Forever the Road (A Rucksack Universe Fantasy Novel) (6 page)

Through his blurred vision, something seemed different about the space between the people in front of him.

Stumbling and doubling over, he lunged forward.

He landed outside of the throng, on the quieter, wider main street that led in and out of Agamuskara. No crowd jostled. A small boy stared at him as Jigme stood bent over, his hands on his knees, trying to get his breath back as burning drops of sweat, tears, and blood fell onto the dusty street.

Jigme looked up and glared. The boy ran away.

Sometimes,
Jigme thought,
I hate this city, this world, everything. I hate that it made my mother sick. I hate that it took my father from me. I hate that it just tried to kill me.

Hunger growled but worry for Asha sliced through his heart. They had no money; they would not eat today. The pills were more poison than medicine, Jigme had decided. They would not help Amma. Nothing would.

Unless…

A few meters away, a yellow-and-black rickshaw pulled up to the curb. Jigme did not hear the words exchanged between the driver and the dusty-skinned foreign tourist in the back seat. The tourist was angry as he got out of the rickshaw, Jigme saw. Angry meant distracted.

The man pulled out a massive backpack.
Those backpacks must contain such wonders,
Jigme thought as he stared harder.

The men spoke loudly and angrily to one another, not seeing Jigme move forward. He no longer noticed the sore parts of his body where the crowd had nearly smashed him to the ground. His breath came back. His heartbeat was calm, slow, and even.
Rich tourists,
he thought.
What does it matter? He must have so much money he can get everything back in a heartbeat. Maybe there even is some money…

While the men argued, Jigme clenched the backpack’s endless straps. By the time the driver saw him and shouted, Jigme was already out of reach and gaining speed.

The pack was heavy, but Jigme’s heart was light.
We will eat today after all,
he thought.
I will find real medicine for Amma. I will not deal with the medicine man anymore. Things will be different. Amma will get better, and she will be as she was before.

Around the corner and away from the main throng, Jigme ran faster.
I just have to lose the tourist
, he thought.
Then everything will be all right.

T
HE UNEVEN STREETS AND SIDEWALKS
buckled, wavered, and corrugated in the exact sequence needed to constantly trip him. Jay panted, continuing to chase the backpack with heavy-booted, tired steps, despite his wish to collapse. He rounded another corner and again nearly knocked against a wall of people. He tottered back a moment, regained his balance, tried a different way.

The crowd was thinnest against the buildings. When you can’t go through, he thought, go around. Jay stuck close to the white walls and ran forward again, dodging people and dogs, stalls and tables. Ahead, the backpack bobbed, its dusty blackness a fleeing shadow among a rainbow of women’s saris.

The crowd always seemed to part for the boy, only to wall off as Jay tried to pass. His rushing body knocked bags out of hands and made people stumble. Jay kept his balance, but his pace slowed. His ragged breathing stabbed his side. And no matter how he dodged, no matter what last few drops of adrenaline he squeezed into his body, the backpack always seemed smaller and smaller.

He turned one more corner.
I have to catch him,
Jay thought.
I have to get my pack back. The thing came to me. I have to get it back.

Reality caught up.

There’s no way I can catch him.

Jay tripped.

My pack, everything inside it, it’ll be lost. Even the thing…

He got up, kept chasing, but his pace faltered. A heat, a flush, hit his face.

It’s all gone.

The boy kept running, now approaching the next corner, almost beneath a large sign with the outline of a mountain on it.

I can catch him
, Jay thought.

His legs buckled.

W
AS IT THE BOUNCING
of the running or the awkward weight that made the backpack seem like it was fighting him? Jigme shifted his arms again, trying to keep the pack still. If he could lose the tourist, he could stop and put the pack on properly, even though it was nearly as tall as he was.

Jigme chanced a quick look over his shoulder. The pack saw the distraction and thrashed back and forth, left and right. But Jigme held on tighter, running toward his hope: Amma sitting up in bed, a smile on her face as the sickness fled her eyes.

