Louis Shalako
Thirst
tormented me. My mouth was as dry as parchment. To swallow was to risk my
tongue getting stuck in the back of my throat and blocking off my windpipe. My
eyeballs felt like radishes in my head. The bridge of my nose burned from the
sun and I couldn’t do anything about it.
Ahead
stretched a sea of sand. The big yellow moon was rising. The smaller white one
was high overhead, almost invisible in the creamy yellowing haze of late
afternoon.
It
was irony that had brought me here.
That
and stubborn, foolish, miserable love.
It’s
like you can’t go back sometimes.
Wave
after undulating wave of glistening white silica shimmered off into the
distance.
The
shadows stretched longer now, the pale bluish pencil lines of dead weeds and
long yellow bits of straw-grass, few as they were, marked the contours of the
slopes.
Yes,
if only she could see me now.
If
only. If only. You and your damned kid. My initial thought was that he had done
it on purpose, but the boy just didn’t have it in him. We’d been sniping back
and forth quite a bit lately, but a sober assessment of the facts reminded me
that the fuel gauge had never been that accurate, and lately it had definitely
been going a bit squirrely as the level in the tank dropped.
It
was an accident, nothing more…
The
sun was impossible to look at. A couple more hours of daylight left, and it was
still scorching. There was no way to
hide from it. The right side of my face and neck were painfully burned, the
backs of my hands, everything. Tempted to tear off the sleeves off my shirt
earlier, I resisted the impulse on seeing the sharp line between the red hands
and the pale skin above the cuffs.
Many
kilometres away loomed the grey shoulders of the mountains. They lined the
horizon, barring the way home. Darkness was coming. There was relief in sight but
also much danger in the darkness. Danger lay in the cold, the chance of falling
or breaking a leg in an animal burrow or just tumbling down a gulley. Danger
lay in the predators, of which the planet had a few. I had no choice but to
walk on, for at the base of those hills lay water. My body only had so much to
give.
I
worked my mouth, trying to force the salivary glands to squirt out one last
drop of precious liquid. Cracked lips shot barbs of pain into my consciousness.
My mind was clear enough. It was surprising how strong my legs and hips turned
out to be. I never would have thought it until I tried.
The
irony, of course, was that I was just trying to be nice to the kid, who to be
fair had really been trying to follow the rules of the household lately. Paxton,
what a name, deserved some kind of reward, and it was best to show some
parental love. Being a step-dad was surprisingly hard.
Lending
the kid the skeeter last night was one thing, forgetting to check the fuel
before leaving the house this morning was my own fault.
It
might well be the death of me. Hot wind kicked sand in my face, but I just
narrowed my eyes and kept trudging. I had never really trudged in my entire life. Not until now.
The
real irony lay in the fact that I was thinking of checking the emergency water
bottles just the other day. I guess I’d known they were empty for quite a
while, but we haven’t been going far from the house lately. The harvest is too
important. The tractor needed a new fuel pump, and I took off for Aurora on too
much of an impulse. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, as they say.
Mary
and her kid.
It
was unbelievable, not that I wouldn’t like to be back there right now. Last
night, she said something about making a roast today. Yeah, I got sucked into
the whole instant family thing—and it was going to get me killed. I’m too nice
a guy for this. There was the sick wrench of fear in my guts. I’d had a few
moments like that out here already.
I
stopped at the top of the dune, looking down into the darkening trough between
it and the next ridge. The wind had died and dead silence reigned.
One
thing is certain—if I ever get out of here, I’m going to take that kid out
behind the woodpile and just whale the crap out of him with a piece of kindling.
Teenagers.
Argh.
#
Paxton
and Tony were cruising along, enjoying the music and the freedom. Tony flew,
showing
off for Paxton. Tony was fifteen and a half, the junior of the pair.
He
was just pulling up into a highly-unauthorized stall turn when Paxton grabbed
his arm.
“There’s
somebody out there!”
“Huh?”
Tony didn’t believe it, it was probably just a shrub or a sand-doe or
something.
“No,
seriously. I saw him walking.”
Tony
thought about it.
“There’s
no way he can survive out here for long. Daytime temperature’s like forty,
fifty degrees.” Paxton knew the dangers.
Tony
looked back over his shoulder, and then at his friend.
“We’d
better report it.” It was a deadly serious business to be alone out there.
All
he had was a glimpse, an impression, and that’s when Tony started throwing her
around.
“No.”
Tony refused.
“What?”
Paxton thought that was just nuts.
“I
stole the skeeter.”
“What?”
Then
he got it. Tony’s dad was away in Aurora on some kind of business trip, and had
taken his mom along for the weekend. Tony’s older brother had his own machine,
and a girlfriend in nearby Bentpath. It was all so obvious.
