Chapter Four
****** This chapter is dedicated to ziggylong who has written one of the most enjoyable stories I have come across on wattpad or anywhere else for that matter. It is a rare author who can write a tale that manages to combine sly humor, action, sterling prose, a great story, and do so with success, but he has nailed it! I have to laugh every time I remember a few distinct passages and characters he has created. The story is called King of the Woods--I recommend you read it immediately (well... immediately after you finish Derelict, that is). And after you read his story, maybe you'll understand why this particular chapter was chosen for this dedication.
Everything hurt. The pain was a living, breathing creature feasting on what remained of his body.
There was that. And then, the intense heat.
Beyond that dwelt nothing but blackness.
Time slipped forward and he was aware. Sensations tickled at the periphery of his consciousness yet he was unable to muster a response or acknowledgment. Fragments of voices, bits of conversation, a string of angry curses drifted through his mind, never forming into any logical or cohesive form. There was the realization of movement. He was moving but not walking. He felt the sun warm on his face as he drifted along, borne by some unseen force and powerless in its embrace.
Still, the pain and heat lingered, clinging like a pair of bloated ticks dug in deep. Thirst followed the intense heat and his tongue felt like an oversized wad of dried leather lodged behind his teeth. Occasionally, his mouth would be pried open and a blessed trickle of liquid flowed in. He would gasp and choke, desperate for more but it was never enough.
"Wyatt! It's about time for you to be waking up." He recognized the voice and he wanted to respond but his body refused to cooperate.
It was that boy... er, girl. Rison. His eyes fluttered open to a brilliant sky, nearly blinding until she loomed over him to block the painful light. He was floating, it seemed, for he was horizontal as if carried along like the wispy clouds drifting far overhead. He became aware of the familiar sounds of draft animals, creaking leather, and wooden wheels on the road. These served to comfort him and he realized he was in a cart, gently jostling and swaying as it rolled along.
Another shadow drifted into view. It was a faded green sign, spotted with rust and listing to one side. The number 105 was faintly visible, outlined in an oddly shaped white box and covered by centuries of grime and corrosion. He raised his hand to shield his eyes from the glare and read the word "Charleston."
It was puzzling but incomprehensible.
What also puzzled him was the realization he had been sleeping in the back of a horse cart, his throat dry as sun baked pavement with his entire body aching like he had been thoroughly beat with the stick.
Stick?
Where was Boss? Is the stick looking at me? In a moment of panic, he grabbed the rail of the cart and pulled himself up to a sitting position, fearful Boss would catch him having a slothful moment. "Boss?" The word sounded little better than a croak and his head reeled leaving him dizzy and weak.
Rison was there. "Hey, you're awake." She patted his arm. "He ain't gonna hurt you no more. Never, ever again. You're with us now and he's long behind us." Wyatt knew in some obscure way her words should provide comfort, and on one level they did. Somehow, he was gone from Boss and that was surely a gift he would never take for granted. Then he slumped to the bed of the cart, remembering with embarrassment how he had cowered before the stick, whimpering like a baby too scared to defend himself. She had seen him for what he was; weak and cowardly, a Speck. He was worthless. While Rison leapt into action, taming the wrath of the stick and forcing Boss to back down, he had crawled under the wagon to hide. Yes indeed, the memory came flooding back in all its agonizing and humiliating clarity. Boss had been driven to submission by a girl not even half his size.
He disgusted even himself.
With no strength to sit up and little inclination to do so, Wyatt sprawled across the bed of the cart, staring overhead at a steely sky so fiercely baked by the sun all color had leached from it. It stretched ever onward filling his vision with a muted gray canopy. Rison said nothing more but Wyatt knew she was close at hand. He could hear her walking, hear her humming some near-tuneless ditty to herself, and if he closed his eyes he imagined he could feel the touch of her hand on his arm once again.
Hours passed and Wyatt drifted in and out of awareness. He heard voices again; some calm and concerned, evident by their soft and soothing tones. Others were angry and excitable. An argument perhaps? A fight even? It really didn't matter, he decided. Another time the cart had stopped and he felt hands exploring, searching. He opened his eyes to a grizzled, unshaven face peering at him with an all too familiar look and confirming what he already knew. He was a Speck: worth nothing and treated accordingly.
Yet the man's hands were gentle. "Nothing broken," he said, not speaking to Wyatt but to another, someone outside his line of vision. "He's banged up pretty good and gonna be havin' a mess of bruises and the like, but he'll be up 'fore long. 'Course, keep an eye on him. Maybe somethin' coulda got messed up inside. Ain't no way a tellin' for sure out here." There was a grunt of acknowledgment from another man then the cart started rolling again.
