Brian Garfield - Fear in a Handful of Dust

Duggai would not interfere with their attempts to survive but he would wait out there and he would watch and he would terrorize them. If they lived and tried to get past Duggai then he would have to kill them for simple practical reasons-revenge and the prolongation of his own freedom-but if it came to that Duggai would kill them without pleasure because he would know that their power was too strong for him and therefore his demons were still intact; he would know he was doomed.

If Duggai ended up having to kill them with bullets he wouldn’t live long after that. He’d try to shoot up a town or he’d walk into a police station and start a battle. Driven by the demons he’d be forced to precipitate his own destruction.

I lived out there that time because I was Innun. Maybe you can live too. If you make it I’ll be waiting for you, Captain .

No comfort in it but there was the knowledge that if it came to that, Duggai would score a Pyrrhic triumph.

It was the key to Duggai’s tolerance. It was also a weakness they could exploit: Duggai would give them room to move around.

Understanding Duggai’s motives was one thing. Understanding his evil was another. The more he thought about Duggai the more fervid became Mackenzie’s rage. He hated Duggai with all the fury in his soul.

It was no good forgiving the enemy; a raging hatred was necessary: it was the spur to survival. Passions of rage consumed Mackenzie and he made no effort to resist them.

Toward morning the snares netted them a brace of jackrabbits. It was all they could expect from this worked-over patch of ground; the snares would have to be moved to a new hunting ground by tomorrow night.

Shirley volunteered to skin out one of the hares and her initiative shamed Jay into tackling the other. Mackenzie monitored the work, made a monosyllabic suggestion now and then, fought down his reluctance to let them handle the knives: he couldn’t afford botched work but he no longer felt inclined to deny them their authority-his obsession with tyranny had burned itself out. At first he’d undertaken the experiment in benevolent dictatorship with shameful eagerness-not often in a lifetime was a man allowed to decree every move in the lives of his companions-and perhaps it had been necessary or perhaps he had only rationalized its necessity but the subtle brief groan of the pickup truck had changed all that. Duggai.

If Duggai was watching them through some telescopic device then he understood that they were being sustained by Mackenzie’s leadership. If Duggai got a little impatient or a little more desperate he might think about putting a bullet into Mackenzie: kill him or disable him. Mackenzie would be the first target. It was only sensible to share the responsibility out; if he became a casualty the others might still have a chance.

The next time he went out to check the snares he took Jay along and showed him how to set them.

In the gray light before dawn they worked with concentrated silent industry. They smashed bones and ate the marrow for its nourishment. Mackenzie made a sack from entrails to hold blood from the night’s kill.

A light scatter of cirrus clouds hung very high in the west but the sun would dissipate them early; there was no chance of rain until the brief season of cloudbursts of early autumn. If anything was predictable about the Southwestern desert it was drought and the fact that the early afternoon temperature would reach a minimum of 115 degrees and might go as high as 140 degrees. Equally predictable was a nighttime drop of as much as 70 degrees; by dawn the four of them were chilled through.

While Mackenzie worked the skins he explored possibilities and plans. He’d thought of moving camp late in the day but now he rejected it: once they left they’d have to move fast and keep moving and cover their tracks. During the days they’d have to hide out from Duggai and at night they wouldn’t be able to light a fire. It would require meticulous preparation. Earle had to be considered.

They hung strips of meat on cactus spines. A day in the sun should cure the jerky. With bone needles and sinews and narrow strips of hide they set about sewing moccasins. They fitted patterns by laying the hides out under their feet and tracing oval outlines with chalky stones on the skins; they cut ankle flaps and punched holes all the way around the edges and threaded thong lacings through them. They made the moccasins inside out, hair-lined with the raw flesh out. “Put them on and keep them on as much as you can. It’ll dry out and harden-we want them molded to the shapes of our feet.” And beforehand it was prudent to examine the hair for insects.

It took all the hides; there was nothing left over for clothing. But they’d increased their range of movement.

With the three of them working the job was done quite rapidly; for the first time in Mackenzie’s recent memory Shirley showed that she could smile-the little accomplishment pleased and encouraged her.

Just on sunrise he took Jay with him down along the trapline. They dismantled the snares and carried them away. Mackenzie prowled along the foot of the slope and they had to walk half a mile before Mackenzie found a fresh jackrabbit run. He didn’t speak at first; testing Jay, he waited, and it gratified him when Jay made the discovery for himself. “That’s got to be a trail-look how it’s pounded down.”

They set the snares and climbed back toward the cemetery. The jerry-built moccasins abraded Mackenzie’s ankles and provided inadequate armor against the desert surface; it was still necessary to pick footings with care but at least it was no longer an agony simply to walk.

Midway back Jay stopped him. “I want to say something.”

Mackenzie waited for it. Jay was looking up toward the horizon; he brought his face grudgingly around; the low-level sun licked the surfaces of his eyes, putting a shine on them, rendering his face sinister. “Wed have been dead by now without you.”

“Maybe.” Without me how do you know what resources you might have discovered in yourselves? But he didn’t say it.

“You and Shirley-”

“For God’s sake, Jay, that’s beside the point.”

“It can’t help color our emotions.”

“Stop being a psychiatrist. It won’t help us out here.”

“Mackenzie, there was a time I wanted to kill you.”

“I know.”

“Well, I want to express my gratitude.”

“Sure.” He said it gently with a smile but Jay’s thanks didn’t mean much; he’d been groping toward equilibrium but he hadn’t nearly reached it yet and any setback could spin him right off balance again. Any imagined provocation could turn Jay vicious. In normal constraints he tended to bluster toothlessly: his threats to kill Mackenzie had been empty. But out here the placenta of normality was ruptured. They all were poised on the brink of sanity; trust was in short supply all around; several times Mackenzie had felt his own temper slipping free and the next time he might not contain it. And because he fancied he owned a better degree of stability than Jay’s he found no comfort in this temporary offer of the olive branch.

But he showed Jay his smile and they went on up into the camp; Mackenzie was thinking, If he was sure of those feelings he’d have thanked me in the presence of the others. This way if there was an inconsistency no one would know it but the two of them. He didn’t credit Jay with malicious intent; the bet-coppering shrewdness was unconscious.

They cooked a last small batch of meat over the fire and Mackenzie decided to let it go out; there’d be no point feeding it through the day. Fuel was scarce and too dry to make smoke and in any case he had decided against trying to make any kind of signal. If they were spotted from the air and there were any attempt to rescue them it only meant Duggai would finish them off with the rifle.