Journey By Fire Read online

  He thought about the thunder and flashes from the night before. As the light bloomed on the river and the rock, he was momentarily taken by its preternatural beauty.

  When he was finished with the coffee, he put the cup down on the ground and stepped over to the cliffside. He looked straight up the cliff and plotted a number of hand- and footholds. Partly motivated by the caffeine and his own curiosity, he started climbing.

  The red rock felt cool and flaky. A muddy moss and a wet kind of lichen filled its cracks.

  As long as he didn't fall, he thought, listening to his own breathing, he would make the top in minutes. And he shouldn't climb a pitch he didn't think he could safely descend, he thought, from all the times he'd scrambled over stony climbs, often with his son by his side, in Vermont.

  ###

  He crested the top of the cliff and as the sun rose over the mountains in the distance, he had some kind of a revelation, as if he was still asleep. He thought he saw Kara walking across the desert in sandals and a wide-brimmed hat. Her image shimmered in the heat and the indistinct light. He got to his feet and stood up in a warm wind that smelled like burning pine.

  He had a good view of the river below, snaking through the narrow canyon, shallow and blue with small rapids breaking out on its surface. Smoke rose in the distance towards Moab.

  The red hills rose out of the yellowish brown sand and had sculpted and contorted shapes. When he looked longer, the image that he took as Kara was actually a cactus, a common kind that dotted the flat, windswept landscape.

  Then he heard the helicopter, tearing through the sky from Moab's direction. It pierced the dead silence with its rotating blades, and flew a path between the river and the highway. Its course took it east towards Grand Junction. It had a black body and a red tail, like a bird. It was headed right towards him, and he ducked behind a rock.

  Gun turrets and missile launchers hung from its belly. It was the regime's, he thought, crouching down. The sound was deafening when it flew overhead and churned up the sand and pine needles and mesquite into a dust devil. Then it was gone as quickly as it appeared, going at a speed of at least 180 m.p.h.

  Whoever it was, he hadn't wanted to be seen or to betray the location of the raft. It couldn't possibly be friendly or neutral; it was on a kill mission, and everyone was trigger happy those days.

  The regime had a minimalist way of killing to a make a point, he thought, but neither the will nor the resources to fully eradicate the human pestilence that had infected the scorched southwest.

  The chopper was only a tiny dot along the old empty highway. Wade stood up and brushed himself off. He pulled his buff down from his face. The smoke was oily black coming from Moab, and he thought he could see the familiar reddish yellow flickering of burning buildings.

  There seemed nothing of value above the cliff, only rock, sand, cactus, and weeds. The horizon warbled with a heat shimmer that reflected off the sand. He fingered his bow; if he saw a rabbit or prairie dog…then he heard Phoebe call out his name.

  "I'm up here! Moab's on fire…"

  "What are you doing? Trying to run away from us?"

  She was at the bottom of the cliff, and when he peered over, she grasped the nearest projecting rock and started climbing toward him.

  "Don't do that!" he said, pointlessly. She was stubborn and driven in her own way. She deftly covered the rock, dressed only in sneakers, a t-shirt, shorts, and a scarf holding back her hair. She was at least as good a scrambler as himself.

  Then she threw herself into his arms with an outpouring that startled him.

  "I woke up and you weren't there!"

  "Calm down."

  "I thought, where's Machiatto?" she said breathlessly. "You weren't going to leave me, were you, with cranky old Latte and Jonesie?"

  "Of course not." Chances are, we're going to have to separate at some point of this desolate road we're taking, he thought to himself. She's acting like my daughter. That made him think of his mirage.

  "I thought I saw Kara."

  "Where?"

  "Out on the desert. I think I was hallucinating."

  "It's been known to happen among desert dwellers," she said, with a half smile. "You miss her, don't you?"

  "Sure yeah." He picked his head off her shoulder, where it was beginning to feel mighty good; a feeling of warmth he missed, in this new cold world.

  "By the way, how do you keep your hair smelling so good?"

  "I crush flower petals and keep 'em in a glass bottle. Sometimes I bathe with them."

