Blind Panic Page 13

  “Well, you’re safe enough now,” said the twangy voice. “A few of them sonsabitches stood their ground, but most of them scurried off like rabbits and hid in the caverns. Maybe a dozen or so managed to get off the rock, but we chased them into the tules and caught almost all of them. Let’s put it this way: they won’t be making no war on us no more. Not those Pay-oots, anyhow. Nor those Modocs. Nor those Pit River Indians, neither.”

  “I don’t get it,” said Mickey. “When did all this happen?”

  “Careful now, it gets kinda precipitatious right here,” the twangy voice warned them. “That’s right, take it real slow.”

  They were helped to slide down a steep, smooth rock face, and then to clamber over a heap of loose stones and small volcanic boulders. After that, the ground began to level out, and they could hear that the river was much closer.

  “We didn’t hear any fighting,” Mickey persisted.

  Another voice said, “Mebbe them injuns made you deaf as well as blind.”

  “Just surprised we didn’t hear it, that’s all.”

  Now they had reached the foot of the palisade, and their rescuers held their hands as they waded knee-deep across the ice-cold river.

  “So, where you folks from?” asked the twangy voice.

  “Palo Alto. We only came here for the fishing.”

  “Palo Alto? Never heard of it.”

  “You never heard of it? It’s about thirty-five miles south of San Francisco. IT capital of California.”

  “Eye tea?”

  “Information technology,” said Remo, patiently. He slipped on a rock under the water, but one of their rescuers caught his arm before he fell over.

  “Sorry, son,” said the twangy voice. “Don’t know what in the blue heck you’re talking about.”

  They reached the far side of the river, and they could hear more voices and horses whinnying. They could also smell wood smoke and a strong aroma of frying bacon.

  “Where did you tie up your horses?” the twangy voice asked them. “Kind of an academical question, I know. The Indians will have stole them as soon as look at them.”

  “We drove here,” said Remo.

  “You drove?”

  “That’s right. We left our RV by the recreation area.”

  “Ah vee?” There was a long, bewildered pause. “You folks Chinese or somesuch?”

  They were led close to a smoky, crackling fire. From the sounds all around them—the talking, the coughing, and the jingling of metal—it was obvious that they were right in the middle of some kind of encampment. Mickey guessed that there were twenty or thirty people here at least, all men if their voices were anything to go by. He hadn’t yet heard any women or children.

  “You hungry?” asked a hoarse, reedy voice.

  “No, no thanks,” said Charlie.

  “Do you have a Coke or something?” asked Cayley.

  “A what?”

  “Anything. So long as it’s not root beer.”

  “You want a drink? I got coffee, or water.”

  “Water’s fine, thanks.”

  The four of them were helped to sit close to the fire. Mickey said, “Okay if we borrow a cell? We need to get back home as soon as we can, and have our eyes seen to.”

  “You want to borrow a what?”

  “A cell. That’s if we can get a signal out here. If we can’t, maybe one of you could drive us. We don’t mind paying for the gas.”

  Another long pause. Then the twangy voice said, “I’m real sorry, son. I can’t make heads nor tails of what you’re talking of.”

  “A cell. A cell phone. One of you must have one.”

  “I’m sorry. You got us stumped.”

  “Who are you, exactly?” asked Charlie.

  “Who are we?”

  “Don’t get me wrong,” said Charlie, hastily. “We’re really grateful that you saved our lives and everything. But we didn’t see you here when we first arrived, and you say that you’ve been fighting the Indians, and we didn’t hear you doing any of that. And you don’t seem to understand anything we say. Well, not much, anyhow.”

  “I told you,” said the twangy voice. “We’re the Thirty-ninth Mounted Infantry, under General George Crook. The general hisself is farther up the river.”

  “But what are you fighting the Indians for?” asked Mickey.

  “What are we fighting them for?”

  “Yes. Like, what have they done?”

  “What have they done?” There was another of those mystified pauses. Then the twangy voice called out, “Jethro! Hey, Jethro! What are we fighting these here Indians for?”

