Authors: Wayne Wightman
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.
Jack's umbrella tilted to one side. It was over. He knew he was mad. But it was a lovely hallucination.
“Here,” she said. She held up a sweating glass of iced tea. The ice clinked in it.
He just had to stare. He hadn't seen a woman in months, and he hadn't seen a clean one in... forever. Or ice.
“My name is Natalie.” She rattled the ice a little. “You look pretty thirsty.”
He reached for it. He knew that at the first sip he would probably wake up chewing dirt, but his imagination insisted. The glass was cold in his hand, wet, and under his nose it smelled cold and was cruelly icy down his throat. He chugged half of it down before he could stop. He dug the cap top out of his pocket and dribbled some into it and put it on the ground behind him, in his shade.
He took another look at the woman and then finished off the glass. But he held onto it for the ice.
“My name is Natalie. I live just on the other side of that hill. I have plenty of water if you'd like to stop for a little bit, wash up and have something to eat.”
“I must be dead.”
“You don't look particularly dead. You still look thirsty, though.”
He stared at her. She wore high heels. This could not be.
“Is that silk?” he asked feebly. It seemed conclusive proof that he was mad.
“I wanted to make a good impression.”
Natalie stepped nearer and put her hands on each side of his face. “Jack,” she said into his face. “You're not dying in the desert, and I am real. Probably more real than you are, at the moment. You need some help.” She slid the straps of his pack off his shoulders. He started to resist and then let it go. “Let me carry this for you. Just follow. In ten minutes you can have all the water you want. Even a shower. And there's more iced tea.”
“Ice?”
“I have ice. Not a lot.”
“Are you sure I'm not dead?”
“You're not even close.”
He followed her up the rise, away from the highway, on a path that was barely visible. Somehow, she managed to walk in loose rubbly dirt in high heels, and she did it with elegance. He had no words for how she moved inside the green silk sheath. He was mesmerized.
“I've been watching you for the last half hour. I don't usually invite travelers to my home. But I thought that anyone who traveled with a cat shouldn't be too dangerous.”
A clean woman, green silk dress, high heels, and iced tea? “Wait. I'm still not buying this. I'm going to wake up... in the middle of nowhere with a mouthful of sand.”
“You're not in the middle of nowhere. You're practically in my backyard.”
“That's what I mean. There shouldn't be a backyard out here. You're wearing a silk dress. High heels. You're clean.” He looked at the glass in his hand. “You have ice.” He slid several pieces of ice into his mouth. It hurt enough to be real.
As they walked on, she talked to him over her shoulder. “I saw you coming and thought I’d put on something nice. And one really should be clean, even if no one’s around. It gets lonely out here and I thought you might like to rest up and chat for a while. I have lunch ready. Would you like some lunch?”
“If you have other people behind this hill,” Jack said, “and you want to rob me, you can have the pack. I've already been robbed several times. You can just take it.”
“Why would I give you a drink if I were going to rob you? You would already have been robbed. Save your energy. For lunch we have iced tea, roasted rabbit, potatoes, and cold gooseberries.”
“Gooseberries? Rabbit?”
“I admit, the gooseberries are out of a can. But the rabbit is fresh. I also have wine.”
Wine? She might as well have said she had a third arm. Everything was a non sequitur.
Around a slow curve in the trail, they came into sight of her home. It was a sleek and clean dome house with a solar array across its top panels. A few leafy shrubs grew around its perimeter — unlike anything Jack had seen in the desert. Behind the house stood two modern windmills, neither turning.
Jack staggered behind her. He couldn't take his eyes off the place. It was completely hidden from anyone traveling on the highway — an oasis anyone could walk by without knowing. He could have died just a three-minute walk from this woman and her pitcher of iced tea.
“Would you like to eat soon?” she asked, opening the front door.
He heard piano music in the background... Chopin? He hadn't heard music in months, Chopin in years. But he had seen a piano in Kansas City.
And then the smell seized him... roasting meat... he could see the browned crust....
Inside the door, the house was large and open. The kitchen was separated from the living area by a counter and four stools. Near one curving section of glass wall, the dining table had a panoramic view of the vast desert and the distant Sierra Nevada.
“The view from the upstairs deck is better,” she said.
Jack found that hard to believe. He breathed in the aroma. “You have music. I haven't heard music since Colorado.”
At that moment, Jack saw what Natalie had arrayed on the dining table. White cloth napkins in brass holders, plates with an archaic design, a bowl of steaming potatoes in their skins, a salad—
“How can you have salad?”
Natalie shrugged.
—wine glasses, a bottle of wine, and a rose in a narrow-necked vase in the middle.
“I feel like dirt in an art gallery.” He became aware that he still clutched the glass of ice she had given him. He held it out to her. “Could I have more, please?”
“Of course.”
“I left Artie's water dish back at the highway. Could I use something, put some water on the front step?”
She handed him a small bowl of water which Jack took to the front step.
“Artie! Here you go.”
Artie had been under one of the bushes for shade. He belly-crept forward and began to drink.
Jack turned back to Natalie. “Can he come in?”
“Certainly. If he wants.”
“C'mon, pal.” He picked up the bowl of water and placed it inside the house, just around the door corner. “Come in where it's cool. No coyotes in here. C'mon, Artie. Looks like we'll see another sunrise.”
Artie stuck his head over the threshold, saw Natalie, flattened his ears, hissed, backed off and disappeared in two leaps.
Jack looked after him, mystified, then replaced the bowl of water to the outside. “He doesn't trust strangers.”
“I'm sure he'll be fine. Would you like lunch now?”
“Could I have some more water, please?”
“All you want. I have a well.” She refilled his glass.
He slopped water out of the corner of his mouth and onto his shirt. He looked down at himself, standing in the middle of her spotless house. “I'm filthy.”
“You could wash up.”
“Like, with water?”
“All you want. Would you like to take a shower?”
He just looked at her. “You're not going to get me in there and kill me, are you?”
“In the shower? I'd get my dress wet. It's the second door behind you. I've already put towels out for you.” She wore a mona lisa smile.
“Towels?”
“When we're pretending to be civilized, we use them to dry ourselves after bathing.”
“You really have water for a shower?”
“With knobs that you can turn to make the water warmer or cooler.”
He was staring at her again. His amazement had dulled just enough that he thought he might not be dead.
....
Jack drenched himself and then let the water just pour over him. Cooler, warmer, cooler, drinking it, squirting it out of his mouth, throwing handfuls in his face, he was in heaven.
Natalie appeared on the other side of the shower door. He froze.
“Here's some shampoo for you.” She opened the door and handed it to him. “Take as long as you like. Lunch will be ready when you are.”
“Uh, thanks.”
She snapped the door shut. “See? You're still alive.” And was gone.
Jack looked at the bottle of shampoo as though it were an alien product.
“If I'm dead,” he said to himself, “this is better.”
Later, out of the shower, he buried his face in a thick white towel. After drying off, he looked at his irregularly spiky hair and six-week beard. With one of her combs, still undressed, he combed his hair several different ways, none successful, in his estimation. “Civilization makes me look bad.”
Natalie came in behind him with a stack of folded clothes. “I heard that.”
Jack stopped moving, horribly aware of his nakedness.
“And I disagree,” she said. She was close enough behind him he felt her breath on his back. “Wear anything here that fits,” she said. “Your back's still wet.”
In the mirror, he watched her put down the stack of clothes, pick up a towel and dry his back. She was all business. When she finished, she held up a shirt from the stack and said, “Turn around.”