Anyways, enjoy.
“Samson,
it’s hot. Very hot.” Jebediah said, wiping his brow with the rag
he kept in his back pocket. The donkey gave him a blank look.
“Haha. Yup,I know. Yous agree.”
Jebediahodiah
gently pulled at the reigns of the donkey, “Com’on girl, we still
got plenty of sun ahead of us and de miles ain’t gunna’ put
demselves behin us.“
The
sun caused shimmers to appear at the horizon of the barren desert,
causing the illusion of water. Being born and raised in the desert
wasteland, Jebediah knew better. The desert is endless, Jebediah has
traveled in every direction for as long as he’s able from Lost
Vegas and has never seen the end of it. North, south, east, west,
northeast, it didn’t matter which direction, the desert continued.
In some areas the desert was only sand, others nothing more than
scrub bushes were evident of any life. Survival in the desert was
hard. Water was a precious commodity, and as valuable as gold.
Jebediah
has heard of stories of a great body of water to the west, but has
never seen it. “Pack Sick It” they called it. What a strange
name for water. Jebediah laughed at the caravaners when they told
him of it. Water? That much? That much water has never been heard
of. Jebediah remembered seeing a barrel filled with water once. He
was about 7 years old, when his father took him to one of the local
market towns. His mouth watered when he recalled that memory, so
many years ago. Licking his cracked lips, he continued walking
towards the distant mountains.
For
days, Jebediah and his donkey, Samson walked in the scorching desert.
Stopping only to make camp for the night. Most nights, Jebediah
would only open up a can of pork and beans that he scavenged from
from various abandon homes, or caravans he came across in his
travels. He used an old bucket he found at a dried up well to hold
the oat and grass feed Samson. Occasionally, however, he would
decide on making a hot meal and would build a fire to cook some dried
or salted meat he bought from the last market town he passed through.
He used an old cast iron dutch oven, filled it with water, added a
small chunk of meat, a potato, a carrot and some spice that he
carried in a small pouch at his side. He would bury the entire
pot, cover and all into the middle of the coals in the. Leaning back
he would take out an old leather bound book and slowly flip through
the pages as he hummed or talked to Samson.
Tonight
was one of those occasional nights. As Jebediah was paging through
the old book and humming to himself, there was a sharp crack as a
branch or twig was broken at a clump of bushes near his camp.
“Yous
might as well come out and show yeself. Udderrwise, I might have to
pull my pistol and fire off some shots into those bushes yous are
hidin behind,” Jebediah drawled, slowly raising to his feet.
“Com’on.
I ain’t gunna hurt you, ‘less yous try to put a hurtin on me
first. I might be n’ol man, but I ain’t been travelin around
this here desert for this long if I ain’t able to defend meself.”
“I's
give you a count of tree before I start shootin’.”
“One...”
Nothing. No sound came from behind the bushes. The old six shot
revolver was already out of Jebediah’s holster and pointing towards
the bushes.
“Two...”
Jebediah pulled the hammer of the revolver back with a loud metallic
click that rang through the night.
“WAIT!”
a small voice called out. Slowly a small figure rose up from behind
the bushes, revealing a young girl around fifteen or sixteen in age.
“Please! Don’t shoot.”
“Watcha
doin’ back der?” asked Jebediah.
“I’m
sorry, I saw your fire from a distance and came to check it out. I
hid in the bushes because I didn’t know if you were dangerous.”
“Wat’s
yous name?”
“Patricia.
Patricia O’Seighn. But everyone calls me Patsy.”
“Wells,
com’on. I ain’t gunna bite. Lets me take a look atcha,”
Jebediah smiled as he put away his revolver and settled back down in
front of the fire. “If yous hungry, dinna will be ready shortly.
Git youself settled an’ tell me yous story. Yous gotta ‘ave a
story if yous be out dere in the desert alone. A girl like yous
ain’t gunna last long outs ‘ere. So plop yers boney ass down by
dis fire an' tell ol’ Jebediah all about it.”
Patsy
cautiously moved out from behind the bushes and sat down across the
fire next to Samson. Samson eyed her briefly before continuing to
munch on his feed from the old bucket. Patsy nervously tugged at the
end of the ponytail of her long reddish blond hair and started to
talk in a hollowed out voice. “My father, brother and I were
moving to the west after my mother died from the Trotter Virus.”
“Five
days ago, our caravan was attacked by bandits. As was planned for
such an occasion, as the men, my father and brother included, tried
to defend the caravan, the rest of us would run and hide any place we
could find. We were able to find a small cave that was blocked by an
outcrop of rocks.”
“We
could hear the bandits crashing around the rocks, calling after us.