  "I need a bath in the river," he thought out loud, wondering how gamey he smelled.

  Phoebe shielded her eyes and looked across the expanse at the black, growing cloud, which besmirched the dark blue Western sky.

  "Something happened in Moab…"

  "Yup. Best we better get past Moab on the river. Only one direction to take."

  "What's that, dogs? No, coyotes!" Phoebe said, dropping her arm to point. Three of the mangy gray animals stood over a prostrate form in the sand about three quarters of a mile or so away.

  "You're right, coyotes. They've got something, too. A carcass." Two of the mutts nosed around whatever body they had, while the third stood stock still and stared at Wade and Phoebe.

  "I'm going to see what it is," Wade said, picking his bow and quiver off the ground. "If it's an antelope or some such, I could take back a couple of the legs and we could eat some meat, if it hasn't gone bad."

  "How savage of you."

  He shrugged. "If you want to survive…"

  "Hey you two nature explorers, we're leaving soon!" It was Jonesie from below. "What do you think this is, river-raft adventure travel?"

  "Give me twenty minutes," Wade yelled back. "We might have found food." It was a stretch, but something compelled him to reconnoiter the coyotes' spoils. It wasn't far. Maybe he'd even pot a coyote with his bow.

  "Can I come?" Phoebe said.

  "Yeah, but watch out for snakes, okay?"

  "I know the desert," Phoebe snapped proudly. "Maybe better than you do."

  They began walking, he in well-worn boots, Phoebe in sneakers. He was glad it was nearby, because otherwise they'd need water, Moab seeming to be not the oasis it once was. The carcass also gave him a purpose for climbing the cliff, which seemed to him the manifestation of rash and anxious restlessness.

  "Do you miss your old life?" Phoebe asked, as though they were taking a calm stroll in a national park.

  "Sure I do. I miss my family…"

  "That goes without saying."

  "What about you?"

  "I was a nomad to begin with. This feels like an extension of what I was doing."

  "Really?" That surprised him, seemed almost phony or dishonest. Everyone else he encountered appeared numb, paralyzed, terrified, or all three. But it made him think about what he didn't like about the past, the delusions and complacency.

  "The old life, you say," he said, keeping an eye on the coyotes, silhouettes on the burning horizon. "What I saw that was happening to the climate, in the hands of humans. And some of the companies and agencies I observed, they were run by speculators and kleptos. You got the sixth sense that it had to end some day, and something not so great was coming up behind it."

  The coyotes watched the two of them raptly. When they got within about forty yards the animals yipped and tossed their heads and trotted away across the desert.

  Wade got to the corpse first. He put up his hand.

  "You can stop right there."

  "Oh my god the smell."

  "The heat will do that."

  He was a gray-bearded and white-haired man, eyes closed and collapsed on his side. His jeans and a funky t-shirt were caked red with dried blood and ripped and chewed up. He had a backpack hanging off his shoulder.

  "He died before this happened to him," Wade said as much to himself as Phoebe. The coyotes had definitely gotten to him, below the rib-cage, and Wade knelt down and gingerly maneuvered the backpack away
from the shoulder.

  "He was trying to get away from Moab, I figure. Jesus, it's so hot out here…he just collapsed. Those animals, they're scavengers. They don't prey on wandering people. Usually…"

  "Scavengers…like us?" Phoebe stood off to the side; she'd put on sunglasses and a visor. She was watching the horizon, which was dark purple and vermillion above the desert floor. Actually beautiful.

  Wade crouched on his haunches and removed a bag of snacks from the backpack; Saltines, processed cheese, and raisins. "We can use this…"

  "You're picking him over, just like the coyotes."

  "What do you want me to do, give 'im a twenty-one gun salute? We have to do what we can, where we are, with what we find."

  The coyotes watched them afar, waiting for them to leave. They are opportunistic, Wade thought, just like me.

  "Shoo!" Phoebe yelled at them and clapped her hands together. They turned and ran but only for a moment. Then they stopped and continued monitoring. They were gaunt and their sides were ribbed.

  "I wouldn't want to be stuck out here at night," she said. "Let's go back to my friend, the river. Old Man River."

