“What happened to them?” Sal whispered, running up. His hand clutched at me, and his legs wobbled as he stared into the car.
“Locusts,” said Crow.
“It should be too cold,” I said. “It should be good crossing season.”
“Should be, little man.” Crow opened the driver’s door and wound the window up, then slammed the door shut to seal the stench inside. “But should don’t mean shit.”
He was right. It don’t.
And it weren’t long before Sal went and threw up all over my boots.
I worked the rest of the day getting the wheels off the cruiser and rigging them up to my wagon. I even salvaged two extra tires off the dead man’s trailer and I strapped them across our roof. The water in their tank smelled bad and tasted worse, but it kept a hungry mouth from getting thirsty.
The sun was dropping and the wind had stayed down, and we were all famished by the time we uncovered the stash Sal and me had buried. I had to keep Sal from shoving all the corn in the microwave so we could cook it and eat it all right then.
“Gotta pace ourselves,” I told him. “Got a ways to go yet.”
But how far were we heading? I’d no real idea. To Vega, first. That was the plan. We had to get ourselves a GPS by trading something. Or someone. I watched Hina as she chewed her rations and licked her fingers clean. But you can’t go trading people, I thought. You do that and you’ll end up the one not worth a damn.
Still, we’d have to do something. Without the GPS gadget, we couldn’t plug in the numbers that were supposed to lead us to the Promised Land. My father and the trees.
By nightfall, there was only one thing left to be dug back up — Zee’s bag where I’d squeezed my book and the bark, along with the camera and pictures.
I’d deliberately worked around the spot, kept it hid. Problem was, Crow was always around. Always paying attention. And I reckon that made him a real good watcher, but right now it just made him a huge pain in the ass.
“We got to be careful,” Alpha said as I siphoned off the last of the cruiser’s water. “Now he’s got his wheels, what’s he need us for?”
“He needs the numbers.”
“So he takes the woman.”
I glanced over at where Hina was sitting. “I can’t get through to her,” I said. “But she knows things. She knew my father.”
“Just keep focused on finding those trees.”
“She ain’t distracting me.”
“Good.”
“She’s got nothing on you.”
Alpha eyes flashed, and for a moment it was like I could feel the electricity howl inside her.
“You sure know how to make a girl feel special,” she said.
“Oh, you’re special all right.”
“Yeah?” She laughed. “For how long?”
“Stick around,” I said.
“No one sticks around, Banyan. Not for a feeling. Not in the end.” She was grinning when she said it, but I saw her smile disappear as she turned to walk away.
I’d pieced the engine back together and had the wagon ready, but I let them all rest awhile longer. I paced the tarmac with my telescope in one hand, my gun in the other.
Alpha was stretched on the sand and sleeping, and as I watched her I wondered what it’d be like to stroke that crazy mohawk of hers. Or run my fingers across her dirty pink vest. And then I thought about just lying beside her, resting my face on her dusty skin.
It was a clear night and the big old moon was low. The stars looked so close you could touch them. I stared up at the sky, half looking for one of those satellites Sal had said were still up there. Then I shuffled closer to the wagon, to see how the crew was getting on.
Hina and Sal were curled beneath the wagon, huddled in their usual position, her wrapped around him like a mom who’d not realized her baby had grown too big too quickly. I thought about how Sal had talked about Zee when she was living, how he’d gotten crude, said she wasn’t his sister. And Hina sure as hell wasn’t his mother. But he looked pretty peaceful there, all curled up against her. And I figured as little as I knew about love and such matters, that poor chubby bastard must have known a whole lot less.
Of course, who I’d really come over to take a look at was Crow. He was sprawled on top of the wagon, his feet propped on one of the new tires I’d tied to the roof. I pretended I was just pacing the tarmac, but I was really trying to catch a glimpse of his face.
“Your sweet thing sleeping?” he said. I was on my fourth go-around of the pacing business, and Crow rolled on his side and stared at me. “Got yourself a real firecracker there, little man.”
“Take it easy.”
“Think you can trust her?”
“More than I trust you.”
“That all?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Sure it is. You take my advice, little man. Don’t go trusting no one but yourself.”
“That’s what you do, I guess.”
“Only ones I trust are the ones I know what they’re gonna do before they do it. Like you, little man, I can trust you pretty good. Real good, matter of fact.”
I started to say something, but he cut back in.
“Where are the pictures?”
“What pictures?”
“Pictures of the tree. The GPS numbers. The pictures Sal said you took from the house. I not seen you dig them up yet. Which makes me wonder what else you got buried.”
“I got a book,” I hissed at him. “That what you want to know?”
“A book?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Gets cold one of these nights, we can burn it.”
“We ain’t burning nothing. I call the shots.”
“Really?” Crow said, laughter in his voice. “Between me and the firecracker, I’d say you’re just firing on empty.”
I crawled beside Alpha and dug Zee’s bag out of the ground.
“What are you doing?” Alpha said, coming awake in a hurry.
“Nothing,” I told her. “Just go on and sleep.”
She rolled over, and I unzipped the bag and counted out the pictures of the tattoo leaves. I lay the pictures flat on the dirt so I could see that tree again, and then I gathered up the photos and slipped them in Alpha’s vest pocket.
Flicking through the rest of the bag, I found a picture of Zee and pulled it out, thinking I could give it to Hina. I studied Zee’s face in the photograph. And then I stared at the trashed bits of tarmac in the moonlight, the road people built when the world was still growing, before the earth was just rubble and stunted, before everything became punctured and blank.
I left Zee’s picture in the dust. Just didn’t see it doing Hina any good to pass it along. I reckoned some things you do best to remember. But some things it’s best to forget.
I tied the piece of bark around my waist with a plastic cord, and I had my back turned so none of them could see what I’d got there. Then I strode up to the wagon with the book in one hand and Zee’s camera in the other, and I shoved them beneath the driver’s seat.
I jammed on the horn, leaning on it way longer than necessary.
Sal and Hina crawled out from under the wagon with their hands over their ears. Crow stared at me from the roof, the giant moon bright behind him. And Alpha gave me a strange look as she came up, brushing the sand off the back of her thighs.
“Me and my wagon are taking off,” I shouted, yelling to all who’d listen, my voice echoing in the empty night. “You want to find Zion, then jump right in. You got other plans, that’s fine. I’ll leave your ass. Right here in the dust.”