by Rod Serling
“What if what?” DeCruz’s voice was harsh.
Farwell stared at him. “What’s happened these past one hundred years, DeCruz? What if there’s been a war? What if they dropped a bomb? What if this highway stretched to—” He didn’t finish. He simply sat down on the sandy shoulder of the road and removed his knapsack, turning his head from side to side as if trying to slough off the heavy weight of heat and sun and the desperate tiredness.
DeCruz came up close to him. “Stretched to what?” he said, and his voice sounded frightened.
Farwell half closed his eyes. “Stretched to nothing, DeCruz. “Stretched to nothing at all. Maybe there isn’t any town up ahead. Maybe there aren’t any people,” He began to laugh, shaking uncontrollably until he fell over on his side and lay there, the laughter still pouring out of him.
DeCruz shook him, then took hold of him and forced him upright. “Knock it off, Farwell!” he said tightly. “I told you to knock it off!”
Farwell looked into the dirty, sweaty face that was close to hysteria and shook his head. “You’re a frightened little man, aren’t you, DeCruz? You’ve always been a frightened little man. But it’s not your fear that disturbs me. It’s your greed. It’s because you’re so greedy that you have no appreciation of irony. None at all. And wouldn’t that be the irony of all ironies to walk until our hearts burst, carrying all this gold.”
He stopped abruptly as a distant sound suddenly broke the quietness of the desert. It was so faint that at first Farwell thought it might be his imagination. But it grew in intensity until it took on its own dimension. DeCruz heard it too, then, and both men looked up toward the sky. First it was a speck, and the speck became a form—a jet aircraft with a vapor trail stretched across the blue desert sky Then it disappeared far off in another direction.
This time DeCruz laughed. “There’s a world left, Farwell,” he said triumphantly. “That proves it. And that means there’s a city up ahead. And we’re gonna make it, buddy. We’re gonna make it. Come on, Farwell, let’s get moving.”
He went back to his own knapsack and hoisted it to his shoulder; then he reached down for his canteen, uncorked the top, and took a long gurgling drink, the rivulets of water pouring down his chin as he sucked greedily on it. But halfway through his enjoyment he took a look at Farwell and smiled.
Farwell’s hand had rested on his belt, but now he was staring down at a small chain attached to nothing. Farwell looked up. His voice shook. “My canteen came loose,” he said. “I must’ve left it back on the dunes the last place we stopped. I don’t have any water,”
He tried to keep his voice even—his face unrevealing; but no pretense, however subtle, could cloak this kind of reality. He knew it, and the thin smile playing on DeCruz’s face told him that his companion was well aware of it.
DeCruz hoisted his knapsack higher on his back. “That’s tragic, Mr. Farwell,” he said, the smile persisting. “That’s the saddest story I’ve heard all day.”
Farwell wet his lips. “I need water, DeCruz. I need it desperately.”
DeCruz’s face took on a look of exaggerated concern. “Water, Mr. Farwell?” He looked around like a bad actor. “Why, I believe there’s some water around that you could drink.” He looked down, farce-like in his concern, at his own canteen. “Why—here’s water, Mr. Farwell.” He looked across the shimmering heat at the parched face of the older man. “One drink—one bar of gold. That’s the price.”
“You’re out of your mind,” Farwell said, his voice cracking.”You’re out of your Goddamned mind.” “One drink—one bar of gold.” DeCruz’s smile faded. These were the ground rules and he was laying them out.
Farwell stared at DeCruz, and then slowly reached into his knapsack, hoisting out a gold bar. He threw this on the road, “I continue to underrate you, Mr. DeCruz,” he said. “You’re quite an entrepreneur.”
DeCruz shrugged, unscrewed the cap of his canteen, and carried it over to him. “Ain’t it the truth”, Mr. Farwell,” he said, offering the canteen.
Farwell started to drink, but after a few swallows DeCruz pulled the canteen away from him. “One drink—one bar of gold,” he said. “That’s the going rate today, Mr. Farwell. It may go up tomorrow. I haven’t checked the market. But for today, it’s one for one.” Then, in a different tone, the tone of a man who’s suddenly taken charge, “Let’s go, Mr. Farwell!”
He jammed Farwell’s gold bar into his own knapsack, turned abruptly, and started down the highway. Over his shoulder he could see Farwell stumble to his feet, dragging the knapsack along the road like some recalcitrant pet reluctant to follow him.
At four o’clock in the afternoon Farwell felt that he could no longer breathe. His heart was like a lump of lead smashing back and forth inside his body. The late afternoon sun stayed hot and persistent as it slowly nose-dived toward a distant mountain peak.
DeCruz, several yards ahead of Farwell, turned to smile at him. It was his voice that Farwell could no longer stand. The corroding contempt in it, the insufferable superiority of the strong surveying the weak.
“What’s the matter, Farwell?” DeCruz asked. “You poopin’ out already? Hell, we’ve got another four or five hours of daylight.”
