Hugh Howey - Sand

Laughter against his neck. Her exhalations. Conner kissed her cheek and tasted salt. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here,” he said. But what he wanted to apologize for was thinking of leaving. For taking the wrong chance. The wrong chance. “And now I’ve gotta leave town for a while. My sister needs me.”

“Your sister.” Gloralai studied his face in the starlight. Buckets rattled on a haulpole as a silhouette left them alone again on the ridge.

“Yeah. The same people who attacked here might be heading to Low-Pub. I don’t want her going alone.”

“You’re gonna sail there? Tonight?”

“We go at first light.”

“When will you be back?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then I’ll come with you. I have a brother in Low-Pub—”

“No,” Conner said. “I’m sorry. But no.”

Her hands fell away from his arms. “I understand.”

“I’ll find you when I get back,” he promised. And it suddenly became very important that he got back.

“What about your hauls?” she asked.

Conner looked down at her pole and the two buckets. “I’ve carried all I can today,” he said. “They’ll have to understand.”

“You staying at your place tonight? Can I come see you?”

Conner thought of the family in his home. “No,” he said. “I’m camping with my sister on her sarfer.”

“And you leave at first light.”

“Yeah.”

Gloralai took his hand. “Then stay with me tonight.”

“I didn’t think you were gonna make it,” Vic said. She stood by the mast, arranging sheets and halyards by the red glow of her dive lamp. Conner loaded his gear into the haul rack.

“You said first light,” he told her.

Vic nodded toward the horizon where a bare glow could be seen. Maybe.

“Aw, c’mon.”

“Man the jib,” she told him. “But first, get your suit plugged in so it can build a charge. You probably drained it yesterday. And make sure that gear is lashed down. It’s gonna be windy today.”

Conner studied the sand hissing softly against the sarfer’s hull. “How can you tell?”

“I just can. Let’s go.”

He pulled the dive suit she’d given him the day before out of the gear bag. There were two power leads trailing down from the wind turbine, which was thwump, thwump, thumping in the morning breeze. Her suit was lashed to the base and plugged in. He did the same with his, double-knotted the arms and legs around the pole. Then he made his way up the sarfer’s starboard hull and across the netting between the two bows. He checked the jib sheets to make sure they wouldn’t get fouled and knocked the sand out of the furling drum. He could see what he was doing without turning his dive light on, so he supposed maybe she was right about the first light.

“You get a good night’s rest?” Vic asked. She worked the main halyard free, and it clanged rhythmically against the tall aluminum mast.

“Yeah,” Conner lied. A smile stole across his lips as he thought—without remorse—of how little sleep he’d gotten.

He helped his sister raise the mainsail, cranking on the winch as she guided the battened canvas up through the jacks. As he muscled the sail up those last few laborious meters, he thought about Gloralai and her lips and her promises and her talk of the future, and he felt an armor form across his skin, some invisible force field like a dive suit puts out, and the sand striking him was no longer a nuisance. It was just a sensation. As was the wind in his hair and the shudder in the sarfer’s deck as his sister moved to the helm and the mainsheet was tightened, the canvas gathering the breeze. The sadness of so much tragedy was still everywhere around him, but Conner felt a new awareness that he would persevere. He felt alive. The sarfer hissed across the dunes, and he felt madly alive.

They sailed downwind to get west of Shantytown before turning south. Conner tidied the lines and then got comfortable in one of the two webbed seats at the aft end of the sarfer. He helped work the sheets while his sister manned the tiller. Watching the sad and flat expanse of sand where Springston used to be, he asked his sister why they didn’t just cut across rather than sailing around.

“Because we’d catch the skids or the rudder on some buried debris,” Vic told him. “This way is longer, but it’s safer.”

Conner understood. He remembered all that was buried out there. He checked that his dive suit was secure, wasn’t going to fly away. It already felt like his, that suit. It smelled like him. Had served him.

It was quiet as they sailed in the direction of the wind. Just the shush of sand on the aluminum hull. It wasn’t until they were beyond the last of the Shantytown hovels and even west of the water pump that they turned south and gathered the sheets. The sun was nearly up. There was already enough light to see by. Conner watched Waterpump Ridge slide by, the sand blowing from its heights, tiny sissyfoots up there dumping their hauls. Vic had left the ridge well to port to keep it from blocking their wind.

“So what’s this nonsense about Father?” she asked. She took a turn on one of the winches, locked down the jib sheet, then sat back with a leg resting on the tiller, steering with her boot. “What was that scene on the stairs last night about?”

Conner remembered his sister barging out of the Honey Hole. He wanted to turn the question around and ask her what that scene had been all about. She’d been the one who’d caused it. He adjusted his goggles, tucked his ker up under the edge to keep it in place. He wasn’t sure how to tell her the same news without getting the same reaction. Their mother had probably dumped too much on her all at once the night before. But he tried. “You know what last weekend was, right? The camping trip?”

He tried not to make it sound like an accusation for her not being there. Vic nodded. The sarfer glided happily south in a smooth trough.

“So, Rob and I went alone like last year. Palmer didn’t make it… which I guess you already knew. Everything went the same, you know? We set up the tent, made a fire, did the lantern—”

“Told stories about Father,” Vic said.

“Yeah, but that’s not the thing.” He took a deep breath. Adjusted his goggles, which were pinching his hair. “So we went to sleep. And in the middle of the night, a girl stumbled into our campsite. A girl from No Man’s Land.”

“The girl Mom wanted me to meet? The one she said came all the way across. And you believe that?”

“Yeah. I do. I was there, Vic. She collapsed into my fucking arms.”

“Maybe she’s Old Man Joseph’s daughter,” Vic said, laughing.

“It’s not like that,” Conner said. “Vic, she was sent by Dad.”

His sister’s brow furrowed down over her dark goggles. “Bullshit,” she said. She wasn’t laughing anymore.

Conner tugged his ker off. “It’s not bullshit. I’m telling you. She knew who I was. And Rob. She described Dad to a tee.”

“Anyone in town could do that.” The sarfer hit a bump, and Vic glanced toward the bow, adjusted their course. “And even Mom believes her? You sure it’s not just someone looking for a handout? Some kid from the orphanage?”

“Yes, Mom believes her,” Conner said. He rubbed the sand out of the corners of his mouth. “Palmer doesn’t, but he wasn’t there. I don’t know how long he even talked to her.”

“No one comes out of No Man’s Land,” Vic said. She turned from watching the bow to peer at her brother. He wished he could see past her dark goggles. The same hard shells that allowed one person to see, blinded another. “So what’s her story?” Vic asked, her tone one of distrust and suspicion.