Snakeskin Road (3 page)

Darl came out about two and went off from the rest of us. He didn’t even ask the driver for water because we all had to ask that now. There’s no food to share. I tried not to think about my hunger. Darl, he just stood alone
.

It was weighing on us, the ozone, the heat, all of it drifting down. I worried about the baby. What was the sun going to do to me and the baby? Would she dry up into a shell? She’s hungry. Still hungry. A girl, Mama—I feel her wanting to grow. I should’ve packed food, but it was only a six hour drive. That’s what they told me to expect when I left Fatama
.

At two, after Darl had joined us, I think it was around two when Iona tripped out from under the coat she was
holding, sprung forward, and collapsed on the ground. We had a little shade, an angle from the bus fenders and tires, but the shade did her no good
.

Everyone circled Iona except for Darl. Lavina called to him, and someone mentioned water, so the driver stood up and brought it as Lavina and Mazy dragged her into the shade. Another woman fanned her with a broken fan she had in her purse, so we all got close enough to cool her with whatever we were holding. I remember thinking, Is this it? Is this all we have to keep ourselves alive? All we can offer one another? Fanning?

The driver told us, If she’s dead I don’t want to give her anything. Make sure she’s not dead. He wrapped a fist around the top of the jug, which was wrong—you should give everything, right? But he was being selfish for the rest of us. We needed someone to do that. I couldn’t have done that
.

Lavina yelled for Darl because he knew CPR and Iona wasn’t breathing. She lay there with her cheeks as pink as ours, red and swirling, her gray hair specked with sand. And Iona didn’t move and that was the scariest thing—her not moving even as we fanned her neck, her palms, up her arms and down, faster and faster. Someone called her Child, Come back to us, Child. Honey—several people said Honey. Letting her die was the beginning of our own death. We couldn’t let that happen. Occasionally Iona’s lips quivered as if she wanted to respond, or her head jerked, those swirling red cheeks getting darker
.

Darl just flung one hand back at us, claiming he was tired. He said those on the bus were already dead
.

Lavina told him, Get over here. They’re dead, but she’s not
.

He asked, What’s the difference? And crossed his arms
.

Darl—Lavina said it like she was calling Mazy to attention. And so he did. She made him. So he did
.

Darl kneeled down, touched Iona’s face, then asked the driver for the water. There was another pause between them
.

If it was you lying here, what would you want? Darl asked
.

The driver wanted to know if she was dead already
.

What would you want? Darl said it a second time, louder. Then he grabbed hold of the jug
.

He put some on her lips, cooled her face—dripped the water, rubbed it into her cheeks, and the wind picked up and cooled her. My tongue swelled dry; I couldn’t swallow. Darl touched her neck, held his fingers to her wrist, then set his palm against her breastbone. He breathed into her mouth, counted, pushed against her, counted, breathed. Over and over this ritual until something cracked underneath his hands, the far-off snap of a sweetbay. And he pushed again, harder, and breathed and counted, stopped. She said nothing and didn’t jerk anymore. The water he had rubbed onto her face, what made her glisten for a moment, evaporated, leaving her red swirling cheeks full and blue
.

Darl stood up, dusting his shirt, crying, just that moment, then no more. And me, I wanted to rub my fingers under his eyes, steal those tears—I could see where they were—touch them to my lips and take the grit and dust from my tongue—so selfish. Hungry. Thirsty. I couldn’t stop my wanting
.

Like Darl, we all moved away from Iona, afraid that the death surrounding her might enter our shoes, our sore skin. Quietly, we did this and didn’t talk for the rest of the day; conversation was no substitute for coolness, for water and food. We saved our energy for the next one who fell
.

At night, it started to get cold, so we climbed into the bus. Even with the windows still open, there was the smell of supper dishes left out too long and rotting—those bodies in the back. The driver helped Darl throw them out with the other dead. We helped, too. It took all of us now to do it—all of us, so weak
.

Someone thought it’d be a good idea to walk to Birmingham. But the driver said that was crazy. Birmingham was sixty miles
.

It’s cool enough to go in the dark, the man said
.

You’ll be lucky to track fifteen before morning, the driver assured him. And the sun’ll be waiting, the driver assured him. That coolness won’t last
.