  "Okay. It's a stove-top on high out here." He rummaged around in the pack once more, and came up with a document, laminated in plastic. It was a poster, professionally designed. It pictured the leader, who he thought of as El Commandante, of the regime. Wade wondered if they were dropped from the helicopter. He stood up and looked it over.

  "What is that?"

  "More bullshit." He handed it to Phoebe, after looking at it for a minute. The lantern-jawed Strongman of the former USA had heavy eyebrows, unusually close-set eyes, and a disingenuous smile. Far from reassuring. Wade remembered his appearances on cable TV, before he shut them off forever; his clever gift for voluble speeches that appeared off-the-cuff and unscripted. He appeared oddly good-humored and soothing as the West began to burn down, and the Arctic boiled over (thirty degrees Fahrenheit above average, which melted all sea ice and made North America even warmer).

  El Commandante (Wade refused to use his real name) had an uncanny way of hitting every hot button held dear by the anxious Everyman; and before you knew it, he had control of the military and had assumed an authoritarian rule, "to protect our beloved land and our Democracy."

  He sowed fear…of everything, particularly foreigners and immigrants, who were blamed for everything that had happened. The old world was gone with a nightmarish speed, and was replaced by martial law, black helmeted and armored storm troopers, and helicopters of the ilk that had just raced over the desert floor. He created a dread of free speech and an obsession with control; "shoot first and ask later" for any form of legal trespass; and an embrace of the "bad old ways" of doing everything.

  Of course, anyone who had crazy or psychotic tendencies, the "crazies," embraced this atmosphere of dictatorial anarchy. They were already armed to the teeth but…all that was water under the bridge. Now everything, to him, revolved around finding Kara.

  Phoebe read the document out loud, in a spoofing tone. "Calling on all the good people of Moab to vacate the town while we cleanse it of the miscreants, robbers, and rapists…"

  "That's putting it mildly," Wade said. Those bad guys in Moab must of robbed the wrong guys, to bring the regime down on them way out here.

  He ran his tongue over his lips and they were cracked and salty. They walked, but the super-heated air wouldn't move. "The world burns up and we have this…" he nodded toward the oily smoke rising from Moab. "…To make it worse."

  CHAPTER 19

  They clamored down the side of the cliff to the embankment, where the others were already moving the stuff back on the raft.

  "What did you find up there? Spiritual enlightenment?" Jonesie asked, flip and gruff.

  "Almost," Wade said. "We found a dead man…"

  "Poor soul," Phoebe said, slinging a bag of food onto the raft. When she stepped aboard, her weight pulled the raft away from shore, and it tugged on its line.

  "The coyotes were getting at him. But he was already gone," Wade said. "I found a flyer on his body. It seemed the regime shot missiles into Moab."

  "You don't say," Wiley said, looking up from what he was doing with an astonished expression. "So that was what the helicopter was all about."

  "You saw it, yeah I thought you did. They burned out the town and no doubt killed a bunch of people, to root out the gangs, the flyer said…"

  "Destroy the town to save it," Wiley grunted.

  "I figured that chopper was up to no good. Here, grab the rest of the stuff."

  He and Javi passed the rolled-up tarp and sacks of goods to Wade, who stood balanced on the raft.

  "The people there…how horrible…what if we see someone suffering or hurt on the shore?" Phoebe said. "Can we give them a lift?"

  "We can't take anyone else on," Jonesie said, trying to put the subject to rest.

  "What if they're in need? What if they're kids who've lost their parents?"

  This was a problem, Wade thought to himself. They had a crowded raft already; they were scraping around to survive. But if they saw some kids on the shore…it was a deviation from his goal, but he couldn't stomach just leaving them there.

  "We don't have the room, the provisions," Jonesie said, without taking his eyes off the river.

  Phoebe took her shoes off, sat on the edge of the raft, and pouted.

  Shoving off involved only re-entering the current. The water was flat and slow, the current indicated only by fan-shaped ripples. They'd pass Moab within the hour.

