South

by Frank Owen

  Tye rolled the letter up and slotted it into the canister. When his bird was done eating, he strapped it onto her so that it sat along her spine like a quiver of arrows. She stretched her wings, settling her feathers against the foreign shape of the tube on her back. Then she swooped into the sky, heading north.

  When Tye was back with his men, he called the young Callahan over.

  ‘Kurt, is it?’

  The boy nodded.

  ‘Go get my other bag and follow me.’

  When the boy picked the pack up it jangled, metallic and heavy.

  ‘What’s in here?’ he asked.

  ‘Mind your manners. Just a little something for the ghost colony. Nothing fancy.’

  23

  Vida checked on Dyce first. He was asleep, curled up on the dirt with the grass blanket over him. She had no idea where his cargo pants had gone. She’d used them to carry him until just before the ridge. Maybe she’d forgotten them beside her pack. A couple of days without much sleep and her brain felt glassy, smooth in places, splintering in others, the thoughts disconnected, memories falling through gaps. Vida assessed herself for illness as she always did, but she figured she didn’t feel much more worn out than she should. Could a virus make her feel any worse? Her ligaments grated, her head pounded, her breathing had been reduced to shallow puffs. She envied Dyce his sleep and considered lifting a corner of the grassy quilt and climbing in beside him. She was surprised at how tempted she was by the idea, his flesh as familiar as her own.

  Instead she started up the slope to find Sam, trying to set everyone she saw in their place in the system. It was like a hive: there was an energy in Horse Head Camp, people getting on with chores where they could. Some, like Dyce, slept – too sick to be of much use – but those that were able wove grass into mats or washed clothes or dragged themselves down to the graves and sat in the sun, weeding. Vida and Ruth had spent a few months in settlements on their trek south, and none of them had had this kind of purpose. In settlements, and out in the open too, you were always eyeballing strangers and friends and family – especially family – for a sweaty forehead or the chills, a rash, any sign that disease was coming for you and yours. And of course everywhere you went, whether it was to deliver a glass of water to your ma in bed or journey further to join a town, you got the same eye in return – judging, assessing, suspicious. Everyone was a carrier until they had proven that they weren’t.

  Not here, though. Vida felt light.

  She asked at several shelters for Sam, and at each one they pointed her up. High on the slope was a structure different from the rest only in that it was closed. The others mostly had their curtains and makeshift doorways wide open to the sun because it burnt away the bugs. Darkness bred secrecy and rot.

  Under the outer shell of foliage Vida noted the layers of thick plastic and then the sheets of solid bark layered together like the clinkering on a Viking longship, designed to block out the light. The War had made everyone an engineer. She knocked on a strut of wood, cautiously, aware she was a nuisance.

  ‘Sam?’

  ‘Who is that?’ Inside the shelter she heard someone yawn. Damn. She’d woken him up.

  ‘Name’s Vida. I’m told you escorted me up the mountain last night.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Miz Bear Snack herself. You’re lucky. There’s been a rogue bear around – sick, I think. Comes sniffing round the graves at night. I’ve been out watching, tracking. But I found you.’ She could hear him stretching, the air coming out of his lungs, slow and pleasurable, as if he was smoking. ‘And you almost clocked me one with that branch for my troubles. It was a real interesting night. For a change.’

  ‘Glad I could be of service.’

  A pale arm stuck itself out through a gap, translucent as a gecko on a childhood night-light. Vida shook the hand, hoping she was doing the right thing. It was warm with sleep, heavier than it looked.

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ came the voice. ‘How’s Potatoes?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The dead weight you were dragging like a sack. How’s he holding up?’

  ‘Potatoes is okay. Seen better days.’

  Shit. Vida winced at her choice of words.

  ‘What can I do you for?’

  She crouched and then sat. ‘I’ve got some, uh, peculiar questions I’d like to ask.’

  ‘Favorite kind. Shoot.’ Another yawn, like a bear coming out of hibernation.

  ‘Your sickness. You don’t by some chance suffer from chills? Maybe, ah, constipation?’

  The yawn turned into a cough. Vida heard him slapping his chest. ‘You often get to meet the boyfriend’s parents?’

