What Tomorrow May Bring

by Tony Bertauski

  Russell hears me start to cry. I make it extra loud. He asks me what’s wrong. I know it’s the wrong thing to do, but I cry harder. I put every ounce of my energy into my tears, make them as loud as I can. It’s some kind of instinct that has been suppressed forever. You can’t leave them, I sob. They’re going to die.

  He doesn’t reply. And I know how much Russell loves me because I feel the boat start to turn. He’s figured it out, that I’ve become attached to them, broken his rule, lent out my heart, but he’s forgiven me already. He heads the boat in a straight line for the two struggling bodies, desperately rising for breath. He guns it. We can drop them off on a farther shore, I tell him, trying to make him feel okay with his decision, one that I know must toss his own gut. But he still won’t say anything. And I wonder if somehow he understands what I’m feeling. We pull up and stop fast, splashing them both with a wave. We reach our arms over the rail and haul them out of the water and back into the rain. Soaked and alive.

  “You’re not going back, kid,” Russell tells Dusty. Then he just points the boat back out toward the dark, cloudy sky. Dusty can’t say anything because he’s fighting for air, and Marvolo recovers long before Dusty is able to talk again. I look at him, his dark eyes, bluish skin, and pull him close to me to warm him up, not even nervous that Russell will see. I tell him it’s okay. He’s safe now. His body feels like ice, so I open my shirt and bring him up against my own body. Voley is running around the boat in circles, rolling his fur into the floor and then shaking, trying to get the excess wet off, even though the rain just keeps putting it back on him. Fear eclipses my joy—none of us have our plastic suits. And the rain is coming down colder than it has in days. And we don’t really know if we’re going the right way.

  But Russell’s alive again. And we’re still with each other. And the boat has a rubber tarp and oars for when the gas runs dry. And we have two canvas sacks of food. And two guns. And a boy and his dog.

  Looking at Dusty, his breathing finally slowing down again, I can’t help but feel okay. A sweeping calm that doesn’t make sense given our surroundings. Like somehow, everything is going to work out in the end. As if Leadville does exist, and this is all meant to be. Russell would kill me if I say my thoughts out loud, so I don’t. I keep them all to myself. Maybe it’s the delirium from everything that happened on that island, but I don’t care. Voley gives me a bunch of kisses, like he was never scared that he was going to die, and I lie down next to Dusty for a moment. As soon as I do, Russell calls me. Get up here, he says. Something’s not right. I can tell from his voice.

  He doesn’t have to explain. I look ahead the same as him at the horizon. It’s much darker than it should be, even at night. Normally the night sky is dull black, as if the bars of clouds can’t completely conceal the stars that I’m told are shining behind them. But the sky ahead of us is perfect black. It’s not even a bit gray. And what’s worse is the flash that I see the next moment. It lights up a thunderhead that looks as wide across as the sky itself. Russell says we’re going to turn to avoid it. But I’m hyperaware of the swells already. I feel the boat rock more than it should, not having noticed it until now. Looks like a strong gale, he says. I feel queasy, like I might throw up over the rail before I even feel any real waves. We’ll be okay, Russell says, knowing my fear of bad weather. But I don’t see how we’ll turn to avoid it. Another flash lights up the distant dome of blackness, and for a moment, the clouds are all blue and white, and they’ve funneled down to the dead sea below them. Only the sea isn’t dead out there, I know. It’s foaming, ripping in every direction. Swells as tall as houses—taller. I think about the Sea Queen again even though I know that’s a downward spiral pattern of thought.

  The Cap’n had drowned with a giant crashing wave. Russell said those are the ones that spill over because of a confused sea. Rogues. I saw him go sliding down the ship. We’d rolled so hard to the side that I had hopped up on a bulkhead and I could stand upright on its side. We were helpless to do anything. One minute he was rattling off orders, and the next, his head slid into the rail and he went limp. And then it was like he was all soaped up, the way he slid up and over the edge, right into the white teeth of the wave. Russell held me so I didn’t go over too. She righted herself one last time and we made it off. It was that simple. A chance escape. Most lost their lives. And I’d sworn that I would never see a rough ocean again.

