step closer.

  I dropped my pack on the other side, then wriggled through, finding myself on the steel platform where the cab coupled to the trailer. I closed the panel behind me and crouched low.

  “Cut your engine!” someone called from up ahead.

  There was a pause, and then Grey powered down. Heavy footsteps approached the truck. When they got closer, four of them peeled off and began a search down either side of the truck. Flashlights knifed through the darkness. I dropped off the platform and hid behind one of the big tires just underneath the cab. Beams of light glinted off the steel where I had been hiding just seconds earlier.

  “Mr. Solomon! Step down out of the cab, please.”

  The driver’s-side door clicked open, and there was a bark from Bear as he followed Grey out.

  “Move to the side of the road, please.”

  I watched from around the edge of the tire as soldiers escorted Grey toward the shoulder. Once there, headlights from the truck behind us slammed into him, making him stand out starkly against the night. He was surrounded by five soldiers, including Vasquez. Bear had moved away from the group and was sniffing along the front of the truck.

  “What’s up, fellas?” Grey asked brightly.

  Good, I thought. Keep cool, Grey.

  “Where’s your nephew, Mr. Solomon?”

  It was Vasquez. I stopped breathing in the pause that followed.

  “Look, guys…”

  “Why’d you lie to us, Grey?”

  Grey swallowed hard. “I know I shouldn’t have,” he said, looking them each square in the eye. “But he seemed harmless, you know? I mean, you saw him. Ninety pounds soaking wet and busted up all to hell. He gave me a line about trying to see some relatives, and I wanted to give him a break. I should have been straight with you.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “He got twitchy a few miles back and bailed.”

  “Leaving you the mutt?”

  “Said the dog slowed him down. Asked me to keep him. I know. I should have figured something was up and given you guys a call. I’m sure if you backtrack a little, you can find him. He was only—”

  “He tell you he was a murderer?”

  A pulse of fear struck me in the chest. Grey said nothing.

  “Killed a kennel master back at Cormorant,” Vasquez said. “Shot him in the back three times and stuffed him in a toilet. Worked for the man for three years. You got anything to say to that?”

  I lifted myself into a crouch, muscles straining, ready to run.

  “Grey?”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” Grey said. “I fell off my Path, boys. I swear I did, but that’s all. I repent. I honestly do.”

  “We can forgive you, Grey, but only if you tell us where he is. Right now.”

  The side of the road was just feet away; after that, there was nothing but black. If I ran straight and hard, maybe they’d lose me.

  “I told you, he—”

  “Where was he headed?”

  When Grey didn’t respond, I turned back. The guards hadn’t picked up on it, but he was looking beneath the truck, right at me, his eyes bright with terror. The blood in my veins turned to stone. Grey turned back to Vasquez.

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  Vasquez looked to one of the other soldiers, who nodded.

  “Fine,” Vasquez said. “That’s fine.”

  He pulled his sidearm and shot Grey in the chest.
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br />   12

  I hugged my knees to my chest, trying to stifle the scream that was rising in the back of my throat. I wanted to close my eyes, wanted to look away, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t move.

  Two soldiers stuffed Grey into a black body bag and then dragged him off. A slick of blood gleamed in the headlights. Down the road, Bear was barking a percussive stream, his claws digging into the roadway, teeth bared. A soldier turned and unleashed a volley of gunfire that hit the road and sent Bear fleeing into the darkness.

  There was the slam of a door and then Grey’s engine came to life above me, snapping me out of my trance. I grabbed my pack and darted out from under the truck just as the big tires began to turn.

  I sprinted across the road and into the dark, half blind, every other step sending me crashing to the ground. Pain sang through my wrist, my back, my side. Each time, I forced myself up and kept going, running to a drumbeat of images that pounded through my head: Grey standing in the glare of his headlights, his eyes on me, Vasquez lifting his weapon, Grey falling. Over and over: Grey falling, like a suit of clothes suddenly empty.