The man wanted to know if any mining camps were close, but the driver said there were none
.

We’re going to die, then, someone called out; there
was a new whisper of Oh Lord, Jesus, do not forsake us, do not; I know we’re going to die
.

Shut up, the driver said and grabbed a seat back, lowered himself down. The curls in his hair were sweaty from the work of lifting dead bodies, from the day in the sun, from the storm, the accident. The bruise was so sunburned, his left eye had been swallowed up in the knotted skin. He opened the cap on the last jug and gulped, then handed it over to me
.

One drink, okay? The rest for tomorrow. He nodded and I nodded. I pulled the hair from my face, the loose strands that had dried in the corners of my lips. I closed my eyes and washed the salt, the sand from my tongue. Afterward, my tongue and throat were just as dry as if I had had no water at all, no memory of it, nothing. I couldn’t hold on to that moment
.

June 24—Friday early

Mama
,

I can’t leave much of a note here, because the patrollers have found us. Patrollers out of Birmingham, and they’ll be taking us there. I was staring at the black sky, the trees not far away, splintered and pointing. I was listening to them snap off—the forest vanishing, becoming a burial of trunks and limbs and sand—when a light flashed over like a downed sun. Someone was here, but who? People were shuffling outside, talking, then laughing—they were looking at the dead bodies. One of the
patrollers climbed up and beat on the door until the driver pulled it open. He shone a light in
.

Found the lucky ones, he called down to his partner and yawned and grumbled for us to get out. So I’m getting out, Mama
.

June 26—Sunday

Dear Mama
,

I couldn’t write you for two days and now I’m worried that I’m going to die, that my baby, your grandbaby Mathew’s baby will never be born. We’ve made it to Birmingham, but it’s not the Saved World, Mama. Those checkpoints that kept us out for years—they solved nothing. The desert has come north. Are you all right? It won’t get to Chicago, I promise that. You’ve escaped the desert for good. I just don’t know how to get to you any longer. And there’s no returning to Fatama
.

When the patrollers showed up, they led us to the back of a trailer, the word Horses washed out on the metal overhang. Someone asked about the suitcases
,
could we bring them? An officer shook his head, warned everyone, You or your bag—choose. We don’t have a lot of space
.

But all your letters to me were packed up, still in the cargo hull. I couldn’t get to them
.

Another woman, she already had her bags—large and red, one in each hand—she marched past the officer
.

Without turning, he called for her to put the bags down, said he’d leave her in the desert. Then he squared his hat and told her again, Put it down
.

She took a few more steps before flinging her red luggage on the dirt like a child would, and she ducked under the overhang, went inside the trailer The ones who had already fished out their suitcases from the cargo hull clicked open the latches and started shoving toothbrushes and combs, small pieces of clothing, money—US bills and even mining scrip—into their pockets
.

There was a brooch that kept slipping out of the contractor’s hand, shiny and black like an oversized eye. It fell in the dirt, and she dug it up, blew the dirt off. The brooch slipped out once more, so she grabbed at it, and this time the pin stuck her and she jerked and the black eye stuck in the ground
.

Lavina said the brooch wasn’t worth that much trouble
.

But Gail said it was her great-grandmother’s. It was worth everything
.

Carefully, she took it, closed the pin, and dropped it
into her pocket, the officers saying to get up now, come on, get inside, rounding their arms, pointing us to the open gates
.

We walked forward, our clothes torn, and dark except for the flashlights, where the light fell on us, the officers shining them, spinning them, catching a hip, an elbow, down the barrel of the arm to the wrist, hands touching on something, a calf and hair. We were like horses going in
.

At least, Mama, I have the black box, the stationery you gave me, and some of your letters. I wrapped both arms tight around it, smothered it so they couldn’t see and couldn’t take
.

Come on, the patrollers said, whistling, and the whistles took off, shot through the black desert, where they warped and grew louder, refusing to come back to us. I got in, the last one
.

We were told they didn’t have any water, and when I tried to give my visa, the closest officer said it was no good, pushed it out of his way. Someone wanted to know about the dead bodies, but they shut the gates and pulled off. The few standing up began to fall, and the rest of us shifted so they could have a seat on the metal floor
.