Looking ahead again, Jigme smiled.
I’ll lose the tourist for sure now.

Ahead, the two widest, most populous streets in the city connected.
I’ll duck left, cross, and be gone before the tourist can make out which way to go,
Jigme thought.
Then Amma will get better.

He swerved to dodge around a man in black sitting at a table.

Jigme’s knees smacked the hard concrete as he fell.

The backpack crumpled his folding body, knocking out his breath, and making a sound like, “There!”

Jigme pressed his hand into a round bulge at the top of the pack. For a moment a light shone brighter than the sun, but it did not blind him. It shined into his eyes, his soul, his lives now and then and to come. He felt the singing nearness of a red-and-black fire, then the cooling like water of a pale, silver-and-gold light that could have been the child of the sun and the moon.

His hand went to the dusty pavement, and the light and the fire were gone. Jigme tried to get up, tried to catch his breath, tried to get ready to run again. But his breath wouldn’t come back fast enough. He just sat there, wheezing and coughing.

A lilting voice said, “Goodness me. Never could keep my feet straight.”

Jigme coughed in reply.

The voice continued. “Sorry, lad, but I can’t say it looked as if you were carrying that for your gran.” The fabric rustled on the concrete as the backpack was dragged away from him.

“Please,” Jigme said.

The sound of tired, dragging steps got louder. Jigme turned around.

The tourist whose pack he had stolen stood over him.

“Lawks,” the man in black said, grinning. “Such long faces. You look like you’re hardly fit to stand.” He kicked two chairs out from the table. “Sit down and have a stout. Both o’ you.“

Jigme gawked. The tourist did too, but finally he shook his head and said, “This... this arse midget just stole my pack.”

The man patted the black fabric with a hand that seemed both as brown as Jigme’s yet pale as the walls of the city. Puffs of dust leaped off the pack. “Aye, and more credit to him for lugging it this far. What’d you pack, all the dirt in India?” The man motioned to the chairs. “Besides, it’s hardly stolen now.”

“But it was stolen,” the tourist said, “and he stole it. I thank you for stopping him, but all the same I’d like to talk to the police.”

“Do you, now,” the man in black said, sitting up. “I hadn’t figured you for some tourist who only just learned which way his passport opens. But then, you’re clearly tired after coming a long way.” The man breathed in deeply. “Aye, quite a journey. Tibet. And Mount Everest. You can always tell the place just by the smell o’ the grit.”

The tourist smirked.

“It’s all that sun and cold, you see,” the man in black continued. “It tastes like life and death smacking into one other, and it smells like the beginning and the end o’ the world.”

He breathed in again. “Lots o’ places.” A pained look crossed the man’s face. “Right back to jolly ole Ireland and then some. A man who’s seen this much o’ the world, I’d figure he’d know things are always a fair sight more complicated than a boy legging it down the street. But it’s clearly your first time here. No matter where you’ve been, nothing prepares you for India. Nowhere else on Earth does the fire o’ life burn so bright as it burns here. And I think that now that you’ve collected your thoughts a wee bit, you’re remembering not to expect India to be like home.”

The man took another sniff and continued. “Ah, Idaho,” he said. “The ole U-S-o’-A. The only thing you can expect about India is that it will be itself. But who will you be? Are you a Yank… or a wank?”

The tourist’s breath hitched.
At least I’m breathing more easily,
Jigme thought, tensing his legs as the tourist’s gaze locked onto him.

“My name is Jay,” the tourist said, “and that pack is all I have in the whole world.” He sat in one of the chairs. “Why did you take it?”

Jigme looked at the two men, then at the last empty chair. “Are you going to get the police?” he asked.

“I’m not happy that you stole from me,” Jay said, shaking his head. “But I won’t get the police. As long as you help me understand.”

Jigme sat down.

“Some nourishment will ease this discussion,” the man said.