  One word and I could have saved him. The truth of it was like a dull blade, gouging into me. I crumpled to my knees in the dirt, gasping, lungs shredded. The taillights of the convoy had disappeared down the road, leaving me surrounded by darkness. I saw myself stepping out from under Grey’s truck and saving him again and again. It was like some part of me was trying to convince myself that I had actually done it.

  Claws scraped my side. I recoiled to find Bear beside me, ears back, eyes wide with fear. I shoved him away and got to my feet, staggering deeper into the desert. Bear returned a second later and I hurled a clump of dirt at his feet.

  “You can’t follow me anymore. You have to go!”

  Bear growled and started forward again but I kicked up a shower of sand, forcing him back.

  “Go, you stupid dog. Just get away!”

  Bear shadowed me as I took off again, alternating between angry barks and a pained whimpering that cut into me almost as keenly as the image of Grey falling. Every time he got close, though, I whipped around, stomping at the ground between us and ordering him off. Each time he’d look up at me bewildered and hurt, but I persisted until the chime of his tags and the padding of his paws grew distant. Soon it was swallowed up in the thick of the night. Gone.

  I pressed on alone, an ache clamping down through the center of me. Someone would find him, I told myself. And even if they didn’t, he was better off without me.

  The temperature dropped fast as the night deepened. Pinprick needles of wind tore through my clothes. Images of Grey dogged me, and soon they were joined by others — Quarles and Connery and Dr. Franks. Even James. Because wasn’t he just as dead as the rest of them? I saw that day six years ago when the Path officers led us from our aunt and uncle’s car. They were taken one way and us the other. When they put the Choice to me and James, I didn’t hesitate. I killed us both and didn’t even know it.

  I tried to drive it all away, tried to tell myself that I wasn’t to blame. Grey could have sold me out, but he decided not to. Each man walks his own Path, I thought, sickened to feel Monroe’s words in my head.

  Exhausted, I collapsed again, onto my knees and then my back. The sky above me was choked with stars. I listened for Bear, expecting that any second I would hear the clink of his tags coming out of the dark. But there was only a low moan of wind and the distant tread of the war out on the front.

  After the Path had taken us, we were loaded into the back of a truck. James and I sat trembling side by side with the other captures, while a beacon patiently explained what our new lives would hold. He said we had been given an opportunity to find a new life and a new purpose. He told us that the way would be hard and painful and most of all uncertain, because a man never knew what he would find when he looked deep inside himself. The only promise he could make us, he said, was that our Paths would inevitably lead us to one of two things — what we desired or what we deserved.

  The moon arced over the vast emptiness of the desert and my body grew slowly numb in the cold.

  I thought I finally knew where mine had been leading me.

  • • •

  I didn’t expect to see the dawn but I guess the desert wasn’t done with me. I woke the next morning to the sun beating against the land. Shards of glass seemed to lie in my bones and muscles. I forced myself up with a groan, making my head spin and my vision collapse to a dark tunnel. I breathed deep until it passed, then I looked around, squinting from the glare.

  I expected to see a field of sand, but instead there was a plain as flat as glass and blazing white, like I was sitting in a field of snow. I thought it was a trick of the heat until I lifted my hand from the desert floor. White flakes crumbled from my fingertips and fell away like ash. I brought my fingers to my lips and touched them to my tongue.

  Salt. Not snow. Salt. I was in the middle of a salt flat that stretched nearly to the horizon, the crystals glittering, broken only by a range of bare mountains in the far distance. There was no cactus or brush as far as I could see. I might as well have been on the surface of the moon.

  I turned toward a metallic chime and found Bear sitting tall amid the white, watching me, his tags gleaming in the sun. As soon as he saw me looking, he turned away like I was beneath his notice.

  “I told you to go,” I said. My throat felt coated in sand, the spiny granules shredding my flesh as I spoke. How long had it been since I’d had water? Twelve hours? More?

  I searched for my backpack and found it a few feet behind me. The second I had it in my lap, my heart fell. It was empty. At some point during my flight from the Path, the zipper had come open and all of my supplies — food, water, Grey’s map — were now scattered between where I sat and a highway that was lost somewhere in the distance. I reached around behind my back and wasn’t at all surprised to find the revolver gone as well.

