The Zona (25 page)

“Boy, I’m pretty sure that place doesn’t exist.”

Lead spit in the sand.  “I’m pretty sure it does,” he said.

Lead let his finger drift to the handle of his Cleef.  The rag man cleared his throat and shifted his seat.

“I’m on my way to New Mexico, maybe Albuquerque if it’s still there,” the man said nervously.

“I’ve heard there’s a lot of radiation zones out there, hot enough to kill a man pretty quick.  You should consider New Pueblo,” Lead said.

The prospect of a traveling companion excited him; to have someone to talk to, another human being to interact with instead of silence or the rustling of hidden animals and desert winds.  He could share the light of God.

“If it’s all the same to you friend, I’ll keep traveling my way,” the rag man said.  “I don’t believe in radiation, anyway.  All that nonsense about invisible beams killing you, government made it all up.”

The rag man turned the lizard in the fire.  The smell of sizzling meat was intoxicating to Lead.

“No offense to your pilgrimage, I just plan to go my own way.”

Lead was briefly disappointed, then he rationalized that it was God’s will to let the man pass.

“Why are you leaving the Zona?”  Lead asked.

“Lots of reasons. Were I to pick only one, I reckon one large one in particular, it would be the fact that I’m a drinker. When I find spirits and alcohol I consume what I can.  When a young man, I used to joke that I was just trying to kill the beast inside me.  As an old man I recognize it as the truth.  I got a beast in me that demands I drink, and there’s no fixing or distracting it.”

Lead rationalized divinity again in his mind.  He unraveled his car seat satchel and produced eight tiny liquor bottles.  Lead held the bottles up to the fire’s light.  The colored liquids radiated warmth.  The rag man forgot his discomfort and drifted closer to Lead.

“You truly are a holy man.  I tell you my problems and you bring me the solution and more problems.  If you don’t mind sharing your wealth, I don’t mind sharing my dinner.”

The rag man’s eyes flashed eager in the fire light.  He wet his lips with a brown tongue.  Lead placed four bottles in the man’s palm.  The rag man’s hands shock as he unscrewed the first bottle and held it up to Lead.

“Cheers, brother pilgrim,” he said and swallowed the contents in one swig.

The rag man closed his eyes and slowly shook his head in ecstasy.  He held the now empty bottle over his heart.

“Scotch whiskey.  Scotch whiskey is the patient man’s reward.  It tastes silkier with age, and I tell you pilgrim, this little bottle has aged.”

The rag man licked his lips again.  He opened his eyes and gestured to Lead.

“Please, I don’t want to drink alone.  Have a drink with me.  It will stoke your appetite.”

The rag man motioned for Lead to drink.  Lead unscrewed a bottle and sipped the contents.  Instantly, his mouth and tongue burned, Lead coughed and his eyes watered.  The liquid spread warmth throughout his limbs but left the tasted of burnt toast on his tongue.

“That was not silky,” he croaked.

The rag man laughed and downed another bottle.

Lead steeled himself and drank the rest of the bottle.  His body shook and more warmth spread to his chest and stomach.

“Where’d you find such goods?”  The rag man asked; he sipped his next bottle of gingerly, savoring the taste.

“A big car.  A limo, I think.”

Lead pulled the word “limo” from his childhood.

“A few days back I found a limo, these were inside.”

Lead’s words were somehow heavier and harder to get out of his mouth.

“That makes you lucky, these have value,” the rag man said.

Lead grabbed another bottle.  The label showed a man in a dapper suit, much like the mummy from the limo.  Lead twisted off the cap.  The liquid smelled distinctly of juniper berries and fluids used to clean metal.  Lead drank the liquid and steeled himself again for the bitterness and inevitable shakes.  The rag man watched Lead with open amusement.

“I’m guessing this is your first time drinking?”  He asked.

Lead nodded his head; he did not trust his mouth to speak properly.

“Well that was gin.  I’m not a gin man, but if memories serves, that was a good brand you just drank.”

