Engine Zero-Zero: Chapter 24

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24

The boy peeled off his goggles and blinked against a red sky. As loud as they were he’d yet to complain about the cicadas—seemed oblivious to the coyote calls in the distance. Under his command the kite gouged and buttered the air like a brick layer’s trowel. It translated him into scratches of cuneiform on the wind. Miller smiled as he watched but it was less of happiness and more at a kind of perversity. It was perverse, the boy being as happy as he was. His bright eyes, his awestruck laughter—it couldn’t all be laid at the feet of idiocy. It was perversion too. The boy asked Miller if he wanted to try the kite and he reacted as if he’d been offered a turn pulling the wings off a fly. He might’ve tried reeling him in but Dendri, David, and the train were miles away so there was no one and nothing to embarrass them.

“Just a little while longer,” he said. “And then we have to get moving.”

The boy nodded and his face turned serious, searching for something he might have missed in the kite. “You going to kill Dendri?” he said after awhile.

Miller frowned, spit. “What makes you ask that?”

“Heard you talking. You going to kill him? That’s what I would do. That’s what I would do anyone talked to me like that.”

“Not going to kill him.” It was one in a long line of things he told the boy but didn’t quite believe. “Not going to kill him and you shouldn’t be eavesdropping on adult conversations.”

“You could. He’s bigger than you but without his arm—”

“That’s enough now. Not going to kill him. Don’t know where you get these ideas in your head but—” Miller turned away and held his hand against the last red mound of the sun. There was a lot he knew about the boy but pretended not to. “Let me see the kite. It’s about time to make the signal.”

“I’ll do it,” said the boy.

Miller shook his head. He didn’t want the boy any more involved than he already was. “Here, let me see it.”

But before he could get to him the boy was already making the signal: running the kite back and forth, tugging on it three times—the same sequence repeated and repeated. Miller was impressed by his memory for it. He was mad at himself for not getting to him in time. The boy kept up with the signal a full fifteen minutes before finally running out of steam and sitting down on the ground with a satisfied yawn.

“That ought to be good,” said Miller. “Go ahead and tie it around that rock there.”

“Can’t we take it with us?”

“Told you we can’t.”

The boy wound the kite string around his hand and for a moment it seemed he might put up a fight, but then he crawled across the ground and did as he was told—did it with a funereal gentility.

“Come on.” Miller held his hand out to the boy, helped him stand. “We got to hurry and get back to the train.”

They crossed the desert in the dark, under stars like salt spilled on a black tablecloth. It all had the tinge of an accident, of mishap. The boy was abnormally talkative and went on about how the next kite he made would fly further, higher, better looking—how he could do it all without David’s help, and how David only knew half of what he said he did. He said he could teach his father.

“Is that why you want us to go and hurt those people?” asked Miller. “Is it to do with David?”

The boy nodded. “He’s too much his people.” They couldn’t possibly have been his words.

“Dendri tell you that?”

“Didn’t need him to.”

“What else he tell you? What else you talk to him about?”

“He says people can’t be both yours and someone else’s, that they have to be one or the other, and that’s why David disrespects me the way he does, is because he’s still too much his people. His parents and his brother being dead’s not enough. He’s still too much his people.” It was odd but there was something like affection in his voice. He wanted to cure David of where he came from, to convert him fully and lovingly to the train.

“How about just leave the boy alone alright?” said Miller. “Stop trying to make him how you want him and just leave him alone.”

Junior scrunched up his face, shook his head. He was quiet, then— “Feet are tired. You let me up onto your back?”

Miller contemplated the boy.

“Feet are tired,” the boy repeated.

“Come on then.”

Miller got down and helped the boy up onto his back, stood and carried him the rest of the way. The desert was cold, conservative. It kept the lizards in just enough bugs, the owls in just enough lizards. It could hold its breath a long time.

The train was dark and hard to see but gave itself away where it blotted out the stars. Miller set the boy down and knocked on the engine. He heard Dendri relax the hammer on his rifle.

“Everything go alright?” Dendri asked.

“Went fine.” Miller climbed up into the engine, found Dendri at the controls and the boy David huddled on the floor in the corner with his head in his arms. “What’s the matter with him?”

“Just tired is all. Had him bring down the lye.”

“Thought we said we was going to do that?”

