The Waters Below
Her body lay under the outcropping. Lips cracked, her clothing heavy with dried
sweat and stain. Shallow breath moved
her chest, and she tried to pull her legs into the shade.
The heels of her boots scraped against the salt floor of the
Ocean Waste. An inch – then
stopped. Her eyes opened, bloodshot and
raw from their lack of moisture. She
swore quietly, a broken rasp from a throat no longer accustomed to sound.
*
Sunset. An hour of
cooling air and seething ground. Her
feet were scalded, the leather of her boots heating to a dry boil after hours
in the sun.
She ripped a spare shirt into strips of cloth and wrapped it
around her peeling skin and the caked paste of partly evaporated blood. Her swollen feet were forced back into her
boots, and she limped westward for eight hours.
*
The next day there wasn’t any shade. She made a makeshift
shelter out of her clothes, and huddled naked beneath it. The shade was enough, barely, for the
steaming ground and her exhausted body to keep out of the light.
Leg cramps kept her from sleeping most of the day.
*
That night her diminished strength was all but lost in
dressing and repacking her spare clothes.
The Ocean Waste spread out around her, no break in its pale
monotony. The moon spun over the
horizon. The clean white light drew
luminescence from the sun-bleached waste. She slung her rifle over her shoulder and
watched the moon climb the sky before it raced above her. It was larger than it had been in California.
Her hand went to her revolver on an impulse, but her skin
split between her fingers on the draw.
The shot ricocheted from the ground in front of her and she rocked back
from the recoil. Blood fell slowly, half
dry and reluctant. She put her revolver
back in the holster and stumbled west.
*
Her eyes were half closed.
The moon had moved far up and east, and cast an imitation shadow over
her path.
A deeper shadow opened before her and she stopped, blinking
her eyes in an attempt to moisten them.
She knelt and her eyes closed.
*
Her eyes opened, and she realized the sky was growing
lighter. She leaned forward before she
realized that a ravine was only inches in front of her, stretching into
shadowed obscurity. A gasp left her
lips, and her fingers scrabbled against the ground to push herself back.
Her body twisted and her shoulder met the loose white dust
of the waste. She rolled away from the
edge of the ravine, and lay on her back.
Bloodshot eyes watched the dawning sky, and her parched lips drew back
in a grimace. She sat up, took a deep
breath, and began climbing into the ravine.
*
The ground was cool to the touch, baked by the sun only a
few hours each day. Her legs hung over
the edge of a ledge, and she fought to keep her eyes open. She stared downward. About twenty feet down, on the other side of
the ravine, there was an opening in the ravine wall. A thin stream of water flowed out of it, the
water slipping out into the ravine with hardly a whisper of sound.
She stood and stretched, forcing her muscle into
movement. Deep breaths, high steps in
place.
She spat into the ravine.
And leapt across it.
Her body hit the far side a few feet above the opening, and
she clawed at the rock. Falling past the
cave entrance, she caught hold of the stone at its base. Her momentum arrested, and there were many
footholds.
Her eyes blurred, and she croaked a laugh as she collapsed
into the darkness. She put her face
close to the small stream of water, then cursed as she caught the scent of
sulphur.
*
Her canteens were empty.
She had climbed back to the top of the ravine. The sun had just set. Her rifle was loaded.
The moon jumped over the horizon, huge and bright. The stock leapt to the crook of her shoulder
and she fired. Then twice more, leading
by larger distances each time.
She sighed as it soared upward, then blinked as a shower of
sparks sprung from the brilliant sphere.
It faltered in its upward motion, then bent groundward.
Dean took off her hat and gaped as the moon crashed to the
floor of the Ocean Waste and burst into flames.