  I try to take my mind off the storm by turning back to Dusty. Then back to the storm. Russell’s turning the boat and I feel us roll just a little bit as we make a new line through the water. The storm is shifting to our right at last as I look away and back to Dusty on the floor. He’s soaked, still in just his underwear, because he left the rest of his clothes on the boat so he’d have a better chance to swim ashore. His eyes are open and he’s looking up at me like I owe him an explanation. I know I can’t give him one. Voley comes over and gives Dusty a kiss, then another, right on his mouth, like he’s urging him to get up. Then a clap of distant thunder hits our ears. And it’s my face that needs an explanation now: How the hell are we going to get by this thing? I look away from Dusty and to the storm cloud again, only ten seconds after I told myself I wouldn’t look again. The immensity of it unnerves me but it’s magnetic. Russell turns his head to see how we’re doing. You better get your clothes on, he calls back to Dusty. There’s a pump. Start pumping.

  I see the pump and I’m almost glad to be pumping again because I don’t need to use a bucket. The rain is pooling slowly in the center of the boat. Dusty stands up and starts to put his heavy clothes back on. I walk over to the pump, eyes off the horizon, and start to drive the water out of the boat. I feel Dusty’s presence hovering over my back.

  What’s going on? he asks me loud enough that Russell hears it. Russell doesn’t reply. He knows I can handle it. He knows I’m not to tell the truth about his parents. We don’t know how he’ll react, if he’ll go crazy and try to take the boat from us. I remember he doesn’t have his rifle, and we both have pistols. He’s outgunned. It’s unlikely he could do anything. But I still won’t tell him. I don’t even say anything because I know that there’s nothing to say that won’t just lead to more questions. I just keep working the pump, and the water drops fast. The tarp is latched to a center pole coming out of the boat so most of the rain is sliding off into the sea. Much better than our canoe. We just might make Leadville in this thing. As long as I don’t look to my right.

  “Hey,” Dusty says again, angry I’m not giving him anything. He repeats his question. I look at his chest instead of his face. I tell him what Russell would tell him: we’re heading to Colorado. And that we’re going where there’s a city above the waterline. So you stole our boat to do it? he yells. The anger’s rising now, and I glance over to Russell. His head is slightly cocked, like he’s paying attention even while he’s steering the boat. Just in case I need him. In case Dusty loses control. Voley comes into the center of the boat under the tarp where I’ve rid most of the water that was there. I look at Dusty’s dripping clothes, and I realize all of our clothes look that way. None of us have a plastic suit. That was the one thing we forgot in our getaway. Exposure. Wet skin. The centimeter of tarp over the boat, pointed up at the dead sky, is the only thing that protects us. Russell is exposed in the driver’s seat. But right now he doesn’t care, because the thunder claps are coming regularly. They’re not getting louder, and I thank Poseidon for that, but I think they’re coming at shorter intervals.

  Dusty looks at Russell now, realizing I won’t help him. And you? he asks Russell. Can’t you tell me what the hell you did this for? He’s more upset now than angry. Hurt. It’s like Russell said. He did expect something in return for his kindness. Always something, Russell says. No one does something for nothing anymore. He expected our kindness in return. I see all the hope he had about leaving in that piece of shit barge burning up in flames. All the grand dreams he had about living somewhere better with his family. With his dad. All of it blo
wing up in his mind. The island behind us is just about out of sight. He’ll never see it again and he’s feeling it hard.

  Russell turns to Dusty and says very calmly, Relax kid. There’s a storm coming and I’m trying to keep us from capsizing. Then he says no more. He’s at ease. Confident we won’t sink. I try to let that feeling spill into me. Borrow some of it. But then it’s gone. I can only feel the rise and fall, hear the thunder. And I’m caught somewhere between fear and anxiety. The boat rocks to its side a little as we hit a swell. It seems higher than the ones we’ve been hitting. Then another. Definitely higher. I look out and see the ocean moving like a collection of tiny hills that are pushing toward us. All of them taking aim. I’m happy there’s no white—no foam—nothing that’s breaking.

  “Take me back,” Dusty demands helplessly. Neither of us pretend to pay attention to him. He says it again, stern this time, like he means there will be consequences if we don’t obey. What do you intend to do about it, boy? says Russell. He turns around this time and points his pistol at him. Dusty bites his lip and stares at Russell, through the beating rain, and the rising seas in front of the boat, and the endless gray before us. Then he concedes and sits down under the tarp. Voley comes over to him and they sit together. Russell turns back to the wheel. We move up and then twenty seconds later we go down again. Thunder claps. I sit under the tarp across from Dusty.

