Martin stretched his eyes to the sand shadows flowing over the town, a crumbling relic on old, broken Route 66. Crawling over the cactus, dominating the mounds of thirsty grasses, thrusting out from behind the foothills, something approached... what? He wanted to get out of the van and soak up the ambience to better understand it. Too bad they didn’t have some trout or chicken fillets. He could take out the Coleman and grill outside, listen, wait, understand, pretend it was summer and clean blue waves were crashing at his heels.
He and Teresa had spent an involved hour practicing mantles. The game was an old one for the nomads. She’d taught it to Martin twenty years ago. He still remembered her then, a much younger and frightened Teresa, still morose from losing her last partner, David Wessing. The game’s concept was a simple distraction for them both. Mental push-ups. Each person formed a mantle and set it against the other, pushing it toward the opposition until someone grew too weary. They had quite a rally going, but Martin’s mind wandered and he took apart his ghost-matter, reshaped it. He imagined the form of a rubber ducky. Even though mantles were invisible, Teresa sensed the reshaping and frowned as her rigid block pressed into his duckbill.
Her eyes were shut with complete seriousness. “You’re going to tire yourself out. That isn’t part—”
“Just because you can’t shape them—” He immediately corrected his tone, knowing she’d take it as a challenge. “Look, I’m just getting bored is all.”
“You haven’t pushed my mantle out yet,” she reminded. It was a prod at his competitive side, something she knew he did not possess, but always felt determined to unearth.
“Can I wave the white flag now?”
“No.”
He let go anyway. “You need your rest.”
He felt her mantle slip into divisions and extinguish from this world. Teresa opened her eyes and went right to her pocket for a clove. All Martin could do was sit there, back sweating against the driver’s seat, stomach gurgling for anything solid, just watching her, listening to the crackling fiberglass, smelling the cinnamon-sweet burn. How could he hate her so much and love her so much at the same time? He’d treated her so poorly these last few months. There’d been no other way to deal with her self-immolation. But come on, he thought, pushing someone away because it’s easier than losing them? Martin had to admit it was childish distancing, at best. He had no delusions about his tactics. Clove after clove though, Teresa didn’t care about breaking his heart, so why should he tend to hers? The thought was sour in his mind: Because she’s dying, you asshole.
But should he apologize for her mistake?
Not like this and not now; Teresa understood his thinking probably better than he did himself and it would do him no good. He always got snippy closer to the Day of Opening. Morale had definitely slipped since meeting that buxom girl and the lumberjack bartender. Even though he couldn’t explain it, Martin got the impression they weren’t supposed to meet those two, at least not on that day. Their flat tire might not have even been part of destiny. It wouldn’t have surprised him. On the unpredictable nomadic path, Martin had learned that anything and everything went. But if in the bar there’d been some kind of interference, who was responsible? Around the 31st, things could go wonky, and time and space could be jimmied—not changed, just toyed with. Spotting trouble had become a sixth sense for Martin, and those two in the bar got the sirens blaring for sure.
There was another thing wrong though. Something, or some person, had perished somewhere close. Not like death wasn’t constantly happening everywhere anyway but what Martin sensed wasn’t flesh and bone and wasn’t literally dying. This death, unraveling over the hills and afar, was not earthbound; he got this feeling every October. His kidneys twisted like a doorknob that would open the way to the answer.
Never had though.
“The Messenger’s close,” Teresa told him quietly, bands of sweet smoke lifting around her face.
Until now.
Sam Cooke’s voice was joyful through the sketchy speakers. Another Saturday night, and Sam ain’t got nobody. It was actually Friday night, but the song still had forlorn poignancy. Even in the company of another, loneliness happened on the road sometimes, a sucker punch to the aorta. He and Teresa had never really had any private space of their own and so they learned to tune out each other’s existence.
Then there were times when each other’s presence was too well-known. Like today. That whole day Martin spent sitting in the van with Teresa, eating chip shrapnel from a greasy bag, taking walks out in a desert as empty as his mind, or listening to the radio until it got too annoying. Road-weary madness seeped into his brain and suddenly his voice became hers and hers his. His loathing of her sickness turned into self-loathing, which spawned new resentment when he thought about their last trip to the doctor.
Teresa brushed her nails clean and went to filing the other hand. Martin didn’t think it had hit her until the hospital. She probably wouldn’t be around this time next year. She might die in a motel room, surrounded by bloody paper tissues, maybe some wilted get-well flowers from Martin. He could already envision himself softly crying over her, and feel the hot tears burn hot in his eyes. The lump in her lung would be a melon-sized bomb by then. Maybe a lung rupture would kill her or maybe something messier and less dignified would. How would Martin deal? Would the Messenger give him another partner, like what happened with Teresa when David was killed?
The silent scratching of the nail file pissed him off and she sensed his anxiety right away. “We haven’t organized the weapon cache for a while,” she suggested.
