Where the Rock Splits the Sky

by Philip Webb

  I reach out to Kelly, but she brushes me off. Luis raises the gun, but his shoulders are trembling.

  “Hey, Luis. Changed your mind now? How about it? You was ready to let me have it just then. But what if you’re wrong? Hmm. What do you know — she was plain old Kelly Tillman all along. Buzzard food now.”

  “Kelly, don’t!”

  “It’s OK, Megan. Just trying to clear it all up so we can move on.”

  She strides up to him so the shotgun is practically touching her chest. It reminds me of my standoff in the jailhouse. When I was the one holding the gun.

  Luis backs up. His face darkens. He chews his lip. He’s angry now, to be made a fool of. He pulls up the gun.

  And I think Kelly will start to crow at him, to let off her steam. But she doesn’t. She just stands there.

  “Are we done?” she says quietly.

  He nods.

  She turns to me. “Had to be cleared up. Else it’s always just hanging at the back of everyone’s mind. So, we all buddies now?”

  Her face is flushed deepest pink, eyes wide and bright and troubled. She turns on her heel to Luis again.

  “Course if I turn out to be extra-T, then be my guest. I mean it.” Her tone is sincere.

  “Same for me,” mutters Luis. “If my body taken.”

  I stand there in a daze. The two of them were spitting enemies just moments ago. Now they are sealed in a death pact against Visitors. Grim allies.

  They stare for a few moments at each other, before at last Kelly grins. “Hey, Luis, nanoo-nanoo. Just kidding. I’m kidding … Well, I’m all for sacking off this place just as soon as you like, but there’s three of us and just two beat horses. And them wolves still sniffing about …”

  But at that precise moment, two things happen. The lights from the Eightball Motel explode. And the road we’re standing on cracks in half with a mighty rumble of splitting concrete.

  I brace myself for a terrible fall as a rupture runs toward us, snaking down the cats’ eyes, sending up puffs of debris. A ripple crest of tarmac rides under our feet and sends the three of us sprawling. Out of the corner of my eye, the Eightball Motel just tips away into nothing.

  Then the town stops sliding, but as Kelly straightens, she teeters backward over the edge of a rift. I snatch at her coat sleeve as she fights for balance. Her pixie boots slither on the crumbling lip, but somehow I haul her into an embrace.

  Over her shoulder, twenty yards below, I see the wolves circling on the desert floor.

  We look at each other, not daring to breathe for a few moments, waiting for the town to collapse. But it is stable, for now.

  Kelly lets forth a torrent of abuse peppered with words I have heard only from the denizens of Marfa’s saloon. Finally, she says, “OK, let’s bail outta this goddamn town. Never could bear the place anyhow.”

  Luis and I retrieve our horses — I am sure they would have bolted if they weren’t so exhausted.

  “We do not have much time,” I say, looking at the lights all down the road as they dim or die. “There is a power here holding the town in the air, but I think it is failing. This is an aspect of the Zone.”

  “The wolves, Megan …” Kelly says.

  “We need to waylay them somehow.” I stare at the patrol car, which has survived the tremor with one tire perilously close to the drop. Neither horse is in a state for another gallop, certainly not with Kelly in the saddle as well. We cannot even descend to the ground safely unless it is by the hill …

  “Denny’s,” announces Kelly decisively. She nods toward the restaurant, its sign askew from the quake.

  “What?”

  “I went there some hours back to rustle up some eggs and grits …”

  I stare at her blankly, thinking she has relapsed into abductee madness.

  “The place is full of meat. Bucketloads of bacon and steak.”

  I start to catch her drift. Luis smiles and nods.

  There is no point in talking it through — we all charge across the street, through the glass doors. There are still jackets over chairs, plates of half-finished food. We follow Kelly’s lead, ransacking the kitchen, piling through the refrigerators, clawing anything edible into every container we can find — grated cheese, fries, buns, slabs of raw meat, eggs, bags of burger mince … It’s all fresh or frozen — preserved all these years since Valentine was ripped clean off the map.

  In the front of the store, there’s a stray shopping cart from the 7-Eleven. We load up, but Kelly grabs the handles from me.