A door opened and a woman came out, carrying three brimming curved glasses of dark liquid topped with white foam.

“Why Jade,” the man said, “impeccable timing as always.”

Jade set a glass in front of each of them. A flush burned Jigme’s face and he tried to hide behind the black beer. When she looked at him, Jigme couldn’t bear to look back into her blazing eyes. It was like looking at gods and suns. His attempt to thank her spilled out onto the table as a mumbled jumble of syllables.

The tourist—Jay—stared at her, and she seemed not to be able to look back at him. She started to say something, but instead nearly caught Jay’s eye. Jade nodded sharply, turned, and went back inside.

“Who?” Jay asked. “Who was that?”

“That would be Jade, finest bartender in India,” the man in black said.

“She’s…” Jay trailed off.

“Beautiful,” Jigme replied.

“Yes,” Jay said, smiling. “She is beautiful. I’ll drink to that, um…”

“Aye, we could do with some introductions,” the man said. He joined his palms and held his hands in front of his chest. “Namaste,” he said. “That’s a common greeting and farewell here,” he said to Jay. “It means ‘the god in me salutes the god in you.’ You’ve already said you’re Jay. I’m Faddah Rucksack, but most folks skip the Faddah and just go for the Rucksack.” He looked at Jigme. “And you?” he asked.

“I’m Jigme.”

“You’re what, sixteen?”

Jigme nodded.

“Old enough to know a taste o’ reality,” Rucksack said, raising his glass. “Strangely met but well met, lads. Now c’mon, raise those pints. There’s no such thing as the sound o’ one glass clinking.”

They clinked and drank. The thick dark liquid was beer, Jigme realized, and it sparkled in his mouth. It also made him sputter and cough, and he set down the glass.

A quarter of Rucksack’s beer disappeared, then he said, “No sipping, lad. Sipping is for those damnable sodas you kids drink and that discolored water Americans and Guru Deep piss off as beer. To stout is to quaff. As such.” Rucksack raised his glass and Jigme clinked with him again. They each took a long swallow of the black beer.

This time, Jigme smiled as he set down his much emptier glass. A loose, free feeling buzzed inside. The world seemed clearer. Shapes, colors, forms, people, objects, and animals all looked both more distinct and defined yet more connected and unified.

“How do you drink beer this thick in a city this hot?” Jay asked.

“The heat mucks with how you see the world,” Rucksack said, “but stout’s too real for anything to mess with it. It keeps me seeing what’s what.”

“You’re crazy.”

“I at least had the sense to sit down to a pint in this heat,” Rucksack said with a chuckle. “You’re the one who tried to walk into town in the middle o’ a day like a wet wildfire.”

“How do you know that?” Jay asked.

“Let’s just say that even the roaches will avoid your boots, lad,” Rucksack said, tapping his nose. “You could try burning them, but I think the flames would extinguish themselves in protest.”

Rucksack’s gaze turned to Jay’s backpack. Jigme’s did too. As the talk paused, Jigme heard a soft rustling sound. Rucksack listened intently, but Jay seemed to be trying to ignore it.
 

“Now that we’re acquainted, to business,” Rucksack said, looking at Jay again. “So, the backpack. Surely you didn’t have the crown jewels in there.”

Jay smiled. “No.”

“What are the crown jewels?” Jigme asked.

“The crown jewels o’ travel,” Rucksack said. “Your passport, your money, and your tickets. Any traveler worth his pack never keeps the crown jewels on his back. He usually keeps them in a money belt, or some sort o’ pouch he can hide under his clothes. He can lose everything else right down to his unwashed skivvies, but as long as he has those three things, he’ll be a’right.”

Jay shrugged. “That’s all true, but it doesn’t mean I want my pack stolen. There’s still important stuff in there.”

“I understand,” Rucksack said. The men looked at Jigme. He grabbed his glass and took a long swallow. The more stout he drank, the more the world made sense. And the more he understood what he had to say.