Chapter 20

Bolden had imagined it would be quiet in the desert, but he had been wrong. The prevailing sound was the wind, and any gust of it stirred the sand that covered him and everything around him. There were also the stones that crackled, heated by the Sun, and lizards that slithered, sounding a bit like the wind, only softer.

He learned all of this gradually, as the sun baked him to death.

He walked randomly for a while, until he started stumbling and collapsed face-down in the hot sand. It gave him a nasty burn and Bolden felt the need to waste some of his precious water to calm it momentarily. It did more harm than good because the water in the bottle was piping hot, like tea just taken off the stove.

He took off his shirt and improvised a kerchief to protect his head, but that too was a bad idea. Half an hour later, his skin was red like the shell of a boiled lobster, and four hours later, by the time the sun had begun to cool, his skin had started to peel off. He reached the illusory shelter of some rocks when the day was over, hungry, with his back an open wound. He hadn’t seen Fata Morgana or cool ponds filled with glowing fish yet, but it was just a matter of time now. He wished he hadn’t thrown away the empty bottle the colonel tossed to him, if only because there might be one final drop of water inside it.

The sun disappeared and night in the desert fell almost without warning, plunging him into terrible cold.

The dials of the Device he kept on his wrist caught his attention. Folder had forgotten to take it back, or perhaps he left it to him, as a sort of compensation, or as a final taunt. Its dials didn’t indicate imminent death, but given his situation, the notion that this might be good news was at best debatable.

Only terrible exhaustion let him doze off. He woke up after a few minutes, tortured by the chills, the cold, the hunger and, most of all, the thirst. He became absolutely convinced that he wasn’t going to see the light of day. At least the torment would stop.

Even so, deep down he wasn’t at all willing to give up life. He had been lucky that Folder was a scrupulous man and hadn’t shot him – although, according to the arguments he put forward, he should have done so without hesitation.

He remembered an old movie about the Second World War, something about Jews in German concentration camps. Some had survived by performing the vilest of tasks, such as carrying the dead bodies of other Jews they had led to their death, telling them the gas chambers were shower rooms. lied to as they led them to the gas chambers, telling them these were showers.

It was a terrible act, yes, but those Jews who had committed them were survivors, and they were respected as such. They had had a choice: to live, bearing what was unbearable for any human being, or to die; they had gone through hell to make it out and tell others what horrors people were capable of doing to each other.

As in a dream – at first he thought he was dreaming – he saw a light flickering somewhere up north. It was impossible to estimate the distance in the desert, but he rose and staggered toward it. It didn’t look like he was getting any closer, and at one point, it flickered and disappeared. Bolden fell on his knees, desperate and hopeless.

He thought about the surviving Jews again, but, most of all, about everything he had gone through to stay alive. Once again he found the strength to defy the ruthless natural or Godly law by which his life should have ended. He got back on his blistered feet and walked in the direction of the extinguished light, and when he couldn’t walk anymore, he crawled on his elbows and knees until he passed out, exhausted and dehydrated.

In the remaining two hours before daybreak, he felt life draining out of him. Only a tiny thread remained attached to his body.

***

Although he had woken up, he felt sure he was dreaming. His face was miraculously cooled; so was his back, and someone was dripping cold water on his lips, from a white plastic cup. He tried to grab the cup and drink it right away, but he only managed to knock it from the hands of the person who was holding it. His palms had been wrapped in white bandages and he realized that they didn’t hurt anymore.

“Well, everything is all right,” he heard the melodious voice of a man that sounded almost otherworldly. “You’ll be able to drink to your heart’s desire, but now we must give you water with moderation, otherwise it can hurt you.”

Once again the cup approached his dry lips and only with an immense effort of will did he not grab it away.

“You were lucky. Sometimes I spend a night in the desert. I found you a few steps away from my fire. I have put some ointment on your skin, and now that you are awake we will leave at once,” the voice said. “I’ve already notified the dispensary. They’ll be waiting for us.”

The man helped him get in the car and fastened his seatbelt. They started driving through the desert; Bolden felt every mound and rock the car went over, but didn’t care. He fell asleep almost immediately, but not before taking a look at the Device on his wrist; he sighed, relieved. The pointers hadn’t moved.

