Decision Point (ARC)

by Bryan Thomas Schmidt

  door. Even from eight meters away the waves of heat were

  painful and he held his cardboard parasol out to keep the worst

  of it off his face.

  He glanced back. The rest of the crowd was still coming and

  the cloud of dust had grown but he still had a fifty-meter lead

  over the closest. As he got around to the passenger side his eyes

  were on the water pouring out of the rents in the tank and he

  dropped the parasol and began fumbling with the screw cap on

  his jug.

  And that’s when he heard the cries.

  Someone was still alive in the truck cab.

  The water was already slowing as it poured out of the

  ruptured tank and the others were so close. With a curse, he

  dropped the water jug and scrambled up on the step and clawed

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  for the door handle.

  The door came open about six inches and jammed. He braced

  his foot against the side of the truck and pulled and it creaked,

  then gave way suddenly and he fell to the ground, but he was

  back up on the truck step without thinking about it.

  On the far side the driver was clearly dead, his clothes

  aflame, but there was a woman in the passenger seat moaning

  and staring about with wide eyes. Her face was bloody and her

  clothes too, but he couldn’t tell if it was her blood or the driver’s.

  She was fumbling with her right hand, reaching across her body,

  trying to reach her seat belt release. Her other arm was hanging,

  apparently useless, and her shirtsleeve was starting to smoke.

  Xareed reached for the buckle and screamed as it burned him.

  He reached again, and instead of grabbing it, punched two

  fingers into the release button. The tab slid out and he pulled her,

  by her good arm, and, toppled back down onto the ground, her

  weight pinning him to the ground.

  “Christ, she’s on fire.”

  The weight came off of him and he saw the stranger, the

  white man, stripping off his shirt and smothering the flames that

  had started on the passenger’s sleeve. Then the other stranger,

  the woman, was there suddenly. Xareed thought he must’ve

  passed out; for one moment she wasn’t there and then she was.

  She looked angry and scared.

  “You’re going to get yourself killed!” she said fiercely, but

  then added, “She better go straight to hospital. One with a good

  burn unit.”

  Xareed blinked. What were they talking about? The nearest

  hospital was over three hundred kilometers away. Even if they

  could get a helicopter in, the chances of it being shot down were

  high.

  The man nodded. “Right. I’ll take her. Check on him, okay?”

  He jerked his chin toward Xareed. “He pulled her out.”

  The heat from the burning cab was increasing and the white

  woman pulled him further away.

  There was shouting from the end of the truck. The ruptured

  tank was empty now and they were trying to get the other

  compartments open but it was crowded. Xareed looked around

  for his jug but it was gone. Someone in the crowd had snatched

  it up.

  He tried to scramble to his feet but the woman pressed him

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  down. The man and the injured passenger were gone. He must’ve

  carried her around the end of the truck and back to the camp.

  “My water can!” Xareed said, struggling against her. “My

  can she is gone!”

  “Ah, good. You have some English,” the woman said, clearly

  relieved. She still kept her hand on his shoulder, though.

  “I must find my can! My family needs water!”

  She nodded. “Water is important. I’ll get you some water but

  let me see if you’re hurt.”

  Xareed looked at her. “Are you crazy! They will take all the

  water. There isn’t enough.” He tried to get up again but his six-

  hundred-meter run, the heat, the lack of water, the fire, his burnt

  hand—it was all too much. She was able to hold him down

  easily.

  “Shhhh. I promise I’ll get you some water. What’s wrong

  with your hand?”

  Xareed was cradling his right hand. “I, uh, fire, uh hot, it. On

  the belt seat.”

  “Ohhh. Burned? When you got her out? That was very brave

  of you. Let me see.” She held his hand lightly by the wrist and

  looked closely without touching it. “Ow. Looks like you’ll

  blister. Wait here.”

  She stepped back around the front of the truck, where the

  smoke still billowed. Xareed tried to get up again but he was

  suddenly overwhelmed by it all. They were pushing and shoving

  at the other end of the truck. His hand hurt. The water jug was

  gone and his mother and grandfather and sisters would go thirsty.

  The woman stepped back around the front of the truck. She

  had a cloth in her hand wrapped around something. She crouched

  again, beside him, and said, “Put this against your fingers—it

  will help.”

  He held out his burnt hand, cautiously. He thought maybe she

  had some salve, some ointment, but she gently pressed the entire

  cloth against his hand.

  The relief was sudden and shocking. It was ice, like they used

  to have at his old school, like the tops of distant mountains. She

  opened the cloth a little and took a chunk, a cube, from inside

  and mimed putting it in his mouth.

  He did. So cold. So good. He sucked greedily at it.

