Instinctively, he moved out of the middle of the alley and into the darker shadows on the left side. This section of the alley system, northbound, felt better. No cuts by streets up ahead that he could make out. This was his way.
Slow-jogging through the alley, weight shifted forward onto the balls of his feet, he felt balanced moving the way Grandfather taught him. Ready for quick action, yet silent. In rhythm with his movement, he scanned forward, left and right. Every few minutes, he stole a glance behind.
So far, good.
The danger of the city, the neighborhood, began to ease. The closer he got to the desert, the more the knot in his stomach released. It gave him confirmation of the direction he was going, to safety, to the ledge that he and Grandfather had prepared.
No more stopping now, until he reached that goal.
Chapter 22 - Shelter
Grandfather’s house was located in a suburban neighborhood on the edge of the city. Often, the boy and Grandfather walked into the surrounding desert. Grandfather was always teaching. The boy did not always want to learn. He did not understand then why he should.
The neighborhood rose up on the side of a small set of hills, offering a sweeping view of the sprawling city.
On one of these walks, Grandfather took him out of the city to a place in the desert. They did not travel in the truck. They walked. To the boy, it was a long walk, as long as the time he and Grandfather walked through the swamp and crossed the Barrier after fleeing New Orleans. They walked out of the neighborhood and onto the flanks of the low mountains rising behind the neighborhood, then through a gap in the mountains.
The sun and heat rose as the morning wore on. Light was sharp, bright, as they dropped down the backside slope of the low range. Grandfather spoke only to tell the boy directions: How to pay attention to the landscape. What to look for to mark their trail. To orient himself without a compass by looking back, to the sides, ahead.
The boy looked. Made mental notes. Grew tired. Grew bored.
They kept walking for the rest of daylight, on and on, across the sparse, baked desert. The creosote bush, spread out in a yellow matrix on the desert floor, looked as vital as ever in the bare landscape. Clusters of Palo Verde trees, their blue-green skin contrasting with the yellow-headed creosote, offered a skeletal umbrella within the matrix. Always, there was the cholla. Mostly in colonies, but now and again a renegade appeared by itself. Grandfather repeatedly reminded the boy to keep watch and stay clear of the fuzzy spines of the jumping cactus, as they wound their way through the landscape.
An hour before sunset, they climbed another low mountain range to a ledge a couple hundred feet up. The boy could not see it from the desert floor when Grandfather pointed to it. After scrambling up the western slope, the old man walked around a car-size boulder and onto the ledge. The boy followed. Sweat dampened the boy's clothes.
Standing next to Grandfather, the boy looked back over the way they had come. The city was in the distance, maybe seven miles back. Only the tops of the tallest buildings could be seen, just above the mountains. The buildings looked smaller than the boy expected.
Grandfather dropped his pack. The boy did the same. They drank water and ate a snack. Grandfather motioned for the boy to follow him and they retraced their steps back past the boulder and onto the flank of the hillside. The boy was exhausted, but knew not to complain. Not to Grandfather.
They gathered an armload each of wrist-sized sticks. It took them some time to find enough, this being the desert, but a mesquite and cottonwood stand at the bottom of the mountain provided the material they needed.
The boy thought the wood was for a fire back on the ledge. But when they returned, Grandfather set his wood down and went to a small cleft in the shape of a V set in the back wall of the ledge. The opening was the wide part of the V. He kneeled and cleaned out rocks and small debris, after poking with a stick to notify any snakes or scorpions that it was time to pack up and move out. It went back into the hillside about five feet. No roof, the cleft traveled straight up the back wall and opened to the sky above.
Grandfather picked out the largest cottonwood branches from their haul and braced them horizontally in the rock sides, about two feet from the floor of the little cleft. Placing the wrist-sized pieces next to each other, he created a roof that started in the narrow back of the cleft and ran to the wider opening. It had a slight slope, higher in the back and angling down lower toward the front for rainwater runoff.
It was tight work in the fading light, but Grandfather was fast. He called for the boy to break the wood to length and hand it in to him. Once the first layer of roofing was on, he took smaller-sized cottonwood branches and wove them into the first layer, making it stronger.
Once done, they walked back to the cottonwood trees and gathered armloads of dead leaves from the deep drifts piled up over many seasons of shedding. They carried the leaves to the cleft, now looking more like a little cave, and stuffed them on top of the roof, filling the space with this insulation as high as they could reach.
It was hard work, especially reaching over the roof, and the boy grew tired. Grandfather never slowed. Just kept an even pace, filling the space above the roof with as much dead leaf debris as it would hold.
Finally, in full dark, Grandfather had the boy break leftover mesquite and cottonwood branches, finger size, into the length of a pencil. He quickly built a teepee structure with the sticks, leaving a small opening. The boy had seen Grandfather build this fire structure many times, every time they made fire, always leaving a small door to place the burning tinder bundle in. Though it was dark now, the boy realized the little door faced to the east. To his surprise, he had automatically noted where the sun set, in the west, and confirmed the door was set in the opposite quadrant of the compass, the east. Did Grandfather always put it facing the east? From those two directions, he quickly calculated north and south. Without effort, he determined the four cardinal directions from this fire structure.
