Rachel shook her head and trudged toward the river, past the wreckage of rubber and canvas, the ground sucking at her shoes as she went. I paused at the raft, stunned and struck by the violence that had been hazarded upon it, before hurrying to catch up with her.
Her glasses stored on a neighboring rock, Rachel stretched out belly down on a sheet of slate suspended over a bubbling eddy, head and arms invisible as she splashed water on herself and drank out of cupped palms. We all followed suit; I felt marginally better afterward.
I looked at the river. Here it stretched close to fifty feet across, flowing tamely and with a serenity we had not yet witnessed. I could almost picture barges making their way down it; certainly there was enough room. I remembered Rory’s words and sat up. “We’re at the Mississippi!”
Pia looked up at me, her face and hair dripping.
“Don’t you remember what Rory said about what would happen after the Flush?”
She shook her head, blanching at the sound of Rory’s name.
“He said there’d be five or six miles when we’d swear we were on the Mississippi, and then—”
“Satan’s Staircase. That I remember,” Rachel said.
I got to my feet, excited. “But then that’s it! That’s the last big water. Don’t you remember? He said there’d be some small stuff, then the takeout at the Willows. That’s tomorrow. We just need to keep going!”
“We must have walked a couple of miles last night, who knows . . .” Sandra trailed off.
“So . . . twenty more miles of walking?” Rachel said.
“I can’t,” Pia said. “I mean, I have to rest a little. Sleep for an hour. I just have to.”
The day was heating up fast and the sun beat down on us. Under a coating of mud and grass stains, Pia looked a sickly white. Her face shone with sweat.
“Be serious,” Rachel started. “You know they were here.” She glanced around at the buzzing woods, the putrefied crop. “Where’s it safe to—”
“There’s a place I saw back there—close by—that looks kind of hidden,” Pia said. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
She turned, and we gathered our corpselike selves, shuffling along behind her across the rock and back up the bank, Rachel grumbling. It struck me that we were still following this woman no matter where she led us. But I too felt about to drop with fatigue. Even more than food, the idea of sleep called like a sweet siren to every fiber of my being. Pia paused at the raft to collect several long strips of canvas and rubber, which we carried to the edge of the field. Behind a screen of scrubby pines, a ruined fieldstone foundation bordered a ten-foot square of sunken ground. We gathered a few branches to cover ourselves before Pia climbed down into the depression. She arranged the pitiful remnants of the raft near an old chimney that sat crumbling at the center of the pit, as if there she would find at least the memory of comfort.
Like sheep, we did as she did, half falling down next to each other in speckled sunshine. She took off her helmet and tossed it on the ground in disgust, her hair matted so close to her head she looked as if she were wearing a cloche. The rest of us followed suit.
“You look totally psycho,” Rachel said, smiling weakly as she looked at my head.
I reached up, touching corners, hard wings, strange bumps. “Let’s ditch these helmets,” I said, suddenly noticing how CMYK we looked in all our absurdly bright clothing and orange vests. How very findable.
“Mine keeps my head warm,” Sandra said, taking hers off and laying it gently next to her.
“We need everything we have,” Rachel said. “I don’t give a shit how uncomfortable it is.” Her helmet was barely a helmet anymore, it was so bent and cracked, but she removed it respectfully and placed it alongside her. She might have gotten more comfort from hers than we did from ours, as she was hardly able to see three feet in front of her.
Pia curled up on the cool earth and dragged the branches over her. I stored my sharp stick alongside me as we settled under the pine boughs. It felt like a grave, as if we were giving up. Somehow the thought didn’t much bother me. My limbs shuddered with exhaustion, muscles twitching and spasming, while my head pounded with hunger, since my stomach was beyond feeling it. I breathed in the urinous tang of the pine branches that rested on us, trying to release my fear with every exhale, but I could still taste it on my tongue. The others were asleep in seconds. Sandra snored softly next to me.
I closed my eyes and saw six-year-old Marcus standing over me, his floppy black hair covering one eye, fists jammed on narrow boy hips. He leaned over and tapped me on my shoulder. I signed to please leave me alone, I was trying to sleep.
He signed, “But it’s time to play.”
In my dream I got up and pointed to the others, signed, “Don’t wake them, they’re exhausted.”
He scrambled to the top of the fieldstone wall, where he turned and plopped down cross-legged on the stones. “Come here,” he signed, looking down at me. “Surprise for you.”
I gazed at him. Loved him. Signed slowly, with stiff fingers, “Marcus, I can’t take care of you anymore.”