Devils Unto Dust(23)

It was after most of the horses died that people started leaving, at least those who could manage. No one wanted anything to do with us anymore. The Union all but disowned anything south of Llano, which leaves us with the territories to the west and the border to the south. Then the railroads starting failing, and that was the end of any outside help. You can still see where they laid the track, just barely; the sand has erased most of the evidence. Even if they could get it up and running again, they wouldn’t come here; why bother when we have nothing to offer? The cotton fields are too big to protect, and no one wants to die for a farm. It’s not an official quarantine, but an effective one; if you want to go north you have to walk, and chances are you won’t make it out alive. If the shakes don’t kill you, the sun will. We’re on our lonesome out here, trapped in this no-man’s-land, hemmed in on all sides by dust and death.

Something rustles to my right and I jump slightly before I spot the lizard. I feel a pang, surprisingly sharp, thinking of Calvin. It is too soon to be homesick, but guilt pinches just as hard. I scold myself, reminding my traitorous conscience that I am doing this for a good reason. The lizard doesn’t even look like Goldie; this one is brown and thin, blending into a creosote bush with branches so thin and wispy it looks like a cloud of smoke rising from the bowels of the earth.

The sun climbs in the sky and I angle my hat lower to keep the light out of my eyes. Sweat beads on my upper lip and I lick it away, tasting salt and the dust that has already begun to coat my face and clothes. By the end of this trip I’ll be more dust than girl. The desert claims everything, in the end.





19.


When we reach the second marker, I catch sight of my first hotbox and Curtis calls a break. He halts by the post and it takes me a minute to catch up to him, and another for Benjamin to reach us.

“Let’s take a breather,” Curtis says, wiping his face with a red handkerchief.

Benjamin takes a swig out of his canteen and passes it to his brother. Curtis takes a generous drink and hands it to me. I hesitate for a moment, not wanting to dip into their water supply.

“Go on,” Curtis says. “Nana has extra. You need to keep drinking or you’ll pass out.”

“At least I’d be lighter than that Hide Town feller,” I say, and drink. “Thanks. Is there enough to last the day?”

“There’s a well at the halfway point, if you don’t mind the taste of iron,” Benjamin says. I pass the canteen back to him and he takes another mouthful before replacing the lid.

“What’s halfway?” I ask.

“About another hour.”

I nod, calculating in my head. If all goes to plan, we’ll cover around twenty-four miles today. Not a small feat. I’m not out of breath yet, but there’s a fine sheen of sweat covering my face and the beginning of an ache in my right heel.

I study the hotbox while Ben rummages through one of the packs on Nana’s back. It’s an odd little structure; it looks like someone started building a house and stopped halfway through. There are no doors or windows, only a series of grooves on one wall and small loopholes that go all around the box, just big enough to fit a gun barrel. We’ll pass another one before the day is over, and I hope we have no cause to use either.

“How do you get in it?” I ask. “There’s no door.”

“There’s a hatch at the top. You gotta climb up the side,” Ben says, emerging from Nana’s bags with a small round loaf of dark bread. “Here.”

“Is that Elsie’s brown bread?” I ask. She makes it especially for the road, and her recipe is a well-guarded secret. The crust is so hard it’s impossible to break off a piece with only your hands, but the inside stays soft and light.

“What else?” Curtis answers, smiling. Benjamin cuts himself a chunk of bread and passes it to his brother. I open my rag bundle and sugar sack and get my penny knife and some dried apricots to go along with the bread.

“Why do you wear those?” I ask, chewing on the fruit. I point to the leather guards on the brothers’ wrists.

“Shakes go for the arms and the neck first,” Benjamin answers. “The most exposed areas. The leather helps deflect, some.”

Curtis hands me the bread while I think this over. My neck suddenly feels very vulnerable with nothing around it but a bag of bullets. I open my penny knife and go to work on the bread, making a mess of it.

“Sign,” Curtis says abruptly, and I startle, the knife slicing across my palm sharply. I ignore the stinging pain and look where he’s gazing, back along the road.

“Wait for it,” Curtis says. Everything is silent while we all stare intently at nothing, and then it happens: a bright flash of light as the sun glints off something. I blink rapidly, waiting for the spots in front of my eyes to clear.

“Something’s following us,” Benjamin says grimly.

“What is it?”

Benjamin doesn’t answer me, but he reaches into one of Nana’s packs and pulls out a small brass object. He fiddles with it for a moment, but it isn’t until he holds it up to his eye that I realize it’s a scope. He swears under his breath and shakes his head.

“How many?” Curtis asks.

“Angle’s wrong. We’re too low.”

“Could just be hunters.”