"You hear that?" It was Rison, hovering above. She handed him a tin cup and indicated he was to drink. "Doc says you're gonna be just fine. Nothing broken."
Wyatt absorbed this for a moment, trying not to gulp down the liquid and recognizing only too late the bitter aftertaste. Ratweed. "Maybe so," he allowed, noticing she had neglected to mention everything Doc had said. He moved to sit upright, struggling against the ache in his ribs and arms. Every movement shot a bright ray of pain through him. "But that don't make it feel one bit any better."
Rison shrugged and continued walking. What could she possibly say? Nobody needs to talk to a Speck, he thought. She don't owe me nothin'.
The cart rolled on, its gentle sway lulling him into a deep stupor. He slept, or at least experienced something approximating sleep, but for how long he had no idea. He felt powerless and weak with his arms and legs not only refusing to respond but feeling as though they were disconnected and no longer a part of him. He tried to focus, at first straining to move or even feel his fingers. Nothing. No movement, no sensation. After trying the same with his arms and legs, he realized they were gone. Disappeared. They had deserted him. His phantom limbs were now off on their own, roaming about the cart in an apparent effort to seek fame and fortune. A part of him began to worry about the absence of his arms and legs but an equal part realized he really didn't care. Ha! Let them fend for themselves, he decided. They haven't done much for me. His mind continued to drift with the numb realization a line of drool had snaked out of his mouth and down his face. If he could only locate and then enlist the cooperation of either of his hands he could wipe it away but the recalcitrant appendages continued to ignore him as they explored the cart on their own. Rison would notice, he realized. She would shake her head in disgust at the pathetic, limbless, drooling Speck. It was yet another in a lengthy string of humiliations he could do little to deflect. A tear escaped and joined the drool running down his face.
Perfect. Just absolutely perfect.
Sometime later he realized it had been the ratweed. Rison had given him ratweed to drink, he remembered now. In the fuzzy awareness in which he now dwelt, he recalled ratweed possessing the capacity to induce a near catatonic state. The leaves of the plant also possessed some reputed healing qualities, not to mention fostering a host of hallucinations and odd dreams. Boss often sold ratweed when in season or he could get his hands on a supply. He would send Wyatt, toting a canvas sack, out into the ditches and gullies surrounding Cairo during late summer, not allowed to return to the shop unless the sack was full. A partially filled sack would surely invite unwanted attention from the stick. Wyatt could never forget the bitter scent of the weed drying on racks in the sun. It tasted even worse.
Confusion and hallucinations of errant limbs aside, Wyatt opened his eyes to realize he felt much better. Everything ached, that much remained, but the searing pain and weakness had largely dissipated. He pulled himself upright and leaned against the rail, squinting in the harsh sunlight and realizing no one was guiding the cart. The mule plodded contentedly along, not needing any guidance yet maintaining a constant distance behind the wagon ahead. Rison was nowhere in sight and panic flared in his chest. He was alone. Abandoned! In this heat he would surely be dead within the day. Then he looked beyond the cart to see the caravan stretching out before him and disappearing over the rise. Dozens of carts headed down the road, each filled with people or supplies and surrounded by an equal number of even more people and a variety of goats, cattle, and draft animals. Laughing children darted in and out of the procession with the energy and exuberance found only in the young while the adults occasionally flicked at them with long switches, keeping them from errantly running afoul of the draft animals or the rumbling wheels of the carts.
Dust covered everything, rendering the entire caravan and surrounding landscape a washed out, faded gray. Skeletons of long dead trees dotted the horizon with not a living plant in sight. Compared to the bleak, arid, dead land before him Cairo now seemed a lush garden paradise. No birds flew overhead, no animals scurried for cover at their passing, not so much as a single spot of green grew anywhere within his sight. The sun burned with a menacing intensity, beating down all life and sapping vitality from anything that dared venture forth.
Yet here they were. Alive. And the children were laughing, oblivious of the hostile environment. The incongruity of what he observed baffled him and he could only form one thought: How do these people survive?
"Speck, Speck. We got a Speck!" Two young boys raced toward his cart, chasing and darting with abandon through the caravan. They continued their chant, laughing and hooting until realizing Wyatt was awake and watching. With obvious curiosity the boys approached, their eyes growing ever wider at the sight of an outlander in their midst. As Wyatt's cart drew near, the novelty of a stranger proved too difficult to resist and together they hopped into the back of the moving cart with a practiced ease that looked almost choreographed.