  “We didn’t mean for you to come,” I say. I shouldn’t have said it. I’m weak. And it’s no comfort at all anyway, he doesn’t even acknowledge me. I wonder if the feeling we had is gone now, just an illusion, just like Russell had warned. Don’t go chasing the veneer where there isn’t any, he’s told me countless times. I’d done it though, it had been a force beyond my control, a spell that pulled me into Dusty’s body and wouldn’t let me go once I’d touched it. It had come before I’d touched him. When I’d first seen him there with his rifle on the hill, looking down at our tent. But now there was no feeling. Just the cold and a driving wind that cuts through the tarp strings and starts to scream, a gust that reminds me about what’s on our right.

  Dusty lies down on the seat, puts his hands over his head. He doesn’t seem to care one way or the other about the storm. Like he isn’t one bit frightened of it. He looks like he’s just going to sleep. There with Voley right beside him. Every few minutes Voley whines with the rocking boat, or the clapping thunder, or the beating rain that flies sideways under our protection. The spray of metal salt. The endless canvas brown, now its own mountain, blasting us.

  I’m jealous of him. His ability to block everything out—the terrible sea and the wind and the water. Russell does it too. But I know why Dusty can. He’s battling something else entirely. And then Russell comes from the steering wheel and asks me to relieve him. He says he needs to sit down out of the rain for a minute. I tell him that’s a good idea without a suit on. You’re just getting better, I say. I feel guilty I didn’t ask sooner. He nods and sits down. Then he tells me to keep her heading the way she is, and keep the storm on the right of us. I head out into the rain. I’ll have to look.

  I open my mouth to the cold water and let it run into my throat. I’ve forgotten how hungry I am. The boat is cruising up and down the swells but they don’t seem to be getting any bigger, and the thunder isn’t getting any louder. I’m even staring at the sky monster now, and the storm is as big as ever, covering the whole sky, but it’s way out there on our right. A lot of miles between the center mass and our small tub. And we’re passing it. I truly believe we are. I look to the edge of the tarp and see the two sacks of canvas. I walk over and grab one and come back to the steering wheel. Russell and Dusty both look like they’re sleeping. Voley is not. His tongue is hanging out and he’s staring out at the rollers that are lifting our boat. He doesn’t seem so nervous anymore about the weather, just terribly interested in it. He’s curious.

  I rummage through the bag for something I can shove right into my mouth. I find a plastic tube of crackers and open it. In about five minutes I eat them all. I hear something behind me, and I become alarmed, thinking maybe Dusty woke up and he’s going to try something. But he just appears out of nowhere right next to me, and sits down in the passenger’s seat.

  “Did you plan it all along?” he asks me. I look at him. Then I look back at Russell. I really want to open up to him but I know I can’t. Russell looks like he’s passed out, his head against the rail. The swells seem to be dying off a little bit. The fear of dying in a rogue wave has started to recede, enough so that I take my eyes off the wheel and look at Dusty. His big dark eyes are staring right into me. I knew they would be. The only thing we had planned was going to Leadville. Nothing else. It was planned a long time before Blue City too, I tell him.

  So you’ll steal whatever you need to get there? he fires back. We’ll do what we have to do. And we have our reasons why. Do you know what the veneer is? I ask him. He looks at me dumbly. I tell him it’s what he’s still trapped in, and he’d better realize it’s gone, and sooner than later. But that does nothing to clear up his confusion. He’s still trying to find reasons. But I won’t tell him we killed his parents because they’re cannibals, and I won’t confront him about what he’s eaten himself. I decide he was probably fed people all along and never knew it anyway. That’s what I tell myself anyway because he can stay innocent that way. And I can’t bring myself to ask. I’m not answering his questions honestly, so I don’t expect he’d answer mine that way.

