Slumped against a wall in the darkest corner of a low-slung building, the man dozed fitfully through the stifling heat of the long day. Beside him lay his young nephew, fast asleep beneath the shelter of a filthy tarpaulin. The man had been roused from his slumbers more than once by a sudden loud bleat or a wet honking snort. He soon drifted off again, taking comfort in the certain knowledge that his nephew’s sleep suffered no such interruptions.
The two had abandoned their crippled car about five miles behind. They walked as long as they dared along the steadily brightening highway, then raced toward the nearest available shelter seconds before the first searing rays of the morning sun appeared. The boy’s disease made daylight travel impossible.
He had collapsed the instant the two of them entered the cool darkness of their temporary sanctuary. The man dragged the boy’s limp body through the muck to the rear of the building, where he tucked him gently against the wall. By virtue of the boy’s presence—as did most all of God’s creatures—the fattened pigs gave both man and boy wide berth.
Exhaustion had long ago combined with the stress of their journey to push the man past his known limits. But in those brief moments of interrupted sleep, while waiting for darkness to fall and the boy to awaken, the man let his mind wander. More often of late, he found himself thinking about the sun. He wasn’t well educated, but you couldn’t live in this world without knowing a little something about the sun. What the hell did he know about it anyway? He knew the ancients had worshiped it: Persians, Egyptians, Greeks. The whole lot of them. The Romans had even named a day after it.
Sometimes he thought the ancients had gotten it right, and the Bible had gotten it wrong, that in the beginning was the sun, and not the Word. It made more sense to him that way. And in his most blasphemous moments, he wondered if the sun itself was God and the ancient legends were true, that those most cursed by Him were doomed forever to wander the earth in eternal darkness, infernal creatures who were never again permitted to set their eyes upon daylight. But in the end, he always rejected that thought out of hand. One thing he knew for sure was that the boy who slept beside him had done nothing to deserve that. Nothing at all.
From somewhere deep within his half-consciousness, an inhuman scream snapped the man fully awake. Wiping the sweat from his eyes, he glanced up to see an enormous black and white sow was now giving him the evil eye. He shrank back in fear for a moment, seconds later grinning stupidly to remember where he was and what had brought him here. He relaxed a little and settled back to watch the pig for a while. For some reason, this pig had separated itself from the . . . what was it again? His logy mind struggled to recall.
A herd? A flock? A crunch?
Whatever the hell it was, this one acted different from the others. None of them had dared venture closer than about twenty feet or so, leaving a kind of semicircular no man’s land between man and beast. But it looked to him now that the monster in question had taken it upon itself to start patrolling the invisible barrier that separated them. And the more the man watched, the more brazen the pig became.
It began scraping its conveniently ham-sized hooves against the dirt as if about to charge, before apparently thinking better of it. But after each abortive attempt, it looked the man in the eye and punctuated its frustration with an earsplitting squeal. And though the man was reasonably certain he was safe while with the boy, he found himself taking a peculiar dislike to this particular pig. The longer he watched it, the more certain he became that the feeling was mutual.
Managing somehow to tear his eyes away from the strange sideshow, he began taking stock of his situation. Rays of sunlight still streamed their way through the myriad cracks in the building, creating tic-tac-toe patterns along the dirt floor and upon the high backs of the pigs. But it seemed that the light was weaker somehow, tired looking, late afternoon sunlight. His bladder calling, the man turned and saw a small doorway cut into the back wall. Crawling over, he raised the latch holding the door shut and went outside.
Unaccustomed to even this weakened daylight, he squinted and blinked a moment, rubbing his eyes before reaching down to drop his zipper. From behind, he heard the occasional sound of a lone car or truck zooming down the highway a few hundred yards away. While emptying his bladder against the cracked foundation, he peered around the corner and saw row upon row of long and low-slung structures identical to the one he and the boy had spent the day in. Overbuilt for housing pigs, he thought.
Shaking off the last few drops, he raised his zipper and strolled around the side of the building. Through the deepening shadows he saw what he was looking for, a rusted spigot jutting out from sun faded yellow trim. He walked over and turned the handle, letting the brown-tinged water run for a while. After it cleared some, he cupped his hands together and began drinking copiously from the cool stream. When fully sated, he plunged his head beneath the now crystal clear liquid and kept it there a while.