  “On account of they’re no-damn-good.”

  “That’s it,” said the twangy voice, apparently satisfied. “They’re no-damn-good—that’s why we’re fighting them. They don’t never normally get together, the Pay-oots and the Modocs and the Pit River Indians. Some Shoshone, too. Normally, they’re beating five shades of shit out of each other, begging your sensibility, miss. So the only reason they were gathered together was to mount an attack on us.”

  He gave a loud sniff, and then he added, “Just as well we pre-emptified them, wouldn’t you say?”

  “We didn’t see any Indians,” said Cayley.

  “You didn’t? Was that before or after they put your lights out?”

  “Before. We were camping, right by the river. We didn’t see anybody.”

  “Well, you amaze me, miss, you surely do. There was more than seventy-five Pay-oots and there was thirty Pit River Indians and more than a handful of Modocs and Shoshone. And there’s more than a hundert of us, including a cavalry company and fifteen Indian scouts. And there was all hell let loose—shooting and hollering and running around.”

  Somebody called out, “Caleb! Sergeant Briggs wants to see you! On the double!”

  “Coming right over,” the twangy voice answered him. Then he turned back and said, “I’ll have to leave you young folks for a while. Just settle yourselves down and relax, okay? If you need anything to eat, just call out for Chowder. He’s the cook, or at any rate that’s what he likes to style himself.”

  Mickey heard him get up and walk away. Remo said, “Who the hell are these guys?”

  “Soldiers, obviously,” said Charlie. “But not real soldiers. Maybe they’re one of those historical societies that go around re-creating old battles.”

  “You could be right,” Mickey agreed. “Like, they keep saying that they’ve been fighting the Indians, but we never saw any Indians, did we? Apart from that Infernal John guy, and those two characters with him, whoever they were. Or whatever they were.”

  “I have to see a doctor,” Cayley whimpered. “I can’t move my arm at all.”

  “Sounds like maybe you dislocated your shoulder,” said Mickey.

  Charlie said, “I really need my inhaler. And I have to have my ankle strapped up, too.”

  “All I want to do is get out of here,” said Remo. “We just need to persuade these guys to step out of character for five minutes and stop making out that they can’t understand what we’re talking about.”

  Caleb came back and hunkered down close to them. “The sergeant says that we can borrow you a coupla horses that you can double up on and ride back to Goose Lake, and an Indian scout to guide you. We got a camp at Goose Lake, and a doctor.”

  “Horses?” Remo protested. “Are you kidding me? Apart from the fact that I’m totally blind, I never rode a horse in my life.”

  “You never rode a horse?” The twangy voice sounded incredulous. “You mean, never?”

  “Never. And I don’t intend to start now. Like, thanks for the offer and everything, but absolutely not.”

  There was a thoughtful pause. Then the twangy voice said, “I guess we could rig up a travois for you.”

  “A what?”

  “A travois. That’s if we can spare the mules. But I won’t pretend that it’s going to be comfortable.”

  “Listen,” said Remo. “All we want you to do is to l
end us your cell. You got it?”

  “I’m sorry, son. I still don’t understand you.”

  “You must have some kind of radio transmitter.”

  Silence, this time. The twangy voice had apparently decided that their tumble down the precipice had unhinged them.

  Mickey said, “What if somebody drives our Winnebago for us? How would that be?”

  “Son, I have to tell you straight, I don’t have the slightest notion what you’re trying to say to me. The best thing you can do is settle down for the rest of the night and get yourselves some sleep. Private Johnson here will lead you to the mess tent and find some blankets for you. We can decide what to do with you in the morning.”

  Remo said, “For Christ’s sake, dude! All I’m asking you for is to borrowyour cell!”

  “I know,” said the twangy voice. “But we don’t have a cell here, of any description. When we catch an Indian, we shoot him. General Crook’s specific orders, we don’t take no prisoners.”

  “Jesus,” said Remo. “Forget it, man. Just forget it.”

  “I’m sorry,” said the twangy voice, yet again, and he sounded as if he sincerely meant it.

