Back to the Garden

by Clara Hume

  "If you go, I go," he said frankly. "I have wanted to get to the other sea."

  "If we go with them, do they really have the room? They've already got six and a baby."

  "Well, I got a good look at that wagon. It may be old, but one of the guys, Caine, said he had been working with Leo on that wagon all winter. He put on new tires and built the whole thing up to be sturdy. It's got three big seats across, not counting the driver's area, and each seat would fit three adults. The little girl, she mostly sits on the floor. If you ask me, they'd let us go but we could help them out with hunting along the way," Joe said.

  "Or we could just add two more mouths to feed. Besides, Joe, what are you going to hunt in mid-America in this type of weather?"

  "Dunno."

  "And that guy, Leo. He looks familiar."

  Joe laughed a bit and said, "He told me he's an actor. Clark Winters, remember him?"

  It struck me as strange that Clark Winters was in my house, and even stranger that he'd once been someone else and now was just like the rest of us. I recalled how years before I used to watch his modern cowboy movies and, like many young women in the world, fell in love with his twinkling blue eyes and aloof ways.

  I shook off the old icons. They meant nothing anymore.

  The next morning, I fried up pork strips and made coffee. It was a good and rare breakfast, and soon enough the heat rose from the ground. It seemed as though snake-like vapors were crawling up our legs.

  Leo and Daniel had some adjustments to make to the wagon. I went out to check it all out. They had rigged a motor up to the front of the wagon, and made their own biodiesel fuel and processor to run it all. They'd brought plenty of fuel with them. Said they'd found it at a dead friend's house.

  Leo said they'd seen roadside markets across the land where people would trade goods. Money wasn't important anymore. If you had some fresh vegetables, you might trade that for lard. If you had caught some fish, you might trade that for ammunition. Leo said they had seen a few markets on their way but normally didn't stop unless they really were hungry. You never knew who was on the road.

  "How come you all came to California instead of going directly to the eastern shore?" I asked. Seems to me they'd have chosen the direct path to save time.

  "I was lookin' for a friend down in Silver City," said the old man named Jimmy. "Ever see a black hobo named Ishmael?"

  "Can't say I have," I said.

  "I didn't see a soul to ask in Silver City. Weirdest thing this place. Like coming into a ghost town. But he was my friend, and we came down this way in hopes I'd find him." Jimmy seemed distraught and lost.

  Fran had taken apart an old SLR camera on the front porch and was investigating it. I had known a crazy fellow up north of here who was making his own film after commercial manufacturing and distribution came to a halt. He'd died since but had given me several rolls when he was ill. I had taken it to the basement but told Fran not to let me forget it.

  Joe left the next day to ask his Uncle Frank to watch the animals when we traveled, and when he came back that night, we were all sweltering on the front porch again. Joe said his uncle would come over first thing in the morning in his own wagon and take the animals off our hands. He could not leave his place permanently but said he'd check on my house often while I was gone.

  Those heated days, each getting warmer, marked the end of April, and I began figuring out what to take on the trip. I couldn't take much. A couple changes of clothes—that's it. Elena told me how they had to wear the same clothes day after day, and then eventually find a water spot that wasn't completely messed up so they could rinse out their clothes. I added some dried and canned food to the wagon's storage. I also began psychologically preparing myself for seeing, or not seeing, my mother again in the near future.

  Even though the wagon had a canvas top, and they kept the wagon covered, the heat, Elena said, was unbearable, and the worst problem was finding clean drinking water. "You don't see it anymore. Most the ponds and rivers are too dirty. Or just dried out. Now and then you come across something, though."

  They made do by boiling water and using chemicals to clean it out.

  A week after they arrived, Joe and I climbed aboard their wagon. I handed some rolls of blank film to Fran, and she smiled at me. She handed Joe and me blank notebooks.

  "What is this for?" I asked.

  "To write down your life."

  Caine—Chapter 11

  Without my left toe, I felt life go on as it had before, with the biggest difference being that instead of traveling alone, I was in the good company of others.

