Into Eden: Pangaea - Book 1 (19 page)

Jesse’s face might have been made of stone. She didn’t know what he was thinking, but she was fairly sure that he wasn’t buying her argument.

“Pleeeeease!” she cried. “I’ll do anything that you ask!”

Again, Jesse said nothing, so she looked up at Seth. “Don’t let him kill me!” she pleaded. “The desert gets cold at night. I can keep you warm! I can…”

“You disgust me!” Jesse interrupted. “But I’ve done enough killing for one day.” He slung the sword into the ground, its tip buried in the dirt, its handle vibrating back and forth. As he turned to walk away he saw a black blur as Enoch launched himself at the girl, pulling her to the ground as he growled and ripping at her throat with his sharp teeth. It happened so quickly that for a moment Jesse didn’t realize what was happening. As he turned he saw the girl trying frantically to push the dog off of her. Blood was already soaking in the dirt around her throat as Enoch clamped down on it and twisted it back and forth violently. All the girl could do was make a hideous gurgling sound.

“Enoch!” Jesse yelled. “What are you doing?! Stoooop!”

The dog didn’t answer or look up, but continued to snarl as he severed both jugulars. Jesse ran to the attack and tried to pull Enoch off her, but Enoch hung on all the tighter. In desperation Jesse began to kick Enoch in the side with swift, hard blows. Finally the dog let go and the girl fell backward onto the road motionless, her eyes staring at the sky.

Enoch’s mouth and muzzle was stained red with blood and he growled at Jesse, “You may have broken one of my ribs!”

“You killed her!” Jesse yelled back at him.

“She needed killing, Jesse! If you don’t have the stomach for killing then you’d better stay out of Eden!” With that Enoch turned and trotted off south down the highway.

Jesse started after him, but Seth called him back, “Let him go, Jesse. There’s a time to kill, and a time to heal. This is a time to heal, I believe.”

“Who said that?” Jesse asked absently.

“The Prophet, I think.”

Chapter 10
The Way-station

Jesse and Seth stood in the road, staring at the two bodies.

“Let’s get dressed,” Seth said at last. “We can worry about them later. I doubt that anyone’s coming down the road in the near future.” He then bent over and pulled his boots off Elan’s lifeless body and started working on the pants. “He can keep the shirt,” he said, referring to the blood-stained garment with two sword holes through it.

Jesse bent over and retrieved his new hat that the dead man had been wearing, and went into the house to find the rest of his belongings. Within the hour they had collected all their belongings, and Jesse was relieved to find that Elan had left all of his coins in stacks on a nightstand. Seth had managed to find a silk shirt of Elan’s that fit him just right.

“Can’t believe that farmer actually bought this,” he remarked.

“Yeah. But somebody else paid for it. Big-time. Now what do we do with them?”

“I recommend that we do to them what they were planning on doing to us.”

“Dump them in the river?”

“Why not? Let the spiney fish have ‘em. It’s either that or we go back to Whitehurst and tell the sheriff that we’ve been associated with another murder. No thank-you. I have no desire to be hung for being in two wrong places at the wrong times.”

“You’re right,” was all that Jesse said, and then went off to the barn to retrieve a wheel-barrow that he had seen earlier. The two of them loaded Elan into the oversized barrow and took the body down the hill to the river. They tied Elan’s feet to a burlap sack filled with rocks and on the count of three the farmer-highwayman was in the Elmer, sinking to the bottom. They did the same with the girl and then returned to the house. By now it was approaching noon.

“The day’s half wasted,” Jesse said. “Want to rest-up, get that stuff completely out of our system and head out in the morning?”

“No, Son, I want to get as far from this cursed place as I can. Enoch had the right idea. Hopefully he’s waiting for us somewhere up ahead. We still need his nose. Let’s move on, Jesse. The Nara Desert awaits!”

The two of them went back into the house long enough to fill their backpacks with as much foodstuffs as they could hold. They then opened the gate to let out the chickens and released the goats as well. Finally, they were headed back down the road. Elan had been right about one thing: the only thing that they encountered that afternoon—and for many days to follow—was wind and sand. Only, except for tell-tale signs that the an-nef had left. They had gone about five miles when they spotted a large pole sticking out of the river. Upon closer examination they discovered that it was a mast of a riverboat that the an-nef had burned in their flight south. Over the coming weeks they would come across fifty such boats and barges. Some lay half-burned on the water’s edge; others were mostly obscured by the river’s waters that passed over them. It amazed Jesse that twelve or so an-nef could do so much damage.