Farwell stopped and shook his head. His lips were cracked, and just to touch them with the salt-tipped end of his tongue was a torture. “Stop,” he said, his voice a mumble. “Have to stop....Need water, DeCruz....Must have water.” He stood there swaying on his feet, his eyes sunk back in his head.
DeCruz grinned at him. It had reached the point where actually meant nothing to him. What was of the essence was prerogative. The juxtaposition of leader and follower dictated now not by brains but by the elements. He stood over Farwell, enjoying the other man’s agony. “I’ve got about a quarter of a canteen left, Farwell,” he said. He held up the canteen and shook it, then took a drink. “That’s good,” he said, the water driveling out of the corners of his mouth. “That was very good.”
Farwell held out a shaking hand. “Please, DeCruz, through cracked lips, his words coming out distorted from a swollen tongue. “Please...help me.”
DeCruz deliberately held the canteen up. “The rate has changed a little bit this afternoon, Mr. Farwell, It’s two bars of gold—for one swallow.”
Farwell’s legs gave out and he sank to his knees on the ground. He slowly, painstakingly, removed the knapsack from around his neck and with a massive effort spilled out the gold bars. There were four left. He was unable to lift the two in his hands and finally wound up pushing them across the sand over toward the other man. DeCruz lifted them easily and put them into his knapsack. The weight of them started a tear along one side, but this was of no concern to DeCruz. He looked down at the bulging container, and then into the face of Farwell. He could see the hatred behind the tired eyes and, perversely, this pleased him.
“You angry, Mr. Farwell?” he asked smoothly. “You’re not angry, are you?”
Farwell did not speak. He very slowly, with thick, sweaty fingers, tied up his knapsack and then rolled over to lie on his side, his breath coming in tortured gusts from an overworked set of lungs in a body pushed beyond its endurance.
They slept the night, and at seven in the morning started out again. DeCruz’s stamina was unchanging, and he deliberately set a pace too fast for Farwell, who stumbled and lurched behind him. Several times DeCruz paused and looked back over his shoulder, smiling. Twice he took a drink of water, doing it flamboyantly and obviously until the moment Farwell came up beside him; then he screwed on the cap and hurried ahead.
Farwell was like a ghost—dead, lusterless eyes set in a filthy sand-covered face, lips and skin cracked like some aged parchment.
At noon the sun was a broiling mass overhead and Farwell suddenly turned white and dropped to his knees. DeCruz waited for him, but he saw that this time the older man was not getting up. He walked over to him and pushed him with his foot.
“Farwell?” he asked. There was a pause. The man
looked lifeless. “Come on, Farwell. We’ve got some miles to go yet.”
A groan came from the man on the ground. He lifted his head, his eyes closed, his mouth open, his swollen tongue off to one side. “No.” The voice came like an animal’s. “No,” he said again. “I can’t go any further. I need water.”
DeCruz chuckled and handed him the canteen. “One swallow, Mr. Farwell. One swallow”
Farwell’s hands trembled as he gripped the canteen and put it to his mouth. He could hear the water swishing inside, and all his instincts, all his desires—the absolute key to his own survival—were funneled into this one action as he put it to his lips. DeCruz’s hand came down hard and swift, pushing the canteen away. Its top gashed Farwell’s tender lips, drawing blood, as he looked up unbelieving.
“We hadn’t figured out the contract, Mr. Farwell,” DeCruz said, his eyes two dark pinpoints. “Today the rate’s gone up again.”
Farwell’s eyes were almost closed, as painfully, he took the knapsack from around his neck and let it drop to the ground. He kicked it across.
DeCruz chuckled and went down on his knees to retrieve it. In doing so, his own knapsack was left in the road and one of the gold bars spilled out of it as it tilted over. His back was to Farwell as he started to pick up the gold.
Farwell stared at him, marveling that he could feel hatred at this moment—that he could feel anything beyond his own suffering. But the hatred brought awareness that this was the final moment, his last chance.
He stared at DeCruz’s broad back, hating its youth, hating the muscles that rippled underneath the shirt, hating the fact that DeCruz was going to win, while he himself would succumb. He felt his anger surging underneath, and for just one instant it dredged up strength and resolve. His fingers closed on a gold bar and he slowly lifted it. Then, rising to his feet, somehow incredibly, he managed to raise the gold bar high. He lurched sideways at DeCruz, just as the other man looked up at him. Farwell let the bar drop from his hands. It struck DeCruz on the temple.
DeCruz let out one small gasp and fell backwards. Again Farwell picked up the bar and let it smash into DeCruz’s upturned face. This time there was a crunching sound as DeCruz’s skull caved in. And through the bloody mangled face the eyes looked up. They retained the last emotion the man ever felt. Surprise. Absolute, incredulous surprise.
Farwell felt weakness return to him. He stood there wavering, his legs like rubber bands, his body a mass of pain. He turned and stumbled over to the canteen that was lying on its side. The water had spilled out into the sand. The canteen was empty.
Farwell started to cry, the tears coursing down his filthy beard-stubbled face. He fell to his knees, his shoulders shaking, his fingers caressing the empty canteen—as if he might be able to milk liquid from it.
