Water Chapter Six
“What are we supposed to do?” Jane looked over at me, then at Jesús. “They look dead!”
Jesús is standing in the cab in front of his seat, staring hard out the windshield. “I saw the kid move his leg. He’s not dead. I can’t see Felix moving at all! Maybe it’s the other way around and it was Felix who just moved.”
Most of the convoy has dispersed, turned around and headed back north. Not too far, I assume, just a safe place outside of town. Jane thinks to turn on the CB radio and crawls out of the sleeper. It’s alive with noisy reports. I’m a bit shocked that truckers still rely on them.
I look across the cab to Jesús, “What are we going to do?” He stares back at me. We both look terrified. Looking in our mirrors, we can see a lot of commotion and activity back by the Humvee. National Guard and FEMA are walking on foot patrols. It looks like two or three, maybe four trucks are still back there. The crews in the cabs are dead, I assume.
“I’ll need cover!” Jesús replies. He looks at Jane. “Can you help me, Janie? Can you help me drag them to the deck behind the cab?”
Surprising to me, Jane is all in. “Fuck yes!” she exclaims. It’s the first sign of life I’ve seen in her in a month. “Those fucking bastards! I want to kill them all.”
I reach across the cab and grab Jesús’ and Jane’s assault rifles. I don’t think Jane even fired hers. I say, “If you two can go round up the bodies, I’ll fire cover for you. Right now, I don’t think they are paying attention to us. They will when they see movement.” Jesús is a big man, even now severely malnourished. Jane isn’t much at all, a wisp of herself, but she seems determined. I turn the wheel to the left and angle the tractor, hoping to give them a little more cover. Jesús opens the door, and they climb down and hustle over to the bodies. At first, it’s all quiet behind us. Looking out the windshield and through the open cab door, Jesús drags the kid, Hector, past. I hear him yell at Jane and a thud. Then he jogs back to Felix. Hector looked dead to me. Felix lifts his head and the pair approach. He tried to stand and falls. Looking back in the mirror, then turning around, I see a group of soldiers walking toward us. First a walk, now a fast jog.
I scream out the door, “Come on, they are coming!” My two friends are struggling with Felix. He’s bigger than the kid and it looks like he’s resisting them. Looking back at the approaching soldiers, then back out the open door, I see they are half dragging and half walking Felix to the back of the tractor. “Come on, guys! Come on!”
I hear the first shot before the slug passes through my door. I push the door open and stand on the aluminum steps over the fuel tanks and open fire with the rifle. The soldiers have stopped and scattered. I hear Jane climb into the cab first. I look to my side, but I don’t see Jesús. I keep firing until my magazine is empty. Jane hands me hers. I keep firing until I hear Jesús, yell, “Come on, let’s go!”
I pass the gun to Jane and sit behind the big steering wheel. We hear more shots. Grinding the transmission into first gear I stomp the fuel. Fuck, I hope they don’t chase us. On these back roads a truck pulling ten-thousand gallons of water will not outrun the Humvee or one of the pickups. “Maybe I shouldn’t have fired on them.” I say out loud.
Jesús answers, “Ain’t no rule book here, man. We are making it up as we go. Now mash the fucking gas!”
Working through the gears as we move up Route 11, we are doing about seventy-five miles per hour. I’ve got the Detroit Diesel wound-up and wide open as we head down the abandoned highway. Jane points, looking out the windshield, “There they are!” We fly past the rest of the convoy assembled at an abandoned parking lot of a softball field. Jane turns the CB back on. We hear comments like where are those guys headed, who is that, man they are moving! If I was one to pray, I’d be praying they stay there and don’t follow us. Jesús is quick to point out they have no real need to come after us. I hope he’s right. Looking in the mirror, I see no one chasing us. Jesús comments he’s not seen Felix or Hector fall off the back deck. I comment, “Oh shit! I didn’t think about that!”
We need to check on those guys, but I’d like to get a few more miles out of town.
Jesús says out loud, “Bible camp!” Jane and I look at each other and then him, confused. “What do you mean, Jesus?” Jane asks.
“My church sometimes used to partner with the Presbyterian church in town. We didn’t have much, they had a lot. They had a summer camp up by Larrabee State Park. Big bible camp. It’s on an old dirt road but wide enough for this truck. If we can get there, maybe we can regroup.