  In Idaho we had planned our trip and decided to go down to see the Redwoods first to try and find one of Jimmy's old buddies who he hadn't seen for years. His name was Ishmael. Jimmy didn't say much else but that he and Ishmael had a score to settle and last he knew Ishmael had lived near Silver City, California. We did not, however, find Jimmy's friend.

  Our pit stop in California was a good thing, as far as I was concerned. From what we had seen on the road so far, the bigger numbers we had, the better: picking up Maisie and Joe had its advantages. There was death on the road, and we'd stopped feeling safe driving through cities due to the wandering bands of drifters with guns.

  When I met Maisie, I felt a strange stirring. She was pale and had violet eyes that seemed so light they were nearly translucent, like a lioness's. Her hair was golden-red. I had thought Fran to be striking as well, but she was taken. While Fran might be lovely in a wholesome way, like a woman on a mountain cupping the wind in her hands, Maisie was furtive and exotic, like a jewel-covered cat sleuthing around an oriental market. I noticed that while the others would take time out to write in their notebooks, Maisie would often not write but draw in it. She filled pages with dark foggy skies and forested landscapes. I watched her sketch out her existence through art.

  She sat between me and Jimmy, and I had to admire her, for like Fran and Elena, who had also grown up in the mountains, she had a lot of tolerance and thick skin to put up with Jimmy's mouth.

  He drank whiskey as we headed out and said, "Here we go again, heading out to this messed-up world. I don't understand. Cain't understand it at all. This heat. It is not meant to be this-a-way. Fuck me a runnin', I wonder how them fat men are down in their bunkers in the big city."

  "That's probably a bunch of bull, Jimmy," said Maisie. "If they were ever there, I doubt many survived."

  "Mebbe so, mebbe not. I do know one thing. They pockets ain't so big now."

  "I'm sure they've got it just as hard as us, no matter where they are," she said softly.

  "And rightly so," said the old man.

  "Thing is, Jimmy, they were wrong, but if there is any case for redemption, then that's all there is to it. It doesn't do any good to hype about it now." She took a swig of his whiskey.

  He howled with delight.

  Jimmy's face was more deeply lined than I remember it even from a few months ago. He wore a checkered shirt with short sleeves, and a deep line of sweat had trickled down his face and onto his collar. His jeans were old and rough, torn in places. He kept drinking his whiskey and occasionally broke out in song. That old man just couldn't be still.

  Maisie's arms were turning pink, even though we had a canopy above us. The hot sun stole in through the back of the wagon, through the flaps. I dreamed of a cold stubby right about now.

  Peering out the back, I viewed desolate dunes and red rock formations across the desert. Sometimes we crossed other people on foot or driving wagons and carts, like us. We shared a little water along the way—didn't see a whole lot of life. There were dead bodies of animals and people, but by and by they had been moved mostly into ditches, where flies coalesced in black groups.

  About mid-day I changed places with Daniel to keep Leo company on the front seat, where the sun was shining the hardest, and take over driving. We had fashioned a steering wheel, fuel, and gas and brake pedals. The boys and I had built a support shelf out from t
he doubletree and encased it in steel for the motor. We'd moved the jockey box to the side of the wagon, where we stored some water and dried goods for sustenance along the way. The rest were stored in a compartment below our floorboard.

  Leo thanked me and shifted over so he could relax his head against the bonnet just enough for him to doze a little. The wagon couldn't go too fast. I drove along what used to be the 190 and was still a highway so to speak, toward Nevada. We figured we oughtta get off the beaten track by nightfall, when we might get close to Vegas, though we also wondered how it was there, and were there any cold swimming pools? We doubted old conveniences existed anymore, and we weren't sure we would run across any bushrangers.

  Driving across Death Valley in 130-degree weather was putting us all in a bad mood. We had to conserve water. The ditch stench was on the nose. There was not a cloud in the sky, not one breath of wind. Long shadows lingered in the desert. Sand shifted in sighs. We had to get to some elevation.