“Had the time. We ought to unload number two and get them moving.”

Miller went and asked David if he was alright. The boy looked up at him, nodded. He smelled like the lye; his skin and clothes were all chalky with it. “Maybe we ought to leave them here?” he told Dendri.

“Can’t. Need the boy’s help to find the way.”

“Can have him draw us a map or—”

“I want him to lead us there himself. Take us right to them. You’ll do that, won’t you boy? You’ll do that with no messing about?”

David nodded.

“He’s got to be there.” Junior came and stood beside his father, looked down at the other boy. “He’s got to be there to watch.”

Miller put a hand on Junior’s shoulder and squeezed it tight, compelled his silence. “Settle down, pard. You’ll need to settle down If you want to come with us. I don’t want to have to leave you here on the train by yourself.”

The boy fidgeted, radiated contempt, but was silent—made the effort to control himself.

Down from the engine to the boxcars, Miller got a look at the thirty or so sacks of lye David’d carried out. He asked Dendri if the boy’d done it all himself.

“He’s a good worker.” Dendri fumbled with his keys, finally managed to secure the one he was looking for and went and opened up the second boxcar. He held his nose and retreated a few paces. “Smells like more of them spoiled. Let’s hurry up and get them moving.”

They would use the second boxcar, Dendri said, because they were all going to die anyway—would only go to waste. Miller and Dendri tied handkerchiefs over their nose and mouths, went in and unlocked the twenty or so cargo that were still alive and herded them out onto the desert all chained together in a line. It was hard getting them to stand, even harder to keep them there. They were malnourished and sick; their muscles atrophied and their bones brittle. The ones who absolutely could not maintain, who were too weak or stubborn to rise, had their throats cut and were dumped from the line, which seemed to help motivate the others. They were saddled with as much lye as they could carry, given a final once over and promised food and water once they got where they were going—which was a lie—then started off.

Miller whistled for the boys and they came down from the engine.

“Smells like shit,” Junior said about the cargo. “What you think?”

David was startled a moment at being so generously consulted. “Smells like shit, he agreed.

“You do like I said,” Miller told the boys. “You keep quiet. You don’t go anywhere or do anything unless one of us tells you. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“If something goes wrong or if we get separated you find your way back here to the train.”

“Yes, sir.”

Everything was pretending now. Miller only pretended to know what he was doing, and the boys, he suspected, were likewise only pretending to obey. Dendri pretended he wasn’t mad. The cargo pretended it was alive.

It was a long, ghoulish march across the desert. The chains rattled every step of the way. The cargo’s wet, labored breathing only grew louder, more ragged.

“How you know which way to go?” Junior asked David.

“Stars,” mumbled David. “Moon. The land.”

He would tell Dendri which way to go, who in turn would tell the cargo. Junior didn’t like him being so useful, being deferred to, and told him, “You better be taking us the right direction. You try and mess with us we’ll kill you.”

Miller tried chastising the boy but then Dendri only encouraged him.

“Keep him in line,” he told him. “You have to keep them in line don’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

A copperhead, sleeping in a patch of scrub, lashed out and bit a woman on the ankle, sending her toppling (she never screamed, never cried out) to the ground and dragging all the rest down with her, some collapsing from what appeared to be sympathy alone, as if they were all of the same organism. Dendri stepped on the snake and stuck his knife through the back of its head. He excised the woman from the line and coerced the rest of them upright and moving again.

“Ought to finish her off.” Miller said about the woman.

“What for?” Dendri and the cargo, the boys, were already on their way.

“Might make noise.”

The woman lay on her back gasping for air, clawing at her chest and neck. Her face was all dirt, bruising, and scars. Miller knelt beside her with his knife and she demonstrated a surprising reserve of strength in trying to push him away.

“Relax,” he told her. “Try and relax and it won’t be as bad.”

The woman left off him and went back to her chest and neck, what Miller thought was part of her struggling to breathe, until she finally managed to free what turned out to be some piece of paper taped against her body. Miller risked his flashlight and discovered it a photograph, or rather an old magazine clipping of someone he remembered was a movie actor. The man was rugged and sandy-haired; he had sharp blue eyes and clean white teeth. The woman pawed at the photograph as if trying to cajole the man from it. There were tears in her eyes and her whole body shook. Miller asked the woman if she was relaxed then without waiting for an answer clamped a hand over her nose and mouth and drew his knife across her throat. Her blood was too suggestive of being alive and he had to hurry up and get away from her. He took up the sack of lye she’d dropped and slung it over his shoulder.