The city we lived in, that thought hit me hard, lived in, used to live in, no longer live in, we don’t live there anymore, is a few miles behind us. I don’t think we are ever going back that way. Now we are in hill country and the climbs are challenging my limited skills with this complex transmission, pulling all this water up and down hills. The CB radio is silent. I hope that’s a good thing.
“Jesús, how far is this camp? It sounds like our only option.”
Jesús rubs his face. His eyes betray his exhaustion. “Ten, fifteen miles up Route 11 here. It was about twenty-five miles out of town, up in these hills. It was a pretty place. That lake was jumping with big bass and even some trout. They came in from the stream that fed it. They’d get big living in that lake. I wonder if there is anything left up there.” And his hungry belly growls again. Jane is in a lot of pain with her tooth, but for some reason we all manage a laugh at Jesús loud belly.
I’ve been watching the mirror as much as in front of us for the past five miles or so. “I haven’t seen a car or truck or anything behind us. We’d better find a place to pull over and check on those men on the deck. Are we all in on this?”
Jane is silent. Jesús says, “Yes, of course, but Sam, my guess is its bodies, not men back there anymore. Hector looked dead when we dragged him up there and Felix wasn’t much better.”
I don’t reply. We climb another hill, and I turn the tractor to the right and pull off to the side of the road. Up here in the hills, its just a two-lane highway.
Looking at Jane, I ask, “Take my rifle. Will you stand watch while Jesús and I see what we have waiting for us on the deck?” Without a word, she reaches for my gun, climbs over my lap, opens the door and climbs down the steps of the idling tractor. Jesús opens his door and climbs down. I do the same on my side. Meeting behind the sleeper cab, the truck frame and the bodies separate us. Hector is on the bottom, face down, and Felix is piled on top of him. I take Felix’s hand and jostle him a bit. “Felix, man, it’s Sam. Can you hear me?” He doesn’t answer. Jane is looking at us from the road and asks, “Are they both dead?”
I don’t answer; I jostle his body harder and he lets out a slow moan. “Fuck, Jesús, I hoped in a way they’d both be dead. How the hell are we supposed to care for these guys? Hector is still bleeding. There is blood everywhere. If he isn’t dead, he will be soon.
Jesús answers, “The camp, Sam. It’s the only option. Maybe someone left some supplies there.”
I look at him, “Oh, good, like first-aid supplies and shit? Yeah, that will fix him right up!”
Jesús doesn’t answer.
Hector’s body is dripping blood. A lot of blood. The driveshaft is covered in blood and that is dripping onto the ground below. I look across the truck frame and the pile of flesh and shake my head. “What the hell are we supposed to do with his body?”
Jesús answers, “He was your friend, no? He deserves a decent Christian burial.” I look at him and back out of the tight space out into the road. I look behind the trailer and up the road and I still don’t see anyone coming. Jane chimes in, “Yeah, Sammy, what the fuck, are we barbarians now?”
I’m pissed. I’m focused on how to get this little rolling circus and our leaking tanker somewhere safe, so we don’t lose the water and we don’t get killed for having it. “Well, Jane, we just killed a bunch of guys and stole this truck, and going by the ripe smell of the three of us in that cab, I’d say if we ain’t barbarians we are well on our way! I say we dump Hector here along the road and see if we can get Felix up in the sleeper.”
Jesús counters, “How about we get Felix in the sleeper and tie up Hector’s body and I’ll deal with him when we get there.” Jane walks to join us, “Yes, I’ll help you Jesús!”
“Ok, you two deal with the dead guy. Let’s see if we can get Felix in the sleeper. It’s going to get rough going once we take this thing off roading.”