  We were going to go away on the barge, all of us together, he says. He says it to himself. Didn’t you feel like I felt? he asks. I don’t respond, but check that my pistol is still at my side. It is. And I think about what I felt, and how real it was for me. But I can’t tell him a word of it. Not when my attention is on the swells. I look at the gas gauge. The needle is still near full even though we’ve been on the water for a while. So do you have any idea where we’re going? he asks me. I tell him away from the storm. That’s all he’s getting from me. I feel too mixed up inside to tell him anything more than I already have. He’s asking dumb questions. He seems to get the point and he retreats back to the tarp. All I can think about is whether or not he’ll try something, try to kill us or throw us overboard and steal the boat back and go back home. I know I would if I was him.

  Russell! I yell. It’s been long enough, and I feel like we’re past the worst edge of the storm. The thunder is barely audible any more. He slowly comes to life and relieves me again. You okay? I ask as he gets to the wheel. Yea, he grunts. Then I head back to cover under the tarp. He tells me we’ll rotate, and first chance we get, we’ll raise the sails. Conserve gas. I tell him okay, then I toss him the canvas bag so he can get something to eat. He starts to look through it when I get under the center of the boat again. I work the pump for ten minutes so the floor is drained again, and then I lie down sidelong on one of the seats. Dusty is across from me, his eyes closed. Voley is up on the seat with him, somehow bundled up in a ball small enough so that they both fit. I wonder if he’s thinking about me, dreaming about me. Or if he’s plotting to kill me. I close my eyes and slip into a dream, confident we’ll make it through the night.

  It’s still the middle of the night when I wake up. The first thing I see is the empty seat across from me. Dusty’s gone, and so is Voley. Slowly I come to, rubbing my eyes. I get the weird feeling that Russell has let me sleep for too long. I look to the wheel and the first thing I notice is the tarp. Russell must have extended it somehow because less of it is covering the center, but the driver’s seat is partially covered by a sliver of it. And the sails are raised. I don’t even hear the motor. I realize just how quiet it is out here on the open brown sea. Just the old rain. And we aren’t rocking anymore. I sit upright and my feet go into the water in the center of the boat. Going to have to pump again. I look back to the front of the boat because something isn’t right—there’s Dusty standing up behind Russell. Then I realize what’s happening. Dusty’s got one of our guns. His arm is outs
tretched and pointed at the back of Russell’s head.

  No! I shout instinctively, and then I lunge forward. Voley, hanging near the stern, sees me jolt and follows me to the front with excitement, sloshing water as he follows. Then it’s like Russell wakes up, as if he’d fallen asleep at the wheel, and he turns to see the gun in his face. Dusty doesn’t react, but he’s shaking. Like he can’t decide whether or not to pull the trigger. Don’t do it! I yell as I almost reach him, heading to dive into him and throw him to the ground. Over the rail. Anything to stop him. Take me home, Dusty says limply, still shaking. But he can’t ever fire the gun because Russell slams him one deep in his gut. Then Russell gets up and slaps the gun out of his hand. I stop before I reach them to watch. The space at the wheel is too cramped. The gun clanks loudly and skids across the rain on the floor of the boat. Russell bends to pick it up and then he shoves Dusty back. Dusty’s so off-balance from the first gut punch that he rocks backward and right over the rail into the water. Water splashes me. Voley bounds up on top of the passenger seat and puts his paws on the edge of the rail, whining and watching Dusty drift past us. He starts flailing. Ice daggers stabbing him in that freezing water.

  I don’t know what to say. I don’t know whether or not I should keep trying to save him now. He was about to shoot Russell. And it hurts because some part of me understands why, and thinks I’d be doing the same thing if the circumstances were reversed. But the words don’t come out of my mouth one way or the other. Part of me wants to watch him die. I go to Voley and tug him backwards so he doesn’t spill in too.

  “Son of a bitch,” Russell says. Then he scares me, not because of how angered he is at Dusty’s attempt, but because he can barely get the words out before he coughs loudly. Then it’s like a chain reaction and he’s in another coughing fit. He can’t stop. Finally he calms down after I walk up to him. I see Dusty behind the boat now, and I hear him calling for help. He’s slipping out of sight and I know he’s freezing to death. Are you okay? I ask Russell. I hope that we accidentally threw more antibiotics in the canvas bags we stole. What are the chances though that Russell packed them? He’d never throw them in. But maybe he would, for me he would. How long does a course of antibiotics need to go for? I ask him. He tells me he’s fine and not to worry about it. Five days or something, isn’t it? I ask, knowing we were only in Blue City for a couple days. And there’s no way he completed all the medicine he was supposed to.