  “Water the horses. I’ll take care of this.”

  “Be spare with the bait until you reach the far end of the town,” I warn. “Just enough to lure them all with you.”

  “Hey, I ain’t no dummy! I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

  She takes a running leap onto the wheel guards of the cart and trundles it along the twisted camber of the main street, scattering diner ingredients in her wake, shouting, “Here, doggy, doggy. Come ’n’ get it, you mangy critters!”

  I am not at all sure how we will all get off this floating hicksville settlement, but for now the most important thing is water for the horses. Cisco is lathered up with foam and licking at some spilled juice in the front entrance of Denny’s.

  Luis says, “She cannot come. She will be a danger. In the Zona, it is hard just for us …”

  “I know. We’ll take her to the Deadline border, near Fort Davis, so she can head off-Zone.”

  Behind the restaurant is the water tower Kelly spoke of. It is leaning precariously to one side and the ladder that leads to its steel tank has twisted so badly that the rungs are broken. There is nothing else for it. I check the chambers of the Colt. I have two rounds left.

  If anyone is out on the plain, they’ll hear the shot. But it can’t be helped. Besides, the strange gray cloud that drew us here no longer obscures the town — these hovering streets will be in clear view from anywhere on the southern edge of the Davis Mountains. We will have company soon enough.

  All these thoughts tumble through my mind as I line up the shot and fire. A spurt of water gushes free and soaks us. I fill up my hat for Cisco, but pretty soon there’s no need because the hollow under the tower becomes a pool.

  Soon, though, the tank shudders and tips away from me, and a line of lampposts drops out of sight. It’s agonizing but we wait for the horses to take their fill while I stock up my calfskin containers, then lead them back to the front of Denny’s. Over the edge of the broken road there’s no sign of the wolf pack, so Kelly must have lured them all away.

  What’s nagging at me is this: Even if one of the horses could leap back onto the hill, with two of us in the saddle, the burden would be too much to sustain much more than a trot after that. We’ll be easy prey if the wolves pick up our trail again, as they surely will.

  Another chunk of the town bottoms out as Kelly comes running up the main road. I hear it crashing to the ground in waves. She yells something, and as I swing up onto Cisco, she pulls me back.

  “The car,” she gasps.

  “What?”

  She retches onto the curb. “We’ll take the car. It’s the only way …”

  Luis shakes his head in admiration. “¡Bien pensado!”

  For the first time today, I smile. Because I have dismissed Kelly, and that is a poor judgment. Her thinking is clearer than mine. If we go in the police vehicle, then both horses will be unencumbered. They can last the journey, and Luis and I can keep the wolves at bay with rifles while Kelly drives. It might be desperate, but it is still a plan at least.

  Kelly slings me her rifle and jumps into the driver’s seat. Luis takes up position in the back. I dither a moment, because it is a long time since I have sat in a motorized transport.

  “Sweet baby Jesus, are you gonna strap in or stand there admiring the ride?”

  Cisco pads about in a worry, but I’m sure he will catch the gist once we start moving.

  I flop into the seat. It feels too close to the road.
Through the windshield I see only the crown of the hill.

  “Will you be able to drive it across the gap?” I have no idea what this vehicle is capable of.

  “Sure. Just put your belt on, will you, goddammit?”

  “¡Rápido, Kelly!” cries Luis.

  Kelly turns the engine on and looks at me. There is a reckless glint in her eye.

  “Always wanted to do this.”

  “What?” I ask. The truth is I am a little shaken by the crooked death-wish smile she throws me.

  “Road trip, honey. You ready?”

  But she does not wait for me to answer. As I slot the belt into its holster, she slams the vehicle into a forward momentum, flips the sunglasses down over her eyes, and lets out a long whooping scream.

  The car hood seems to suck up what remains of the road as I am thrown back into my seat. And then there is no more road. We are airborne.

  Airborne. But not for long!