Lead ran his tongue across his lips.  His mouth had grown numb.  The rag man pulled the burnt lizard from the fire and cut strips of meat off with a rust speckled kitchen knife.  He handed Lead three of the greasy strips.

“Hope you don’t mind eating with your hands,” the rag man said.

Lead devoured the charred meat.  It tasted better than anything he had ever eaten.

“Sss good food,” Lead said, his words slurred together.

He finished his food and reclined in the sand.

The rag man licked grease from his palm and fingers.

“I got another good reason for leaving the Zona, if you want to hear it,” the rag man said.

Lead lifted his head off the sand; he had been drifting into dreams.  He smiled and nodded at the rag man, the hot food and intoxicants made him cheerful.

“This place is fucked, that’s why.  I’ve been in Arizona my whole life and this place has always been fucked.”

The rag man nodded his head as though agreeing with himself.

“Storms come in and kill men, viruses come in and kill men, and after all that, man goes and blames himself for all those deaths.  There ain’t a lot of people living and breathing but we go around murdering each other just the same.  I’ve never known or heard of a time when man wasn’t committed to one war or the other.  That’s fucked.”

The man nodded to himself again.

“I don’t care if New Mexico or Nevada are nuclear hot zones, or if Utah is a haven of murderers and bandits, or if California is flooded, ravaged and a breeding ground for the new and particular diseases.  The Zona is fucked and I’m leaving it.”

The man stirred his fire with his meat skewer.  Sparks drifted up into the night sky.

Lead nodded again.  His mind swam in liquor, his eyes drifted back to the stars.

Lead woke alone next to the cold ashes of the campfire.  The rag man had left in the night, after Lead had fallen asleep.  Lead slept through the morning into the late afternoon. The sun shone bright and dangerous.  Lead’s face and hands were coated in sweat and sand.  He searched the camp site for his belongings.  The rag man had stolen his leather satchel with all his liquor and water bottles.  Lead searched for a foot trail but the shifting sands had covered the passage of all men and beasts through the night.  Lead took shelter from the sun in the shade of sage brush.  He accepted the loss of his goods as God’s punishment for drinking.  When the sun dipped low enough, Lead left the camp and continued south.

XIV. An account of Lead’s second visit to Tucson and the violence done therein

Lead stumbled upon the outskirts of Tucson at the dawn of his sixth day out of Purgatory.  As before, the dilapidated structures were alive with the shifting and shuffling of lepers and virals.  Lead walked down a street of dirt and blacktop rubble kept clean and pressed by the constant influx of hooves, wheels and feet.  He arrived back at the church that had briefly housed the ex-Preachers.  Lead stared hard at deformed faces peering out of windows and doorways.

“Bring me Reverend Greek.”  Lead demanded to the invisible crowd.  He hefted the broken .44 and shook it.

“Tell him Lead is here and has goods to barter for food and water.”

A man with half a face exited a building.  Lead recognized the twisted man from his last visit to Tucson.

“The Reverend thought you may be returning, please follow me, quickly.”  The twisted man sprinted into an alley between the church and another building.  Lead ran after the man, ducking clothes lines and weaving around trash heaps to keep up.  They left the populated part of the city and went into an area long ago reduced to rubble and black char.  The Reverend sat at a plastic lawn table, sipping tea.  Lead caught up to the twisted man and stopped, heaving at the effort of running so fast.

“Welcome back, Preacher.  I’m sorry that you did not reach your destination,” the Reverend said.

He took another sip.  The teacup was brilliant white porcelain, thin as paper.

“I’m also sorry to hear that your friend was robbed of his mortal life.”

“Where…did you…hear…that?”  Lead said between gasps.

The Reverend frowned and placed the teacup back on the table; he lifted his left hand from under the table and placed it next to the cup.  It was wrapped in white cloth, stained red and seeping with blood.  For the first time Lead noticed how much paler the Reverend’s face was.

“I heard it from the man who came through here following you to New Pueblo a few weeks ago.  From the very same who came here last night and demanded that I release you to his custody.  The same man who took my middle and ring finger for his keeping after I told him I had not seen you.”

