Curtis lets out a whoop that makes me jump, and he claps his hands together.
“Half done and then some,” he says, smiling. “Let’s get you folks home.”
He sets a fast pace; the boys are burning on full stomachs and have energy to spare. Pa drags Micah back some, hungover and protesting. I lag behind, too; I should have eaten more at breakfast, but even thinking about food makes me feel nauseous. I push myself to keep up, but I’m so tired I don’t know how long I can last.
We clear the crag and the rocks under our feet grow smaller and smaller until they’re only dust. An ache starts to pound at my temples, and I drink some water to keep it at bay.
“Willie, darlin’, give me some of that, there’s my girl,” Pa calls to me. “I’m parched.”
He does look pretty pitiful, and I reckon his head is as bad as mine. Wordlessly I cut over and hold up the canteen to help him drink. Pa downs the water like he’s dying of thirst, his throat moving rapidly.
“Thanks,” he says, and wipes his mouth with his tied wrists. “How are the little ones doing?”
“Fine,” Micah answers for me. “No thanks to you.”
Pa glares at him and looks back to me. “You know, this ain’t necessary,” he says, holding up his wrists. “Where am I gonna go?”
“Shut up,” Micah says.
“I’m talking to Willie, not you,” Pa yells at him.
“You shut up or I’ll gag you,” Micah yells back.
“Both of you shut up,” I order, pressing my fingers to my painful head. “Give him to me, Micah.”
“Willie, he’s trying to play you,” Micah says quietly, like I don’t already know that.
“Just give him over before you both do something stupid.” I stare down Micah and Pa until they both look away. I hold out my hand, and with a huff, Micah throws me the other end of the rope. “Catch up with the others. I’ve got him for now.”
Micah shakes his head and runs to catch up with Sam. I start walking at a slower pace, wrapping the rope around my hot arm. My skin is burning, the fever inside me raging unchecked.
“Willie,” Pa starts, but I won’t look at him. “Willie, I don’t blame you for doin’ it this way. I know I ain’t been a good father to you, or to the others. After your ma—well you know what it were like. I’m sorry for that, truly I am. But I always loved y’all. You believe that much, right?”
More than anything, I want to believe it. But it doesn’t change anything.
“It’s too late for sorry, Pa,” I tell him. “And maybe you really do love us. But you love yourself more.”
“I can make it right—”
“Just stop,” I tell him. “I got nothing more to say to you and you got nothing I want to hear.”
He still tries. He tells me he’s sorry, he tells me he didn’t have a choice; all the same lies and excuses I’ve heard from him before. I stop listening, letting his voice fade away until it’s a soft buzz in the background. My head feels full of cotton and mud and the lack of sleep is costing me, making it harder to sort out my thoughts. I stare at the ground for so long that after a while I don’t even see the desert anymore. Everything is indistinct, one mile of scorched sand interchangeable with another.
When Pa’s voice grows loud again I pass him back to Micah, who manages only a few minutes before handing him off to Curtis. I don’t know what Curtis says to him but it shuts Pa up quick enough.
I feel dizzy, like I’ve been spinning in circles. When they were smaller I would hold the twins by the arms and twirl them around until their feet left the ground. I watch my own feet and see it’s not me moving, but the ground; miles of tarbush and grit pass under my boot heels, and my eyes grow hot and blurry as the desert flashes by.
The sun rises in the sky and the heat gets more intense. Micah takes Pa again and I keep an eye on them until my lids grow too heavy. My head droops over my chest, my chin almost touching my collarbone. I’m half asleep on my feet, somehow remaining upright and moving. I drift in and out of consciousness, snatches of dreams mixing with reality. A gaping chasm opens up in front of me and I’m too slow to jump back and I’m falling, falling, falling into the darkness inside the earth and it’s swallowing me whole; I open my mouth to scream and realize I can feel the sun on my back and my feet are still moving, one boot in front of the other. I raise a trembling hand and slap my cheeks, just enough to wake myself up. My skin feels hot to the touch and dry, and I can’t even focus my mind enough to worry that I’ve stopped sweating.