  ‘Sorry. But I can explain.’

  So she did, the whole story all over again from the beginning – and ending with her plan to combine two viruses.

  And what she needed right now: a specimen of Sam’s saliva.

  When she was done there was a silence. Vida wondered if it took your body a long time to adapt to having your days reversed, like that travelers’ disease in the wayback. Jetlag. Or maybe it was like working the night shift, the way her mama used to when she first started out as a nurse, always trying to catch up to the daytime folks, never quite getting enough. Sleep debt, Ruth called it.

  ‘I’m happy to spew in a cup for you, but it sounds like it’s Potatoes you’ll need to convince. Or you just going to slip it into his water?’

  ‘Not exactly. No point in convincing him if I don’t have the magic potion first.’

  Vida heard Sam rustling around inside his shelter, then a cough and a splat.

  His hand appeared again through the hole, this time holding a tin mug, wet inside with off-white, bubbly phlegm.

  ‘This is my bodily fluid, given for Potatoes,’ Sam intoned. Then he dropped the priest bit and went on in his normal voice. ‘Let me know how it goes.’

  Vida took the mug, pincering it gingerly between two fingers.

  ‘Thanks. Really. Thank you.’ She said it although she wasn’t sure just yet if she meant it. She wouldn’t even know the donor if she saw him in the daylight. And, sure, she could look harder, search higher and lower for more candidates that were better suited – or just other options, period. But the limited time meant limited choices, and there was nothing she could do about that. All the reasons not to try it suddenly reared up, burning in her chest now that she was holding a cupful of the plague. It made Vida shudder to think that she would go down the slope like Moses off the mountain, stepping neat between lean-tos so that she could offer Dyce a sip from the poisoned chalice. It would make him Ma’s taster, cringing at the knee of the despot.

  She didn’t think she could do it.

  Because things had changed, hadn’t they? It was silly, but she felt safer knowing Dyce was with her. Trust you to pick the only guy passed out on the dance floor! Dyce had been an invalid for ninety per cent of the time she’d known him – and still it was true: she did feel safer. If he drank from the mug and died because of it, he wouldn’t just be some hick gone from the earth, the way she’d figured him that night in the cave. There was a brightness to Dyce. If he were to die, all those shining strands would snap and it would just be Vida and Ma again. Them two, in the dark. And then maybe Ma on the way out too, and then where would Vida be? Outcast and alone, carrying the blessing, carrying the curse. She couldn’t do it.

  When she reached Dyce, Vida was crying. His pants had been found by some kind and attentive soul, washed and then hung over a twinberry bush to dry. Vida hardly recognized them clean. They looked so normal: khaki rinsed clean of the red and brown of his insides. His, and some others’ too. The ones who hadn’t made it. I will remember their names, Vida told herself. I will not let them be forgotten.

  She wiped her face and sat beside Dyce, unsure of whether he was awake behind his closed lids.

  ‘I hope you’re listening,’ she said, ‘because I got some things to tell you.’

  Vida kept her sore eyes on the bright-flowering grave moun
ds and she told him everything: about that first day at the house; her ma upstairs in the attic; the dirty glass he’d caught her red-blind illness from; the cheating log-filled grave out back; about Stringbeard and her double virus theory and how sorry, sorry, sorry she was now; how she didn’t really know what else to do but bring this mug to him with the spit sample that would either end his life or save it. She told him everything except the one thing that she couldn’t: that Garrett was dead and left behind, and he would never reach the sea.

  Vida set the mug down beside them and buried her face in her folded arms. She wept, and wiped the streaks of the new tears on her sleeves.

  When she dared to look at him, she found Dyce propped up on one elbow. He was holding the mug so that it shook, his bloodshot eyes open. He looked at her.

  He looked at her.

  ‘“Sorry” died a couple days back,’ he said, and then he tipped the drink into his mouth.

  24

  The cooking fires from the camp woke Dyce in the late afternoon. He shifted his bare legs, a little tender from the full day of sun. Vida was asleep there on the dirt beside him, curled up as though she’d fallen from where she sat, just keeled over, punch-drunk in the fight with exhaustion.

