Desert Wake ✔

Ch. 8: Up the Rabbit Hole

It's too dang windy. I know I should be glad fer it cuz it means we're movin' at a fair speed. But when we stop to rest the goats, the wind don't stop with us.

We're maybe five or six miles south of the farm. The girls have been real toleratin' of us, but I don't know where their limit is at. We ain't seen sign of no one, and that's good, at least. Ro don't wanna stop, but I say we have to. It's the heat of the day and we all feel it something awful. We cain't push the girls through it like this. If the dust takes 'em, what do we do then?

We find some fallen trees, their wood long dried up, that act as a bit of cover, a break from the wind. Our backs to the largest one's twisted trunk, we hunker down, each of us havin' ourselves a carrot, Reba and Nessie included.

The heat passes, but the wind don't.

"Ain't good," I say as we git the girls harnessed again.

Ro holds his hand out to gage the wind, and his opinion don't deviate from mine. "Ain't good."

By evening, it feels like we're gettin' battered by bits and pieces of everything' that ever died out here in this desert. The goin' is slow, but still, we've put nearly fifteen miles 'tween us and the farm. Late that night we find us a dune to block out some of the wind, and we wrap up, the four of us, in our wool blankets. In the morning, ain't nothin' changed, but I know it's bound to soon. And a dune ain't gonna protect us when the time comes.

"This is just what you call the prelude," I tell Ro. "We need to find us some shelter, 'fore the storm hits." And by storm, I don't mean no thunder and rain, as you cain imagine.

We continue on, the girls bleatin' their disapproval. Ain't a goat in the world don't get antsy when they know a dust storm's on the horizon. Pretty soon, we gotta get up and walk, coaxin' them forward, always with an eye toward findin' us a place that'll save us from bein' buried alive.

"Come on Reba." I'm to the point of yellin' now, pullin' on her halter fer all it's worth. I hold out a few kernels of grain and she edges forward. They sky's grown dark, hours 'fore the sun's due to set.

"May." Ro's voice barely reaches me even though we ain't more than a few paces apart. "Up ahead."

There's a building, thank the gods. We finally convince the goats to make fer it, then come to find it ain't no more than an abandoned shack. But it'll do. Ro scrapes away the dust piled up at the foot of the door and then pries it open. It's just an empty room, stripped bare of all its contents long ago. I light our lantern and we get to haulin' in our stuff.

"Look fer cracks." I yank clothes and blankets out of our pack and hand them to Ro. "Anywheres the dirt cain make its way in—we gotta stop it."

We set to work, stuffin' bits of fabric 'round the door frame, 'tween loose slats of wood, into the joints separatin' the ceiling from the walls. When we finish, I stand there with this horrible notion, like we just lined our own coffin. The girls bleat nervously in the corner and I slide to the floor, lettin' Ro fold me in his arms.

"It'll pass tonight, most likely." I nestle in against him. "If this ramshackle hovel don't collapse on top of us, we'll be all right."

Ro glances 'round, calculatin' how far the walls already lean to the left. "I feel so reassured."

The building shakes and howls, and so do we. Goat bleats of terror, tremblin' farm girl wrapped up in her lawbreaker's embrace. We spend a fitful night. I try to stay awake, cuz ain't no way I wanna miss the last hours of my life if that's what these are. 'Fore long though, I cain't help myself, and off I go, into a sorta half sleep state where dreams flow from me, pretendin' they're as real as the sun searin' itself into our parched land.