“Marker,” Curtis calls, making me jump. He points to the red-tipped stake in the ground. “One down, more to go.”
“How much farther to the station?” I ask. Time, I need more time.
“Eighteen miles,” Micah answers, doing the math in his head.
“We should get there by late afternoon,” Curtis says. “It’s shorter from here to the station than it is from Glory.”
We still have hours of walking left. What I really need to know is how much longer I can trust my thoughts. Sam would know, wouldn’t he? I open my mouth to ask him and remember I can’t. No one can know I’m sick, not yet. Right? Shouldn’t they know? It feels wrong, that they don’t. It isn’t safe for them to be near me. But if they know, they won’t let me go home. If they know, that means I’m really sick. It means it’s the end.
“What?” Sam interrupts my thoughts.
“What?”
“You’re staring at me.”
“Oh. Sorry.” I switch back to looking down at my boots and the endless stretch of dirt moving beneath them.
A mile or so after we pass the marker, Curtis calls a break. I’m so bent on putting one foot in front of the other that it’s almost a physical shock to stop walking. Ben hands around some dry crackers, to Pa, too, but they stick painfully in my throat until I wash them down with water. Curtis stands apart from the rest of us, squinting into the desert.
“What’re you looking at, Curtis?” Micah asks.
“Silver. We’re gonna be passing it soon. Wish to hell I’d been able to find a new glass in Best.” He sniffs loudly. “But it seems quiet enough.”
“Think they’re mad about earlier?”
“Mad about what?” Pa asks Micah. “What’re you dragging me into, boy?”
Curtis ignores Pa and shrugs. “I don’t think shakes remember that far. Guess we’ll find out.”
My stomach twists at the mention of Silver. I can’t see any movement, but my eyes can’t be trusted and I can barely make out the dark smudges of buildings. I don’t want to go back by that town, the burnt walls or the blackened bodies. I’ve seen enough of it, the sea of pink sand, the bones rearranged into shapes that don’t resemble any kind of animal. The bad memories are starting to bleed into one another, into one long parade of death and gore.
“Everybody ready?” Curtis asks, twisting his neck one way and the other.
“Guess so,” Sam says nervously.
“Let him loose,” Ben says to Micah, nodding at Pa.
“What?” I ask, sure I misheard.
“Let him loose,” Ben repeats. “Anything happens, we all need both hands. We can string him up again after.”
“He’ll run off,” Micah insists.
“No, he won’t,” Curtis says. He looks Pa in the eye. “Mr. Wilcox, you know where we are?”
“I know very well we’re close to Silver, son.”
“Good. Then you know it’s not wise to go running off alone around here. Unless, of course, you’re looking to turn shake?”
Pa stares at Curtis and his mouth twists down.
“Then we understand each other.” Curtis pulls his knife from his belt and with one swift slice, cuts the rope from Pa’s hands. Pa rubs his wrists, but stays in place.
“All right. Move out.”
Curtis starts us walking again, but the closer we get to Silver, the more jittery I become. My limbs feel disconnected from my body, like at any moment I will lose my balance and topple over. Heat shimmers off
the road, causing the air to ripple and distort. The town lies to our right, and I can feel it glaring at me balefully. The eyes are back, those prying ghostly eyes that see straight through to my rotten insides. They’re whispering to me, and what they’re saying is that I’m one of them now. Dread overtakes me, a sinking sense of inevitable disaster. Something bad is going to happen soon, and I think that bad is me.
“Guns out,” Curtis says.
“Wait,” Pa protests, looking desperate. “Come on now, you wouldn’t leave a man unarmed.”
“Shut up,” Micah tells him. “You ain’t getting a gun.”