  “Rest here a few minutes. I’ll go get your water.”

  She brought him back a jerry can, plastic, with “5 gal”

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  embossed on the side. It was full. More shocking, it was cold—

  beads of water were condensing on the sides and it felt almost as

  good on his burn as the ice.

  He looked around for his makeshift parasol and it was there,

  but the crowd had trampled it flat and the stick was broken and

  the cardboard torn.

  He couldn’t help it. He cried.

  The woman picked up the scraps of cardboard. “Ah, I saw

  this, when you were sitting in line. Clever.”

  He nodded. “My parasol.”

  “A nice bit of shade. What’s your name?”

  “Xareed, Miss.”

  “Call me Millie.”

  The crowd around them was growing and on the other side,

  someone was throwing dirt on the burning diesel oil. He put an

  arm around the jerry can, holding it close.

  The woman eyed the growing crowd uneasily. “Come on,

  Xareed. I’ll help you carry this back to the camp, all right?”

  They walked side by side, the can between them. She was

  only a little taller than he was and they shared the handle, his left

  hand, her right touching.

  “Where are you from, Miss Millie?”

  “Canada,” she said. “How long have you been here?”

  “Three years. We were firstcomers.” He told her about their

  mud brick house and his mother, grandfather, and sisters. “Is that

 
man your husband?”

  “Yes. David.”

  “Why did you come here?”

  “To help, if we can,” she said.

  She was sweating now, and Xareed was relieved. He hadn’t

  been sure if she was human or not. He asked his next question

  nervously. “How did you come here?”

  She glanced sideways at him and then back at the dirt they

  were trudging across. “Why do you ask?”

  “It’s hard to get here. Sometimes helicopters come but the

  rebels have rock … ats?”

  “Rockets.”

  “Rockets. And the roads have mines. And there is no

  convoy.” He peered at her. “And I do not think you walk.”

  She sighed. “No. We came our own way.” She did not

  elaborate, but instead asked him what circumstances had brought

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  him to the camp.

  He found himself telling her the entire story, right up to

  looking back at the burning farm, the burning tree.

  “Ah,” she said. “Shade.”

  “Yes.”

  She left him at the edge of the camp where he was able to get

  one of his trusted neighbors to carry the water can the rest of the

  way in return for a liter of its contents. By the time he’d reached

  the mud brick house, the ice was reduced to a handful of small

  chips but there was still enough for his sisters, mother, and

  grandfather to each have a small mouthful.

  It was a miracle. A small miracle, but still a miracle.

  *

  Later, that afternoon, the next miracle happened.

  “The tanks are full! The tanks are full.”

  “Are the wells working?”

  “Did more trucks come?”

  Wildly different stories swept the camp. He got one version

  from Yahay, who lived in a tent near Well #2. “It was that

  stranger, the man who came with the woman, without a car.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He climbed up onto the water tower.” The water tower was

  a metal tank on legs three meters above the ground. A petrol

  well-pump filled it so gravity could drain it. It was three meters

  across and four meters tall and held 38,000 liters when full. Since

  the well had gone dry the month before, it had been mostly

  empty.

  “So?”

  “He opened the inspection hatch and climbed down into it. I

  was standing near. I heard water rushing and then the tank began

  to creak. I ran to the tap and cold, cold water came out when I

  held the valve open. I cried out in surprise and everyone came

  running. In the excitement, I didn’t see him come out of the tank.

  Maybe he didn’t,” Yahay said, wide-eyed. “Maybe he turned into

  the water.”

  Xareed remembered the man disappearing with the injured

  passenger. He didn’t think the man had turned into water.

  Especially when the other two tanks were found to be full very

  soon after.

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  Xareed went looking and found the strangers sitting with the

  French IRC nurse and watching the sunset in front of the clinic

  intake tent. He crouched down behind the tent flap and listened.

  “It’s a respite. How often can it be done? We’ve been short

  for a month now. Forty-five hundred people go through a lot of

  water.”

  The man—David—looked at his wife. “Can’t keep it up. It

  will attract too much attention and it will be bad for us and for

  the camp. But, I do have a longer-term solution, I think.”

  “Yes?”

  “Let me try it. You’ll know if it works.”

  They left after that, walking out into the sudden dusk, and

  Xareed watched carefully. He was wondering if he would see

  another miracle when he saw another man leave the edge of the

  camp and drift after the strangers.

  While it was true that the rebel troops did not hide in the

  camp, it didn’t mean that they didn’t have their spies among the

  refugees. This man was a bit too well fed, a bit too well dressed.

  He wore boots and pants, not sandals and the robe, and his

  shoulder-slung bag was shiny new.