His mind was clearer too when he walked out of the shadows and raised his head to the afternoon sky. The sun was low on the western horizon, the diffuse daylight turning the dense, smoky clouds into a kaleidoscope of purples and pinks and oranges. He stood and watched a while in a mute, almost religious awe as the sun sank lower, keeping its daily appointment with the craggy peaks to the west. For the next few minutes, the sky exploded with color. The man had heard about them, even saw pictures in a magazine once. But this was his first Arizona sunset.
When the sun finally went down behind the rugged mountains, he gathered himself enough to get back on his belly and crawl through the small door. While making his way through, a lesson from the Catechism of his boyhood inexplicably popped into his head:
“. . . thou art cursed . . . upon thy belly shalt thou go.”
He resisted the childish urge to bless himself while other memories flooded back.
God sees you Daniel Patrick Proctor!
No, he doesn’t. That was bullshit. Sorry, mom. He didn’t believe in curses. Even with all he now knew and had seen with his own eyes, he still believed in science. And that was where the boy would find his salvation.
Why then do you run from daylight? Why do you sleep with pigs?
Back inside the building, through the twilight shadows he saw the large sow still patrolled her ground. The man shook his head at her audacity while crawling over to his still sleeping nephew. The boy would be awake any moment now. It happened about the same time every night, and for a reason he still could not quite articulate, the man liked to be there when it happened.
Glancing up to reassure himself it was truly dark enough, he reached over and began slowly peeling the tarpaulin away from the boy’s sleeping face. His blondish brown hair appeared first. Boy needs a haircut, the man thought, smiling inwardly. The boy always needed a haircut. At least that much hadn’t changed. As he moved the tarp lower to reveal the boy’s gaunt features, his inward smile began to fade. His heart sank.
If anything, the boy looked even sicker today. His bone white skin was luminescent enough to give off a sallow, unhealthy light of its own. He had lost even more weight overnight, but that was no surprise. The boy refused to eat. He suspected the boy had made a few abortive attempts, even thought the boy might have gone through with it once after he returned from a furtive nighttime outing with what seemed a bit more color in his cheeks. But that had been weeks ago.
Reaching over, he tousled the boy’s hair, drawing away suddenly after running his finger along a nasty groove carved into the right side of his head. Steeling himself, he moved his hand back to run his fingers across the boy’s now misshapen ear. That can be fixed, he thought. The boy had never told him how he had received his injuries. The man had never asked, suspecting the boy himself didn’t quite remember. There simply hadn’t been time to ask the boy’s friends about it, the ones who had cared for him while waiting for his uncle to show up. Of course by then, head wounds were the least of the boy’s problems. While brushing his fingers along the fourteen-year-old’s cheeks, he wondered sadly if the boy would ever be able to grow a beard.
He sighed deeply. There was so much that neither of them knew. Overwhelmed suddenly with love for the boy, despite his recent blasphemy, he closed his eyes and said a clumsy prayer for his sister’s child, realizing only then that the boy was now his only living relative. That thought only jarred him from his prayer and brought a cynical smile to his face. Never much of a praying man anyway, he thought.
When he opened his eyes, he was startled to see that sometime during his botched prayer, the boy had also opened his. He drew his hand from the boy’s face to save them both from embarrassment and smiled.
“How you holdin’ up, kid?”
In answer, the boy squeezed his yellowed eyes shut and began shaking violently. The man reached out and lifted the boy to his chest, bringing him close. He was again shocked at just how light he was. Seventy-five pounds, probably. No more than that. The man squeezed his own eyes shut to hold back his tears while gently rocking the sick boy. After a while, the violent shudders and tremulous quakes settled down. He tried to keep his voice from cracking as he spoke.
“You know what it is, son,” he said firmly. “We both know exactly what the problem is. You gotta eat, and that’s all there is to it. Please, Scott. Do it for your Uncle Dan, won’t you boy?” His voice cracked as he continued. “I don’t wanna lose you, boy. You’re all I got. Please, son. You can do it.”