Curtis shoves his knife at Pa, who grasps it in both hands and holds it out in front of him. My gun quivers along with the tremor in my arms and feels as useless as that knife. I want to say something, tell everyone about the wrongness I feel, but what comes out is entirely different.
“Thank you,” I say, and I hardly recognize my voice. “Thank you all, for trying to help. For taking me in the first place, and for coming after me.”
“None of that, now,” Curtis says. “You don’t get to say good-byes just yet. We get through this day, and the next, then you can thank us.”
But I don’t think I’ll be getting through this day.
55.
“Will, brisk up,” Micah calls, and I snap my head up. I’m lagging behind, and I shake my head to clear it, which only makes it fuzzier. I stagger back to the rest of the group and try to keep close. I match my stride with Micah’s, which is hard, his legs being that much longer.
“Quit looking at the dirt, Sis,” Micah says. “You keep drifting off.”
“Sorry. My head feels like a bag of nails.”
“Yeah, well, mine too. I maybe had too much to drink last night.”
“I would think you knew better than that,” I scold him feebly.
“I do. I just—I needed to not think so much.”
My boot shudders against a burroweed branch and I stumble, reeling forward. Micah grabs my arm to steady me and his face swims in front of my eyes.
“Come on, Will, focus,” he says. “Now ain’t the time to daydream.” He waves his gun toward Silver for emphasis.
I try not to look where he points, but my rebellious eyes move of their own accord and then I can’t look away from the muddy bloodstains in the dirt and the streaks of soot on the roofs. I blink and my eyes lock on a lone figure, standing still deep within the town; I freeze in place, because the person framed by the empty buildings is my mother. It’s so plainly her, and not the way she was near the end, not thin and wasted and gray, but the way I remember her. Her long hair falls down around her shoulders, framing a face like sweetness and warm cotton. She smells like rosewater. She always smelled like rosewater.
“Mama?” I whisper, and she smiles at me. I drop to my knees, my eyes filling with tears, and I blink them away as hard as I can because I need to see her clearly.
“Will,” Micah says, but I won’t look away. He’ll understand when he sees her. Right now, nothing matters but the woman standing there.
“I miss you,” I say, and she holds out her graceful arms to me. More than anything I want her to hold me, but the hand that grabs my shoulder is not gentle. Micah yanks me onto my feet and tries to tug me away.
“No,” I say, and I wrench out of his grip to look back at the town. It’s empty, of course, and too far away to see anything, and it’s like losing her all over again.
A sting across my face snaps me back to myself, and I look up to see Micah staring at me, his mouth hanging open.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I—I didn’t know—”
“No,” I say, raising a hand to my cheek. My skin stings where he slapped me. “I needed that. I thought—I thought I saw something.”
Micah reaches his hand out to me. “We have to catch up with the others.”
I look down the road, stretching long and endless in front of me.
“Too far,” I say quietly. “It’s too far.”
I’m not going to make it back to Glory. The knowledge hits me low, and I sink into Micah, clutching his arms.
“Will, come on.”
“I have to tell you something,” I say.
“No you don’t,” he says.
I lean against Micah and take deep, gulping breaths, hoping the air will keep my head clear. I have to do this, have to make sure he understands.
“You have to get Pa back,” I tell him, digging my fingers into his arms. “You have to. For the twins.”
Micah pushes his face close to mine, his mouth thin. “Will, we’re not doing this. Not now.”
“Micah—”
“We’re almost home,” he says, his voice cracking. “Just—just hold on. It’s not much longer.”
My heart stutters and I finally understand. “You know,” I whisper.
His eyes are red—I thought it was from drinking. How long has he known?
“You’re a terrible liar, Will,” he says. “Always have been.”
“When—when did you figure it out?”
“I’m your brother. Did you think I wouldn’t notice that you stopped eating? Or that you look like death warmed over? You think I don’t know what vomit smells like, that I don’t remember how it was with Ma?”