  Wade put on his boony hat and kept his bow and handgun handy. He didn't know what they'd encounter drifting past those blasted moorings.

  ###

  The river was barely thirty meters across at its widest; sticks and logs floated into it from the various flash floods off the desert. Sparse shrubs clung to the shore, which led up to the red rocks and the wind-scoured sands. It would be hardcore desert from now on in.

  CHAPTER 20

  Wade knew from his map that several tributaries entered the Colorado River along their route. The next big one was the junction of the Green River and the Colorado. That was about twenty miles downstream from Moab. Then there was the Dirty Devil River at around Hite, Utah, a small town further south that used to be on the shores of Lake Powell, before the drought took most of the water. Wade didn't expect all that much to be left of the giant lake in the desert, or the tributaries, which had probably been reduced to mud flats.

  He was just hoping that the Colorado had retained enough flow to stay navigable. He trusted Jonesy's knowledge of the river, that they wouldn't all just be forced to walk the desert, because the current and the depth run out.

  "Stick to the left bank," Wade yelled out to Jonesy, who was at the tiller. He didn't want any desperadoes leaping onboard from the shoreline near the torched Moab remains, or attacking them. They rounded a bend in the river and saw nothing but an untouched wooden pier. A flag with the old state of Utah insignia hung by a pole inserted into the end of the dock. He guessed the pier and its moorings hadn't been targeted, but it was surprisingly empty, save for a dog.

  A small gray, mangy mutt stood on the muddy shore and stared at them as they drifted past. Any boats that were moored were gone, they couldn't see any people, and lightish gray smoke rose above the rim of the small canyon above the river.

  "Here boy! Here!" Phoebe yelled out, her eyes lighting up. "Oh poor thing! C'mon!"

  "Don't call the scrawny cur over!" Jonesy cried out, hands still on the tiller. "God dammit, I told you we can't take on anymore passengers!"

  "I know but…" The little dog stared at them rigid as a statue, then he barked twice, and as they passed he began to run along the shoreline.

  "Oh can't we take him on?" Phoebe said, now pleading.

  "Mommy look!" Pepe said, pointing to the dog.

  Carmen sat cross-legged in the sun, under a broad straw hat. "It looks like it hasn't eaten in days!"

 
; "And we don't have the food for it!" Jonesy answered her.

  "Might be good for the boy," Wiley said, weighing in. "Keep his mind off everything that's been happening, that a child shouldn't see…"

  "Aw shut-up Wiley…" Jonesy shot back, as if he felt too alone in his opinion.

  "I call him Latte, by the way…" Phoebe felt the need to referee.

  "I'm just sayin', a dog like that could almost take care of hisself," Wiley shrugged. "Might even nose around these parts and find us some more food."

  They rounded another corner in the slow current, and the dog leapt into the water and paddled along desperately in their wake.

  "I'm going in after 'im," Phoebe announced, leaping onto her feet and taking her sandals off. "Poor thing!"

  "Oh no you're not!" Jonesy said, and Wade thought he sounded like a crotchety dad who knew he was losing another family battle.

  Javi had moved to the back of the raft, removed his hat, and now he was holding out his hand for the dog. He looked back at Jonesy.

  "Let's just slow down a bit, let him catch up," he said diplomatically. "We can't disappoint Pepe…now that he's seen the dog and everyone yells for him…"

  "Christ," Jonesy barked, then he leaned on the tiller and forced the starboard side of the raft to turn and face the current, which slowed the boat down. "You guys want to get to where you're going, right?"

  Wherever that is, Wade thought to himself, staring at the steel blue, cloudless horizon. It'd be stellar under different, less desperate circumstances. There'll be nothing useful in Hite, Utah, he guessed, except for more carcasses of cars and falling down structures.

  Who knows what Vegas has become? It's a hellhole now, collapsed ruins in the desert…

  When the dog reached close to the raft, still frantically paddling with its head pushed above the lapping water, Javi grabbed him by the scruff of his neck. Phoebe rushed over and helped pull him aboard. The dog landed on the deck boards on all fours, shook himself, then looked up and twitched long whiskers and wagged his tail.