He pulled the boy from his shoulder and looked him straight in the eye. There was still something of the boy he once knew left in those eyes, but there were times you had to look long and deep to find it.
“Do it, Scott,” he pleaded. “Right now. I’ll leave if you want me to. I’ll stay if you want me to. But we’re not leaving here ‘til you eat. Okay?”
After a moment, the boy gave in to his stubbornness and nodded weakly. When he remained still, the man took that as his cue. Laying the boy gently on the ground, he turned to crawl back through the narrow cubbyhole. Halfway there, he paused a moment and turned around.
“Scott?” He waited for his nephew to turn and look him in the eye before going on. “Do me a favor, willya?”
The man cocked his head in the direction of the monstrous sow. If anything, the animal had become even more agitated since the boy had awakened. But that was to be expected. The boy appeared to take note of the animal and turned back to his uncle.
“Make sure to get that one. Okay?” the man asked.
After a puzzled moment, the boy nodded. The man returned the nod and winked once before turning to scurry quickly through the door. But he had been heartened to see what might have been just the ghost of a smile appear on the boy’s face.
Once outside, he stood there only long enough to confirm the boy was going through with it. When he began hearing the screams, he walked away from the building to leave the boy alone with his newfound nature.
While walking along the wide dirt path, the man noticed a rigid, almost bureaucratic sameness to the gridlike design of the place. Each faded yellow structure was identically built, each about a hundred feet long and twenty feet or so apart from the next. He passed dozens of them along the way. Curious, at one point he walked down one of the narrow alleyways that separated two of them, only to discover an identical pathway running along the other side.
He walked down that path a while and eventually came upon a large square area that finally broke the monotony of the grid. While puzzling over a tall, rusted pole in the center of the square, he felt a now familiar chill from behind. He turned and saw nothing. Turning again, he was startled to see his nephew standing right in front of him. Though his heart raced, the man couldn’t help but smile. It wasn’t the first time he’d done it, and was the nearest thing to a practical joke the boy had been able to muster since his change.
“We talked about that, boy,” he said. “It ain’t funny.”
The man chuckled anyway, while beneath the ancient starlight he took a closer look at his nephew. It was clear the boy’s face had filled out since he last saw him about a half hour ago. Lips that had been almost black now pulsed crimson. Even the powdered whiteness of his skin had been replaced with an almost healthy looking scarlet.
He exhaled a silent sigh of relief, but resisted the urge to ask anything about it. The boy had turned away from him anyway to wander toward the center of the dirt square. The man watched as he turned his trancelike gaze from building to building before slowly raising his face upward to the top of the pole.
“What is it, Scott?” he asked.
A few moments passed before the boy tore his gaze away from the pole and turned toward his uncle.
“Nothin’,” he answered. “It’s just this place, is all.”
Though he didn’t use it much anymore, the man had noticed his voice was deeper since the change, mature beyond his fourteen years. As he spoke, the man would have sworn the bleatings of the ten thousand or so pigs scattered throughout the compound quieted somewhat. The man struggled to put his own thoughts into words.
“Tell me, Scott. Please. I wanna understand . . . I wanna at least try and understand. I need to understand.” He gave up and hoped the boy would catch his meaning.
“I don’t know,” the boy answered. “It’s hard to explain. I just think something bad happened here. It feels like . . . some kind of loss or betrayal. All around me, I feel heartache and pain. But it’s the kind of pain that’s hard to put into words, like . . . the pain that husbands feel when separated from their wives, or that a child feels when separated from their parents.”
He paused to gather strength, or maybe just to find the right words. The man let him take whatever time he needed. It was already more words than he had spoken in months.
“Anyway,” the boy went on, “standing here . . . it feels like there’s a river of tears running beneath the ground.” Turning slowly, he stared again at the rusted pole in the center of the square. “But mostly . . . and this is weird, I know, but . . . it feels like this is a place of broken promises.”
It was probably because of disuse that his last words had come out a hoarse whisper. But in that whisper—for the first time in the just over two months they’d been on the run—Dan Proctor thought he heard again the true voice of his beloved nephew.
He walked over to the place where his nephew stood and put his arm around him. The boy barely reached the man’s shoulders.