“How could so few jackal-heads cause so much destruction?” Jesse pondered aloud.

“One boat at a time.”

Jesse supposed Seth was right. Unless the boats were coming up the river together, each one that the jackal-heads met would be outnumbered—and definitely out-armed. Back in Whitehurst, while staying at the Emperor’s Inn, Jesse had heard sailors tell about how the jackal-heads had come along side and opened fire with crossbows without warning. Half the sailors aboard were killed in the volley. The rest dove overboard as the an-nef then boarded the boat and set it afire. This strategy had doubtless been repeated many times as they went down stream. Now the Elmer was clogged with derelict boats for miles. Even if riverboats tried to come up from River Bend they would have to clear a channel first. It could be weeks, perhaps months, before shipping returned to Whitehurst.

Late that afternoon Jesse and Seth were bending over inspecting one of these burned-out hulks when they were startled by a voice behind them, “If I had been Castor-Pollex you’d both be dead by now.”

Jesse turned to see Enoch standing by the remains of a crate that had broken open. “Salt pork,” Enoch said, licking his lips. “If you don’t mind it a little on the ripe side it’s not bad.”

“I’ll pass,” Jesse replied.

“You still mad at me?” asked Enoch.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“You know why. That girl was no threat to us. You know that. You had no right to kill her.”

“And you know that she was a threat to everyone that passed by. You had no right NOT to kill her. And certainly not to be mad at me for doing what you should have done.”

Jesse didn’t answer.

“Gentlemen,” Seth said, trying to be the diplomat, “I suggest that we put our differences aside regarding this moral dilemma. What’s done is done. We need each other if we are to survive, and we have a long way to go. Our journey has just begun. What’s say you two shake and make up?”

Enoch gave another one of his pointy grins and extended one paw. Jesse stared at him for a moment, then bent over and shook it. “How’s your rib?” he asked.

“Sore. But I doubt that it’s broken.”

“Enoch, there’s something that you need to know. Castor-Pollex is almost certainly on this side of the river. Before he drugged us, the farmer said that the night before three of his sheep—his largest sheep—had been killed. He blamed foxes, but that’s highly unlikely.”

“If you’re right,” Enoch replied, “that would put him a day and a half ahead of us. We need to post a guard when we stop for the night—starting tonight. Also, we should not camp by the river. Too much camouflage. Castor-Pollex could easily hide in the high-grass or cattails along the water’s edge. Out in the desert he’ll have to attack in the open, and forgo his chief advantage: the element of surprise. After all, there are three of us, and now only one of him.”

Enoch was, of course, right about everything. Jesse and Seth gathered pieces of the boat for firewood and carried it about a quarter of a mile off the road where they could see anyone approach from any direction. They ate salt-pork that they had gathered from Elan’s stores, not daring to touch what Enoch had found in the boat’s wreckage. They sat three hour shifts at guarding the camp—a practice that they agreed to follow until they had killed the lion. But both Jesse and Seth slept best with Enoch on watch. There was just something about his night-vision and keen sense of smell that permitted them to relax more than when either of the humans stood guard. Enoch, on the other hand, always slept just fine.

The next six days were an exercise in monotony. Sand and more sand, and no sign of a lion. For the first few days they ate dried beef and salt pork from their backpacks. When the meat was gone they would go to the river to catch fish. Seth had the presence of mind to pack some hooks, sinkers and fishing line, and used his spear as a pole. But catching the fish always seemed to take too long and slowed them down more than either of them wanted. Just the same, eating was a necessity and there was precious little to eat out in the middle of the Nara Desert. If it wasn’t for the Elmer and the fish that it provided a man on foot would have no hope in traversing the Nara and surviving. Yet despite the inconvenience of having to stop to catch food, the three reckoned that they were still covering close to twenty-five miles a day.

On the afternoon of their tenth day south of the farm, Jesse looked up and saw high, brown mountains in the distance. “Mountains!” Jesse exclaimed. “I see mountains!”

“That’s impossible,” Seth replied. “We can’t be halfway across the desert. We shouldn’t see mountains for another three-hundred miles at least.”

Suddenly Enoch, who had been walking up ahead of the two of them, came running back toward them. “Sandstorm!” he yelled. “Headed our way!”

Again Jesse looked at the mountains in the distance, squinting to see what he could. Yes, Enoch was right. What he had first thought was a line of mountains was in fact a huge sandstorm. It looked to be a mile high, and it was quickly moving their way.