Jane and Jesús each take an arm and I have his two legs. We carry his limp body to the ground parallel to the tractor. I climbed up in the passenger seat and Jesús and Jane help him stand. He looks more alive than I thought earlier. They push his legs and I pull his arms. He winces in pain. I assume that’s a good sign. Jane runs to the back of the tanker to get some water. I hear her bitching and swearing. I realize none of us know how to work the complex valves at the back of the trailer. Jesús runs back to help her. I’ve got Felix sitting up in the passenger seat. He’s a bloody mess. I can’t tell how much is his blood and how much is Hector’s. I ask him if it’s better if he sits upright or we try to get him to lie down. He grunts, still not conscious. His pant leg is soaked in blood and his shirt. I guess he took at least two shots. If they were assault rifle shots, I know they raise hell inside the body. Again the thought crosses my mind: I wish he’d died. I’m pretty neutral when it comes to Felix, but he’s going to make our journey that much harder and I’m worried he’s going to suffer and die, anyway.
Jesús and Jane return. They are soaking wet. They both removed their t-shirts and tell me I should go get some water. Felix opens an eye to see Jane’s small bare breasts. Jesús comment, “See, my man ain’t dead!”
I take their advice and run to the back of the truck and, removing my shirt, give myself a cold and powerful shower. We were fortunate, the bullet holes are mostly near the top of the tanker. We will lose a bit from water sloshing between the baffles, but we won’t lose a lot.
I can’t recall the last time I took a shower. I drink what feels like a gallon, too. This tanker is a blessing and curse. If we can’t hide it, someone will kill us for it. We can’t wait here too long. I think we already have waited too long. I walk along the curbside of the truck and see Jesús tying down Hector’s body with some rope. He tells me there are empty gallon jugs in by the tools. “They smell ok, not sure what was in them. Jane is in the cab with Felix. Taking the jugs, I run to get Felix some water.
The bottles filled I do a fast jog to the idling tractor. Jesús is a shirtless, bloody mess sitting on the passenger side. I throw him a greasy rag from the pocket in my door side. Jane is in the back with Felix. Slamming my door shut at the same second I push the RoadRanger transmission into low gear, the truck begins to lurch forward. The windows are down and it’s a hot smelly mess in the cab. Working through the gears we pick up speed, I’m no expert trucker, that’s for sure and the ten thousand gallons in the tanker behind us surging against the baffles and bulkheads inside it makes climbing and descending these hills a challenge. I’m learning the rhythm of my shifting, the throttle, the water and the landscape.
We are rolling. Jesús reaches over to tune in a radio station and turns up the silent CB. Still no news or chatter. That’s a good thing. Jane half climbs out to the sleeper and reaches for a control on the dashboard. I yell out, “What the fuck are you doing, Jane?” Fearful, she’ll push in an airbrake valve. She says, “Forgive me, mister concrete cowboy, but this thing does have air conditioning, you know that right?” I look over at her, then to Jesús, then shake my head. In seconds a cool breeze of fresh air is blasting out the vents. I push in the small valves on my door to raise the windows. The three of us shirtless are soon covered in goosebumps and our nipples are hard. Jesús jokes Jane better go show them to Felix. It might keep his heart pumping until we get to the camp. The cold air is a strange sensation. I’m trying to remember the last time I was cold. Was it that night in the freak snowstorm in front of Jane’s apartment?
We bang on down the road in the luxurious cold—not cool—air. Jane set it all the way up on maximum. Drinking all the water we can hold in our bellies from the plastic milk jugs Jesús found in the side tool bay, for a moment at least we all seem ok. Not ok, but for a moment we can forget the hell we live in now. Jane says, “I got Felix to drink some water!” That’s good, I suppose, but I don’t have a lot of hope for our friend Felix.
A Canadian radio station comes on the air. The news is disturbing. They are having mandatory blackouts and brownouts too. The announcer gives the time, 2:30 pm and says they will be off the air by 6 pm. Their weather is a bit better than ours, not much. High in the upper nineties, overnight low in the eighties. No rain forecast. Monsoon type rains in the east down into the US. Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa, out into the Maritimes, severe flooding.
New York and New England and much of the east coast is flooding. Much of Canada too is under the Emergencies Act.
I look at our chilly crew. “I guess it was a fantasy that things were so much better up north.”
Jane reports from the sleeper Felix’s leg looks funny. He’s been shot in the gut too, multiple times.