  They were led to a musty-smelling tent, where four rough woolen blankets were laid on the ground for them, and they were helped to lie down and wrap themselves up.

  Charlie said, “Maybe these guys have gotten themselves so involved in this role-playing thing that they genuinely don’t understand what we’re talking about. I’ve heard about that. Regression—that’s what they call it. My aunt Mimi used to believe that she was the reincarnation of Betsy Ross. She even took to sewing Old Glories and mailing them off to the White House.”

  “But they can see that all of us need to see a doctor,” Cayley protested. “Like, a joke’s a joke, right? But this is ridiculous.”

  “Maybe this isn’t really happening at all,” said Remo. “Maybe that shit I got from Louie was stronger than I thought.”

  “Oh, you think we’re still high?” Mickey retorted. “You want me to squeeze your broken fingers, just to check?”

  “Listen,” said Charlie, “we survived, didn’t we? And let’s hope we’re not going to be blind forever. Maybe it’s just like a detached retina. That makes you go blind, but they can fix it. My uncle Stanley had a detached retina, and after he had an operation he didn’t even need glasses.”

  “Who was he a reincarnation of? Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans?”

  Mickey said, “There’s nothing more we can do tonight. Even if these guys do have a radio, we’re not going to be able to find it, are we? The best thing we can do is try to get some sleep.”

  “How do you expect me to sleep?” asked Cayley. “My shoulder hurts too much.”

  “Just lie there and think of that boyfriend of yours,” said Remo. “That should send you to sleep.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  “Oh, you know who I mean, then. That dummy who flips burgers at Taxi’s.”

  They talked on and off for almost an hour, sometimes bantering, sometimes complaining, sometimes almost sobbing in desperation. But eventually the shock of going blind and falling down the precipice began to take its effect, and one by one they dropped off to sleep, although they twitched and muttered as they slept, and Cayley even began to cry, a strange muted mewling like a cat that wants to come indoors out of the rain.

  Mickey dreamed of Wodziwob, but in his dream Wodziwob kept his back to him and refused to turn around. Mickey walked up to him and laid a hand on his shoulder, and it was only then that his head swiveled around, with a harsh scraping sound. Wodziwob’s face was a mask—deathly white, with dazzling blue lights instead of eyes. Mickey tried to cry out, but there was something in his throat, something fat and dry and foul tasting, as if he swallowed a toad, and all he could manage to do was retch.

  Remo argued in his sleep. He kept saying, “You can’t leave me here, man. There’s no going back. What? I can’t touch it.”

  Charlie hardly moved beneath his blanket, but his breathing was high-pitched and labored, and several times he stopped breathing altogether. Almost a minute would pass, and then he would let out a squeaking noise, and continue. Although his friends were unaware of it, he came closer to dying that night than any of them.

  “I can’t touch it,” begged Remo. “Please don’t make me touch it.”

  Mickey was woken in the morning by the rattling cry of a jay that was perched in a pine tree nearby. He grunted, turned over, and tried to drag up his blanket to cover him better, but his blanket seemed to have been taken away.

  He sat up. He was still totally blind, but he could hear the Pit River rushing over the rocks, and a breeze blowing softly through the tules. He must have alarmed the jay, because it let out a guttural wah! wah! and flew away.

  “Remo?” he said, groping all around him. “Remo? You awake?”

  There was a pause, and then a groan. “Jesus, my fingers. Jesus.”

  “Are you okay?” Mickey asked him. “Charlie? Cayley? How about you?”

  Charlie wheezed and coughed and Cayley said, “Oww, my shoulder.”

  “Where’s my blanket?” said Remo. “Hey, dude! Did you steal my blanket?”

  “I don’t have your blanket. I can’t find my blanket, either.”

  “Mine’s gone, too,” said Cayley. “I can’t believe it. I’m just lying on the dirt.”

  Remo stood up and shuffled around, with both arms extended in front of him. “Hey!” he called out. “Hey! We’re awake now! Can anybody help us?”

  There was no reply, only the endless rushing of the river.

