Hunger and Thirst Read online

  Hunger and Thirst

  a short novel

  by

  Wayne Wightman

  This edition also includes two stories from the series

  Matter Is Mostly Space

  “Acrolithia”

  from Mutants (vol. 3)

  &

  “Those To Be Destroyed Are First Shown Love”

  from The Arrival of the Overlords (vol. 2)

  Hunger and Thirst copyright © 2011 by the author

  This was initially released as Life on the Earth.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or living persons is coincidental and not to be desired.

  Hunger and Thirst

  At the earliest touch of dawn, the woman arose and dressed. She then sat on the edge of the bed and placed on her lap a dark leather disk the size of a dinner plate. It was old, her mother's and grandmother's before, and was irregularly marked across its face with peculiar quadrants and private symbols.

  She appeared to hold her hands in prayer over it, till she dropped the six dark things from between them. They could have been twigs, an inch or so long. In the earliest light of day, they landed almost noiselessly, on the leather disk, on her lap, in the house, on the earth.

  ....

  The sky glowed pink and orange over the low Nevada mountains. In the changing light, the desert scrub took on pastel shades of green. In the earliest sunlight, nothing moved until a bird took wing and landed atop a stone outcrop. In the scrub, the ash-colored back of a coyote appeared and disappeared. The coyote's head jutted up, stopped and alert — something had caught its attention.

  In the distance, a buckled and ruined highway made an irregular line across the landscape. Along it, in the waning gloom of dawn, two indistinct shapes moved steadily, two men.

  The coyote was no longer there.

  ....

  Somewhere in their thirties, the two men trudged steadily toward the west. Both wore thoroughly used clothing and carried packs and canteens. Behind them, a gray housecat picked its way behind the younger man.

  Hewitt, the older man, walked more heavily. He carried a bigger pack, and he had an ax handle and a hatchet hanging at his side. He had stopped shaving six months ago but periodically trimmed his beard with scissors, without a mirror, which made his jaw look variously deformed. His teeth were bad and he often complained about them.

  Jack was younger, carried a lighter pack, and walked with a walking stick. Artie, his cat, followed. Occasionally Jack would snug Artie inside his jacket and carry him. One human step counted for about six cat steps on two sets of legs, he figured, so it was humane. They'd been walking all night and would continue till it was too hot to go on, so Jack reached down and scooped Artie up. He instantly settled into a lump inside the jacket.

  “Hey,” Hewitt said, “warmin' up breakfast? I've ate cat a couple of times. Dog's better — more of it, usually. But I'm gettin' in the mood for cat. You ever ate dog?”

  Jack ignored him.

  “I've ate things a dog would puke at. In fact, one time probly a year ago, when I was comin' through Missoura, I seen this dog throw up and this guy I was travelin' with at the time started eyein' it, you know, castin' covetous glances at the barf. I said, 'You wouldn't eat that!' And he said, 'Wull, it's my dog.' But that was in Missoura. They're different there.”

  Jack said nothing. Since he had connected with Hewitt, he often said nothing, but he paid Hewitt close attention.

  They walked another twenty minutes in silence. Then Hewitt stopped and said, “Just a minute.” He shook his canteen, opened it and took a long drink. Jack scanned the landscape till Hewitt was ready to move on.

  “You ever ate dog?” Hewitt asked.

  “No.”

  “We gonna eat that cat?”

  “Artie's my friend.”

  “So? I've ate friends.”

  “If we were friends, Hewitt, I'd be nervous.”

  He grinned. “I've ate enemies too.”

  Again, Jack said nothing, but it seemed to him that Hewitt might be pushing the envelope just a bit.

  ....

  Midday, the heat had come up and they had stripped off some of their clothing. Jack carried a woman's pink umbrella overhead and wore a light, long-sleeved shirt with his coat and undershirts tied to his backpack. Artie rode in a towel sling on his side.

  Hewitt slacked his pace, tied a filthy rag on his head and emptied his last few swallows of water over it.