They sat cross-legged, staring at him with a strange mixture of fascination and what Wyatt suspected might have been a healthy dose of apprehension. Together, the three of them sat in silence as the mule continued its inexorable march toward the endless horizon. Wyatt began to squirm under their scrutiny, not knowing how to respond or react to their frank appraisal but he knew what they were thinking. He was a Speck and therefore worthless in their eyes. What remained troubling was why they would show such interest in him?
The older of the boys raised a finger and poked Wyatt in the arm, jerking it back like he had touched a snake.
"Told you so," the boy said. He wore a look of smug satisfaction. "He don't bite after all."
The other boy, a towhead, shook his head in apparent disbelief. "You don't know nothin' for sure, Cabot. He could just be sizin' you up, waitin' to attack."
"Maybe you right. Maybe he just attack at night. He waits until you asleep then sinks his chompers in deep! I bet he's a night feeder, he is." Cabot paused in consideration, again looking Wyatt up and down. "Yeah, definitely. I can see it now, for sure."
The younger one looked sideways at Cabot then back to Wyatt as if searching for confirmation.
Cabot laughed, "Bryant!" he said with an obvious air of superiority. "You're such a baby. You really believe those stories old man Keller been tellin'? He's just tryin' to scare you."
"Oh yeah?" Bryant replied, mustering as much scorn as he could. "Old man Keller wouldn't be doin' that." He fell silent, his hesitancy betraying a lack of full conviction in his words.
"Then you're even a bigger stupid baby than I thought." Cabot jumped from the cart and added with a sneer, "And I don't hang out with babies." He turned and laughed in derision as he trotted away.
Bryant squirmed in discomfort and Wyatt knew the laughter had to sting a bit. "If it matters any, I really don't bite," he said after Cabot lost himself in the line ahead.
At that, Bryant's eyes opened wide again. "You can talk? I didn't think Speck's could talk. They always said a Speck was too stupid to learn."
Now it was Wyatt's turn to feel the sting of words. "Well, I do talk as you can plainly see. Just goes to show that they don't always know what they're talkin' about."
Bryant studied on this, leaning back against the rail of the cart. "I think you might just be right. 'Cause they's always saying I'm a baby. I ain't no baby."
Wyatt nodded in solemn agreement. "So. Where are we anyway? The last thing I remember was Cairo."
The youngster pointed to yet another faded, rusty sign on the side of the road. "Highway 67," as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Wyatt stared at the sign trying to make the answer fit his question. Then he shook his head and waved his arms wide, "No... I mean, where are we?"
"Oh," came the response in a matter of fact tone. "You're in Misery."
Wyatt was now doubly confused. His bruises were evident for all to see, he knew that. But the pain had largely subsided. If anything, he wasn't in misery, rather a general overall ache. "I don't understand."
"Well, maybe you can talk but you sure can't understand a thing, it seems. You never heard of Misery?" Exasperation. "That's where we are!"
This whole topic befuddled Wyatt, so he let it drop. Although, he realized, looking around at the bleak, lifeless landscape baking under the relentless assault of the sun, it sure does appear that things are pretty miserable here.
"Tell you what. If it makes any difference, you tell your friend Cabot that I really do bite and I'm coming for him tonight. That oughta set him back a notch. Or maybe you can bring him back around here and I'll snap at him a time or two like I was a bit peckish."
"He ain't my friend, I can tell you that. He's my brother and he's mean as a snake on a hot griddle. Always has been too." Then a slow grin formed on the young boy's face. "You'd do that? I mean, you'd really say that? Oh, that'd really take the salt outta him, wouldn't it?"
"Oh, yeah. I'd do it. He'd be seeing nothin' but teeth and fangs every time it got dark."
The boy continued to grin, clearly mulling over the possibilities. He stuck his hand out, very adult-like. "My name's Bryant. I guess you might be pretty smart after all."
Before Wyatt could respond, a voice rang out, "Bryant! What you doin' with that Speck?" A lean, sun-cured leather-faced man strode up to the cart. He looked like he had swallowed something sour and it was threatening to back up on him. "Now git yourself back up to where you're supposed to be tendin' them goats. You hearin' me? Rusk get's back and catches you flappin' gums with a Speck he ain't gonna take it too kindly to it. Go on now, git."
Bryant's grin evaporated and he jumped from the cart. "That's my Pa," he said when he was sure the leather-faced man had moved on. "I gotta go"
Wyatt furrowed his brows, confused as to whom Bryant was referring. "Rusk is your Pa?
"No, he's Bono, my Pa," said Bryant pointing at the retreating back of the leather-faced man. "Rusk is the Touri." He lowered his voice and looked both ways before continuing. "And Rusk hates Specks."
He darted away without another word.
For me, this was one of the most enjoyable chapters to write and then reread! I hope you liked it, and if you did, go ahead and let me hear it, will you!