Then he shied like a startled pede.
Somethin's botched. He blinked, unsettled, not knowing why he had startled, or why that thought had suddenly popped into his head.
Somethin's real broke.
He sniffed at the air, but what he sensed had nothing to do with smell and it raised the hair on his arms. He clambered nimbly up the side of the wash, even though it was three times his height, to stand at the edge of the plain.
The Gibber stretched to the horizon in all directions, a flat tableland, with small stones strewn across a shiny, crusted surface of gleaming deep mauve. Here and there a few tiny plants survived on moisture that condensed from the air at night. There wasn't much: saltbush, spiny beggarchild and gummy plant. None grew more than a few inches in height, preferring to creep along the ground rather than reach towards the desert sun. The earth in between glistened with tiny fragments of purple and pearl-coloured mica as if the plain was sheened with starlight. All that was normal, but he spared a moment to envy his brother as he absorbed the scene: he would have liked a name like Mica, named after something so shiny. By contrast, the rock shale around his settle was always so grey and dull and dirty.
Distant hills made humps along the horizon, and mirages moved in a shimmering dance in front of them. Nothing odd there: sand-dancers were always around in the heat of the day. And then his senses stirred once more, and his body tautened in response. His head was full of sensation, rough-edged and scratchy feelings that brought a thrill of excitement and a depth of unease.
Water. It was water, water in pieces, all broken up into bits that wouldn't stay still. He knew the feel of water, but not like this. He frowned in bewilderment as he searched for the source. Then he found it. A smudge blurring the clarity of the open sky above the rounded bumps of land. A cloud. He'd seen those before. He'd even felt them, all bursting with water. But not like this. Not all mucked up and on the verge of shattering. And not when it wasn't expected. Anxious, he returned to the wash, hefted his resin bag onto his shoulder and headed down the path along the dry riverbed.
The sun was directly overhead when he reached the top edge of the settle. Here the wash widened to contain two streets lined with houses, each with its walled garden. Both streets were no more than rock-hard earthen laneways running the same way as the wash. The garden walls had their sun-baked daub reinforced with stone, their only protection against the force of flash-flood stormwater that barrelled down the wash twice a year, as regular as the star cycle of the skies above.
Mica was waiting for him there. "What you been doin', you little wash-rat?"
Shale shaded his face with his hand, grinned up at his brother and shrugged. "Gettin' me some resin."
"Pa's lookin' for us. He's as wild as a spindevil."
Shale tensed. "Aw, Mica, what's he want now?"
"Rishan the palmier offered him tokens to crush the shell of the packpede that died way back. Pa says we got t'do it. Reckons he'll buy some meat with the tokens."
Shale found himself salivating just at the thought. It had been more than a year since he'd eaten meat. Gathar the butcher must have salted the dead pede. "You sure? Pa's more like to buy a calabash of amber and drink hisself stupid. I don't want t'work just so's he can belt me when he's slurped."
"Nah, it's all right. Ma told old man Rishan to pay direct to her. But we best hurry 'n' get started. I been lookin' all over for you." He grabbed his brother's arm and hauled him down the main street. "Sooner we start, sooner we get t'eat some meat."
Shale pulled himself free, then had to run to keep up. "Is Pa goin' t'help?"
Mica snorted. "Not bleedin' likely, the waterless bastard. Don't worry, he won't lam into you for bein' late, not if he wants you t'work."
Nonetheless they sped down the slope of the street to the lower end of the settle. Shale had rarely entered any of the houses to either side. Sometimes, when there was no one around, he would try and peek through the water slits to see into the gardens. It was easy enough at the top where Gravel the reeve lived on one side and Rishan the palmier on the other. Their water slits were the widest because they were entitled to the most water when it came down the wash and the streets became rivers. However, the slits narrowed as the street descended the slope towards the bab palm groves planted in the wash below the settle. You couldn't see anything at all if you peeped through the narrow slits for the last houses, where Stipple the potmender and Shard the jobman lived. He'd tried.
Emerging from the lower end of the settle, near the entrance to the underground cistern, he sent an anxious glance to the left-hand side of the wash, where a few sorry hovels huddled at the top of the bank. The first belonged to his pa, Galen the sot. Even from where they were, Shale could hear his pa shouting at his ma, Marisal the stitcher, although he could not make out the words.
Mica made a face. "We gotta go tell him you're here."
Ma, a thin, gaunt woman now heavily pregnant, stood outside the burlap curtain that was all the door the one-roomed hut possessed. To Shale, the contrast between her thin arms and legs and the bulge of her stomach was grotesque. He was vaguely sorry for the coming child: already unwanted and waterless, and the little grubber hadn't even been born yet.
The boys slowed and sidled up to her, warily eyeing their father. Galen was small and wiry and tough. Years of drunkenness had blurred his mind and twisted his spirit, as well as added a tremor to his hands. He was sober now, though, an indication more of the state of his purse than of inclination. Unfortunately, sobriety did not always mean evenness of temper; both his sons knew that.
He looked at Shale, his brow gnarled with anger. "Y'found him," he said to Mica. "Where you been this time, you spitless bastard?"
Long experience had taught Shale not to answer questions like that.
"Lazy little git; you're never around when there's work to do. Think we can feed and water you for nothin', eh? By all that's wet, I dunno why that stupid slut of a mother of yours ever had you to start with! You find any resin today?"
"Some," Shale mumbled, keeping his eyes downcast.
He swung the sack off his shoulder to the ground, and Galen hefted it to see how heavy it was. "That's all?" He raised his arm.
Mica went to pull Shale out of the way, but his mother prevented him, grabbing his shoulder. "Mind y'own business," she said, and then muttered in his ear, "You want him t'lam into you, too?"
Galen swung at his younger son, and Shale rode the blow, already moving away as hand and cheek connected. He fell anyway, dropping as if the blow had been much worse.
"Now git yer blighted spit outta here, the two of you," Galen roared. "The carcass is down in the grove in Rishan's plot."
The two boys ran. Just before they scrambled into the wash once more, Shale looked back at the sky. The cloud had vanished, but he felt the water still. It niggled at him, in his mind, in his chest. Botched, he thought again. I know it.
"Pede piss," Mica muttered as they walked through the shade of the grove trees. "I didn't think the bastard would slam you one. You all right?"
"Yeah. Wasn't hard. Reckon you were right-he didn't want t'hurt me when there's work to do."
"I hate 'im, Shale. Sometimes I hate 'im so bad-"
Shale shrugged. "He don't hurt me half as much as he thinks he does. An' you know what? I reckon when we're growed, he'll be scared of us."
"Sometimes I reckon he'll kill you first if he goes on like this. And Ma never does nothin' to stop 'im. Bitch." He took a deep breath. "Shit, I don't want nothin' to happen to you. Not ever. You're a good littl'un."