  He moved around to get a better look. Her legs were twisted, her chin propped on a folded palm, her cheek pocked by the grit. Dyce thought of the pictures in the Life magazines his dad used to get: the suicide girl who had landed so neatly, her skirt demurely down, her hands clamped at her sides, death-defying. It never happened like that in real life. Dyce had learnt that over and over in the last few months. But Vida looked nothing like that sallow girl. She lay, a full woman, rosy and close, full of life. For the first time in weeks, Dyce felt himself get hard. He moved to cover his crotch with his hands. Wouldn’t that be just great? Sleeping Beauty wakes with the prince’s dick waving in her face.

  He blinked. His eyelids still felt scratchy and hot, but his vision was clearer, and that was a fact. Vida was the first whole thing he’d seen since Garrett had faded away in front of him on the bad-luck path. There was a dim veil over everything he saw, but the shapes and shadows made sense in a set of kindergarten color wheels. Blue was purple, Dyce thought. Yellow was orange. Green was brown.

  He felt better too, post-surgical, as if the sickness had gutted him like a rainbow trout – sliced him open and discarded the useless internal organs – but at least he didn’t keep trying to pass out, and he could keep a thought in his head that wasn’t, Oh God, here it comes again. A couple of times back there he had expected to feel the hot slither of intestines hitting the wiry ground under his ass.

  Okay, that memory does it, he told himself. His erection subsided.

  And if he could see, actually see Vida beside him, then when she woke up she could tell him where Garrett was gone. It seemed like days now since he’d heard anyone say, I’ve made waffles! It filled Dyce with a dread that he realized was loneliness. He had never been without his brother before, his comfort and his torment. The real legacy of the diseases was that they snipped the bonds of friends and family: you were left untethered to float across the earth.

  He reached over and shook Vida. She tried in her sleep to spring up and he started to laugh.

  She slapped his shoulder. ‘Why you laughing? You crazy? You don’t wake a person like that!’ She smoothed her braids over and over, as if she could press the dream world back inside her skull so it didn’t spill over and infect this one.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He tried to stop. ‘You just looked like, like, this pig we tried to catch.’

  She left off smoothing her hair, but her hands were still shaking. ‘A pig? Are you kidding me?’

  ‘A feral pig.’

  ‘This better be good.’

  ‘Garrett thought it was asleep. Couldn’t believe the thing was just lying there. Had to prod it with his shotgun to make sure it wasn’t already dead.’ From some sickness that would spread to them, Dyce meant. Garrett had had no expectation that the hog would spring awake the way it did.

  ‘Ended up the buckshot hardly grazed it. It just took off, squealing.’

  ‘Dumbasses.’ Vida smiled. Her double-virus plan looked to be working, and the relief was cool on her skin.

  It didn’t last.

  Dyce waited a beat. There was no good time and no good answer. ‘So where is he? Garrett?’

  Vida’s smile faded, and the hot flush of guilt returned. She didn’t say anything, still spooked by Dyce’s bloodshot eyes, trying to distinguish the real world from the dreaming one. There were red-blind eyes there too.

  ‘He’s gone, right?’

  ‘There was nothing I could do,’ said Vida. It was lame, she knew. She watched Dyce carefully, keeping her eyes above his waist. This was when he was going to freak out. People had different breaking points, but if you were going to lose your shit, now would be the time.

  He was trying to pull himself to his feet while shielding his groin. Before Vida could explain, Dyce cut in.

  ‘Nothing anyone could do. Nobody going to stop him from reaching the coast. But fuck! I expected a goodbye, at least. Even if he was just giving us the finger, you know?’

  Vida nodded, numb with guilt. She’d long wrestled with what she’d tell Dyce about his brother. The truth – that he was gunned down by Walden Callahan – was likely to serve no good. None of that hero shit applied now. Dyce would blame himself.

  And, worse than that, he’d blame Vida. He was right to do so. Without Ma’s sickness laying Dyce low, he could have fought at Garrett’s side. Two on two would’ve been more than fair, with only Weedy Walden to back Gus up. Dyce would leave her if she told. Yeah, she was sure of it. Let him think Garrett had survived the skirmish and skipped to the coast. Dyce would need company. And, besides, it hadn’t even turned into the big lie she was prepared to tell. He had done all the work himself.