Something’s building in my chest, a scream or a sob or a stone.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
Micah looks away, blinking rapidly. “It ain’t your fault.”
“It is. If I hadn’t left—”
“It don’t matter,” Micah says roughly. “All that matters now is getting home.”
“I don’t know if I can make it,” I say.
“Yes, you can,” Micah says, stepping close to me. “Just hold on a little longer, Will, and I’ll get you home. And I’ll take care of you, like—like you did for Ma.”
I close my eyes. “You promise?”
“I promise,” he says, because he has to. Because I would do the same for him, no questions asked. Because that’s what it means to be family in Glory.
“I was wrong,” I tell him. “I thought I could do this alone. I thought it was all up to me, but it ain’t. I can’t do this without you, Micah.”
“Come on,” he says, putting his arm around me. “Let’s go home.”
The pressure in my chest eases, and I sag against him. He doesn’t cry, and I don’t cry, because tears change nothing.
We keep moving down the road, shoulder to shoulder, and I keep my eyes fixed away from the town as we catch up to the others. My mind feels like it’s made up of circles and coils, an endless loop with no straight lines. Somewhere buried in that mess is a small scrap of peace; Micah promised. I can be strong for him, if he can be strong for me. He’ll do what needs to be done, and the twins will be safe. He’ll take better care of them than I ever could.
“Almost past,” Curtis calls from up ahead, his lips pressed thin and white. “Keep your eyes—sign!”
He yells the last word as one shake, then another, melts out of the shadows of Silver.
“Sign,” Ben echoes as another shake comes running, and two more behind it.
Curtis swears and motions to Ben. “Keep going,” he says to the rest of us.
We do, Pa cursing us all for his lack of a gun while Ben swings his rifle around. I look over my shoulder to watch him shoot; the gun goes off and a shake spins, its shoulder blossoming red. It falls to the ground and two shakes fall on it, but the others keep coming, and more follow behind.
“There’s too many, Curtis,” Ben says grimly. “They ain’t gonna stop for one or two down.”
“Get to the box,” Curtis says.
“It’s five miles,” Ben tells him quietly.
“You got a better idea?” Curtis looks at the rest of us and I realize we’ve all stopped moving. “We got a good start on them,” he says with forced calm. “But we’re gonna have to run.”
“Run!” Ben repeats, yelling, and I jump and start running.
Pa didn’t need to be tol
d twice, he takes off running with no backward glance. Micah keeps an arm curled around my waist, supporting half my weight. My heart beats erratically, shuddering painfully in my chest. Every time I look over my shoulder the shakes have gained on us; they’re close enough now that I can tell some of them are burned and others have blood smeared on their faces. I have the wild thought that they’re coming for me, to drag me back to Silver.
“Keep going,” Curtis yells. “We can make it.”
His gun goes off and he and Ben pull alongside me and Micah and there’s smoke in the air and it’s hard to breathe. My legs are heavy and my head is stinging and we’re so far behind the others.
“Willie, hurry,” Micah says. “We have to go faster.”
My joints aren’t working properly, but I push my knees up to run faster and for a moment it works. Then my stomach revolts and I twist away from Micah and throw up every bit of my small breakfast. My legs give out from under me and I fall into my own sick and sit there, stunned.
“Willie, get up.” I look up at Micah, panting. “Come on,” he says, grabbing my shoulders and trying to pull me up.
“I can’t,” I tell him, gasping. “You have to leave me.”
“No chance in hell,” Micah says, shaking his head. “We’re in this together. Now get up.”
The shakes are coming, but Micah doesn’t move, his face set and grim. He’s not going to leave and the shakes aren’t slowing down. I grit my teeth and throw out my hand and Micah heaves me to my feet. There’s salt on my lips and every muscle in my body is screaming, but I pull out my gun and start moving, Micah’s arm wrapped around me. I push through the pain, through the burning of my lungs and the ache in my tendons, push until my bones start to creak.
Devils Unto Dust Page 21