“You go right ahead. It’s already an anal-compulsive’s wet dream.”
She glanced over. “Some of the labels are peeling off.”
“I’ll just read the name on the box of ammo, thank you very much. And I know the difference between an M-1000 and a smoke grenade.”
“You’re just going to get hemorrhoids sitting there. Get up and do something, Martin.”
“Don’t order me around.”
Teresa slapped her file on the dash and burst out laughing. “I’m sorry,” she managed. He glared. “I don’t mean to laugh. You’re just hypersensitive.”
It was a puzzle for him sometimes what was more difficult: having only one partner to protect the Heart of the Harvest, or to be bound to that one person rather than taking the Church on his own. It was completely a no-win deal.
“I’ve had nothing but potato chips and beer. I’m about to shish kabob a kangaroo rat with some cactus chunks.”
“We’ve eaten worse.”
He thought about this and added, “And you’ve had nothing but cloves. I haven’t even seen you drink a glass of water.”
“I’m not thirsty.”
“Teresa—”
“Drop it, Martin.”
“Teresa—”
“Drop it.”
He fell back against his seat and stared at the hanging fabric on the roof of the van. It looked like the overhead of a circus canopy—one lousy circus at that. “It’s just—” he began, appearing uncertain as to why he even bothered. “Can’t you ever let me help?”
“I told you about the weapon cache.”
He sat up straight. “I may be twelve years younger, but I know enough to know what’s good for you. I ain’t a spring duck—or chicken, whatever.”
“If this is about eating that seaweed shit again, I don’t know how many times I need to tell you that I don’t believe in that Eastern stuff.”
“Fine, but can’t you give me some credit? Can’t you trust me and try new things? For me?”
He could tell she wanted another clove right then and thought hard about lighting one up. She was wise enough to know it would only make things worse.
“Let me tell you something,” he said, trying to soften his tone, “I remember one morning my father went to kiss my mother goodbye before going to the station. Shit, it’s been so long the memory seems to belong to someone else—but he bends down, puts his lips on hers and accidentally steps on her foot. She screams. Loud. So you know what my father does?”
Teresa shook her head.
“He went to his patrol car all red-faced and nostrils flaring. He was pissed off like he was the one who had his metatarsals crushed.”
“Why though?”
“It was like he had suddenly confirmed something about my mother. That was his kiss and it didn’t blow her away like it should have, maybe like it did when she was younger. She should have still enjoyed the kiss, even through the pain. She didn’t though. She decided to scream in his face.”
“But he stepped on her toes.”
“He didn’t speak to her for three days—he never said sorry either.”
“What a jerk.”
“But she’s the one who really messed up. Even hopping around with a taped-up foot and crutches, she wouldn’t see something extremely obvious. She refused to believe my father had done anything wrong—she even told me he apologized when I knew damn well he didn’t. My mother didn’t want anybody to think she was unhappy. Because being wrong would mean the pain was a truly real thing. And that’s what you’re doing too Teresa. You’re pretending nothing’s wrong when it suits you, and you despair the rest of the time.”
“Nice psychoanalysis.”
He closed his eyes. “Do whatever then, smoke yourself silly,” he whispered. “With everything else we go through every year, I’m so through with this shit.”
“Let’s concentrate on the matter at hand,” Teresa said, straightening in her seat. “Somewhere out there a new Heart waits for us. We have to do it right this year. Cloth can’t take another one—if he does, that gateway is getting a whole lot larger. I think that’s a bigger deal than one person’s bad habit. Don’t you think?”
Martin didn’t answer, just kept his eyes closed, practiced breathing at first, and then pretended to be dead.
~ * ~
Teresa didn’t deserve Martin sometimes. She hadn’t deserved David either, for that matter. So many years passed where she couldn’t bring herself to even think about David. Lately it felt like he was standing before her with his cool, bright smile, smelling like spicy incense with a scandalous electric look in his eyes. David Wessing had taught her everything she knew about being a nomad, made her who she was. There was no blaming him for her faults though. How could she? David’s last word had been a screaming plea that went unanswered. It echoed in her heart still.
She knew how to push a horrible memory away—it was simple. Just think about the job ahead. It had actually been easier right after David died. She focused only on Martin; they went to see the Messenger’s small special operations group: Ramson CuVek, Bill Masters, Li Chu, and Robin Escal. They worked Martin down to the core and some of the mentors, self-defense mentor CuVek especially, hadn’t taken it much easier on her. The mentors knew what was at stake and what they were up against. They had all once lived in the Old Domain, after all. The only way to help was to train them well.
A year had passed before she could get close to Martin. Under a strict time constraint, Bill Masters had tasked them to set eleven mantles and something like sixteen C4 charges around an abandoned metal finishing plant. With Martin backing her, they passed the test, even with a time limit of twenty-three minutes. They even found time to have a first kiss in the slanting shadows beneath a rusty scaffolding.
