Mitchell stood in line at the ticket window. Barzee didn’t pay him any attention. She had been ambivalent about the move to California, and I think she was already tired of the work. Being out in public changed her relationship with me. Up on the mountain, I was her slave. She could boss me around, make me haul the water, cook, do most of the work. But she had to pitch in to help now and that bothered her a lot. Her body language was unmistakable. She simmered. Was it really appropriate for the future Mother of Zion to be hauling packs around?
While she seethed, I had time to look for any friendly faces in the crowd. When someone caught my attention I tried to stare at them, hoping I could communicate with just my eyes, even through the thin veil. I was still praying for someone to rescue me, for someone to recognize me and whisk me way. A middle-aged black woman seemed to look at me. I thought I caught a hint of a smile. Maybe she’s a mother. Maybe she understands what trouble looks like? Maybe she will see the desperation in my eyes. I stared at her, praying she would recognize me.
Glancing at me, she got a sour look on her face. “What are you staring at!” she sneered. “Don’t you know that’s rude! And why don’t you take that rag off your face!”
I looked away. I felt ashamed. I felt rejected. I felt my hopes were being shattered once again.
It was the last time that I ever tried to communicate with someone through my veil.
Mitchell came back to us with the bus tickets. He was so proud. His ministering had paid our way to California. The Lord had provided once again.
A few minutes later, we started boarding. There were only two seats on each side of the bus and Mitchell pushed me toward a window seat, then dropped into the seat beside me. Barzee sat in front of us with the green bag that held our meager supply of food. Mitchell didn’t even wait until the bus pulled out of the depot before he reached up and took some of the food out of the bag and started stuffing his mouth with crackers and cheese.
I was worried. No, it was more than that. I was terrified.
I had already felt real hunger and I didn’t want to feel it again. And at the rate Mitchell was eating, our food would be gone before we made it to Nevada. What would we do then? It had taken almost every penny that we had to buy the bus tickets to California. We were leaving the generous grocer behind. We were leaving behind all of Mitchell’s friends. Mitchell didn’t know a soul in San Diego. Where were we going to stay? How were we going to live? How would we get more food?
Mitchell must have been in an especially good mood that we were finally getting out of Salt Lake City because he passed me a few crackers and some cheese.
“Maybe it would be better if we didn’t eat right now,” I said. “Maybe we should save it until we really need it.”
Mitchell and Barzee acted like I wasn’t there.
I thought about trying to save some of the food, but changed my mind. Better to eat some while I could.
The bus was crowded. I thought it smelled bad, but maybe that was just Mitchell. The bus pulled out of the station, black smoke belching from the exhaust pipes underneath us. We rode south, through Salt Lake City and then Provo, seventy miles of nothing but cities and bedroom suburbs. On the other side of Provo, we started to hit the rural counties where there were miles and miles of nothing but sagebrush, juniper-covered mountains, and barren desert. Every passing mile took me farther and farther from my home. Farther from my family. Farther from the people I loved.
We continued through central and southern Utah. The great rock country outside of Zion National Park. We stopped in some of the larger towns. A few people got off. A few people got on. The ride seemed to take forever. The bus driver was a pleasant woman who would jump on the intercom from time to time to tell us bus jokes. I almost smiled. I didn’t know there was such a thing as bus jokes. We passed over the Utah border. Will I ever be home again? I wondered. It was starting to get dark. We rode through a few miles of Arizona before the freeway turned west and dropped into Nevada. I leaned against the window and watched the passing terrain. Not much to look at. Nothing happening out there.
In the middle of the night, we stopped in Las Vegas to change buses. A lot more people got off the bus than got on. For the rest of the ride to California, I had a row to myself. I know it wasn’t much, but I was grateful for the space. Mitchell, always a very light sleeper, seemed to jerk and wake up every time I even moved. No way he was going to let me slip off the bus in the middle of the night.
We finally made it to San Diego. It was still dark, but the eastern sky was turning a shade of gray. We stepped off the bus into a thick mist. I looked down the street. The roads were shrouded in heavy fog. Every streetlight formed a perfect circle in the yellow light, each one a little smaller the farther they were from me. I began to shiver. It was so clammy. So unfriendly and depressing.
Mitchell studied the metro map on the wall outside the bus stop, then pulled out the map he had stolen from the library, his eyes moving back and forth. Finally, he turned to us and said, “Lakeside is where we will go.”
27.
Fire Swamp