  “You look like an idiot with that thing,” Hewitt said about the umbrella.

  “They were out of men's styles. On the other hand, you're the height of fashion.”

  They walked in silence a while. Then Hewitt peeled off an outer shirt and draped the collar over his head so it protected his neck and shoulders. “Time to look for shade,” he said, though they didn't usually look till the sun was just past its zenith. He was starting to lick at his dry lips. Jack said nothing.

  After a while, Hewitt said, “You got any extra water?”

  “Nope.”

  “I'm out. That cat ever drink any water? You give it our water, don't you?”

  “I don't have our water, Hewitt. I have my water, you have yours.”

  “You got two canteens. I can hear water sloshin' in one of 'em.”

  “I don't have any extra water. If I did, I'd pour it over my head.”

  “What's that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I don't have any extra water.”

  Hewitt squinched up his face and twisted his head like he was popping his neck. He fell a little behind Jack.

  “I know you think I’m some kinda asshole,” he said. “I don’t have to have no mind-reading degree to know that. It’s been a long two weeks, my friend, walkin’ day and night with a fellow I hoped might provide me with a little humane assistance when the chips went down, as I would provide assistance to you if you was in need, as the Bible instructs us Christian people to do — but from the second minute I was with you, I knew you thought I was an asshole and I might just of well been on my own. I’m a tolerant man, Jack, a patient man, and I held out hope we would assist each other.”

  “You eat your friends, Hewitt, so I'm happy with our relationship just the way it is.”

  “It's been difficult to hold my peace.”

  “Don't work up a sweat, it'll make you thirstier. You have to preserve those bodily fluids.”

  “I don't have to be thirsty at all, you fuck.”

  Still walking on, not looking back, Jack said, “Three days ago before we started across this, we agreed — your water was yours, mine was mine. You remember that, Hewitt? I think your exact words were, 'Fuck yes — that's the only way.' You have any memory trace of this?”

  “You think I'm a real idiot, don't you. You think I'm a first class moron.”

  Jack stopped and turned around. “I think you hear what you want to hear and disregard the rest.” He pulled a very worn road map from one of his cargo pockets and held it out to Hewitt. “We looked at this before we started. You want to look at it again to see where your next water is coming from? Get used to being thirsty. We're probably going to die out here.”

  Hewitt came close enough to knock the map out of Jack's hand. His whole body sneered.

  “It ain't that complicated, my friend. In fact, it's real simple. I'm thirsty and you got water. I'm startin' to be in some amount of discomfitude here, Jack, and I'd appreciate some assistance, if it wouldn't be too big a deal for your tight ass to give me a drink.”

  “Should have thought about that when you poured your water on your head instead of down your throat.”

  “I was hot! And it felt really go
od. I'm askin' you as a travelin' companion, if not as a friend.”

  “I notice you have your hand on your ax handle.”

  “I don't plan on dying out here.”

  There it was. It sounded to Jack like the envelope just went over the edge.

  “Okay.” Jack let Artie slide out of his sling. He unhooked one canteen. “This one's half full.” He tossed it to Hewitt.

  As soon as Hewitt held his hands to catch it, Jack brought up his walking stick and whacked Hewitt crisply on the side of the head. Hewitt staggered sideways and had his hatchet half out when Jack whistled his stick down through the air and cracked it on Hewitt's forearm. He dropped to his knees and huddled defensively.

  “Okay, god damn it, I give! Quit hittin' on me! You gonna kill me now or leave me to die?”

  “Take off your shoes.”

  “What for? You got shoes.”

  “Take off your shoes.”

  “You not really gonna take my shoes.”

  “You want the water or the shoes? Take your pick.”

  “I don't think so.”

  He scrabbled forward, lunging for Jack. Jack brought the heavy end of the walking down on Hewitt's head and then drew it back and gave him a Louisville slug above the temple. While Hewitt struggled on the ground to get his mind and body on the same page, Jack took the narrow end of his stick and pushed it against Hewitt's neck, dimpling it a fair amount.