  ‘You were out cold. And he did say goodbye. Even left you something.’ Vida reached for her bag and took out the squirrel, heavy as a boxing glove. She held it up for Dyce, but he just looked at it.

  ‘Ears McCreedy?’

  ‘What you talking about?’

  Dyce was smiling the kind of smile that hurt.

  ‘I fucking hated that we had to kill that squirrel. Used to eat the bird seed in our garden. When the tuna cans were done, Dad snared it. Then stuffed it; showed us how. Garrett only kept it ’cause I hated it so much. Now Ears McCreedy is all I get? Figures.’ He shook his head.

  ‘What a guy,’ said Vida.

  ‘Garrett’s probably laughing it up right now.’

  ‘You going to take it or just wait for my arm to drop off?’

  Dyce held the squirrel and stroked it a few times. It was a neat job. Taxidermy was easier when you had the right tools. Now he dropped it beside his pack.

  ‘Rats with bushy tails, he called them.’

  ‘That’s a lot of effort for a pretty terrible joke.’

  ‘That’s my bro. Can’t believe he actually left, though. I mean, we spoke about him going on, or me staying behind – but I didn’t figure either of us would ever do it.’

  ‘No option, really, after he killed those two Callahans. Pretty certain the rest would be coming and no way he was outrunning those guys with a dead weight.’

  Dyce looked at her.

  ‘Sorry, but you were. And he seemed pretty torn up about leaving you, just so you know. Made me swear to save you from the coyotes. Don’t make me regret it.’

  ‘Fuck. I remember bits. Just wish I could remember him leaving. I feel like I could have said something.’ Dyce sighed, but deep down there was some sort of release – relief, maybe. He had dreaded the ocean, dreaded toppling their boat in the waves and having to swim, miles from shore with no hope of another mermaid rescue. ‘You reckon he’ll make it all the way?’

  Vida nodded. ‘Callahans took up on our scent, followed us here. Garrett’s long gone now.’

  Dyce rubbed his temples, then felt all the planes of hi
s face as if they were new to him. Maybe they were, thought Vida. He had lost about a quarter of his body weight. A fat Dyce was unthinkable.

  ‘How you feeling?’

  ‘Okay, I guess. Better. Getting my appetite back, I think. Never thought that being hungry would make me happy.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can scare up for you before I go. Maybe get you some pants.’

  ‘Whoa! Where you going? We just got here.’

  ‘Got to get to my ma as soon as, remember? It looks like the potion worked on you, guinea pig. Now it’s her turn. Gotta be quick.’

  ‘You going now? The light’s already fading.’

  ‘Yeah, not much I can do about that. One miracle is enough for today, and I don’t have the Old Testament strength to pray the sun to a standstill.’

  Vida took the tin mug from the ground and walked off up the slope. Dyce waited. When she came back, it was with a handful of thistle roots and a tiny rack of charred ribs from Sam’s campfire. Change of guard, she thought. Now it’s night shift. Sam would take her back to her ma’s place as quick as they could go, dodging the small traps of the forest while the Callahans snored.

  She handed Dyce the food. ‘Not squirrel, and that’s all I can say. Best I could do.’

  Dyce found his mouth watering. How long had it been? ‘Magnifique. My compliments to the chef.’

  She sat and watched as he wolfed the supper down, the little bones crunching between his teeth. He grimaced as he caught a splinter now and again in the soft meat of his cheeks. Then she went to pack her bag. Dyce stood and walked gingerly over to his cargos. They were almost dry, stiff on the sunny side. He took them back to the shelter and spent some time threading his thin legs into them. Oh, don’t, Vida thought. I kinda liked you the way you were.

  Afterwards they saw the pink glow dissolve behind the ridge. As the air turned chilly they sat closer, the good warmth of their sides seeping through their clothes, ectoplasmic.

  I should feel sorry for your skinny ass, thought Vida. Except I don’t. This feels like something else entirely but it’s just because we’ve been so long in each other’s space, is all.