  Kristy woke up from a nap and cried for an hour. She couldn't be soothed. We tried to open the flaps of the cantilevered bonnet even more and drive a little faster to create wind. It didn't work too well.

  Soon, Leo went back to sit with Fran, and we heard Jimmy starting to snore. I felt Maisie by my side.

  "Want any help driving?"

  I let her take over a bit so I could remove my shirt. I could feel the sunbake on my arms and shoulders, the heat on my brown skin, and I decided also to sip a bit of water. The water was hot. "Betcha glad you came on this trip," I said.

  I could see her eyeing my bare chest. Score, I thought. Years of building had made me muscular and fit.

  "I am glad," she managed to say.

  "Yes, well," I started. Then I stopped. It took energy to talk, to move, to think. The same energy that had worn out Jimmy to a deep slumber already. "Well, I'm glad you came too."

  Jimmy—Chapter 12

  When I awoke, we were still in California—I pronounce that Californ-eye-ay, for you farts out there who still read. It hurts to write. I have a bum hand, and it's hotter than Hades. The bum hand is due to that slip on ice during New Year's. I 'member Fran wrapping up my foot, but we gave no attention to my hand because I didn't feel it. I wouldn't a felt my foot if I hadn't a had to walk on it, but I did, and all I can think of now is what I wouldn't give for that night up there with ice and snow, even though I fell.

  In all my decades of life here on earth, I ain't never figured there'd be heat like there is in the Mojave. It's always been bad, I figure. Mite degree cooler back when I was younger, though. 110 would feel like a cold wave today. I figure this here weather was like Iraq or something. I remember reading how soldiers there used to get sick cause of the heat, but nothing was like this. They would call this extreme weather. Every day set a new record. The old days couldn't touch this.

  I figured I'd come along for the ride with these youngsters. We had my old buds watching our mountain homes up in Idaho, and it'd give me a chance to look up my old partner Ishmael, though we had somethin' to settle betwixt ourselves.

  As it goes, he came up to Sandpoint when I was but a kid, and he was a spry little motherfo. Years later, we got into a brawl over something dumb. I should say I tried to brawl, but he would have none of that. I knew as he left that day that me and him went back too far to let it forever separate us. I could see it in his eyes, even as he coolly stuck his cowboy hat atop his head and took a long-legged stride out into a burning sun that was harsh on my drunken eyes.

  Here we was, all the way to Silver City, and we never did come across a living soul in that town until finding Joe, who led us to Maisie. He had never heard of Ishmael and had been around the place all his life. I felt badly for having wasted these young folks' time on account they had planned a more direct trip to South Carolina. But now I wondered where Ishmael was and if he had made it anywhere alive. It would be my fault if he'd ended up killed by a marauder.

  The desert was fucking horrible. When I woke up the day after we got to Silver City, seems we had driven afar from Maisie's, so when I opened my eyes and the sun was still in the sky, I was disoriented. I reached for my whiskey, but Frannie grabbed it away from me and said it'd kill me on a day like today.

  I sat up in a sweat. Fran gave me some water that was too hot to taste good, but I figured I'd need it. Turns out we had gone south down the 127 over to the Old Spanish Trail and were still in the midst of the desert, though we'd passed Death Valley that morning. It was suppertime, and Fran pressed me to eat something. She gave me a chunk of bread and a bit of broth to dip it in, and then said by nightfall we'd stop at Calvada Springs on the border and go through Vegas tomorrow, during sunlight hours.

  We hadn't even stopped yet, but by and by, we came across a small area of Joshua trees and had to get out and do our business. At this point, nobody was talking, least of all me. It was all I could do to get myself up and over the backboard, landing clumsily on feet I could barely feel.

  If only there was some water anywhere nearby, but we figured had there ever been any, it was long dried up, and we didn't know the last time it rained in this area.

  Fran climbed out the back end, her generally brown face flushed by heat. She stumbled and then ran off to a bush to throw up. Leo followed her over and give her a sip of warm water. She said she didn't feel so hot.

  I now wondered why we didn't stay on that mountain. But I had agreed to come along. No use bitchin' about it now, even if I had the energy to rant.