  “Hey!” shouted Mickey. “Thirty-ninth Infantry guys! We could really use some help here!”

  Still no reply. Remo circled around cautiously, still with his arms stretched out. “Is anybody there? I said, is anybody there? Come on, man, this really isn’t funny!”

  He flapped his right arm from side to side. Then he said, “The tent’s gone.”

  “What?”

  “The tent’s gone. They took it away. I don’t believe it. They left us lying here with no tent and no blankets. Nothing.”

  Mickey and Charlie stood up, too. “Hey!” they yelled. “Caleb! Are you still here? Caleb! Anybody!”

  Cayley said, “They’ve gone, haven’t they? They’ve left us.”

  They listened and listened, and Cayley was right. There were no voices, no jingling of spurs and bridles, no whuffing of horses, no sound of any human presence. Only the water, and the wind, and the restless rustling of the trees.

  “I can’t get my head around this,” said Remo. “We’re all blind. We all need medical attention—like, urgently. And they just fricking left us. Right in the middle of nowhere at all with no way of finding our way out of here.”

  Charlie started another of his wheezing fits. “I have to find my inhaler, man. I’m going to die if I don’t.”

  “In that case, we need to get back to the RV,” said Mickey. “Come on, we know roughly where we are, don’t we? We’re close to the canyon, so the parking area must be upstream from here. If we follow the river, we’re bound to find it.”

  “Unless those bastards have taken our RV, too.”

  “Well, if they have, they have, and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it. But at least we’ll know where the road is.”

  “Oh, like you’re suggesting we walk back? Do you know how far it is, even to Route Three-fifty-nine? Eight miles at least, and that’s if we don’t get lost, which we probably will.”

  “There’s no future in being pessimistic,” said Mickey. “What are you going to do? Sit here and starve to death? Come on, Stevie Wonder made himself rich and famous and he’s just as blind as we are.”

  “Stevie Wonder didn’t get himself abandoned in the middle of Modoc County with nobody to show him how to find his way back to civilization.”

  All the same, they groped their way to the edge of the river, then waded across it, balancing and slipping on the rocks th
at Mickey had described as “bowling balls covered with snot.” When they reached the far side, they began to make their way upstream, toward the recreation area where they had parked their Winnebago. They walked Indian file, with Mickey in the lead and the others keeping a hand on the shoulder of the one in front of them.

  “I could murder an Egg McMuffin,” said Charlie.

  “That’s so typical of you,” Remo told him. “Out of all the food in the entire world that you can’t have, you choose an Egg McMuffin.”

  Mickey said, “Do you smell smoke?”

  Remo stopped and sniffed, and said, “Yes. I can. And I think I can hear a fire burning.”

  “Maybe we’ve caught up with them,” said Cayley.

  Remo sniffed again. “That’s no campfire. That’s more like oil and rubber.”

  Charlie said, “You don’t think—”

  “Oh, shit,” said Mickey. “I’ll bet it is. I bet they’ve set fire to it.”

  They negotiated the rocks by the side of the river as quickly as they could, although Charlie and Cayley both lost their balance and had to be helped back onto their feet. But the ground gradually began to level out, and from the echoes of their voices and their footsteps they could tell that they had reached a much wider space. Mickey said, “Listen. Hear those ripples? I’m sure this is where I was fishing.”

  They felt as though the Winnebago must have been very close now, because the stench of burning rubber was even more toxic, and they all began to cough. They crossed the parking lot, and then they stopped, because the heat was scorching their faces. They could hear metal clicking and pinging as it expanded, and windows cracking, and the soft flaring noise of foam-rubber seat cushions.

  “The bastards,” said Remo.

  Mickey said, “We’d better stand way back. This smoke is totally poisonous, and the gas tank’s probably going to blow.”

  “I don’t understand,” put in Cayley. “Why did they go to all of that trouble to rescue us when all they were going to do was burn our RV?”

  “Less those Indians set fire to it.”

  “I don’t care who the hell set fire to it. It’s all burned out now.” Mickey paused. “Not that we could have driven it.”