  “Okay, okay! I give you my shoes!”

  “Tie the laces together.”

  Cursing the whole time, Hewitt struggled with his shoes, knotted them together, and threw them toward Jack's feet. Jack slung them over his shoulder and stepped back a few steps. Then he picked up the canteen he'd tossed to Hewitt and poured half of it back into his other canteen.

  “It's all yours.” He tossed it at him. “Artie. Let's go.”

  They had started on down the highway when Hewitt called to them, “Jack, I don't get it. Whyn't you just kill me and take the water? I was gonna kill you if you didn't give me yours.”

  “You wouldn't understand.”

  “Gimme a try. I ain't as stupid as you think I am.”

  “That's a stretch.” Jack started to walk away; then he stopped. “Okay, here it is. My mother told me when the opportunity came my way, to try to be a nice guy. I told her I'd try. There you go. That's why you've got a few bruises instead of a hole in your neck.”

  “You're right. I don't get it.”

  “Well then, we're both right, aren't we. You don't get it, just like you said, and you're just as stupid as I thought you were.” Jack turned and walked away, under his pink umbrella, with Artie following.

  “Fuck you, Jack.”

  “Have a nice day.” Jack scooped up Artie, slid him into the sling, and they walked away from Hewitt who, after a while, tentatively got to his feet.

  ....

  Jack put a quick five miles between him and Hewitt before finding some afternoon shade. It was a balancing act: Move quickly, but sweat no more than necessary. The shade was a low rise with a few up-jutting sandstone boulders. He dozed off, his last thought a suspicion that giving Hewitt any water at all was a mistake.

  ....

  Natalie dropped the bones on the leather disk. She looked at them a moment and smiled. He was safe. And his name was Jack.

  ....

  In the cooling twilight, Jack roused, got his stuff together and trudged on, toward the Sierra Nevada, their peaks neatly outlined by the creamy yellow sunset sky. Artie dutifully followed.

  Twenty minutes into it, he looked up and jerked to a stop. A good stone's throw ahead of him stood two men and a woman, all haggard, dressed in whatever castoffs, looking equally startled and somewhat fearful.

  After a pause, one of the men moved slowly closer, holding his hands out, conspicuously empty. “You trade?” he said over the space between them.

  “I'm low on water and I have an extra pair of shoes.”

  The two men and the woman whispered together.

  “We don't have any extra water, but you can use the woman for a little bit if we can have the shoes. She says she don't mind. The shoes would be for her anyway.”

  “That’s all right. I don’t have the strength for any exercise. Water’s what I need. I don’t have much left.”

  The three whispered again.

  “We don't have any extra water, but we got a can of corn we can give you for the shoes. It's got some water in it.”

  Jack nodded and slipped the shoes off his shoulder, went forward a dozen paces, put them down and backed away.

  One of the men pulled a yellow-labeled can out of a backpack, showed it to Jack, then took it out to where the shoes had been placed on a symmetrical piece of asphalt. The trade was precisely made and the man hurried back to his friends. They handled the shoes and whispered excitedly.

  “Hey,” Jack called to them. I got those shoes from a guy in a red plaid shirt, five, six miles back. I'd keep away from him if I were you. Even if it weren't for the shoes.”

  One of the group waved back as a kind of thanks. They circled around past him and within a minute had disappeared into the twilight.

  ....

  Hours later, in front of a very small campfire in a shallow hole, Jack took a few items from his backpack. He was more tired than usual and needed the rest. Surrounded by dark and darker scrub, Artie watched with great interest. A small cup, a little aluminum skillet, a spoon, a packet of flower seeds, a few dark lumps of dried meat, and the can of corn.

  He looked over at Artie. “The edge, my man, is getting pretty thin. But tonight, we feast.”

  Artie paid close attention to Jack's hands when he cut one of the chunks of meat in half. When Jack put it in front of him, Artie settled and held it between his two front paws, like a dog, to begin gnawing at it.

