A light scatter of cirrus clouds hung very high in the west but the sun would dissipate them early; there was no chance of rain until the brief season of cloudbursts of early autumn. If anything was predictable about the Southwestern desert it was drought and the fact that the early afternoon temperature would reach a minimum of 115 degrees and might go as high as 140 degrees. Equally predictable was a nighttime drop of as much as 70 degrees; by dawn the four of them were chilled through.
While Mackenzie worked the skins he explored possibilities and plans. He’d thought of moving camp late in the day but now he rejected it: once they left they’d have to move fast and keep moving and cover their tracks. During the days they’d have to hide out from Duggai and at night they wouldn’t be able to light a fire. It would require meticulous preparation. Earle had to be considered.
They hung strips of meat on cactus spines. A day in the sun should cure the jerky. With bone needles and sinews and narrow strips of hide they set about sewing moccasins. They fitted patterns by laying the hides out under their feet and tracing oval outlines with chalky stones on the skins; they cut ankle flaps and punched holes all the way around the edges and threaded thong lacings through them. They made the moccasins inside out, hair-lined with the raw flesh out. “Put them on and keep them on as much as you can. It’ll dry out and harden-we want them molded to the shapes of our feet.” And beforehand it was prudent to examine the hair for insects.
It took all the hides; there was nothing left over for clothing. But they’d increased their range of movement.
With the three of them working the job was done quite rapidly; for the first time in Mackenzie’s recent memory Shirley showed that she could smile-the little accomplishment pleased and encouraged her.
Just on sunrise he took Jay with him down along the trapline. They dismantled the snares and carried them away. Mackenzie prowled along the foot of the slope and they had to walk half a mile before Mackenzie found a fresh jackrabbit run. He didn’t speak at first; testing Jay, he waited, and it gratified him when Jay made the discovery for himself. “That’s got to be a trail-look how it’s pounded down.”
They set the snares and climbed back toward the cemetery. The jerry-built moccasins abraded Mackenzie’s ankles and provided inadequate armor against the desert surface; it was still necessary to pick footings with care but at least it was no longer an agony simply to walk.
Midway back Jay stopped him. “I want to say something.”
Mackenzie waited for it. Jay was looking up toward the horizon; he brought his face grudgingly around; the low-level sun licked the surfaces of his eyes, putting a shine on them, rendering his face sinister. “Wed have been dead by now without you.”
“Maybe.” Without me how do you know what resources you might have discovered in yourselves? But he didn’t say it.
“You and Shirley-”
“For God’s sake, Jay, that’s beside the point.”
“It can’t help color our emotions.”
“Stop being a psychiatrist. It won’t help us out here.”
“Mackenzie, there was a time I wanted to kill you.”
“I know.”
“Well, I want to express my gratitude.”
“Sure.” He said it gently with a smile but Jay’s thanks didn’t mean much; he’d been groping toward equilibrium but he hadn’t nearly reached it yet and any setback could spin him right off balance again. Any imagined provocation could turn Jay vicious. In normal constraints he tended to bluster toothlessly: his threats to kill Mackenzie had been empty. But out here the placenta of normality was ruptured. They all were poised on the brink of sanity; trust was in short supply all around; several times Mackenzie had felt his own temper slipping free and the next time he might not contain it. And because he fancied he owned a better degree of stability than Jay’s he found no comfort in this temporary offer of the olive branch.
But he showed Jay his smile and they went on up into the camp; Mackenzie was thinking, If he was sure of those feelings he’d have thanked me in the presence of the others. This way if there was an inconsistency no one would know it but the two of them. He didn’t credit Jay with malicious intent; the bet-coppering shrewdness was unconscious.
They cooked a last small batch of meat over the fire and Mackenzie decided to let it go out; there’d be no point feeding it through the day. Fuel was scarce and too dry to make smoke and in any case he had decided against trying to make any kind of signal. If they were spotted from the air and there were any attempt to rescue them it only meant Duggai would finish them off with the rifle.
It was time to carry Earle to his hole. Earle was twitching in his sleep. His skin was hot and dry. When they picked him up he uttered a low incoherent groan. They cleaned him where he’d soiled himself and lowered him into the trench. Shirley said, “I’m worried about him.”
“He’s suffering from shock trauma,” Mackenzie said. “Can’t expect anything much less.”
“What can we do for him?”
“Not a hell of a lot without antibiotics. If he doesn’t get salt fairly soon he’ll develop violent cramps.”
“Feed him saltbush?”
“Some. It may help. But too much of it, he’d end up worse off for the dysentery.”
“Then what can we do?”
“Go out on a salt hunt tonight,” Mackenzie said. “The odds aren’t too bad. This desert was an ocean floor at one time. There’s plenty of salt. Question is whether there’s any right at the surface.”
Shirley searched the horizon. “How could we possibly find it?”
“If it’s there the animals know where it is. After dark I’ll take a hike, see if I can pick up an animal trail, follow it along and see where it leads.” And try to stay out of Duggai’s sights, he thought dismally.
Churlishly it crossed his mind that they’d be in much better shape if Earle died. The leg was going to take at least six weeks to heal. Duggai wasn’t patient enough to give them six weeks or any significant portion of it; another day or two and Duggai would begin to get nervous, start looking over his shoulder, working out the odds that a plane or helicopter might come by.
They had to find some way to survive not only their nakedness and the desert but Duggai’s high-powered rifle as well. Thinking about that as he sank into his trench, Mackenzie felt a dispiriting wave of hopelessness. It was like a hurricane to a man in a small open boat: even if by extraordinary seamanship he managed to conquer one giant wave there was another right behind it and another behind that.…
Anxiety dumped him into a fitful sleep; exhaustion devoured him.
His face felt dry; it was covered with dust and insect bites. A wind blew sand across the top of the trench. His bowels were knotted. He made it up out of the trench and stumbled toward the futile shade of a bush. He had forgotten the heat; when it hit him he recoiled.
He leaned against a branch weak and sweating. Diarrhea burned him and vomit pain convulsed his stomach: he catted up a bilious stream. Bathed in perspiration, scalp prickling, he reeled out under the merciless orange sun. He felt his hair scorch as if it were hot wire.
Far off in the sky a jet made a faint sound like ripping cloth. He caught a tail-of-the-eye movement imperfectly and turned and discovered a small gecko darting into the shade: the only time you saw a lizard was when it moved. Now it sat under the bush, the pulse beating in its throat.
He lurched back to the trench and collapsed into it. For a while he dozed in feverish discomfort: in the heat time had no meaning. The pains came and went, rumbling uneasily in his belly.
Suddenly it was sundown. He lifted himself on his elbows and saw one pale star. Chills swept him furiously; he sank back. Something thick on his tongue had the residual taste of stale sleep but it was heavy and harsh, a sickening pungency that tasted like death. He was afraid. His pulse was thin, weak, rapid.