  The vehicle tips and crunches nose-down into the hill. Everything loose inside hurtles forward and clatters into the dashboard — cardboard cartons of pizza, coffee cups, a storm of papers. Miraculously, the seat belt I clicked into its holster holds me firm or I would certainly have been thrown through the glass. The car slides sideways down the slope as Kelly wrestles with the steering wheel.

  “Stop it!” I cry.

  “Don’t you think I’m tryin’!” she yells back.

  She levers up the brake and we skid half-circle to a halt. Luis and I stagger out with our rifles, waiting for the dirt to settle. More corners of the town are toppling, buildings leaning into the drop. The road above us has been twisted upward like a roller coaster ramp. I cannot see Cisco, though I scream to him above the detonations of masonry.

  The first of our horses to leap is the Appaloosa. He lands heavily but rights himself on the slope, and Luis is there to settle him.

  I wait for Cisco. No sign. Come on!

  I see only bloodred clouds of dust drifting over a web of suspended roads. The lines of tarmac wobble and snap. Perhaps my beloved horse has already fallen. Perhaps he has no heart for the final jump that will bring him to safety. But then, just when I have given up hope, I see an outstretched shape flit across the sun. Cisco!

  He jolts down onto the hilltop and slithers out of control, legs splayed, shouldering into the scrub. For a ghastly instant I lose sight of him, but then he appears at the top of a rise, shrugging off the dirt, looking to and fro for me.

  I scramble up to him, peering on all sides for wolves, but they have either fled or been crushed by the town.

  Cisco nuzzles my hands, sneezing and whinnying softly. I check him over in a panic, but apart from a few cuts and scrapes, he is sound, thank the Lord.

  Highway 17 is not far. Luis and I lead the horses at a brisk walk alongside the car, northward toward the Davis Mountains, keeping a watch for rogue wolves. Kelly grins at us through the open window as the vehicle scrapes onto the highway. It is severely battered and the axle makes a grinding noise that suggests it is coming to the end of its useful life.

  Sure enough, with maybe two miles to go to Fort Davis, the engine gives out a sigh of steam and clunks dead.

  Luis throws me a glance. I know what he’s thinking. Now that we have escaped Valentine, we must surely part ways with Kelly. This is Zone logic — the only sensible course. I wanted to avoid Fort Davis, but we cannot send her cross-country out of the Zone from here — she has no understanding of the dangers. Even with outlaws at large, her safest option is to stay within sight of Alpine Road until she has crossed the Deadline border.

  “So much for the road trip,” groans Kelly.

  “It would not have lasted anyway,” I answer. “All machines break down eventually in the Zone.”

  “How come?”

  “No one knows for sure. Pa said this place is subject to different laws of the physical world. Machines are too fragile for the forces at play.”

  “You mean forces that hold whole towns in the sky?”

  “I have heard many unnatural stories of the Zone, but never any that involved such defiance of gravity.”

  We abandon the car. For some time, she walks beside us, glancing in my direction, scuffing her toes in the sand. It is clear that worries weigh heavily on her mind, but she does not speak until we are in sight of the first tin shacks of sharecroppers, abandoned now on the edge of Fort Davis. Kelly stares at the patchwork of dusty fields, the old irrigation channels that still twinkle with mirrors to corral the sun’s rays.

  “Hellfire, I sure don’t remember it being this way before,” she says.

  “The farms? Everyone has to grow their own food around here now — it is too expensive to import from Canada above the Zone. Up there, the sun is stronger, in the west, but mostly their crops go to the edge of the dark side. The prices are prohibitive for us.”

  “You can grow stuff in this desert?”

  “We have water piped from Brewster County. The sun should be too weak here, but there are random strains of corn and some vegetables that manage — Zone mutations. Off-Zoners would never eat the food we harvest — they say it has a toxic effect on the mind. But it is edible — just hard to raise and the yields are meager.”

  “God, it’s like I recognize things but they been all mussed up, turned inside out … like when Dorothy’s house gets dumped from Kansas to Oz, you know?”

  It’s not long before we spot the watchtowers and scattered coils of barbed wire that lie just east of Fort Davis.

  “That the Deadline border you was saying about?”