  I threw the pack away with what little strength I could muster, then looked out at the barren plain around me. I wondered if Grey would still have saved me if he knew how pointless his sacrifice would be.

  There was a rustle as Bear crossed the salt field. He stuck his nose into my side and I reached out to push him away. When my hand brushed his side, everything inside of me went still. I took his collar and drew him back. His fur was wet. I moved my hands over his ears and paws and found them all covered by a thin film of water.

  “Where’d you find it? Where’d you find the water?”

  Bear jumped back with a growl, confused at first, but then he wheeled around and flew out across the desert. I somehow found the energy to chase after him, stumbling and weaving, and after a few minutes, the salt beneath my feet disappeared and we were back on hardpacked sand. A few ancient-looking shrubs appeared. They were little more than gnarled trunks and spindly branches, but they meant that water had to be somewhere nearby.

  Bear disappeared over a hill, and when I came down the other side, I saw a circle of reeds and grasses rising around an oasis no bigger than a manhole cover. Bear dropped to his belly and lapped at the water.

  There was a scummy haze of algae clinging to the edges of the pond, and tiny bugs flitting over its surface, but I was too thirsty to care. I cupped one palm awkwardly and filled it with the dark water. When that was too slow, I simply leaned over the edge and slurped the water up. Together, Bear and I nearly drained the pond. When he began chewing on the thin grasses around the water, I followed suit, pulling up handfuls of the bitter roots. My stomach tried to rebel but I forced them down. When I had eaten and drunk all I could manage, I fell into a heap beside Bear.

  The water and food lifted some of the fog that had settled around me. I looked across the span of sand and sky. Mountains rose in the west, and to the east a few outcroppings of cacti reached up toward the sun. I studied their curves and the tan horizon behind.

  The roadblock had forced Grey to drop us early so I could only guess where we were
. I was sure that Bride Creek was still to our northwest, but how far was impossible to say. As close as sixty miles? As far as a hundred? More? And all of that through solid desert. The closest city was almost certainly Salt Lake City. In all likelihood it was just out of sight to our east, possibly as few as thirty or forty miles distant. Of course, being close didn’t change the fact that landing in a Path jail meant my death just as surely as starving in the desert.

  But what if I’m smart? I wondered. Move at night, fast and quiet. Could I slip through the cracks and cross the border?

  Bear squirmed onto his back, rubbing himself against the torn reeds with his feet in the air. I could still hear his bark as it echoed through the back of Grey’s truck. How was I supposed to sneak through the stronghold of Salt Lake City with him by my side?

  And there’s more too, I thought, recalling the voice on Grey’s radio as we waited at the roadblock. They’re looking for a kid. A kid and a dog.

  Bear had settled down to a nap by the side of the pond. He huffed and mumbled in his sleep, one paw twitching as he dreamed. I moved closer, laying my hand along his side. His fur was warm and smooth. His ears, velvety. I drew my hand along the lines of his ribs as he breathed gently in and out.

  I knew what I had to do. The night before, I was half mad and blundering through the dark. If I was careful and if I moved fast, he wouldn’t find me this time. I’d be miles away before he even realized I was gone. Thinking of it, my breath went short, but the idea that Bear could make it all the way to New York with me was a little kid’s fantasy. He had survived on his own in a desert before he came across me and could do it again. The fact that he had found this oasis proved that.

  I stroked his back and he shifted in his sleep. “Maybe you’ll find somebody better.”

  I drew my hand away and stood over him, fixing my eyes on the eastern horizon. Out beyond Salt Lake City, beyond deserts and mountains, Ithaca lay waiting.

  But before I could move, my thoughts drifted back to Grey, the memory of him like the edge of a bruise. I saw him standing on the side of the road, then flinched when I heard the clap of the shot. Why had he done it? That was the question that clung to me. He could have saved himself so easily. A single word and he would have been the one headed home instead of me. Instead he chose to die for someone he barely knew. Why? I didn’t think I’d ever understand, but the fact of it was there, stark as the desert around me.