“Then whaddya say we get the hell out of here, kid.”
Taking his nephew gently by the arm, he turned him away from the pole, and the two walked together back down the long pathway. When they passed the building that had sheltered them from daylight, the man suppressed his shudder to hear the unearthly stillness now coming from within.
They climbed the fence and walked across a hundred yards or so of desert scrub before finding themselves back on the highway.
Though the night was cool, the boy had removed his long wool coat to now carry it draped across his shoulder. His blue striped flannel shirt was unbuttoned all the way, revealing a stained blue T-shirt beneath. Below his faded denim jeans and once white socks were a pair of black Chuck Taylor’s that were beginning to fall apart.
“Where we going?” the boy asked.
His uncle puzzled over the question before remembering just how out of it the boy had been when they passed through earlier in the day.
“We went through a small town not long before the hose went,” he answered. “It shouldn’t be too far.”
A few minutes later, the boy stopped short suddenly.
“What is it?” his uncle asked.
The boy raised his head and perked his ears, another recently acquired trick. “Car comin’,” he said.
The man tried to keep the fear out of his voice. “Is it them?”
He watched the boy close his eyes and sniff the air before shaking his head.
“Nope. Don’t think so,” he answered. “Unless they’re drivin’ a Cadillac.”
The man exhaled and smiled. After waiting for the boy to catch up, the two began walking again. It was another minute or so before the man began to hear the roar of a powerful engine approaching from behind. They moved to the side of the road. The car roared past, but went only a few hundred feet before it came to a screeching stop, its brake lights illuminating the desert night a fiery red.
The man remained cautious as he moved toward the descending driver’s side window.
“How you folks doin’ tonight?” the driver asked. “Need a lift?”
Dan saw the man was alone. He guessed him about mid-fifties somewhere, a bit overweight but not obese. His cheeks were flushed and his bulbous nose betrayed a more than passing knowledge of strong drink, but tonight his eyes were clear and sharp. He wore an oversized Stetson along with a plaid sportcoat and a string tie, held together by a gaudy turquoise ring in a silver setting. He looked harmless enough.
Dan turned to his nephew. Seeing the boy nod, he put a smile on his face and turned back to the driver.
“We’d sure appreciate it. Had some car trouble a few miles back.
Remembered passin’ through a small town not far from here and figured we might be able to find a garage or somethin’.”
“Well hop on in, then!” the driver replied. “Town you’re talking ‘bout is called Mercy. Ain’t much there beyond a post office and a bar, but someone there might be able to get ya fixed up.” Sensing the man still hesitate, he added, “Don’t worry, son. I don’t bite!”
Dan smiled with embarrassment. “It’s not that,” he said sheepishly. “It’s just . . . we’re a little gamey, is all. That all right?”
The driver smiled. “We get a lot of that ‘round here. I’m sure I smelled worse. Climb on in! I sure could use the company.”
Dan let out a sigh of relief. “Well then, don’t mind if we do, and we’re very much obliged.”
He walked around the front of the vehicle, smiling to notice a steer horn ornament affixed to the hood. When he reached the passenger side, he motioned his nephew away from the backseat and gestured he should sit beside him up front. The boy’s eyebrows furrowed until he saw his uncle clumsily knock the rearview mirror askew while sliding into the front seat.
“Sorry about that,” Dan said. “And again, we truly do appreciate it.”
“Don’t mention it, friend,” the driver answered before peeling out. “Name’s Leroy. Fred Leroy. Nice to know ya.” He put out his hand and the two men shook.
“Nice to meet you too, Fred. My name’s . . . Smith. John Smith. This here’s my nephew Billy.”
The driver leaned forward to take a closer look at his other passenger and frowned. “You look a little peaked, son. You all right boy?”
His uncle answered for him. “Got out of the hospital recently, is all. Nothing serious. Just needs to put some weight back on.” He turned to his nephew and added, “But mostly, he just needs to eat more regular.” The driver chuckled.
“Kids today. You can’t teach ‘em nothin’. Hell, I got two boys of my own, neither one of ‘em worth a damn. Love ‘em both to death, though. Wouldn’t trade ‘em for anything.” He went quiet a moment before asking, “So what happened to your vehicle?”