“Empty gesture,” said Dendri.

Miller cleaned his knife on his trousers. “Didn’t hurt anything.”

“That’s what I said.”

As they continued through the desert they passed more of what counted for vegetation—scrub and thistle and cacti. The cargo would try and veer around it but then Dendri would brandish his rifle and make them go through, cutting up their feet and legs. They never cried out, never complained. There was no will in them but what was put there.

They felt the water long before they saw it. The air was colder, easier to breathe. David pointed out a mass of boulders from which they could see everything, and Dendri, the boys, the cargo waited behind them while Miller climbed up with a pair of binoculars. It was disorienting a moment—the star’s exact reflection on the pond. Torchlight flickered on the opposite shore. Low voices carried clearly across the water.

Miller watched the camp through his binoculars. The people overflowed from a handful of crude hovels and lean-tos, sleeping on the ground, sitting around low fires. It appeared the boy’s signal had worked; Miller counted far fewer men and horses than he remembered and those that remained all seemed to have the same worried, anticipatory mood about them. They were just as hangdog at home as abroad and Miller wondered if Dendri’s plan might not just succeed but on the best possible terms as well. They might even manage the whole thing without the camp ever knowing they were there.

Miller climbed down from the rocks and told Dendri what he’d seen.

“Better get to it.” Dendri gave the cargo a quick once over, tugging on their chains, pinching the cheeks of one half-dead man and telling him to wake up. He told them if they were good and quiet and did as they were told then there was a steak dinner in it for them—steak and cigarettes and french fries—and whether they believed him or not the pictures he put in their heads were so potent that even lying had a hypnotic effect over them. Two at a time was the way they decided to go about it. Dendri selected two of the least decrepit men to start out with, promised them beer and chocolate cake, and suggested—made the pretense of a suggestion—that Miller be the one to shepherd the cargo back and forth between the water while he stay behind and keeep an eye on the rest, on the boys. Miller agreed; anything to get it over with quicker.

“He’s got to see,” said Junior. “David’s got to go with and see.”

“You can stand there and watch from behind that rock.” Miller didn’t want to argue with the boy. “You can watch from there but you have to keep down and keep quiet.” It seemed to placate him and he passed the message on to David even though he was near enough to hear it for himself.

Miller’s intention was to help the cargo carry the lye, to make the work go quicker, but their first deposit in the pond fumed so badly, wreaked such havoc on his eyes, nose, and throat—

One of the cargo started coughing and sputtering and Miller had to hurry and clamp a hand over his nose and mouth to keep him quiet, and in doing, in wrestling him to the ground, ended up killing him. He put the man in the water to keep from tripping over him the next time and he floated on his back with his face up towards the sky. After that he kept his distance, and the laboring cargo were given face masks and switched out every trip so they could catch their breath.

“Beer and chocolate cake,” said Dendri. “Beer and chocolate cake for everybody.”

It made the work go slow, having to take the cargo in and out of their shackles, until Miller forgot to lock the one pair up again and discovered they would stay right where they were, as good as they were, shackles or no. He would send them out into the pond to dump the stuff where it could spread and they would come out again with their legs all pink and blistered. After the fifth or sixth trip the pond was beginning to froth, to look like a witches cauldron, and when Miller expressed a worry the camp might see, Dendri sent one of the cargo, a woman, out to try and mix it all up. She went in like a windup toy, floundered around a moment, wheezing and sputtering, then disappeared below the surface and never came up again.

“Just have to deal with it,” said Dendri. “Just have to move quicker.”

While switching out the cargo Miller noticed David huddled against the rocks and Junior leaning over him hissing in his ear. He asked them what the matter was.

“Won’t watch,” said Junior. “Won’t quit crying.”

“Leave him alone,” said Miller. “Let him do what he wants.” Then, “You’re supposed to be looking after them,” he told Dendri.

The man nodded. “I am.” He was in a state of reverie—a man after sex or a big meal. He humored Miller as necessary to his plan. He tolerated the boys as necessary to Miller.