“Turn
around. We have to.”
It
was better than making a report, which would be logged. It would be all over
the airwaves. A rescue would be big news and gossip travels fast. Sooner or
later word would get back. His thoughts were obvious enough.
Tony
turned the skeeter around, looking at the recorded flight path. He put the
amber caret on the blue dotted line and followed it back in the opposite
direction.
They
peered through the windshield, Tony looking for a bush or an animal to justify
further disinterest.
Paxton’s
arm stabbed out, pointing off to the right and down into a narrow trough between
two of the wind-rippled dunes as a thread of sand blew off the top, momentarily
obscuring the figure below.
“It’s
a man.” Paxton turned to Tony.
Now
Tony saw him too, and grimaced at the sight.
“Aw…”
“We
have to pick him up.” Holding his friends eyes, he shrugged. “We have no
choice.”
“Shit.”
Tony’s thoughts raced ahead through channels familiar and unfamiliar.
Maybe
they could just drop the guy off somewhere and be back in time to clean the
ship and zero the tell-tale flight logs.
“Damn.”
Tony put the right wing up and circled around for another look.
#
Paxton
handed me a can of sticky black fluid. The first drink of cold pop was a kind
of religious experience. Sheer bliss. I couldn’t speak at all for a couple of
minutes, just slumped there in the back seat. Tony was climbing out to cruising
altitude when the radio crackled.
Tony
stared at the unit and cursed in no uncertain terms.
Transfixed,
he looked wildly at Paxton, and then made a quick and furtive glance over his
shoulder at me.
“It’s
his dad.” Paxton explained for my benefit. “He must have come home early.”
Neither
one reached for it. The whole thing came to me in a flash.
“Heh-heh-heh.”
The boy might be in a spot of trouble.
I
sat there grinning, but then, my immediate troubles were over.
“Maybe
I can help you gentlemen.” I beckoned for the microphone.
They
looked at each other and then Tony looked fearfully back at me.
“Huh?”
“Relax,
I’ll take care of it.” Hell, I might even enjoy it.
It’s
better than whaling away on someone who’s pretty much a grown man with a piece
of kindling, isn’t it?
They
looked at each other again, and then Tony nodded and Paxton sheepishly handed
the thing over the back of the front seat.
“Hello,
Mr. Williams. It’s Rick Jenkins.”
The airways crackled for a second and then he
came back.
“Ah,
Rick. Hi. How’s it going?” He was puzzled but polite, me being an honest man
and everything.
“Yeah,
say, listen, I borrowed your son and your skeeter. I hope you don’t mind, I’ll
put fuel in it and everything. It’s just that you weren’t home but your son
said it would be all right.”
“Oh.
Oh, ah, sure, no problem. What’s up?” Anything to help a neighbour, right?
It
was a cynical thought.
“Yeah,
it’s just that my skeeter went down in the Sand Sea, ran out of gas basically,
and, ah, I need to go into Bentpath to get some fuel. The tractor needs a fuel
pump and I was headed for Aurora. Tony said you were out of town on a business
trip…” I let him hang a while on that.
“Oh.
Okay.” It was the peak of harvest and he accepted the need calmly enough.
It
wasn’t unheard of, in a land where people perpetually left their doors unlocked
for the convenience of friends and neighbours. We weren’t that close, actually,
as they lived twenty-five or thirty k’s away.
“Your
son’s a good pilot, incidentally. We’ll be back in three or hours, if that’s
okay.”
“Oh.
Ah, sure, no problem.”
“All
righty, then. And I owe you a quart of the good stuff.”
His
son nodded mightily in agreement as Paxton grinned in the copilot’s seat.
“That
sounds fine.” He wasn’t the talkative sort as I recalled, but then neither am
I.
Williams
and I broke the connection as Tony brought her around to a new heading and we
headed for Bentpath to get some fuel for my skeeter.
“Please
let me know how much that quart costs, Mister Jenkins.” Tony eyed me in the
rearview mirror.
“Two.”
“What?”
“Two
quarts, Tony.”
“Yes,
sir. Two quarts it is.” Sidelong glances were exchanged up front.
The
young men looked at each other again, convulsed in some kind of silent glee that
I don’t pretend to understand, but I was alive, Paxton wasn’t such a bad kid in
his own way and the little buggers had just saved my life. For a while, I
thought I was going to die out there, and now it looked like I was going to be
home in time for dinner. Such is life.
I
was so proud of them boys. It kind of brought a tear to my eye, that and the
thought of that quart, patiently waiting just over the southeastern horizon.
End