Sometimes metal at night can be cool, but it wasn’t. Just dull and a little warm as if another group of people had been sitting here talking, whispering moments ago. It was easy to imagine that—their hands pressed on the same metal and loose straw, their knees bent into anchors
.

Thank goodness we’ve been saved—they had said like we were saying now—You heard him. Birmingham. That’s where we’re going
.

And the patrollers, Mama, they said nothing about the dead bodies, just left them
.

Above our heads was a row of small windows, the sky too black and gray to change into blue, dry into blue we had read about and been promised. The sky Mathew talked of in his sleep
.

It’s blue, he would say over and over. Sky, he would say, twisting up the covers
.

I’d lie there and rub his head ’cause once I get woken up, it takes me hours to calm back down. You know, Mama, ’cause you’re the same way
.

All right, baby, all right now, I’d whisper to him just like Darl had whispered to the injured ones on the bus. Then I’d shush him like you did me, like Lavina did
.

He’d keep asking, Do you see it? Blue?

Yes, I’d finally say, yes, it’s right there
.

Sometimes I’d point as if his eyes were open, as if the gesture might convince him
.

But he wouldn’t let up. Do you see it?

I remember the ceilings of those houses we lived in—mostly dark and plaster or tin or wood, and the wind gusts blowing across, always blowing until No, I said, No, I don’t see the blue
.

He was right not to trust me, Mama, and I’d turn away from him for leaving me hopeless, Mathew never
realizing what he’d done. Asleep. So I was unfair, and no one to talk with about it, that hopelessness digging at me worse and worse
.

All night the patrollers drove toward Birmingham, the trailer bucking at the torn highway and bucking us off the metal floor, and I waited for the black to change to blue, for it to change into something good like Mathew had dreamed of. If not that, I hoped to at least find stars
.

Instead I found small yellow lights as we approached the city gates, stretching across a high, black wall. Birmingham is a fortressed city—but maybe you know this already from when you came here on your way to Chicago and wrote about it in a letter that the government marked out, so I couldn’t read, couldn’t know what you tried to tell
.

We got closer to the city gates, and in front sat the curling shadow of barbed wire. The wire and the wall extended like two rivers out of my reach, and the patrollers stopped just inside, told us to get out
.

One of the officers said a food drop was in Linn Park, and pointed down the highway—State 11. He told us to follow it. He was the larger of the two and had a black band on the arm of his shirt. In the light I could see him—a rash across his neck, a birthmark, red, spreading from his left ear down, like someone had scalded him
.

The patroller said the government had set up three other shelters, but the one at Linn Park was the closest and safest. Just take 11 to First Avenue. They had water and food
.

The whole time he talked and pointed, I looked back at the wall where two spotlights flashed overhead. Two more officers stood on the wall with rifles pointing out. At first I assumed those rifles were meant for us. Then I realized they were aiming into the blackness just beyond, into the city, to where the darkness, the full and undertow of it began to pull. There. And beyond there, lights, too small and disparate to hold, too distant to reach, like stars that would burn your hand if you snatched them close to your neck or shirt. But I knew the sun would be up soon along with the white haze—I could feel its thick net waiting to take over, the heat of it already building. What happened to Birmingham? That’s what I wanted to know. What happened to the city, the gateway from the Southeastern Desert to the Saved World?

The others kept saying, What’s going on? Birmingham’s not part of the desert
.

And Gail said that they couldn’t send her into that mess, not like this. She worked for the government
.

What kind of hell is waiting for us, anyway? she wanted to know. She drew her energy from the ground through her boxy shoulders, her face wet with dirt like all our faces, and Gail told the officers, You ought to be fair about it. Her feet and shoulders perfectly still
.

The officer with the black band said that a consulate had been set up in Linn Park—any problems could be taken up there. His job was to pick up everyone outside the city caught in the storm and bring them in. That’s all
.

Bring them in for what? the bus driver asked. I’m going out that gate
.

He nodded one stroke at the officer and almost fell. The swollen bruise on his face was leaking from the eye. Since getting out of the trailer, he’d been wobbly, and he said, You’re not leaving me here
.

The first step he took, the officer glanced at the wall-guards. One of them drew his rifle. Then the officer stepped in front, crossed his arms, but the driver was too large and kept moving. So the officer shuffled back, and when he did, he tripped into his partner
.

