Mr. Shivers

CHAPTER SIX

They made their way southwest along the road. Trucks and jalopies drove by but none offered rides and soon they stopped hailing them. Each time they passed Connelly saw the dirty faces of young children staring out at them before they disappeared in a cloud of dust and exhaust.

The dust was getting worse, as was the drought. It was like they had landed on the moon. Everything was red and brown and the dust got finer. Simply walking kicked up dust that went up to their shoulders, and it stained everything the color of clay.

One night they walked off the road and camped in a field next to an old tank. They ate chicken and beans they had traded for along the road and Roosevelt produced a harmonica and proved himself to be an enthralling player. They listened as they warmed themselves by the fire.

“How’d you learn to do that?” said Connelly.

“In the stir,” said Roosevelt. “They tossed me in for a nickel spot back in Chicago for assault. Just a barfight, some guy’s leg got broke. Got out in a year, things were too crowded and I was on good behavior. But then, everyone’s spent at least a little time in the clink.”

“No,” said Connelly.

“I haven’t,” Hammond said.

“Or I,” said Pike.

“Oh,” Roosevelt said, frowning. “Well, I guess, um, in certain circles in certain cities it’s just common.” And he went back to playing softly.

“I had a neighbor who could play like that,” said Connelly. “Maybe he learnt it in jail. We’d hear him playing at night through an open window, and we’d sit and just listen. I like to think he knew we were there. Like he waited for us to get ready for dinner and chose that time to play.”

“Do you miss it?” asked Pike.

“Miss it?” said Connelly.

“The stationary life. Home. Do you miss it?”

“Yes. Yes. Of course I do, yes.”

“I can’t remember mine, sometimes. It was so long ago. I was just a boy, fresh out of the army and hopping around to revivals. I remember girls with pigtails and eyes like honey. I remember the smell of bread baking. But everything else is lost to me. What else do you remember, Connelly?”

He thought. “Laughter.”

“Laughter?”

“Just laughter. And my daughter’s eyes. They were green.”

“What happened to your wife?”

“Nothing. I still have her. She’s waiting on me. I’m going to go back to her, if she’ll take me back. Once this is done I’ll go back. And everything’ll be all right. Just like it was before.”

Pike and Roosevelt glanced at each other. Then Hammond got up and strode away from the campfire. Connelly watched him go and looked at the others, surprised.

“He gets that way,” explained Roosevelt. “He’s younger than he looks. I don’t think he’s yet twenty-five.”

“He’ll come back,” said Pike. “He’ll be here in the morning. It must be a strange thing to be so young and know that you cannot have much of a normal life. In ways he has maybe lost more than the rest of us.”

“No,” said Connelly. “He hasn’t.”

Pike nodded. “I suppose not.”

Eventually they lay down to sleep once more. And as Connelly’s eyes shut he saw the desert.

White sands stretched to piercing blue horizons. Overhead the sun beat down, white-hot and unyielding, and as its rays fell upon the sand flats it made them glitter like snow. Harsh mountains lined the distance, muddy-brown and mutinous, and the wind barreled across the desert strong enough to knock a man over.

Connelly blinked, astounded at where he was. Yet somehow he knew he was waiting for something. Something was coming.

He saw it far away. Movement. Something small. He squinted at it but could not see it for the sun. It came closer, and soon he realized it was a man. A young man coming his way, directly toward him, and as he neared Connelly saw he was tall and pale and naked, and streaked with blood. He half strode, half staggered across the sands to Connelly, his arms dangling by his side, his crop of blond hair shining in the sunlight, his blue eyes agonizingly sad. The trail of his footprints wound away through the desert. They were red.

He walked up to Connelly and looked into his face.

“The world is changing,” he whispered.

Then there was a clap of thunder like the sky was breaking. Connelly awoke and nearly screamed. He looked about. The fire had died down. Roosevelt and Pike were asleep, but Hammond was sitting cross-legged across from him, watching.

“Bad dream?” he asked.

Connelly nodded.

“What happened?”

He did not answer, just shook his head.

“What happened?” asked Hammond again.

“There was a desert. A young man, covered in blood. And he… he told me the world was changing, and I woke up.”

“Well, it sure is, isn’t it.”

Connelly looked down at Hammond’s hands. Roosevelt’s gun was in his lap.

“What you doing with that?” he asked.

“Holding it. Getting the feel of it.”

“Why?”

“We didn’t come all the way out here to yell at him, did we?”

“I guess not.”

“You ever kill a man before?”

“No.”

“Me neither. I wish I had, though. Just so I could know. But I guess he’ll be a good start.”

“You going to practice on us?”

“No. I just like holding it. Just to know that I can. I can’t say why, but it makes a man feel good to know that he can kill another. Not that he will. But that he has the capacity. You know?”

“I guess.”

“You know, the hobos said you can get safe passage from Mr. Shivers, but you got to be careful.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You got to walk out to the crossroads on a moon-filled night with no clouds in the sky, and you go out and find a stone and write your name on the bottom of it and bury it in the road. He comes in the morning, leading his line of men he’s taking off to hell, and he’ll read your name and then you can pass through that town easy and you won’t get harried by him or whoever he’s running.”

“Go to sleep, Hammond.”

He turned the gun over in his hands. “I can’t.”

“Try.”

“All right. I’ll try.”

“Well. Good night, then.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Good night.”