After a while he got to his feet, looked at the gold bars spread out around him, and shook his head. They were meaningless lumps of deadweight. But he knew that they were all that remained to him. He went down on his knees again and struggled with them, trying to pick them up, then trying to push them across the sand toward the knapsacks. But he had no more strength left and it was only with a superhuman effort that he was finally able to lift one up by cradling it against his body and hoisting it with both arms. This one he carried with him down the highway—a lurching stumbling figure of a man who moved by reflex and nothing else. There was no liquid left in throat or mouth, and each breath he took was a hot bolt of pain coursing through his body. But still he walked and continued to walk until late afternoon.
He fainted, and was unaware of the side of his face hitting a rock as he pitched forward. He just lay there, his eyes closed, feeling a dreamy contentment flow over him. Then he forced his eyes open as he heard the sound. First it was a distant indistinct hum, then it became the sound of an engine. He tried to move his arms and legs, but they were beyond command now. Only his eyes had life. He tried to turn his head, but it was only his eyes that moved, and through one corner he could see an approaching vehicle—a metallic low-slung thing that shrieked toward him and then slowed down, the noise cutting off abruptly.
He heard footsteps cross the road over to him and he looked up. It was a tall man in a loose-fitting garment, but the figure was hazy and indistinct; and Farwell could not get his swollen tongue or cracked lips to function. He felt terror as he realized that no words were coming from him. But then, from deep inside him, came a voice. It was like the sound of a record player slowly running down. The words were grotesque and almost unformed, but they came out.
“Mister...mister...this is gold here. This is real gold. I’ll give it to you if you’ll drive me into town. If you’ll give me water. I must have water.” He forced one hand to move across the sand where it pointed to that last bar of gold a few feet from him. “Gold,” the voice came again. “It’s real gold. And you can have it. I’ll give it to you. I’ll give it to you...” The fingers clutched convulsively, and suddenly the hand opened. There was a spasmodic jerk, and then there was no movement at all.
The man knelt down to listen for Farwell’s heartbeat. When he rose to his feet he shook his head. “Poor old guy,” he said. “I wonder where he came from.”
The woman in the vehicle rose from her seat to look across the road. “Who is it, George?” she asked. “What’s the matter with him?” The man walked back to the vehicle and got into the driver’s seat. “Some old tramp,” he said, “that’s who it was. He’s dead now.” The woman looked at the gold bar in her husband’s hand. “What’s that?”
“Gold. That’s what he said it was. Wanted to give it to me in exchange for a ride into town.”
“Gold?” The woman wrinkled her nose. “What in the world was he doing with gold?”
The man shrugged. “I don’t know. Off his rocker, I guess. Anybody walking in this desert at this time of day would be off his rocker.” He shook his head and held up the bar of gold. “Can you imagine that? Offered that as if it was worth something.”
“Well, it was worth something once, wasn’t it? Didn’t people use gold as money?”
The man opened the door. “Sure—a hundred years ago or so, before they found a way of manufacturing it.” He looked at the heavy dull metal in his hand and then threw it onto the shoulder of the road. He closed the door. “When we get back into town we’ll have the police come back and pick him up.” He pushed a button on the dashboard, setting the automatic driver control, then looked over his shoulder at the figure of Farwell, who lay in the sand like a scarecrow blown down by the wind. “Poor old guy,” he said thoughtfully, as the vehicle started to move slowly forward. “I wonder where he came from.” He put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes.
The woman pushed another button and a glass top slid forward, shutting off the heat. The vehicle started down the highway, and after a moment disappeared.
Fifteen minutes later a police helicopter arrived, hovered over the scene, and landed. Two uniformed men walked over to the aircraft. The officer in charge noted down on a small pad the particulars. “Unidentified man. Age approximately sixty. Death from overexposure and exhaustion.” Three scrawled lines on a policeman’s pad, and it comprised the obituary for one Mr. Farwell, a Doctor of Chemistry and Physics.
Weeks later they found DeCruz’s body, almost decomposed; and not long after, the body of Brooks and the skeleton of Erbe.
All four men were minor mysteries, and their bodies were consigned to the earth without mourning and without identity. The gold was left where it lay—stretched across the desert and piled up in the back seat of a disintegrating ancient car. It soon became imbedded in the landscape, joined the sage, saltbrush, pearlweed and the imperishable cacti. Like Messrs. Farwell, Erbe, Brooks, and DeCruz, it had no value. No value at all.
About the Author
Rod Serling, the noted producer, director, and award-winning author, is one of the legendary figures of the Golden Age of Television. His television scripts included such classics as Requiem for a Heavywei
ght and Patterns. In 1959, Serling became the creator, producer, host, and narrator of the landmark television series The Twilight Zone. One hundred and fifty-six episodes of the series aired over the next five years. Ninety-two of those episodes were written by Serling, winning him two of his six Emmy awards. After The Twilight Zone went off the air, Serling continued to write for film and television. He died in 1975 of complications arising from a cornorary bypass operation.
