The
Dark Man Laughed
By Aimee DuPré
©July
2, 2004
Under
a hazy sky so yellowed and gloomy, a brown dust cloud followed a red-yellow
ribbon of road. The man peered from
behind a large granite-like boulder, black hair dusted unearthly orange with the
fine powder of the roadway. His
dark eyes took in the dullness all around him.
No bright colors anywhere, and even those eyes were so deep brown as to
appear black at first glance. Yet a
passion blazed in them, defiant and fiery.
He cocked his head to catch the sound of the solid grumble of a motor
from inside the cloud of dust. His
features in profile were chiseled perfection as his eyes narrowed, fixed upon
the vehicle headed his way. He
hoped it was a tanker. He’d
waited a day long than he’d expected, and he knew his people were anxious
about him.
The woman drove along the bumpy gravel road, windows up to avoid being
suffocated by the dust stirred by the eighteen-wheeler.
The air conditioning was barely working, a slow leak leaching its freon
into the atmosphere. Her mind
wandered as she drove.
She glanced at the other woman at her side.
She hadn’t worked with her before, and she wondered if she’d be any
good with her sidearm if it came down to needing it.
Then she thought about all the ones depending on them to make this run.
All the responsibility.
Hell! Who was she trying to
kid? She was too old to be of use
back in the town. That’s why she
was relegated to driving the tanker. Not
because of . . .
She nearly ran straight into the granite boulder sitting in the middle of
the curve ahead. It must have
slipped off the slanting hillside, and she plowed on the air brakes and hit the
jake brake, too, swerving the rig to the right to avoid the rock. The sidewall of her left front wheel caught the edge of the
sharp rock, and the already worn-out tire blew, loud as an explosion.
She fought the wheel as she skidded out of control, finally sliding to a
stop in a cloud of dust.
The guard was thrown into the windshield and as the rig stopped, she was
thrown back into the seat, her face a bloody mess.
Before the driver could even tell if her partner was still alive, the
passenger-side door opened, and the guard was swiftly pulled out of the truck.
The driver saw the butt of a rifle thrust down and heard it hit bone,
hard enough to leave no doubt of the women’s demise.
As she gazed wide-eyed at the open door, the dark orange-covered man
appeared, and the two exchanged somber looks.
In his eyes was bloodlust from the passion of the battle; in her eyes was
stubborn refusal to show her fear of death, for it was not death she feared but
the dying.
He held up a handgun pointed at her chest.
“Get out,” he growled. “This
side,” he added as he backed out of the opening.
She reluctantly obeyed, resigned
to the fact that she could do nothing right now.
He guarded her with the gun, and when she reached the orange dust of the
ground, she realized just how large a man he was. She was tall and a bit hefty herself, but he made her feel
like on of those petite, frail little things that her last lover had thrown her
over for.
She felt cold hatred pouring out from the man as he ordered, “Fix the
damn tire.”
It took her a while, and as she was busied, he rummaged through the cab
and found the two canteens. He
drank greedily at first, then slower, finally sipping at the warm water as she
sweated in the heat of the afternoon. Thank
God the gray clouds obscured the sun or she’d have passed out.
He could tell she wanted a drink, needed the water, but he withheld it
from her until she finished. Then
he tossed one canteen to her, over half the water already consumed, and she
drank the rest nearly too fast although she knew better.
He used the gun as one would use his finger, gesturing to the tanker.
“Drive,” was all he said, and he slid in beside her, agile and alert.
“Which way?” she asked.
He glared at her stupid question, and she just smiled dumbly back at him,
waiting for his answer.
“North,” he finally said. He
stared at her the entire way.
Half a day later, he made her pull off to the side of the road. He leaned over and blew the horn three times short, three
times long. Soon, people came out
from openings in the hills. One got up in the cab and pushed her to the center
of the seat as he drove.
