Стивен Гулд: Bugs in the Arroyo

They went back the way he’d come, one shovelful at a time, with her hands on his waist and stepping into his vacated footsteps before the bugs filled them. The bugs crawled around their ankles and once one took a shortcut through the leather of Kimball’s moccasin and the skin of his ankle, leaving a bloody dribble across the sand.

He cursed a blue streak but he kept his steps and the shovel steady. When they made it back to the edge of the bugs, where the cut dropped into the sand of the arroyo, they staggered up the road several yards. As they collapsed there was a ragged cheer from across the arroyo.

Thayet bandaged his ankle, then drank more water. “You want some?”

“No girl. That’s your water. Until you’re peeing frequently, copiously, and clearly.”

“You’re gross.”

“Yes, little dove.”

They found Joffrey’s errant horse, Stupid, near the road, its lead reins tangled in a patch of prickly pear, and Thayet refused to move another step until Kimball had gotten its halter and harness off. Its mouth was a mess after two days of chewing around the composite bit. Kimball settled both the horse and Thayet a good quarter mile up the road in the shade of a rock outcropping. Back at the lip of the arroyo, across from the teamster boss, he shouted, “You ready?”

“Yeah,” the teamster yelled back. “We got them back over the hill. Your mule didn’t want to go. Josh was reaching for its bridle and she came that close to biting off his arm. You could hear the teeth come together clear down the hill. But Hahn, here, he bribed her with a bucket of oats and she followed him down.”

“She’s a lot of trouble. Okay, give me five minutes.”

What he had in mind wouldn’t take as long as the painstaking slog across the arroyo to get Thayet, but it was probably as dangerous.

While one might be able to take the carts and saddle horses cross-country downstream to where the walls of the arroyo were less steep, the freight wagons would have to detour thirty miles to a crossing they could handle.

Unless they could clear the crossing of bugs.

The spot he chose was a half-mile downstream, where the walls of the arroyo had been undercut by the recent flooding, but a three-foot stratum of limestone kept the rim solid. There was more limestone below, with shallow pockets that had caught some of the iron-bearing sands. While the bugs were nowhere near as thick as at the crossing, there were some grazing for ferrous bits. He found the first thing he needed about fifty yards back, a depressed hollow between two rocks, perhaps two feet deep, two feet wide. He used the shovel and made it deeper, but he kept his eyes open as he dug, The last thing he wanted to do was uncover an old metal fence post. The second thing he needed he found closer to the arroyo, a big chunk of limestone about the size of a large watermelon. It was sunk in the dirt but he cleared an edge and levered it out with the shovel. It was flat-topped and flat-bottomed so it didn’t roll worth beans. He might have carried it a few yards but instead he just flopped it over and over, thud, thud, thud, all the way to the rim. Then he shifted it sideways a bit and tested his choice by dropping a very small pebble over the edge. Nope. Another pebble, a foot to the right, was dead on target so he shifted the boulder, took a deep breath, and shoved. He was running before it hit, but he still heard multiple ‘pops.’ One would’ve been sufficient. He could hear the bugs in the air, a harsh cicada buzzing with ultrasonic overtones. It was mostly from upstream but he still had to dodge a few that arose from the brush in front of him. He dropped into the hole and several buzzed overhead, more than he’d expected.

Maybe there was some old barbwire in the neighborhood.

After five minutes his heart had stopped pounding and his breathing slowed and he was back to boredom. He stuck to the plan, though. Bugs could keep coming for a while and it was better to be cautious.

He’d intended to meditate but he fell asleep instead.

The teamster boss’s voice woke him, yelling at the top of his lungs, yelling his name from about ten feet away, worry and fear in his voice.

Kimball shuddered awake, his heart pounding, the sick sound of a bullwhip crack fading back into the dreamscape.

What on earth has happened now?

Kimball stood up and his head cleared the rocks. The teamster wasn’t looking his way and when Kimball spoke the teamster boss like to fell over.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! We thought you were dead!”

Oops. “How long have I been asleep?”

The man opened his mouth, shut it, opened it again, then just shook his head and marched back toward the crossing. “He’s all right!” he yelled back toward the road.

They were all out there—the Joffreys, the teamsters, and the others—spread out across the desert, looking for Kimball. He picked up Joffrey’s shovel and waved it overhead. Kimball started back toward the edge of arroyo, to take a look at the impact site, but the bugs were thick on the ground before he reached the rim, their wings extended and held flat to the sun, so he veered away. He could only imagine what they were like in the arroyo below.

Back at the crossing they’d already brought the stock and vehicles across and when Kimball glanced down the cut into the wash it was just sand, now, clear of bugs. Mrs. Pedecaris snorted and walked to meet him. Mrs. Joffrey, with a large smile on her face, handed him a cold apple empanada. When Kimball thanked her for it, she lunged at him, and it was all he could do not to throw her in the dirt before he realized she just wanted to hug him. When she let go her eyes were wet. When Kimball gave Joffrey his shovel back, the man nodded gravely and said, “I’ll keep this handy. I see it still has plenty of use in it.”

Thayet was lying in the shade under their handcart, a jug of water to hand. Kimball approved. “You pee yet?”

She shook her head.

“Drink more water.”