  Perhaps he too was interested in the miracle of the water.

  Xareed looked around and then followed, swinging wide to

  the north. He kept his head down, like someone looking for

  firewood. Anything near the camp was long gone, but that didn’t

  keep people from looking.

  David and Millie kept moving, crossing quickly over the dip

  that marked the old lakeshore and then down the slope. They

  were moving by feel and starlight now.

  Xareed found a shallow gully that marked an old streambed

  and ran down it, using it to hide his passage. He passed David

  and Millie and crouched low as they walked closer.

  Millie was saying, “—find Canadian salmon here and it will

  blow the whole thing.”

  David said, “Yeah. Pity. There’s an awful lot of snowmelt

  going to waste up there. But you’re right. And there’s the

  hypothermia danger. BBC Meteorological says it’s raining

  around Lake Tanganyika. That’ll do.”

  From Xareed’s position in the gully they were all silhouetted

  against the fading sunlight on distant wisps of clouds, so he saw

  the follower close the distance and take the gun and something

  else from his bag.

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  Xareed felt a rock under his knee and dug it out of the dried

  mud. It was bigger than his fist and sharp cornered. He threw it

  as hard as he could, aiming behind and above the gun.

  Light from a flashlight stabbed out and then there was a

  smacking sound and a cry. The flashlight tumbled to the ground

  where it shone across the submachine gun lying by itself in the

  dirt. Then he saw a hand, a white man’s hand, reach into the light

  and pick up the gun. The flashlight came up and shone down on

  the man who’d followed them from the camp.

  The man was clutching his head with his hands and blood

  stained the side of his face. He was groaning and Xareed said, “It

  is deserved.”

  The flashlight turned his way and he blinked in the sudden

  glare. “Ah. You, eh? From the truck? What did Millie say …

  Jareed?”

  “Xareed. Where is Miss Millie?”

  The flashlight swept around in a circle. There was no sign of

  anyone else.

  “Ah, well, she’ll be back.” David’s voice didn’t sound

  puzzled at all by the woman’s disappearance. “What are you

  doing out here?”

  “I saw him follow you from the camp.”

  Millie was there, then, wild-eyed, a baseball bat raised high

  and swinging.

  The flashlight moved sideways three meters. No. It was

  suddenly three meters to the side—there was no movement. Just

  as Millie had not been there and then she was, the flashlight was

  one place and then another.

  “Whoa, Millie. It’s okay!” David turned the flashlight on

  himself, then pointed it at the man on
the ground, then at Xareed.

  “Xareed got ‘em. With a rock?”

  Xareed’s mouth was open and he felt numb. With some effort

  he said, “Yes. I throwed a rock. How did you do that?”

  “Don’t think about it, Xareed. It’ll only make you crazy,”

  said David.

  “I think maybe crazy is what I am.”

  Millie lowered the bat. “No. David is the crazy one.” She

  glared in the light. “You scare me like that again and I’ll …”

  “It wasn’t me,” David said in an offended voice.

  The man on the ground had stopped moaning and was

  looking at them all, wide-eyed. Suddenly he jumped to his feet

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  and ran out into the darkness, down the slope into the lake

  bottom. David swiveled the light to follow his flight but the man

  didn’t turn back and soon dropped out of sight into one of the

  gullies below.

  “You did not shoot him,” Xareed observed.

  David looked down at the submachine gun dangling in hand,

  as if he were surprised he still held it. “No. Not me.”

  “He is a rebel. He may bring back more. Sometimes they hide

  down there.”

  David looked vaguely concerned. “Oh.”

  There was a flash from several hundred meters ahead of them

  followed by a loud noise. Ten seconds later there was an

  explosion in the camp behind them, followed by distant screams.

  Xareed shuddered. “Mortars. They’re firing on the camp.

  Give me the gun. I will go stop them.”

  David looked down at the gun in his hand. Another mortar

  went off. He shifted the gun in his grip and Millie said, “No!

  That’s not the way!”

  “Then what?”

  “Water runs downhill.”

  David blinked. “Oh. So it does.”

  He handed the flashlight and the gun to Millie and vanished.

  Xareed recoiled and fell backwards, then scrambled back to

  his feet.

  Millie gestured with the flashlight. “We need to get up the

  hill a bit.”

  “Why?”

  She pulled the clip from the gun and threw it out into the

  darkness, then worked the slide, ejecting another bullet from the

  chamber before she threw it in the other direction. “You’ll see.”

  They backed up the hill, toward the camp. Another mortar

  shell exploded in the camp and Xareed thought of his sisters,

  probably tucked in the corners of the house, their one mattress