The boy looked out over the desert. From where they started their hike to this ledge, he now applied the other directions based on the position of the door in the fire structure. The directional markers Grandfather had pointed out earlier in the day came back to his mind. This hill with the ledge. The position of the city in relation to it. The Big Dipper in the night sky, something Grandfather reminded him to how to find when they crossed the Barrier, pointed to the North Star and confirmed the north-south relationship between the city and the ledge. When he looked back at the little door in the fire structure, it was ninety degrees from the ledge and ninety degrees from the city, facing east.
He became aware of Grandfather watching him. It moved him on some deep level. He felt the look more than saw it. In the starlight, the boy could just make out a smile on his face.
“Good,” the old man said.
Grandfather pulled from his backpack the small bow drill, put it together, and soon had a glowing coal. He tapped the coal onto a ball of fine, hair-like tinder, blew until there was a flame, and placed the small fireball into the little doorway in the tepee of wood. The sticks quickly caught and the flame spread from the inside, up and out. Soon they had warmth and glow. Grandfather looked into the flame, as did the boy, while the night stretched its inky-dark fingers out across the desert below them.
Chapter 23 - Fox Speak
Through sleepy, irritated eyes, the boy watches the rising sun fight its way up through the murkiness in the east. Closer to the ground, on the horizon, the murkiness is thicker. The light gets clearer the higher the sun goes, but remains dulled by the strange red air that blankets its journey across the sky.
The boy has studied the sky for four days. What's happening to it, he has no idea. But the murkiness of early morning and sunset lingers even through the night, casting a red tinge to the stars and moon, only to fade again with the growing daylight.
~
This sky ch
ange appeared a few days before he fled Grandfather's house. At first, the boy thought it was air pollution from the city. But, as the boy remembered, Grandfather had a different reaction.
He had come out of his lab and walked into the backyard. The sun had just set, so it was not yet full dark. Grandfather stood, joined by the boy who had followed him out the kitchen door. The old man wore a look of unease, an expression the boy had never seen before. It disturbed the boy, especially when Grandfather put his arm around the boy's shoulder, not something he did often, and pulled him close.
“This sky change," Grandfather said. "Not good. Things may get bad, Grandson. Soon."
The boy stared at the sky, confused.
“I don’t understand.”
“We must be careful. People will fear this new sky, this change.”
Grandfather was right.
The next morning, people seemed to go crazy, mostly down in the city. The neighbor across the street came to Grandfather asking questions. He brought a friend. Why they sought him out, the boy didn’t know. Maybe it was the talks in the street when the little girl rode her bike. Maybe they thought he knew something about this change. Grandfather talked patiently with them. They went away.
It only got worse.
Fires spread in the city. Electricity went on and off. Sickness, like back in New Orleans, began to appear. When the electricity was on, the local news channels reported a deadly virus spreading throughout the city, origin unknown. The local authorities and medical staff at hospitals were overwhelmed, and two days after the start of the reporting, the news channels shut down. Nothing.
Why?
Grandfather speculated it was a combination of rolling blackouts and damage control by the news outlets. No news meant questions did not have to be answered by city officials. It didn't work. People took to the streets. Crowds gathered outside the government offices, demanding answers. At first, they were met with silence, which only made the crowds angrier. Then their questions were answered with legions of riot police. In a matter of days, civil unrest turned into rioting and quarantines. It quickly became a citywide lockdown.
The boy asked Grandfather how this sickness from New Orleans came out west. Why didn't the Barrier work?
It came on the wind, was Grandfather's answer. A barrier can't stop airborne viruses, he told the boy. And this virus had mutated to live long enough to travel distances and find new hosts, leapfrogging from town to city across the country. In three days' time, the city was a war zone. Four days later, Grandfather was dead, his blood on the kitchen floor, and the boy had fled to the desert.
~
He can do nothing about this sky change. But, like the sky, he is also changed. Now, every moment is real. In each moment, he is responsible for his life. Not like the life in a comfortable house with hot showers and air conditioning. Unlike the comfortable life, out here he has to take responsibility for each choice. Not taking responsibility out here means death. It’s that simple.
He tried self-pity, in front of Grandfather when the old man was dying, in the alley when he watched the house burn. Did that strange man, the one who pulled him inside, take pity on him? Maybe. But that was a miracle, the boy thinks. A matter of luck, even. Not something the boy counts on now. Since saying goodbye to Grandfather, in the dirt of that alley, he refuses to let self-pity into his thoughts.
The pack, Grandfather's small blanket, and the clothes on his back will have to do. There's no starting over, no time-outs like in a game. Everything and everyone he knew is gone. How many times since fleeing through the dark alleys has he wished he learned more from the old man?
Again, it doesn't matter now.
Wishing is wasting energy. Out here, wasting energy is death. What he has, in the pack and in his brain, will have to do.
He looks toward the burning city, dark smoke visible in the growing light. The fires have now reached outlying communities. Each day they come closer, spreading further out from the city. He needs to move.