The work continued but only went slower as the cargo breathed in a higher concentration of the lye. One tripped and spilled their deposit short of the pond and was made to shovel it the rest of the way with their bare hands. Another two collapsed at the water’s edge and were left to die. As bad as the fumes was the caustic heat which made the skin sweat and itch and burn. The cargo turned pink and raw all over and Dendri, who one might expect to have the most sympathy for them after his incident with the fog, just kept sending them back to the water when it was their turn.

Miller climbed back up on top of the rocks for a more complete look at the pond and found the star’s reflection all neutered and blotted out. A young girl went down to the water’s edge and filled a cooking pot, seemed to contemplate it a moment, then carried it up to a fire where an old woman heaped in a bundle of roots. For them it might be poisoning but for the rest it would likely be the desert.

“Treat it like war,” Dendri’d said.

He’d also said they wouldn’t have to be there to see it and yet there was Miller watching the young girl and what must’ve been her grandmother make excuses for their food, because to waste it would’ve been unthinkable. It didn’t seem very traditional. It didn’t seem like something the Romans or the Mongols had done, but something more womanly. It was how women and half-men fought a war.

Up on the rocks Miller was late in identifying a struggle down below. Before he could intervene Junior let out a long, animal shriek—setting off likewise, but only briefly, from David, who as soon as he started abruptly stopped like a radio being shut off. Looking through the binoculars had thrown off Miller’s night vision, and setting foot on the ground he’d trouble parsing out where everyone was. The cargo remained where he’d left then, swaying like drunks, while Dendri was leaned against the rocks dividing his attention between the newly roused camp and what turned out to be the boys struggling on the ground. Miller hurried to pull Junior from on top of David then quickly let go of him again as the boy came away all wet—what Miller’s flashlight revealed was blood. Junior was all covered in blood clutching a knife in his right hand while David lay on the ground bleeding and gasping for air, his eyes rolling around in his head—back and forth between Miller, Junior, somewhere overhead. Junior quit his shrieking but persisted in a low, throaty growl.

“What’d you do?” Miller demanded, holding the boy by the wrists and shaking him. “What’d you do?”

The boy was oblivious to his father, to where he was or what he’d done. He growled, bared his teeth, narrowed his gaze—completely retreated to an animal mind. Miller disarmed the boy and discovered it was Dendri’s knife he was holding. The man was never careless with it and the boy wasn’t even strong enough to open the blade, and yet there he was with it

“Have to send them all out at once,” Dendri said, but Miller was only half listening, was too preoccupied with the blood, the knife, the boy. David’s chest heaved and he sputtered up blood. He wept and he’d urinated himself. Miller crouched beside the boy to try and comfort him but all it seemed to do was make him more afraid. His face spoke betrayal, confusion. What was left of the camp’s men were on their way with torches, shouting between themselves, and it was them who David groped towards, who he tried calling for only to choke on his own blood. Miller thought it was an awful way to die, without people.

“Beer and chocolate cake! Beer and chocolate cake!” Dendri ran the cargo, carrying the lye, out into the pond like a child chasing a flock of geese, crying, “Beer and chocolate cake! Beer and chocolate cake out in the water!”

The cargo floundered in up to their waists, their chests, unloading their lye along the way; and whether by unspoken agreement their time was at an end, or whether because they really did believe in the beer and chocolate cake, continued in up past their head and shoulders, swimming, sinking deep in the chemical churn and never coming out again.

“Let’s go! Let’s get a move on!” Dendri was already running across the desert, firing his rifle in the direction of the torchbearers. They would be upon them in just a few moments—far outnumbering them in even their diminished capacity.

David still hadn’t died yet and Miller was stuck deliberating over trying to win him over before then and leaving him to the camp. He wasn’t sure what he stood to gain by the boy exactly but still couldn’t help a sense of propriety towards him. Junior seemed to be struggling with something similar—had come from his animal detour into trembling and tapping himself on the side of his head. He couldn’t take his eyes off the other boy. It was hard to say what he remembered, how much he recognized was his doing. David’s wounds were many and deep.

Finally the boy let go. His whole body seized and his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he died, and not a moment too soon either, because any longer and Miller and Junior would’ve been torn apart by the camp. Miller snatched Junior up off his feet and took off with him across the desert.

Chapter 25