A Pirate’s Log

I should have shot Poindexter. Instead I gave the responsibility to her. It wasn't right, I knew it, but I tried not to think about it as the tribe fanned out down the rows of white trees. The thought seeped through my brain like water slowly corroding a broken bridge, so I dammed my thoughts and tried to remember what Bill had told me the night before. Five two three one five, I remembered that, but there was a name. Was it Ku? Or Sue?  Shit, I thought, of all things to forget!

     For hours I walked, the sun trailing across the sky underneath these barren branches clinging to the trees, fallen sticks and twigs crunching under our feet. The wind was picking up, blowing hot summer air through the endless rows of trees, making it somewhat difficult to listen for another motorcycle, or anything out of the ordinary. Maybe it was Rue. Or Ruth. Was it Rythe?

     The row had stopped at a large clearing that stretched towards the freeway with intermittent sections of orchards. 

     "There." She looked at me behind her pack of soldiers, pointing the rifle, my rifle, at a block of houses a few hundred yards in the distance. I heard something behind me in the orchards, and I tapped one of her men on the shoulder and took his pistol. There were only three guns among us, and she refused to give me back my rifle to the point where she looked like she would use it against me. Before we started walking again, as the woman showed me our direction, a sudden stop of a crackling noise in the fallen branches announced behind us an unwanted presence. With the pistol, I stopped suddenly, and started to walk nonchalantly back, scanning the trees, and only realizing how stupid this was once I already started. My eyes could not see, but I could hear the crackling noises again, more numerous now as if something or someone had been spooked. I waited for anything, feeling uncomfortably exposed, and walked slowly back to the tribe, who were all standing still, watching me and waiting for something, too. I rejoined them, and walked up to her.

     "Heard something, probably a squirrel."

     "Scout, probably. Hurry us." Her eyes skimmed over the land, avoiding mine. I wonder if I can be alone with her again, I thought.

     "Why wouldn't he have shot me?"

     "Red scouts guns no, melee like us."

     "How do you know? Are we being expected?"

     She finally looked at me. "Too many questions."

     We turned onto the remnants of a paved road to cross an empty canal, a concrete moat protecting the vacant houses. Too many questions, I thought, but still I had a thousand more to ask her. How'd she know about the paper? How had her scouts found us? What was her name? Why was just the thought of her provoking me in such a way I had never felt before, her penetrating eyes coursing through my veins, her petite body, her odorous sweat, her coarse hair that clogged my fingers from running through it, all combined with her malicious attitude that created a potent brand of poison, why was she preoccupying my thoughts, something that was bound to get me killed? I guessed one question wouldn't hurt.

     "What's your name?"

     She turned again towards me, our eyes meeting. "Yeisam. Yeisam name, you?"

     "I don't really have one."

     "No? No name, no lie?"

     "No. I never needed one I guess."

     "No name then? Where go us, no name?"

     I laughed. "Now you're asking too many questions."

     She smiled subtly, and for a few minutes we walked in silence, till we came to a one story house that sat behind the canal as the sun started to suggest darkness was on the way. If we had the sense to use vehicles, or even horses, I thought, we would've been here that much quicker.

     "Hurry us. Head Modesto under darkness cover." She addressed us, then walked towards the house with the kicked in door, her followers and myself behind her. I gave the pistol back to the tribesmen who I took it from; perhaps it was him, it was hard to tell. They all shared the same face and the same blank expressions, and the same baggy colorless uniforms of black and white that I, too, had been wearing. But I didn't want the faceless person's pistol, I was anxious to see Yeisam's selection, and if anything I would retrieve my rifle from her.

      The house was empty, only containing a few mattresses, papers strewn across the floors, and a smell suggesting that dogs had taken up residence here. Yeisam turned a corner, and handed me a large paper. "Read," she smiled.

     "What?" The paper was yellow, brittle under my hands, and was filled with unintelligible words and letters, and two big pictures of an alligator and an uncovered nest of eggs underneath decomposing plants were on the front.

     "What say it?" her smile had an evil tinge to it, and I tried not to panic as she tested me.

     "It says alligator, uh, alligator and nest –"

     I felt my legs being kicked out from under me, and before I could react, I was on the floor, with her foot on my arm and her rifle, my rifle, aimed at my head. "Illiterate liar! Said no bullshit, you no read paper, no destination!" Her face didn't match her words, as her little evil smile still prevailed.

     "Look, I do know where it is, okay! We all did! Kill me now and this was all a waste of time!"