For a second it was a comedy, two officers falling on themselves, our driver trudging ahead until they reached for their holsters, a spotlight was on us, and their hands went down, flashlights hitting the dirt, and the wall-guards took aim. It was, of course, what we had already played out in our minds—this is how we would die, this is exactly what would happen—shot and no one to help. A comedy, a mistake. What we knew happened to desert people who crossed the wrong border. How else could it go?

But the patrollers untangled themselves and tried to stand up. For a moment, nothing
.

So I did what you had done, Mama, that night years ago on the Pearl River when Terry yelled at that group of marshals fishing—he had such a temper. They had come down from Memphis with six deserters, stopped halfway to the Shreveport coke mill, halfway to “piss at some
fish,” they said, and laughed. We heard them, the three of us sitting inside Terry’s truck, where he had taken us after work and school, pulled up on the bank. But then he got out and kept saying there weren’t no damn fish here, and didn’t they know that? They’d better leave, wasn’t their damn river, that was crazy, like anyone owned a river—and Mama, I remember you just grabbed him and pulled him away—that crazy thing he was saying and doing—you just pulled him away before they could take him. I saw you step forward and hold Terry and remember what you said?

Love me. You stop this now and love me
.

You held him so tight that he couldn’t get outside of you. When you said, Love me, he turned away from the marshals, looked at you until he lost his anger, its purpose, lost himself. I had said nothing. I was just eleven. Too afraid, still in the passenger seat with the window down, watching
.

So I thought of your hands, how strong they had to be, and put mine on the driver’s shoulders and stood beside him. It’s not that I had the strength to keep him in place or even that I could reach deep across his wide frame and hold him, but I startled him. So he stopped
.

How far to the shelter? I asked the patrollers
.

Less than ten miles, the other one spoke, gawky and long-chinned, first time he spoke since he pushed away my visa. He looked relieved that I had said something he could answer easy
.

The driver didn’t move
.

Ten miles isn’t so bad, I said. We can manage it
.

Behind us were those lights, those tiny stars, that maybe we could web into a map and cut a path. Highway 11—isn’t that what the patroller had said? I already felt the walk in my legs getting ready
.

The driver shook off my hands and insisted the patrollers take us in before the sun got up, or at least give something for us to drive in with. He asked for water—Everyone’s thirsty, he said, but the edge in his voice was gone
.

We got nothing for you, the officer with the black band answered. I’m sorry. Water’s at the shelter
.

I wanted to know if we were still in the desert
.

The other patroller nodded. Until there’s a shift, he said, Birmingham’s part of the Southern Alabama Zone
.

The driver asked, What if there’s no shift? Then he said, Not going to be. You know that, right? You know that already? The desert’s here and going to stay here
.

He was having a hard time catching his breath and he leaned against me. I thought of Iona, how she had tripped out into the sun and died and Darl couldn’t bring her back. The driver kept raising his sleeve to his eye where the liquid pooled. He could barely touch his bruised face
.

The patrollers grabbed their flashlights and looped around us—a big loop so none of us could get too close—and drove away, kicking sand up in their wheels the way they came in
.

The gates closed behind the horse trailer, and that’s when I realized we were all alone, truly alone. No one was coming for us, walking out from that darkness. The city was vacant, desolate, just those small white lights in Birmingham to lead us down
.

The men on the wall didn’t leave. And that’s when—I hadn’t seen it—that’s when I noticed the posts set in front of the wall—short posts with signs—they showed up every so far. They all read: Any Person Found Beyond This Point Will Be Shot
.

The driver walked over and pointed to the closest sign and all of us followed and stared. We hadn’t read it wrong. The words wouldn’t change. So we turned, started down Highway 11
.

The spotlights clicked out, and one of the officers lowered his gun. The light glowed around him until the blue buzz of it and his body like a core of tungsten completely disappeared. The only lights were the yellow ones along the wall encased in thick glass shells, that river of them going on and on, and the even smaller glimmers awaiting us in front, just a few of them with no pattern. White stars
.

I can’t write any more about it today, Mama. I don’t want you to worry, but I need to tell you, need to talk to someone. I can’t write anything now
.