Jesús tells me to slow it down. The entrance to the camp is close by. Finally, up ahead I see a sign, and a picture of a cross and Jesus and the words Summer Bible Camp! And smiling children in the lake under the words. I slow the truck and make the turn onto the narrow dirt road. Even in the direct daylight sun, it’s a dark and foreboding tunnel. The big chrome exhaust pipes of the tractor are rubbing on the trees, making strange noises that add to the creepy feel of this place. “I don’t know, Jesús, it feels like a trap!”
He looks at me and asks, “Do you have a better idea? At the very least, we have lodging here, maybe food, a place to hide the tanker. Maybe the stream that fed the lake is still running.”
I answer, “If the stream is still there and feeding the lake, others will be there who’ll kill us for our water.”
Jane, suddenly the voice of reason says, “Boys, we are fucking way far out of options. We need to deal with Felix. We need to do something with Hector and out there on the road is worse than whatever this creepy-ass place holds for us!”
I look to Jesús, “She’s right!”
He replies, “I know you’re not a fan of the church, Sam, but these people were good folks. If any are still here, they can help us. We’ve got ten-thousand gallons of water. They will welcome us.
Crawling in first gear, the idling engine pulling us down the path, we are on a slight downward slope toward the lake, or what was the lake. It’s about a mile from Route 11 to the camp.
I flip on the high beam headlights; the tall pine trees have surrounded us in an eerie and early twilight. In the distance, I see a small group of cabins and a bigger building. Jesús points and yells, “Head toward the building in the back. That was the mess hall and clubhouse, a big gym and a nurses’ station.”
I pull the tractor to a stop next to the clubhouse. Looking down at the lake, I’m saddened, but not surprised, to see it is now an overgrown plain of weeds and tall grasses as far as the eye can see. In the eyes of my two fellow travelers, I see the sadness at the dry lake too, and say, “Water isn’t our immediate concern, Felix is. Let’s get him out of this tractor and see what supplies they left here. I shut down the big Detroit Diesel and with it our air conditioning. Opening our doors, we all step out into the hot dry air and dead weed covered ground. Jane climbs out the passenger side with Jesús.
We no sooner touch our sneakers to the dusty dirt and shots ring out. The ground is popping with dust tornadoes, and I hear the plink of lead on the tanker and the fiberglass truck body. I scream at the top of my lungs, “Don’t shoot the fucking tank! What the fuck is wrong with you?”
I’m huddled behind a tire. Jane has assumed the same position on the other side. I can see her feet under the frame. Jesús is talking and walking toward the building. He’s talking, and the shooting has stopped. I’m relieved it has stopped. I’ve had enough shooting today to last the rest of my life.
He yells for Jane and me to join them. As we approach, he extends his arm and hand to us, “This is Rose, a minister, an elder in the Presbyterian church. This is their summer camp.” Rose, a woman, mid-sixties, my guess, is standing next to another woman, in pieces of a nun’s habit. “And this is sister Michelle,” Jesús continues the quick introductions. Both women are about five and a half feet tall and bone skinny.
I introduce myself and then Jane. We are all three still bare chested and once again hot, sweating for the first time, it seems, in days. Part fear and part we are hydrated a bit, I assume.
Jane attempts to make small talk, introductory stuff to the two women as Jesús tells them a bit of our story and how we have enough water for all of us.
I break up the pleasantries. “We have a friend with us. He’s shot up bad. Assault weapon slugs. You can have all the water you want. We need any and all medical supplies you can spare. Gauze, antibiotics, I don’t know. I’m a bartender, not a surgeon.”
Rose speaks to me. “Samuel, is it? I was a nurse in a former life before I was called and became ordained. Let me have a look at your friend.”
I help her climb into the passenger side of the cab. She climbs into the sleeper while I kneel on the seat. Her first words are, “Blood, there is a lot of blood loss. What time did this happen?”
My answer is short and imprecise. “A few hours, six now, maybe four. It was a busy day.”
She examines his body. Felix quietly moans at one point. “Do you think it was an assault rifle that got him?” I reply, “Yes, or an M16, that seemed to be the weapon of choice back there.”
Without looking up, she says, “Those slugs raise absolute terror inside the body. I can see here they went in the front, probably mangled his intestines. Maybe hit the liver or a kidney too. He’s running a high fever now, Samuel. Sepsis…was he a good friend?”
“Was he?” I ask. “Past tense then?”
