Devils Unto Dust(69)

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.”