  “Used to be. It was fenced off and guarded for the first year after Visitation, but the edge of the Zone keeps shifting. It is like a tide, claiming and receding from towns. Fort Davis is currently in the Zone, abandoned now, and Marfa is just outside, but a year back, it was the other way around. They are both borderline places — any technology more sophisticated than a revolver or a steam-driven pump will not function until you reach places farther east, like Fort Stockton.”

  Kelly stops and stares at the desolate approach. “How can you tell where the Zone starts and ends, then?”

  “The only outward signs are scrapped machines. You feel the effects of the Zone in your mind if you’re attuned.”

  I glance at Kelly’s pre-Visitation fashion statements. “You will attract the wrong kind of attention with those clothes.”

  Kelly cocks her head at me. “So how do I fit in with the locals — does everyone dress rodeo bumpkin and talk like a Bible thumper?”

  “Perhaps we will find some garments for you in Fort Davis — the sharecroppers left in a hurry and did not take all their belongings.”

  It is telling, I think, that Kelly has not asked us what our business is in the Zone. She is acting somehow as if she is coming with us when I have tried to explain that we will direct her off-Zone to Fort Stockton. Although I have known her just for a short time, I will be sorry to say good-bye, but she cannot come with us. It is out of the question — all my Zone sense tells me so.

  It is quiet as we enter the town. There is a sorry air to the place — home now to mice and undisturbed shadows. We cradle our rifles at the ready. My quivers sense no immediate threat from the Zone but we must be mindful of outlaws. The only sound comes from bats on the wing, leaving their roosts in cabin eaves.

  “It’s evening now?” asks Kelly.

  I show her my pocket watch — a quarter before seven. A little crescent moon on the dial indicates that we are after midday, approaching the time of night.

  She points at the bats. “But how do they even know it’s time to get going? When the sun never moves.” I think she speaks partly to cut the tension between us. As if she’s pretending we will not be parting ways in a matter of minutes.

  “Birds, bats, wolves, people — they just adapt, take their cues from each other. We still need sleep. It’s just that the sun’s rising and setting no longer marks these rhythms.” I sound like a schoolmarm but it settles my nerves somewhat to sp
eak. “The Earth still revolves around the sun once a year, so there are seasons to speak of, when we are closer to or farther away from the light and heat.”

  Kelly shakes her head. “It’s all broke to hell. I mean, bats — ain’t they needing the night? So how come they don’t just flit off to wherever it’s dark all the time?”

  I watch the empty doorways, the broken shutters — the town ahead is lifeless.

  “No food,” answers Luis. “No insect on the dark side. Noche permanente. Is too cold. Bats hunt here in twilight places.”

  “But how?”

  I shrug. “They have to. Sonar works just as well in light as in darkness.”

  “So the world stops turning and things just go on the same as ever?”

  I stop and stare at her then, my abductee pupil, and I’m astonished for a moment that she is clueless about this. “Kelly, two and a half billion people perished. Hundreds of millions displaced. Thousands of species were wiped out. Entire continents are in darkness and ice age. What you see here is what’s left.”

  Her face turns ash-white. Behind her eyes I watch realizations sink in. There is a world of sorrows beyond her crash-landed town. Perhaps this is the moment her grip on reality will start to crumble, as it is expected for abductees. I am, after all, not trained as a handler.

  But at last she nods. “Just checking.”

  We cut across the town away from the main drag, toward the Alpine Road. Just at the edge of the cemetery, I spot a wagon. It is of a type favored by Deadline settlers — made from scavenged vehicle parts. They usually travel in family groups up and down the border, combing deserted towns for things they can trade. The chassis leans to one side where one of the tires is flat. A tattered tarpaulin clings to the hooped frame above, snapping in the breeze.

  I cup my hand and call out. There is no reply.

  “Think they’re asleep inside?” I ask.

  Luis shakes his head and points at a trail of belongings that seem to have spilled from the back of the wagon — clothes and tools and scrap metal. Kelly picks up a poncho, a hat, and a neckerchief. Leaving a wide berth, we edge toward the front of the wagon. Then Luis puts a hand on my shoulder.