Rose slides out of the sleeper, and I step out of the cab to give her room. “Samuel, he’s lost so much blood and with the fever now.” This is a kids’ camp. We have some splits and band-aides and Bactine for God’s sake. This man wouldn’t stand a chance in a hospital facility. You’d better get him out of your truck and on the ground. We can say a few words.”
I yell out the cab for Jane and Jesús. They come in a trot. “Here, help me get him down.” Jane starts to ask questions that I ignore. Rose is right. Felix is a hot fucking mess. While I hold him by his armpits, they work him into the seat and then down to the dusty forest floor. Sister Michelle joins us around the body of our friend Felix. As Jesús bows his head and the others follow. I pull the nine-millimeter, the gun he gave me, only a day ago, from the back of my cutoff jeans, and unload two in his forehead.
The assembled crowd says not a word.
“Tomorrow we will bury these guys.” Looking at Sister Michelle, I ask, “Do you have any food? Anything at all? Something for Jane’s tooth?”
She replies, “Rose has been wonderful. She knows the woods. We’ve been living on roots and tubers and some mushrooms that grow here, she knows to be safe. The fish died with the lake.”
Rose, Jesús and Jane are still standing by Felix in a stunned silence. Jesús finally looks my way. “What the exact fuck did you expect me to do, Jesús? At least I had the balls to end it for him.” I turn my attention to Rose. “Pastor, we need food, anything you can spare.”
Rose, possibly in shock, says, “Come!” and walks toward the big building.
Jesus goes to untie Hector’s body and then drags him over next to Felix. Behind me, I hear the thud to the ground like he’s dropped a big bag of dirt.
Then he walks behind us, and we gather outside the main building on a mildewy picnic table. In the deep pine forest night is coming early. I wait as Jane and Rose bring us anything they can find to eat. Jesús and Sister Michelle sit across from me. The nun suggests we pray. Jesús takes her hand. I say, “I’ll pass.” The time for praying for salvation and forgiveness is long gone.
As they say some words; prayers for all of us and Felix and Hector. I think back to just a month ago, a year ago. I again pull the nine from my shorts and lay it on the table. I want nothing more to do with it. I don’t want to carry a gun, I’m no goddamn cowboy. I’m no soldier, or a gangsta, or even much of a thief. I’m a bartender.
I left the Army and then my life behind and chose to hide-out from the world, and adulthood. The life plan was to try to not start drinking before noon most days, pour drinks, light up smokes, and call cabs when someone got too wasted. It was a simple structured life, with free drinks.
In the past year, it’s gone to Hell. I adopted Jane much like one takes in a stray pet. Now this failed man of faith, Jesús, has joined us. He’s a good man to have along for the ride. I wasn’t so sure at first, but I am now. I’m envious of his indecision about God. I’m a soldier again in an undeclared war, where I can’t tell whose side I’m fighting for. Jane asks, what seems like hourly, why no one is coming to help us, and my gut says they were never coming to help us. That was all just part of the show. I don’t mean recently, since the drought, I mean all the way back to 1776.
I think back once again to my mama and her stainless steel and porcelain kitchen, and her pretty apron while she stood at the sink. And snow outside the window and her white bread sandwiches. I don’t blame my mama, she just passed on to me the same lie that was passed on to her. It took this world coming apart at the seams and its desire now to set itself on fire to make me see the lie. What would I give for one of her sandwiches, maybe two thin slices of bologna and a slice of cheese and we’d sit and watch the snow come down and feel the cold on our faces as we huddled up close to the window. Maybe we’d have a bowl of Campbell’s tomato soup. It was spicy. When hot wasn’t my enemy, but a comfort. After our bellies were happy for a time, we’d put on galoshes and thick coats and scarves and gloves and go down to the swamp, just to see how deep the snow was and listen to the ice groan and expand and crack in an explosion like thunder. Standing there freezing and enjoying the moments in the cold, knowing the warmth was only a few stumbling steps in the thick, drifting snow away.
I pull myself back to the reality of our stink and sweat. I feel the starvation in my belly. It was a simple hunger a month ago. I realize as I continue to play with the nine-millimeter I’m not done with the gun, I’d kill a man for a can of beans.
