Desert Wake ✔

CH. 1: What's Owed

He climbs up from the gulch, scorched dry these past eight years, draggin' his right leg like he don't want nothin' to do with it. The sun shines on his face and I think, he ain't real. Cain't be. No one comes out of that gulch. Not no more.

But unless mirages talk, he is real. This one, he talks, and he says his name is Rordan, but I cain call him Ro on account of the fact that Rordan is kind of a mouthful. The way he says it, I gotta wonder if he means in general, or just fer uneducated common folk livin' on the edge of the desert. People like me.

Two R's in one name ain't exactly a tongue twister. I don't argue the point, though, cuz I'm too caught up on the fact that this man, maybe twenty turns 'round the sun or so, is here at all. And what does he want? That's what I gotta find out. So I say, "Whadaya want?" but he just laughs at me. It's a nice laugh, not meant as belittlin'. Still, I'm annoyed and confused by it. It ain't funny to wanna know what a strange man walkin' up to my porch fifty miles south of nowhere wants. It's downright logical. I cain feel myself edgin' towards Frank, who's restin' against the back of a rickety pillar, the one barely managin' to hold my roof up over the porch. Not yet, Frank, not yet. I gotta use my words to settle this, if I cain.

"I want water," the man, Ro, reports. He cain't seem to stop grinnin' even though this ain't exactly the kind of predicament that would make normal folks happy.

"Water's a need, not a want. Didn't your ma ever teach you the difference?"

Ro laughs again and I take a step closer to Frank, who's still hidin' real good. "I guess that's true. I need water, and I want a place to rest for the night. I'm willing to work for a cool spot out of the sun, and maybe a little food too, if you have any to spare."

"Well, what cain you do?" I gotta ask him, cuz food to spare ain't exactly as common as the dust rollin' into the pastures with every passin' wind. If he wants some, he's gonna have to earn every bite.

"I can do whatever needs doing." His words shake free from his throat like a moth castin' off its cocoon.

Well, I'll be. Desperation exists behind that handsome no-care-in-the-world smile, after all. He's been bakin' in the sun too long. Soon his brain's gonna be all fried up, along with that cornhusk head of his, and he knows it. The fool part of me wants to let him right in, no questions asked, give him a tall glass of water and a bed to sleep on. The rest of me, the part that's almost in reach of Frank, thinks, not so fast.

"Everything needs doin'," I say, and that's true enough. The farm is in shambles as I'm sure this Rordan guy cain see fer himself.

Ro knows he's not gettin' too far with me. He tries fer a different approach. "Do you have a father, or a husband? Is there someone else here I can talk to?"

"The cough got pa and ma years ago," I tell him cuz there ain't no point in pretendin' those people still exist when they don't. "As fer a husband, you see a man worth marryin' anywhere near these parts, you just let me know." I feel like spittin', that's how much I think of them men, boys really, who roam these dusty plains. Ain't no use to them beyond a roll in the hay... and then where does that leave you?

"So... you're all alone here?" That's said with genuine surprise, along with a hint of something behind them blue eyes of his that I cain't quite decipher. I don't like not bein' able to figure things out, especially when the thing that needs figurin' is the motivations of a proper-talkin' stranger.

"Well, until Granddad gets back from his trip," I yank Frank out from behind the post, "it's just me and Frank, here."

I aim Frank at Ro's head, right between them pearly marbles of his, to which he responds with an understandable, "What the hell?" If he was a bit surprised that I'm holdin' my own on this farm, he's downright flabbergasted at the sight of a shotgun being drawn upon his person. He don't seem too familiar with the experience, probably on account of the fact that guns are illegal here on our peaceful little world. "Where did you get that?"