  I found my own tree and let out a what felt like it wanted to be a long piss but turned out to be a trickle, on account of my body trying to retain what water it could, I s'pose.

  We settled in the shade and had a picnic of dried apples, bread, and soft, wilted carrots. But none of us said too much, and we made our way back into the dreary, dark, and hotter-than-Hades wagon, with dust nipping at our skin and a sky that looked like a bunch of melted paint. I swore all the way back, and I wondered if these young 'uns were already tired of me.

  Leo perked up like a leader and said, "We didn't think it would be this hot, and this is dangerous stuff. Look, folks, no more booze for a while. Just take it easy in the wagon, and let's keep the flaps open for some ventilation. Now's the time to change into lighter clothing, if you have it, and drink water. We haven't yet run out of water and figure we can get more at the Colorado River. For now, we are going to have to take a break while we look for a way to cool down the inside of that wagon. So make sure you eat and drink."

  He went off with Daniel, Joe, and Caine. I hopped over to Fran and rubbed her back. "You alright, honey?"

  "I'm alright, Jimmy." Her voice was weak.

  We all got back out of the wagon and laid down to rest and doze off beneath the Joshua trees, and I don't think I had slept that much since I was a baby.

  When the boys woke us all up, we went to see what they had created. They had put together some thin wooden slats for the back of the wagon, and made it so if you yanked a pull-cord the slats would go around like a fan. It was enough to get us back in the wagon.

  But Leo said, in a gruff voice, "We ain't going to drive in the day anymore, not when it's like this. We figured we'd be able to drive night and day the whole way through, but we're going to stick to driving when the sun goes down until, or even if, we run into cooler weather."

  Back to the wagon we went, taking turns pumping the manual fan in the back and taking turns driving. Except I wasn't going to drive. I watched over Fran, hoping she wasn't getting sick.

  By the time the sun started sinking in the West, we took another leak stop and came across a young family out walking down the highway.

  Leo was the one who took charge. He asked if they were okay.

  A small boy, who couldn't have been more than five, with a filthy, malnourished face, sat on the dusty road like he could walk no further.

  I heard Fran tell Leo we should take them in, take them somewhere. Leo agreed, but the father of the bunch had too much pride.
r />   "We're on our way to Parker," he said.

  "We can take you that far," Leo said.

  "No, we're getting along just fine," said the father. He was black-haired and sunburned, his build as scrawny as his son's. The wife spoke not a word, resigned to everything around her.

  But we couldn't let them go on without giving them some food and water, and they joined us for a late but small meal—and I told the father as an aside, "Son, you have to let down your pride, cause your family looks like death warmed over. Now come on with us to Parker. Might take a while, but we'll get there."

  He said, "Nope." He showed me a gun. He showed me his travel map. He knew exactly where he was and where he was going, and he wasn't going to take anyone's charity.

  I told him he was a damn fool, but he wouldn't listen. "Looky mister, we got weeks of travel ahead of us. Taking your family a few of those piddly miles ain't something we call charity. What would you do if you came across a young kid like yours?"

  The man was stone-faced and stubborn.

  Fran spoke to the woman and kid both, asking if they wanted to come with us anyway, but they said no. Not without the whole family, and the dad refused.

  I cursed up a storm, and stomped my foot, but that didn't help matters none. At least by the time the kid ate, he had some renewed energy, and Fran slipped him some peanuts she'd gotten from Caine a few weeks back.

  Then we moved on.

  Fran—Chapter 13

  Maisie had found some film for the old SLR I had brought along, and I was snapping pictures all during our road trip. I was writing too, like everyone else, but Maisie was also drawing and Leo was playing that old guitar whenever we stopped driving.

  We bypassed Las Vegas after running into a band of nomads outside the city who said the place was dangerous on account of outlaws territorializing the city, and to stay out if we knew what was good for us. So we drove south and finally got to Parker, Arizona, when I remembered the kid from miles back whose family was headed this way. It made me weepy, like most things these days.