Sand Red

5

We left at dusk. Four children had been sent on their way with Charlotte and Madan. The older ones had been quite upset about leaving us. Sanam had broken down and accused us of lying. She was sure we were going to die. 

Jordan's announcement of our plan had been met with shock. Seth had deserted us in his outrage. But the remaining saw that it was the only way. There was anger directed at the Reds, as they called the blood dressed farmers, for refusing to trade with us the water we needed to keep our children with us. But there was nothing for it and we had already sent the children, angry and afraid, to security.

The shrunken group shuffled forward nervously in the fading light. We travelled by night because the desert is cooler then and we did not have to battle the heated sand and waste water in sweat. The Reds' gate in the front was illuminated by thick beamed white lights and each of our faces passed through the spotlight as we marched. The gates swung open and the Red guards stood by impassively as we passed. The towering metal clanged shut as the last man stepped through. We were empty handed, having left much of our blankets and heavy belongings behind at the Red settlement. We carried only what was necessary: the water. Every man knew in his heart that the way forward was far more dangerous than anything we had ever dealt with. You didn't have to guess too hard to know what the Baxters would do with us if we were caught. We were taking a gamble with our lives and every one of us believed it was the only way, or they wouldn't have been with us.

The water sloshed in our waterbags as we moved. The landscape moved around us, resilient and alive, the blue dunes stretching never endingly into the horizon. Od hovered around his brother anxiously. I trudged up to them.

'..doesn't hurt at all, you're being stupid,' Yul was telling his brother. He sounded tired.

'How is it?' I asked him as I came up. Od looked around and they parted to let me walk with them.

Yul sighed. 'Fine as ever. You're the third person to ask me that since we started,' he said a tad reproachfully.

'Because there's a hole in your palm and you won't treat it!' Od exclaimed.

Yul rolled his eyes and looked at me as if to say, see? 'It's bothering him way more than it bothers me,' he informed me. 'Honestly, you'd think it was my foot and not a left hand!'

Od sighed and shook his head angrily. 'He won't listen to me. He needs to change the bandaging every day, but he gave every last spare back to that surgeon when he heard of the trade rate.'

I looked at Yul worriedly. 'Don't be a fool. You don't want to lose the hand.'

'I'll boil rags as always. It's never failed us, has it?' he challenged.

'Well it's too late to do anything else now, isn't it!' Od shouted angrily. 

Yul rubbed an eye with his good hand. 'Drop it,' he said tiredly.

I fell into step with them silently and we continued forward as the sky turned indigo.

The first water ration was handed out under a black sky filled with a billion stars. I sipped it in silence, savoring the wetness and shivering as the cold settled in my belly. We were to travel six days before we hit the Baxter camp and the last, most daring leg of our journey would be undertaken. The idea made me shiver and I stood up and ran to catch up with the twins ahead.

As the East began to glow with dawn, I was sleepy beyond reason and dead on my feet. My throat was raw from lack of water and I could barely think straight as a pining for water engulfed my waking world. Yul's hand had begun to throb unceasingly and he whimpered at regular intervals from a dull ache in his bone. And still Jordan led us on. As the sun sent out its first white beams of light, I trudged up to him. 'Shouldn't we stop now?' I asked.

His face looked hollow. There were dark circles under his eyes. It struck me that I hadn't seen in many months the powerful, healthy leader I had first met at the camp all those years ago. It worried me. Jordan nodded wearily. 'Tell them to stop.'

We slept under the sky on the naked sand, tents made of rags flapping in the air above. We were posted on three hour watches and mine passed uneventfully. The wind blew incessantly and every the evening when I woke up I was covered in sand from head to toe. 

Then finally, after days of fractured, fitful sleep, we finally found a real shelter from the tirelessly whistling wind.

We set up camp inside an Old World textile mill. It was built of concrete and above our heads, there were huge holes where rotting beams of wood had fallen through. Nevertheless, it would shelter us from the sun to a large extent and the wind wouldn't whistle through the walls.

I settled down in a corner beside Yul as the water rations were handed out. He was white-faced and I could see how he struggled to keep from crying out. Beside him, Od was doing his best not to look worried. I accepted my ration gratefully as Jordan came around to us and Od set to boiling his ration for bandages. I watched him idly, sipping my water.

Though I was exhausted, when we had settled down for the day, I found it hard to sleep. My body was not yet comfortable with sleeping at sun-up and my mouth crawled with thirst. Six hundred millilitres a day is not enough for a man, let alone a strenuously exercising man. I tossed and turned as the sun climbed higher and sweat dried in my clothes as the heat grew. It was remarkably hot for ten in the morning. Od shifted beside me and I turned to him to see that he was awake too.

'Can't sleep either?' I said.

'I'm just so goddamn thirsty.' He shifted uncomfortably and I remembered he had not drunk his last ration. I felt guilty as I realized I should have offered him a sip of my own.

I sat up. 'Tell you what, I'll go see if Jordan's awake and ask him if I can have my dusk ration early. We'll share it.'

'I'll come,' Od said and he got up quickly. He checked to see that his brother was asleep.

Yul didn't stir as I lifted myself from his side. Together, Od and I picked our way carefully through the sprawled bodies on the floor, looking for Jordan. It was a difficult task as most of the people had their faces covered to block out the light. I finally spotted him at the guard post, speaking with Malik, who was on watch duty. I beckoned Od over and we stepped to him.

He glanced at us disinterestedly. 'You should get all the rest you can. It's hard travelling tomorrow, we're going over the hills.'

Od was about to explain when an earthshaking crash sounded through the room.