The first encounter had been intense and welcome, but she hadn’t known then if she could love Martin the same way she’d loved David. Martin had kept her hope alive through difficult times. Then one day she’d gone to pick up road supplies but got halfway before remembering her wallet—back at the motel she found Martin with some woman. A waitress, she wagered, from the Denny’s uniform spilling over a chair.
That was a long time ago. Now Martin wouldn’t seek anyone else—that brand of carelessness wasn’t in him any longer. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing. Breaking some emotional ties might make this failing thing between them easier to watch disintegrate. That was what her heart told her, despite the endless miles stacked against the notion.
She had slept on and off all today and now that it was pitch-black her body bounded with energy. She considered building a modest mantle tent around the van. Something freezing dripped over her neural receptors and she shook away the idea. She was happy not being exhausted for a change.
She ducked into the back of the van and took up a Black Belt magazine Martin bought her a few months ago as a joke. Lying down on the full size mattress, she could still see his shape lounging in the front. Boredom had gotten the best of them. Reading, she tittered at a side panel featuring a man in camouflage GI gear hammer-kicking a wood board. The first few paragraphs were actually intriguing, if technically flawed, but then any true content fell away as the writer began to recount a past tournament in New York. Teresa’s chest cinched with pain anyway and her stomach bubbled with hunger. Having nothing else to keep her mind occupied, she’d be coughing soon and probably wake Martin up.
She needed to write a will for him. It would be the first step in accepting this with a modicum of dignity. Dying was easy for Teresa. Leaving the pain behind for someone else wasn’t. David had done it to her and now she’d do it to Martin—and just like with David, there’d be nothing left behind, no money, no property, no assets of any kind. Just a body, and the indelicate task of disposal.
A Sam Cooke song flowered in her ears, a gospel ditty, “Hem of his garment.”
If I touch it, I’ll be healed...
Something moved outside the van.
Her body shifted. She pulled Martin’s M1911 from under the mattress. It felt good and heavy with singular purpose. Flicking off the safety, she glanced back. Martin still slept. Take it slow, she thought. Calm. It could be a coyote.
Or black suits.
She edged sideways. Her legs trembled as she hunkered down, gun clasped in both hands. She stopped. The cold desert night seeped in through the sides of the doors. There was another long, scraping sound—a claw over glass.
Now came a tapping. The world rocked. Teresa wanted control back, just to tell herself this was her nerves, but there seemed to be no end in sight. She brought her gaze over the back window, through the pane. A tumbleweed edged along the bumper, scraping it with a sound like steel on steel.
Martin came awake and twisted out of his seat. She felt him summon a mantle but she shook her head and signaled all-clear. With a slow unfolding of her arm, she dropped the gun down on her hip and moved the safety into place with her thumb.
Martin blew some air out and released his mantle. He slumped against the threshold. “You okay?”
“I’m so hungry I think I’m getting the jitters.”
He nodded groggily. “We don’t know when the next letter will arrive.”
“Or if there will be money,” she added.
“He gives us some every year.”
“Maybe this time’s different. Did you feel the displacement at the bar?”
He slowly nodded, although it seemed he didn’t want to admit this for the sake of it being true. “It probably has nothing to do with the Messenger.”
It started to rain outside.
“We can’t go on this way. What if the letter doesn’t come until the 30th? Do we starve until then?”
Martin closed his eyes, trying to fall back to sleep. “We’ve used the mantles to steal before. It’s all right. Nobody’s going to hell.”
“Too much exposure, I think we need to make a stop in Flagstaff.”
His eyes opened and his face colored now. “That’s not on the way.”
“I haven’t seen mom and dad in thirty years, Martin. They’ll give us money when they see how badly off we are. Besides, they need to know about what’s happening to me. You said I should own up. Well, here you are.”
“What the hell are you talking about? There’s no time Teresa. Your parents might not even be alive anymore. And the Messenger said we couldn’t go back—”
She hit the lever and the back doors popped open. The tumbleweed hopped into the dark brown emptiness. Rain snapped loudly against the pavement. She lit a clove anyway and sucked in. In the rain the smoke struggled for shape. Her lungs suddenly burned with relish.
“The Messenger has never missed a letter yet,” said Martin, following.
A mouthful of smoke fell out and stung her eyes.
“Is this really about telling them the truth?” he persisted. “Be honest with me, goddamn it. We don’t have the time to piss away.”
The smoke started to hurt. She smashed the half-smoked clove under her tennis shoe. He watched her a long time, seeming unsure how to proceed. The rain stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Moonlight bent over the glistening road and made everything look bathed in tar. Martin finally dropped outside and took her waist, pulled her close. His heart thumped quick underneath his t-shirt. She laced her fingers around his puka shell necklace and toyed with one shell for a few moments, then rested her face on his warm chest.
“We’ll go,” he told her.