But they never found us. After the third day, I left our hiding spot
and returned to the caravan. Their naked bodies were laid out in a
neat row. The horses were all killed, skinned and butchered, and our
wagons were all torched. The bandits took or destroyed everything.
Not a single stitch of clothing, food or water was left.”
“The
bandits knew that we were close and they also knew that we wouldn’t
survive long in the desert without any provisions. I tried to
convince the other women that we needed to move, but they refused.
So I left them. Not until after I helped bury our men.”
“My
father used to take my brother and I out to the woods for camping.
He taught us to survive off the land. Even during the trip he would
point out plants and animals. He would tell us their dangers and
benefits for each. So I knew that I could survive some time out in
the desert.”
“When
I saw your fire, I was ecstatic because I hadn’t been able to find
water for over a day and a half, and I knew that I would need some
soon or I would die.”
“Well,”
Jebediah smiled. “I’s got wahter an som’ food fer yous. If
yous wish it.” He tossed her the water skin.
“Go
ons. Drink yer fill. I gots plenty an’ we ain’t dat far from
more.”
The
water was cold and soothing going down Patsy’s throat. She drank
as much as she could possibly drink without causing her to get
sick... She slowly lowered the water skin, looked at Jebediah with a
haunting look and burst into tears.
“Go
ons, git it out, sweetie.” Jebediah whispered as he rushed to her
side and put a comforting arm around her shoulders. “Yous must
mourn yer pops and brudder. Shh, shh. Dat’s alraight. Yous
go head an cry.”
Patsy
buried her face into Jebediah’s chest and sobbed deeply. The
sobbing continued for what seemed like hours. Slowly her sobs
subsided and she raised her tear streaked dirty face to Jebediah.
“Com’on,
sweetie. Dinners done. Let’s git some food in yer.”
Patsy
watched as Jebediah used a long stick to pull the dutch oven out from
the fire and used a cloth to remove the lid. Her mouth watered when
she smelled the spicy stew that wafted from the pot.
“What
is it?” She asked.
“Some
rabbit and snake...I think. I normally don’t ask wat the meat is.
I’s don’t wanna know.” Jebediah smiled.
“Go
on, git some an give it a try it.”
Patsy
let out a small laugh and smiled as she reached for the bowl of
steaming stew Jebediah offered her. Jebediah smiled back, grabbed
his bowl of stew and settled back down in his spot across from the
fire from Patsy. Silently the both ate the stew. Pausing only to
drink some water from the skin, or wipe some dribble from their
chins. Without a word, Jebediah rose from the ground, gathered the
bowls, spoons and started to wash them using dried sand as a scourer.
Jebediah hummed as he worked and Patsy watched.
Again,
without a word, and when the bowls, pot and stew were stowed away on
Samson, Jebediah settled down in his spot, took out his book and slowly paged through it.
Samson, Jebediah settled down in his spot, took out his book and slowly paged through it.
“What
book is that?” asked Patsy, curious.
“I
dunno.” answered Jebediah. “I’s can’t read. Is just like
lookin’ at de words.”
“Do
you want me to read it to you?”
“Can
yous? Is never seen anybody knowing hows to read before. Wheres did
you learn it?” asked Jebediah, curiously.
“My
father taught me to read when I was a child when we lived in New York
City. Each night he would make me read a page of a book called 'Gone
with the Wind.' I loved those times,” she responded. She stifled
a sob that wanted to burst out of her chest as she recalled the
wonderful times she had with her father.
Patsy
took the book from Jebediah, sat down next to him and leaned over it.
The leather bound was smooth and worn. The words on the cover were
rubbed out, long ago. Patsy slowly opened up the book and flipped to
the beginning of the book.
“The
Old Testiment. Genesis,
chapter 1...”
“Wat
does ‘Genesis’ mean?” asked Jebediah?
“I
think it means ‘beginning or origin,” Patsy answered looking at
jebediah. “Let’s read some more and see what it says.”
“Genesis,
chapter 1. ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the
earth.’”
“Huh?
Whos is dis God person?”
“I’m
not sure. But if he created the heaven and the earth, then he must
be a power person. Shall I continue?”
“Yup,
please.”
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness...”
Patsy
continued reading for hours. Both Jebediah and Patsy were both
engrossed in the words that were flowing from the volume. Entranced.
Finally,
after yawning three times in a row, Jebediah called that they quit
for the night. Gently he took the book from Patsy’s hands and
stashed it back into his jacket. They both granted each other “good
night” and drifted off to sleep.
UPDATE: I'm sorry about the formatting of the story. I wrote it using LibreOffice and the posting of the story removed some of the paragraphing formatting I had set up. I'll try to fix it...later. :) - Paul
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