They set him up comfortably in one of the two beds at the local infirmary. A nurse changed his bandages and cleaned him with a wet sponge. Bolden offered no details about how he had ended up in the middle of the desert, claiming he had amnesia. The sheriff came, but Bolden pretended to be asleep until he heard him say he was going to come back the following day. Bolden ate a bowl of chicken soup and asked for another. He slept.

He woke early, as the painkillers wore off and the pain from his burns returned. He got up to ask for help, but the dispensary didn’t have overnight medical staff. Serious cases were sent to the hospital in Pathrump, which is where he would have gone if the doctor had seen him earlier in the day. The tiny town of Horring (population 216) typically only received doctor’s visits twice a week.

He looked for his clothes and found them eventually; they were dirty and crumpled and had been thrown near a garbage container. He pulled his pants on over the shorts someone had given him, and tied on his now-shabby shoes.

Eventually he found the door to the street, and breathed in the cool air of dawn in the desert.

The silence of the morning was broken by the engine of a car that pulled over in front of a small branch of the National Bank, right across from the dispensary. A man got out of the car, threw a long, inquisitive look at Bolden and then raised the metal shutters, disabled the alarm and opened the branch office.

Bolden crossed the street, limping, and entered the building, which turned out to look more like a general store than a bank. It was clear that the man at the counter knew who he was.

“Hello, sir,” he said. “It’s not open yet. I came a little earlier. I have some work to do. You know, perhaps you shouldn’t have left the dispensary.”

Small news travels fast in small towns..

“You were really lucky, sir, that Brad happened to be around. Sometimes he wanders for a whole week without anyone knowing where he is. He says he catches bugs and gathers plants, but I think that he really likes the desert. Do you want a cup of coffee?” he asked politely. “I just made it. I’m Martin. I am in charge of this bank, but I also keep the store here,” he pointed to the rest of the room where there were shelves with all sorts of merchandise.

He stretched out his hand and Bolden shook it. He accepted a cup of strong, fragrant coffee.

“Listen, Martin, do you have a computer around here? I have some work to do. I will pay, of course. And Id like you to open a bank account for me, here, right now. Can you do that?”

The man blinked.

“The computer for customers is right over there, but an account? Sure. But in what name? I heard you had amnesia.”

“You pick a name for me,” Bolden said as he settled in front of the computer.

Then things happened so quickly that Martin, used to the slow rhythm of his town, almost felt dizzy. Later on, in the evening, he told the curiosity-mongers gathered at the bar, for the hundredth time, what had happened in those few minutes he had to deal with the mysterious stranger. The subject of the unknown rich man much exceeded the subject of the Los Angeles catastrophe in the level of interest it stirred. Despite the fact that no one had ever seen a real one, the town’s unanimous opinion was that the stranger was a drug dealer, left to die in the desert by partners he had probably cheated.

The accounts tended to differ greatly according to the number of beers Martin had had.

Basically, things happened like this: the stranger connected to the Internet and worked intently for a while, accessing accounts with passwords he alone knew. He asked whether Brad, the man who found him, had an account and then transferred him $100,000.

He asked Martin, how much cash he had in the safe, and replied that the safe had a little more than $50,000. He covered his mouth with his hand, quite worried, when he realized that that information shouldn’t have been disclosed at all.

But instead of taking out a gun, the man asked for a pen wrote a check, withdrawing from his own account the exact amount of cash in the bank’s strongbox. Martin took the check, his hand trembling, he verified it by phone and then, to make sure, he faxed it to the regional branch where there was always an account officer on duty. After receiving confirmation, he cashed it.

The stranger bought a cheap bag made of brick-red oilcloth in which he shoved all the money. He also bought some clothes – a pair of blue duck pants, a checkered shirt, like those worn by farmers, and a pair of sports shoes. He changed in the fitting room and threw his old clothes in the garbage bin. He rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, thanked Martin, said goodbye and left the store. Martin came after him and stood in the doorway, watching him leave; he still couldn’t believe he had witnessed such a thing.

He watched the stranger, who didn’t even turn his head once, walk straight to the gas station.

From here, the story was told by the kid on duty at the gas station. When the stranger walked in he was half asleep, but he bolted to his feet when the stranger announced that he’d come to buy a car. He chose one from the group that locals had left there in the vain hope of finding a buyer. The stranger didn’t haggle, paid with cash straight out of his bag, asked for a fill-up and borrowed a map on his way out.

The legend of a very wealthy stranger, found in the desert, remained behind him. As for the wealth of the stranger found in the desert, even the wildest version of the story couldn’t come close.