Norman Rush - Mortals

He got himself to his feet and began dragging Dwight Wemberg’s body back to safety. His arm was dripping blood. Morel was not helping him, he was lying still. He was lying on the ground, back there.

He dropped Wemberg’s body and ran to see about the good doctor. He had a strange feeling as he ran, which was that he was running on a sheet of glass or on some thickness between himself and the ground, a thickness he could run on forever and that he would never tire of running on if he had to. He was probably using up vital forces from his what, his bone marrow or his coccyx or somewhere. It was connected with something, a line I staggered banged with terror through a million billion trillion stars . I can step on anything and not fall, he thought.

What was left of the building was heeling over in their direction. Morel was conscious, but he was stunned. Ray seized him by the belt. Morel felt weightless to Ray, a slight thing he could pull along after him on the glass, a thing that could slide like those things on ice, hockey things.

The building was singing as it came down, or something within it was.

Morel got to his feet.

They kept moving back. Morel was helping him with Wemberg’s body yet again. He was strong.

With a harsh, giant sigh the building came all the way down, thrusting out billows of flame and burning debris.

He stopped. He had to get his bundle. His vision of things was showing perforations, black perforations.

He had his bundle.

The perforations were expanding.

Kerekang was approaching him. He had been sitting with maps open in his lap and he was standing now and the maps had fallen to the ground and he was coming over.

“I have to lie down,” Ray said to Morel.

“Okay,” Morel said.

“You have your bag?”

“I’m okay. Yes, I do.”

We must look strange, Ray thought. He had hold of Wemberg’s left wrist and he was clasping Strange News tightly under his other arm. And Morel had Wemberg by the right wrist and with his other hand had a death grip on his medical bag, which was not completely understandable because it had been rifled, as he recalled, emptied of anything useful except Vaseline and Mercurochrome and witch hazel. It was going to feel peculiar going back to a world where business was conducted by decently groomed and normally dressed people not at their wit’s end every minute. He was confident he would be back in such a world. He didn’t know why.

He sank to his knees, to rest. So did Morel. It was companionable of Morel to do that. He was worse off than Morel, closer to being unable to contribute, a drug on the market, someone to be attended to. He was sorry. And he was sorry that his knee was not allowing him to rest, his bad knee. He hauled it up. He was unsteady. Morel steadied him.

Kerekang was walking toward them and dropping things on the way without realizing it, like the maps and something else, a watch or a compass, more likely. It was fatigue. People were picking the dropped items up for him.

Kerekang said, “Rra, we have to clear out. We have little time. Look behind you, you’ll see why. The fire is revealing where we are.”

Ray made himself look fully at it. He hated the sight. It was undoubtedly all the exotic wood used in putting the place together that accounted for the fury of the blaze. There had been objections at the time to timbering operations near Kazengula, but by the time that had been stopped the people behind Ngami Bird Lodge had gotten all the wood they would need.

“I understand …”

“You see, once they have us marked, koevoet can come over by helicopter from SouthWest or from Caprivi where they still have a camp, Omega.”

“I understand, but … we must cover that old man.”

Ray saw that the dressing on Wemberg’s chest and side had been lost in the last phase of dragging his body back and forth. There were his wounds. How he had been able to walk around wounded as he was Ray would never be able to understand. He had bled to death and there was no way, with those injuries, that anything could have been done. Your pubic hair is going to be white someday too, if you’re lucky, he said to himself. It was going to happen. He hoped he would be with someone who wouldn’t mind. He would never see his wife’s thatch go white. Someone would.

A disordered negotiation ensued. Ray could barely contribute. Someone had given him a cup of water, but he wanted more. Morel’s Land Rover had been destroyed. He wanted to reclaim Ray’s Land Cruiser. He wanted to drive the Land Cruiser back to Gaborone, taking Ray, and Wemberg’s body. But Kerekang wanted the use of the Land Cruiser. There were wounded to transport. He wanted to get away to a place of safety in the bush. Morel and Ray would have to accompany him, at least for a day or two. They could safely bury Wemberg in the bush and mark the place. Then they could separate from the group and depart for Gaborone, taking the Cruiser.

Morel wanted to know why his Rover had been destroyed, while the Land Cruiser had been spared.

Kevin had an explanation. “I don’t know, but I’ll tell you what I think is that Quartus wanted to keep the blue Cruiser to himself. You know how it is, we like these Toyotas.”

Ray was feeling heavily proprietary toward his vehicle. It had served him well. It was still nicely provisioned, unless the villains had raped it. He could get into it. He could drive it. He could drive it in rough country. The idea that Quartus might have wanted to drive his Cruiser away forever into Namibia for his own use was enraging. There was also the question of who was going to be liable for the vehicle that had been assigned to him if he went home without it. But that was sordid, or was it. He was going to have to sign papers unless he could bring it back alive. He wasn’t prepared for this. He had assumed his good vehicle had been destroyed in the general destruction. But it was there in front of him, the engine running.

The witdoeke were swarming over the Cruiser. They were delighted with it. The petrol drums were full. They had topped everything up in Gumare. There was plenty of water.

“How did you get it started? I have no idea what they did with the key,” Ray said.

Kevin answered, “Rra, it was in the pocket of their captain, the ugly man. He had keys of all kinds. We had taken his vehicles and burned them, but he had put your vehicle aside, it was not with the others.”

Morel was almost rebellious. Ray understood it. Before the appearance of the Cruiser there had been only the difficult choice of going deeper into the bush to some unknown fate or striking out down the road toward the main route, where there might be nothing happening once they got there. This part of the country had been sealed off. There were a thousand ways to die hoping for something that was no longer available. And the Cruiser was there, humming and promising a way out for the two of them.

Morel wanted to be with Iris at the earliest possible opportunity and to warn her, this was burning in Ray’s mind, warn her that the cock was out of the bag, get to her so they could together figure something out because the cat was out of the bag and it was over, everything was, which she was going to feel was what, was something burning down and singeing her hair … It would be so much like this castle burning down behind them. However anything came out, it was going to be a race to get to Iris first and it was a race he was going to win.

His enemy Morel was very strong, and would try to get there first before Ray could look into the face of hell himself, first, his wife’s beautiful woman’s face, his wife’s face saying it was true what she had done, admitting it. He had to be there for it, and without Morel. He had to be there before Morel could confuse things.