Relieved to finally answer a question honestly, Dan replied, “Nothing too bad. Radiator hose went bust.”
The driver thought a moment. “I tell you what,” he said. “I’m headed into Benson tomorrow mornin’. That’s the nearest big town that’ll have what you need, trust me on that. Now, when we get to Mercy, you stop by Maria’s Restaurant and tell her ol’ Fred sent ya. She keeps a coupla rooms up on the second floor available in a pinch for rent to weary travelers like yerselves. You boys go on ahead and spend the night there. I’ll pick you up around eleven or so tomorrow and we’ll get you all fixed up. How’s that sound?”
A rush of emotion flooded through Dan at the simple kindness being extended.
“No, I can’t let you do that. You’ve already been too kind. I hate to put you to so much—”
“Now I don’t wanna hear another word about it,” the driver said. “You just meet me out in front of Maria’s around eleven and we’ll get y’all squared away.”
With that crushing weight lifted, Dan squeezed his eyes shut a moment. When he opened them, he saw the driver again leaning forward to stare across at his other passenger. Dan tensed up before noticing the man had playful gleam in his eye.
“Hey, boy! Lookah heah.” He waited for the boy to turn to him before going on. “I got my own hospital visit comin’ up soon. Wife says it’s high time I got my hohns removed. In fact, she insists upon it.”
The car went silent. His accent was thick, so perhaps Dan had not heard him right.
“Excuse me?” the boy asked.
Dan cringed to hear him say it, not at all sure he wanted confirmation of what he thought the man had said.
“My hohns, son! My hohns!”
He made sure both pairs of eyes were upon him before removing his hat with a showman’s flourish. The boy took in his breath. His uncle’s eyes widened. He hadn’t heard wrong.
There were two of them, one each about halfway between his eye sockets and the top of his balding head. The one on the left was stunted, only about an inch long. Yellowed and gnarled, it was the color of a coffee drinker’s teeth. But the one on the right was perfect, as perfect as a human horn could be, anyway. Bone white, it stuck out of his head about two inches before coming to a pointed end. It reminded Dan of paintings he had seen somewhere of satyrs and wood nymphs or some such thing.
The man cackled at their startled reaction before putting on his hat and turning back to the road. He had done this parlor trick a thousand times before, Dan knew. And he smiled to know for sure the man would miss doing it after they were gone.
A minute later, lights appeared on the right side of the road. Fred brought the car to a squealing stop.
“Well, here it is folks, what there is of it,” he said.
Dan glanced out the window at the small town before turning toward the man. He looked him in the eye as he offered his hand and the two men shook. The gratitude in Dan’s voice was genuine.
“We can’t thank you enough,” he said. “Really.”
“My pleasure Mr. . . . Smith.” Fred squeezed more tightly after the last word and winked. “Now don’t you forget. Eleven tomorrow mornin’ right here.” Before the passenger door slammed shut, the driver bent down to shout at the boy. “You feel better son, you hear? And do as your uncle says!” He waved once more before peeling out, kicking up a cloud of dust as he went.
The two watched the car until it was out of sight before turning to look at the small town. It took up just one side of the road. From left to right there was a Laundromat, a post office, and a bar. Separate from those adjoining structures over on the far right was a two-story building that bore the sign “Maria’s Restaurant.” The man’s stomach growled just reading the word.
“You need to eat,” the boy said.
The man smiled. “I know, I know. Think I’ll start with a beer, though. That okay with you?”
From inside the bar came the sounds of people laughing and glasses tinkling and the occasional thwack of a powerful pool shot. Pulse pounding Seger at his best was coming from the jukebox. Katmandu. The boy turned to his uncle and gave him his toothiest grin.
Dan suppressed his natural instinct to shrink back, knowing the secret smile was meant only for him. Maybe it was just to reassure him that much of the boy he once knew still remained. And if he knew anything at all about the kid, it was that he would happily go anywhere Seger was playing loud. So, he returned the smile and cuffed the boy on the shoulder before grabbing him by the scruff of the neck. Bending him over, he gave him a noogie for old times sake as the two of them turned and began walking toward the bar.