“Let’s get to the river,” Seth advised, “and see if we can find some shelter.”

The three of them headed in the direction of one of the many willows that dotted the river’s edge. It provided little cover, but was still better than nothing. That was when Enoch noticed something just below the surface of the water: the burned hulk of a barge lay on the riverbed. Lying atop of it—not inches from the surface—was a half-burned skiff, the bow intact, but the stern burned away. “Look!” Enoch announced. “Below the water!”

Immediately they could see what Enoch had, and the two of them waded in and pulled the remains of the small boat ashore. Flipping it upside down they had the shelter that they needed—and none too soon. The mile-high wall of sand was getting closer, and as it did the wind became a gale, bending the willow and stripping its leaves. The two of them and the dog huddled in under the remains of the overturned boat, barely able to keep it from flipping over in the high winds. Outside the wind roared, and sand blew in, stinging their eyes and throats. Jesse and Seth covered their mouths and noses with rags from their packs, but all Enoch could do was close his eyes and burry his muzzle in Jesse’s arm.

The wind continued to blow and howl for most of an hour. Sand drifted against the skiff, shutting out all light. The three lay in the dark, coughing and praying to the gods that the wind would stop, but for the longest time their prayers went unanswered. Then, when it seemed that they would either choke on the sand or die from lack of air, the wind abruptly stopped.

Enoch was the first to emerge, digging his way through the sand to daylight. Jesse and Seth crawled out behind him, using their arms to propel them forward on their bellies. When they were finally able to stand up and look around, they found a landscape vastly different from the world as it existed just an hour before. The desert was still desert, but the river, once so clear that you could see the bottom in many places, was now a brown muddy flow so thick with sand that it looked as if someone could walk from one side of the river to the other on top of it. The willow that they had run to for shelter still stood, but many of its branches and leaves were missing, and when they emerged from over the riverbank they discovered that the road was now completely obscured in sand perhaps two inches deep, which drifted in some places to a foot or more. Whereas before they were looking at desert dotted with scrub mesquite and buffalo grass, they now stared out at a brown winterscape with sand covering everything. The Southern Highway that they had been following for many days now ceased to exist.

Jesse and Seth brushed themselves off and Enoch shook himself like he’d just climbed out of water. What Enoch really wanted, in fact, was to dive into the river and rid himself of the sand that now permeated his fur. But diving into the Elmer would be like diving into mud, so he decided to ignore the discomfort for a few hours until the river again began to run clear. Dusted off, the three of them again headed south, keeping about fifty paces from the river. That was as close, they supposed, to reckoning where the road actually ran. But they hadn’t gone far when Jesse recognized that they now faced a previously unforeseen problem: the sand that they now walked on was slowing them down. It seemed to affect Enoch little, who ran over the sand on four paws like he was made to run on dunes. But for the two bipeds in the trio the sand made every step difficult. Both of them thought themselves in good condition for a march that they had estimated at nearly eight-hundred miles, but now less than two-hundred miles into their journey they felt their calves and feet aching with every step and pushing on became an exercise in endurance. Yet having no choice, they pressed on.

The ease in which Enoch trotted along posed another concern for Jesse as well. Up until now his plan for killing Castor-Pollex was a loosely framed scenario where the three of them would either catch up with the lion and kill him—or more likely—the lion would attack them somewhere in the desert. Either way, Jesse believed that the two humans with spears, with the aid of Enoch’s early-warning nose, would be able to defeat the creature. Now he was having second thoughts. Thoughts that he kept to himself. For starters, if Castor-Pollex was as fleet-footed on the sand as Enoch was, he would be stretching the lead that he already had on them. When they left Elan’s farmhouse they had estimated that the lion had a day and a half lead on them. Now, with their slowed pace Jesse calculated that Castor-Pollex would pass the way-station days—perhaps weeks—before they arrived; and if the sandstorm that was responsible for their delay covered that much distance then the lion could be well on his way to River-Bend before they would be able to pick up the pace again. Another thing that bothered Jesse was Castor-Pollex’s complete disappearance. Neither of them nor the dog had seen any lion paw prints before the storm, and now they certainly would see none. But neither had Enoch smelled any scent of lion. Was he that far ahead of them? Or was he now behind them? With the wind coming out of the south the lion could easily circle around and sneak up on them and ambush them were it not for the desolate, barren landscape.