Now she was crushed between two
enemies. The huge dark man took her
hands in his. His large hands
completely covered hers as he fastened a plastic tie around her wrists, pulling
it tight.
When they reached the town, the
tanker stopped to let the man and his prisoner out, then continued on, its
precious cargo of drinking water to be securely guarded even from their own
people, divvied out to the most valuable in their society – the favored ones.
He half-dragged her through the
streets as people curiously stared. He
knocked on a blue door, and a teenage girl opened it.
“Father!” she cried happily,
until she saw the woman, and her eyes darkened.
Her eyes were just like her father’s, and she was as pretty as he was
handsome.
“Only this night,” he told his
daughter. “Then we’ll leave
again.”
This seemed to ease the girl’s
mind.
After the three silently ate of a
meager meal, the girl cleaned up, wiping the plates with a rag.
Water so precious was never used for this purpose.
The big man stood up and drew the woman close to him, turned her around
so her back as against his chest, and pushed her towards a full-length mirror on
the wall. He drew his knife faster than the eye could see, and he held
the wide sharp blade to her ivory throat. His
hands were suntanned brown and made her skin appear even paler.
She must have been a favored one, he thought, for she’d been inside out
of the sun.
Her eyes were side, the whites
showing around the deep blue, but that was the only indicated of her fear.
He could feel her body pressed close to his, and she did not tremble.
She was taut as a bowstring drawn back to fire, and her posture was
straight as an arrow.
“Why should I let you live?”
he asked her.
She looked in the mirror, into his
dark eyes behind her, but she did not see the bloodlust in them any longer.
“I do not know,” she said, her
voice hoarse and chocked, giving away her terror.
His knife hand moved and swiftly
cut through the plastic binding her hands.
“I will tell you why.”
He threw the knife into the wall
beside the mirror and grabbed her shoulders, turning her to face him.
“You are going to show me where
the water is.”
She smiled and almost laughed.
“What makes you think that?”
“You will show me, or they will
die.”
He pushed her to the door, and he
opened it.
Inside the room, six children from
the ages of about twelve through two or three, slept in one large bed, their
little faces serene in the glow from a nightlight in the corner.
Upon closer inspection, she could see the dark circles under their eyes,
and the pasty look of their skin.
“And,” the man continued.
“I will not allow my children to die.”
She had agreed to his request more
out of a sense of personal survival than concern for his offspring.
But on the weeklong journey in the tanker, as they shared evening
campfires, food, and precious water, they also shared their life stories.
Each gained a certain respect for the other, and they shared their bodies
with each other in a passion each one had believed had vanished with their last
lovers.
When they finally reached the
reservoir, it was deserted. Fearing
a trap, afraid that somehow the woman had
warned the others, he cautiously approached on foot, the woman in the lead.
Seeing no guards, they climbed the stairway to the top of the gray
concrete reservoir and looked down into filth and mud at the bottom of the round
circle.
“Empty,” he said in disgust.
Then, in desperation, “It’s empty!”
He grabbed her shoulders and shook
her hard enough to make her neck snap.
“You knew!” he screamed as he
shoved her limp body into the hole.
He did not watch her fall.
He turned back to the rig, drove the long journey home, and, totally
hopeless, he took the lives of his seven children, so they would not know the
agony of dehydration and starvation.
As he blindly left his former
home, the blue door slamming forever behind him, a man grabbed him in the
street, shouting something. The
dark man’s eyes focused briefly on the other’s dusty face, streaked with
tears. No, not tears.
“It’s raining!” the man
screamed in joy. A huge grin was on
his face. “It’s raining! The first time in ten years!”
As he jumped and shouted on down
the thoroughfare, the sprinkle turned into a white deluge of water.
And as the dark man was drenched
in the soaking rain, he began laughing.
He laughed and laughed as he held
his face up into the downpour.
He laughed and laughed and he
never stopped.
###
This page was updated Tuesday, April 11, 2006 03:34 PM