A cloud of dust rises on the desert floor between his ledge and the city: vehicles coming his way!
Less than a mile out, they angle to his right, to the northwest. His stomach tightens. He knows he blends in up on this ledge but, still, he freezes.
Is it too late to get away? Do they know he's out here?
His fear wants to rule his emotions. But he lets out a sharp breath and stops it. He steps out of his fearful mind, the way Grandfather taught him, and focuses on the moment.
He studies the vehicles. There are three. No one knows he's here. That would make no sense. Grandfather was careful to leave no trail, and so was he the night he fled. Still, they're out here, following a dirt road to a saddle in the hills to his right. Where it goes after passing through the hills, the boy does not know. But he has to travel that way, too, to the north side where those vehicles have disappeared.
This is a problem.
What level of problem he can't know until he gets to the other side. Even that part of his plan—how he gets to the other side, over this hill behind him—has to be decided.
Focus on the moment, what needs to be done. His purpose will keep the fear away.
Something catches his eye to his left. He turns. A red fox, not ten feet away, sits on the east end of the ledge. The fox sits, resting on its haunches and looking south across the desert in the direction of the city on fire. The fox is much smaller than the boy would have guessed.
"Morning," he says, careful not to speak too loudly.
The fox turns and looks at the boy. Without surprise or fear, it lifts off its haunches and trots off the ledge toward the east. The boy watches the fox's smooth gait, its footfalls so light on the ground. What a gift!
That's the way, he decides. He'll follow the fox to the north side of this hill.
Chapter 24 - Stuck
The boy fluffs the debris in the cleft so it looks natural, not matted down, and places brittle brush across the opening to hide sign of his presence here.
A last look west to study where the vehicles went: they have disappeared, but their dust trail lingers, parts of it rising lazily and hovering in the still morning air. A small game trail, the one the fox used, comes into view as the boy steps off the ledge to the east. The trail skirts the side of the hill on an upward angle, straight to a low spot between higher ridges. Perfect. With other people out here, the boy is aware of the danger of being silhouetted. The fox was a good sign. This path will take him to the other side without being seen.
Twenty minutes later, with frequent stops to look and listen, the boy gets to the notch. On the other side, the desert opens up to a vast expanse bordered by a mountain range in the distance to the north. How far away, he can't know. But far enough for them to be hazy. He thinks of the little fox and wishes he could melt as easily into the landscape.
The sun glares. It hurts his eyes, with the morning murkiness gone. Blinking, he shields them with his hand. They adjust, and the new terrain comes into focus.
"Shit!" Two trucks and a jeep! The ones he saw earlier. A hundred yards below on the desert floor. He drops to a crouch. Takes stock. A fire is burning and around the fire, people!
He falls to his right, hoping to disappear behind the scant brush. Frantically, he looks for cover. He has to get off this game trail.
Did they see him?
To his right, two large boulders. Waist high with sagebrush behind them. The only cover. The ground too rough for belly crawling, he scrambles like a lizard on all fours. Twenty yards to the boulders. Halfway, he steals a look toward the camp below. No change. No frantic movement. No yelling. No one has seen.
He squeezes between the boulders and sagebrush plants, with the boulders between him and the fire. A small depression in the earth appears. It'll do.
He lowers himself, left hand on the first boulder, gripping a softball-sized rock on top. His sideways pressure
on the rock is too much. The rock shoots out of his grip and off the top of the boulder. It bounces down the slope, hitting other rocks as it tumbles. It's loud.
With his grip on the rock gone, he falls into the depression between boulders and bushes. Luckily, the boulders hide him and he can see through a gap between the two, down to the camp. But what he sees chills his blood.
People are standing, looking his way. The boy holds his breath. No reason why, except he's paralyzed in fear. He watches. Like waiting for a trap to spring.
Three men move, all at the same time, too fast, like a team. They spread out, two with rifles, one with a handgun.
He's exposed. He feels the acidity of fear. The impulse to run is nearly overwhelming, adrenaline in his muscles. He knows it’s death if he bolts. But the fear is strong and wants him to flee.
He forces deep breaths of air into his lungs. He wills his body to calm. His pulse slowly drops. The fear remains, but the panic melts away.
A quick check confirms he's not visible, at least not from below.
The men move up the hill. The boy watches. They're looking in all directions. Good. They aren't sure.
Thank god.
Another self-check. He looks over his cover. He can only look over his left shoulder. He can see through the sagebrush! Shit.
Nothing to do about it now. Still, it may be enough. More assessment. Pack strap is snagged on a sagebrush branch, but near the ground. That might keep the bush from jostling when he moves. But he's locked onto his right side, the way he fell into the hide. No freeing the snag now. Too dangerous.
God damn, I hope I'm not visible.
Breathing seems loud. Swallowing is hard. Mouth dry. More deep breaths and the rising panic eases down again.
The men are out there searching. Scrambling across the hillside, their movements loud. Through the gap, the boy spies two women at the fire, looking uphill. From the angle of their looks, he gauges the position of the men. They call to each other, one to his left, one to his right. Where's the third?
A leg fills the gap between the boulders.