  Jack used his pocket knife to open the corn and drained off some of the juice into the cup. He took a few sips and savored it. Then he took a wide bottle cap out of his pocket, poured a few tablespoons of water into it and set it near Artie.

  “There you go, pal.”

  Artie occupied himself while Jack dumped half the corn into the skillet to heat it. He began eating out of the skillet right away.

  “Here's he deal, Art. We're going to need some luck in the next day or so. Or you're going to be on your own. And I'm afraid, pal, you won't last much longer than I do.”

  He poured in the rest of the corn and began eating. Even luke-warm was wonderful. Halfway through the second helping, he stopped.

  “Here.” He took out the full chunk of dried meat and rolled it across to Artie. “You might as well have this too. The rest of it's in this pocket, see? If I go down, try to remember that. Are you paying attention, Arthur?”

  ....

  The fire only glowed and no longer crackled. He had slept probably an hour, from the movement of the stars. He lay with his head on his pack, his jacket on, covered with a skimpy tarp. It was time to get back on the road, but he was cold and still tired. Artie sat in a bunched lump on his chest and occasionally glanced down into his face.

  “You ever wonder about waking up dead, Arthur? I'll bet you don't. It'd be a good way to go. We probably won't be that lucky.”

  Jack adjusted the pack under his head.

  “I hope you and I get to do this again. This isn't bad, you know? We both have something in our stomachs, we're not that thirsty, got a quiet place to sleep, and we don't have to wonder if Hewitt is going to murder us before morning. That's the bright side. But now I have something serious to say to you, Arthur. I know this probably doesn't bother you as much as it does me, but if I end up in a ditch tomorrow — or whenever — I give you permission to have a snack at my expense. In fact, feel free to gorge yourself. Invite friends.”

  Artie's eyes closed and his head drooped.

  “I knew it wouldn't trouble you all that much.”

  He got himself up. It was hard work. Dehydration made everything harder.

  ....
/>
  Natalie studied the bones. If he gave up too soon....

  She tried to eke out the faintest hints from the bones' positions on the leather. It would be difficult for him, yes... but that was all she could get from it. This did not please her.

  It remained to be seen how hard he would push himself. If he didn't make it, it could be another long, long wait.

  ....

  The day got hot faster than usual. Jack walked under his umbrella with Artie in the sling. He had his last sips of water two hours before, his lips had dried, and he did not walk purposefully. His only hope was to encounter another traveler who would give him water, but the road in front of him stretched for miles and miles and there was no one there.

  “It's gettin' rough, Artie. I shouldn't have been such a nice guy. Curse you, mom. I should've kept the water.” He let Artie slide out of the sling. “Good luck, pal. Stick close and use me for shade. You'll probably get your last big dinner tonight... all you can eat.... My treat.”

  He walked, umbrella overhead, Artie liquidly following over the uneven asphalt. Jack sometimes walked with his eyes shut for a few steps if the asphalt wasn't too broken up. It wasn't safe, but it so helped his stinging eyes.

  He could roll down into the ditch and turn to leather, but Artie... he had brought Artie out here. He wished he'd done something different, a lot of things different, maybe even stayed in the Midwest.

  With his eyes shut on a brief stretch of even pavement, he was thinking of resting. Sitting down in the sun and resting. He could get up later, get a little further... rest again....

  Staggering, his eyes shut, mouth open and his head dropped back on his shoulders, he thought he heard clinking, like ice clinking in a glass.

  One of the final signs, he thought.

  He imagined a cool blue lake, water splashing white and crisp on rocks, a faucet pouring icy water into a glass....

  He heard it again, louder, and very distinct, as though he were passing beside it. He stopped and pulled his gluey eyelids apart. Glare momentarily blinded him.

  Beside the asphalt, amidst a few tumbleweeds, stood a woman in a green silk sheath that reached to her ankles. Gorgeous and fresh, she looked as though she'd just stepped out of a shower and put on the first unreal thing she found. Her full black hair hung in loose curls across her shoulders.