The Reverend lifted the teacup back to his lips.

“The Crusader,” Lead said.

“He said his name was Eliphaz.  I told him that was not possible.  Even after everyone changed their names, after the theocracy formed, they picked good Christian names.  Jacob, Nathan, Lazarus, Matthew, Saul, Abel…no one would pick Eliphaz for himself.  Don’t get me wrong, Eliphaz is biblical, but Eliphaz was a traitor, a nonbeliever, a villain.  It was Eliphaz who mocked and scorned Job, who had done nothing to deserve his fate.  You know what he told me?”

“What?”  Lead asked.

“He told me Eliphaz was his father’s name, and then he took my fingers.  He didn’t ask any questions after cutting them off. Just took them and walked away.  I would have told him where you were if I knew, and he knew I was being truthful about not hiding you.  I told him everything I knew prior to the cutting, but he took my fingers just the same.  Not in malice or in rage, just to do it, I think.  Why would God make a man like that?”  Reverend Greek took another sip of his tea.  “Why are you back here?”

“I came to trade for food and water.  I’m going to New Pueblo and I need supplies,” Lead said.

“And what have you brought to trade, a man escaped from Purgatory can’t have much?”

“I’ve brought this,” Lead said.  He untied the broken pistol and set it on the table.

The Reverend’s good hand caressed the .44 caliber.

“You’ve brought me a broken firearm in exchange for precious supplies.  This is not a very good trade, Preacher.  Not to mention I count you part of the reason my hand is less two fingers.  I’ll give you supplies, but you must repay the debt of my hand.  I’ll make you a deal.  Throw your broken gun away.”

The Reverend drew a six-shooter from his jacket pocket. It was the same pit barreled .38 he had carried from Las Vegas to the end of his preaching days.  It was the gun he and Terence had traded for food and water so many days ago.

The Reverend placed the six-shooter on the table next to Lead’s broken gun.

“I’ll give you your .38 plus ten rounds.  That’s a hefty sum, goods whose value can be measured in scarcity.”

“The gun won’t sustain me, all I want is supplies and the freedom to go on my way,” Lead said.

The Reverend laughed.  “Well said, Preacher.  The gun won’t sustain you to New Pueblo, but the Crusader Eliphaz and his fellows won’t allow you to reach New Pueblo either.  They are camped on the roof of that building.”

The Reverend lifted his hand and the twisted man grasped it and pointed it at a building on the edge of the burn zone.

“If they are keeping three-hundred sixty degree surveillance, then chances are you’ve already been spotted and they’re coming to kill us all.  If they’re focusing south, and no one has traded your whereabouts for silver, then you are still unknown to them.  Eliphaz told me he knows you.  That he knows your soul.  That you are going to return to the Highway Nineteen to bury your friend.  He said the souls of sinners are to be read like street signs, and yours was no different.”

The Reverend turned his face to the building.

“There are three of them; they’ll be on the roof, where visibility is best.”

The Reverend pushed the six-shooter forward with his incomplete hand.  His face grimaced against pain both sharp and fresh.

“You could surprise them.  You could stop them from stopping you.”

Lead picked up the gun, all six cylinders were loaded.  Reverend Greek withdrew an envelope from his pocket and placed it on the table.

“Four more rounds.  You are now the possessor of every single .38 caliber bullet in all of Tucson.”

Lead tested the weight of the gun.  He rolled the cylinder against his palm.

“I’m not a killer,” Lead said.

“I beg to differ, Preacher,” the Reverend said.  “It doesn’t matter if you are a killer or not.  We live in the age of the killer.  Killers are the only people left in the world.  You’re a killer by the very nature of standing here, and if you don’t fulfill your duties as a killer, other killers will see that you cease to exist.  Peaceful men don’t live anymore.  Good men don’t live any more.  We’re just winding down the clock until the Earth finishes us all off with weather and viruses or we finish ourselves with our own viciousness.  But that’s all philosophical.  You owe a debt.  Eliphaz owes a debt.  If you want supplies, I’ll see my debts be paid in full first.”