American War(17)

“If it does, I’ll make you a new raft.”

“You’re just saying that because you know we’re not coming back.”

“Enough.”

The family set their belongings down in the clearing and waited for the bus to arrive. Dana, exhausted, fell back asleep on the ground with her backpack for a pillow.

Sarat wandered nearby, foraging around the bushes, inspecting the yuccas. They were resilient-looking things, their leaves flat and rigid. Of the few plants that still grew in the parched Southern earth, the yuccas grew best.

Sarat ran her finger along the leaves. The skin felt dry and its texture resembled that of sandpaper. But it was also rubbery, with some give to its flesh. She pressed her finger against the needle at the end of the leaf, feeling her own skin compress. The needle ends were brown and rigid, immune to sun and storm.

The day grew warmer. The Chestnuts waited but no bus came. Soon, Martina began to wonder if they’d missed it entirely, and if she might soon have to decide whether to take the family eastward by foot.

“What is this, Mama?” Sarat asked, pointing to the yucca.

“It’s a plant, honey.”

“What kind of plant?”

“A cactus. Don’t get too close, you’ll hurt yourself.”

“Cactus,” Sarat repeated, letting her tongue whip every syllable. “Cac-tus.”

Martina heard the sound of wheels against the road. The bus turned the corner, coming from the south. It was a yellow, prewar school bus, retrofitted with solar panels along the roof. On either side of the bus, where once there would have been stenciled the name of some high school, instead was written, in block letters, CIVILIAN TRANSPORT.

The bus moved slowly, its panels still soaking up sunlight. The driver came to a stop at the clearing. The door folded open.

Martina herded the children to the other side of the road. She peered inside the bus. A driver of about thirty sat at the wheel. He was a chubby man, the sweat beaded on his skin.

Behind the driver sat another man, much taller and broader. He wore a plain white shirt and blue jeans and by his side rested, barrel-up, an old Type-95. It was a cheap and cheaply built rifle, popular with the rebels because it rarely jammed or broke down, and because it could be smuggled with relative ease in the aid ships. The man with the rifle watched Martina, expressionless.

“We’re the Chestnuts,” Martina told the driver. She realized then that she’d never learned the name of the man who’d promised to grant her passage. “The rebel commander said we’d be allowed to ride to Patience.”

The driver chuckled. “The rebel commander said that, did he? Well we can’t go upsetting him.” The smirk disappeared from his lips. “A hundred each.”

Martina shook her head. “He said we’d be allowed on. He said—”

“Lady, you speak English? A hundred a head.”

Martina shuffled through her baggage for the tin of money. “I’ve only got three hundred,” she said, “in LAEs.”

“Did I say LAEs?” the driver replied. “They don’t even accept that joke currency in Louisiana no more.”

“That’s all I got.”

The driver shrugged. He pulled a lever by the wheel and the door unfolded shut, knocking Martina back. The bus began to move.

Martina pulled her children from the path of the wheels. She ran alongside the bus and banged on the door with a fistful of dollars. The driver slowed to a stop once more.

“Well won’t you look at that?” he said to the man with the rifle. “Guess she just misplaced it is all.”

Martina paid the fare and ushered her children onto the bus. Simon hopped on and the twins followed, Sarat still carrying the statue of the Virgin. As he walked, Simon stared at the man with the rifle, hypnotized.

The family shuffled to the back of the bus. An old man, the only other passenger, sat in the second-to-last row. Martina and her children sat behind him on a bench in the very back. They set their bags and belongings on and under the bench, and sat close together on one side, opposite the old man. With a tinny groan, the bus lurched forward once more, its suspension singing to the tune of the cracked country road.

“They sent me all the way down here for this?” the driver asked the guard, who said nothing. “Waste of goddamn time. Why are we even picking up throwaways from outside the Mag? They sided with Columbus, let Columbus deal with them. We got our hands full with our own.”

The guard adjusted the banana clip on his rifle. He turned and looked out the window, ignoring the driver.

The driver turned to his passengers. “Well, you best settle the hell in,” he said. “Got a full long day ahead of you.”

The driver’s voice woke the old man, who until then had been asleep, his hat pinned between the window and the side of his head. He wiped a thin line of spittle from his mouth. Martina watched him. He was in his eighties, perhaps even older, a child of the previous millennium. Years of untempered sun had tanned the skin of his face and arms to leather, pocked in places with black spots. He wore a white prewar suit, accented with a red silk handkerchief whose top peered from the breast pocket. The suit jacket and pants were graying in the places where they stretched over the knees and elbows, but elsewhere they retained their whiteness. In its totality the suit gave the man an old-world appearance, an air of dignity. He seemed to Martina a creature not only of a different time but of a divergent one, born to an America that long ago turned along its own dark meridian and left the likes of him behind.