Wastelands Page 5

  "You'll never get up at four-thirty, don't give me that, you never get up. . ." But the ferry and the noise of the factories and machine and trucks swallowed up the rest of his insults. Deaver knew them all, anyway. Lehi might be only sixteen, but he was OK. Someday Deaver'd get married but his wife would like Lehi, too. And Lehi'd even get married, and his wife would like Deaver. She'd better, or she'd have to swim home.

  He took the trolley home to Fort Douglas and walked to the ancient barracks building where Rain let him stay. It was supposed to be a storage room, but she kept the mops and soap stuff in her place so that there'd be room for a cot.

  Not much else, but it was on Oquirrh Island without being right there in the stink and the smoke and the noise. He could sleep and that was enough, since most of the time he was out on the truck.

  Truth was, his room wasn't home anyway. Home was pretty much Rain's place, a drafty room at the end of the barracks with a dumpy frowzy lady who served him good food and plenty of it. That's where he went now, walked right in and surprised her in the kitchen. She yelled at him for surprising her, yelled at him for being filthy and tracking all over her floor, and let him get a slice of apple before she yelled at him for snitching before supper.

  He went around and changed light bulbs in five rooms before supper. The families there were all crammed into two rooms each at the most, and most of them had to share kitchens and eat in shifts. Some of the rooms were nasty places, family warfare held off only as long as it took him to change the light, and sometimes even that truce wasn't observed. Others were doing fine, the place was small but they liked each other. Deaver was pretty sure his family must have been one of the nice ones, because if there'd been any yelling he would have remembered.

  Rain and Deaver ate and then turned off all the lights while she played the old record player Deaver had wangled away from Lehi. They really weren't supposed to have it, but they figured as long as they didn't burn any lights it wasn't wasting electricity, and they'd turn it in as soon as anybody asked for it.

  In the meantime, Rain had some of the old records from when she was a girl. The songs had strong rhythms, and tonight, like she sometimes did, Rain got up and moved to the music, strange little dances that Deaver didn't understand unless he imagined her as a lithe young girl, pictured her body as it must have been then. It wasn't hard to imagine, it was there in her eyes and her smile all the time, and her movements gave away secrets that years of starchy eating and lack of exercise had disguised.

  Then, as always, his thoughts went off to some of the girls he saw from his truck window, driving by the fields where they bent over, hard at work, until they heard the truck and then they stood and waved. Everybody waved at the salvage truck, sometimes it was the only thing with a motor that ever came by, their only contact with the old machines. All the tractors, all the electricity were reserved for the New Soil Lands; the old places were dying. And they turned and waved at the last memories. It made Deaver sad and he hated to be sad, all these people clinging to a past that never existed.

  "It never existed," he said aloud.

  "Yes it did," Rain whispered. "Girls just wanna have fu-un," she murmured along with the record. "I hated this song when I was a girl. Or maybe it was my mama who hated it."

  "You live here then?"

  "Indiana," she said. "One of the states, way east."

  "Were you a refugee, too?"

  "No. We moved here when I was sixteen, seventeen, can't remember. Whenever things got scary in the world, a lot of Mormons moved home. This was always home, no matter what."

  The record ended. She turned it off, turned on the lights.

  "Got the boat all gassed up?" asked Deaver.

  "You don't want to go there," she said.

  "If there's gold down there, I want it."

  "If there was gold there, Deaver, they would've taken it out before the water covered it. It's not as if nobody got a warning, you know. The Mormon Sea wasn't a flash flood."

  "If it isn't down there, what's all the hush-hush about? How come the Lake Patrol keeps people from going there?"

  "I don't know, Deaver. Maybe because a lot of people feel like it's a holy place."

  Deaver was used to this. Rain never went to church, but she still talked like a Mormon. Most people did, though, when you scratched them the wrong place. Deaver didn't like it when they got religious. "Angels need police protection, is that it?"

  "It used to be real important to the Mormons in the old days, Deaver." She sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall under the window.

  "Well it's nothin now. They got their other temples, don't they? And they're building the new one in Zarahemla, right?"

  "I don't know, Deaver. The one here, it was always the real one. The center." She bent sideways, leaned on her hand, looked down at the floor. "It still is."

  Deaver saw she was getting really somber now, really sad. It happened to a lot of people who remembered the old days. Like a disease that never got cured. But Deaver knew the cure. For Rain, anyway. "Is it true they used to kill people in there?"

  It worked. She glared at him and the languor left her body. "Is that what you truckers talk about all day?"

  Deaver grinned. "There's stories. Cuttin people up if they told where the gold was hid."

  "You know Mormons all over the place, now, Deaver, do you really think we'd go cuttin people up for tellin secrets?"

  "I don't know. Depends on the secrets, don't it?" He was sitting on his hands, kind of bouncing a little on the couch.

  He could see that she was a little mad for real, but didn't want to be. So she'd pretend to be mad for play. She sat up, reached for a pillow to throw at him.

  "No! No!" he cried. "Don't cut me up! Don't feed me to the carp!"

  The pillow hit him and he pretended elaborately to die.

  "Just don't joke about things like that," she said.

  "Things like what? You don't believe in the old stuff anymore. Nobody does."

  "Maybe not."

  "Jesus was supposed to come again, right? There was atom bombs dropped here and there, and he was supposed to come."

  "Prophet said we was too wicked. He wouldn't come cause we loved the things of the world too much."

  "Come on, if he was comin he would've come, right?"

  "Might still," she said.

  "Nobody believes that," said Deaver. "Mormons are just the government, that's all. The Bishop gets elected judge in every town, right? The president of the elders is always mayor, it's just the government, just politics, nobody believes it now. Zarahemla's the capital, not the holy city."

  He couldn't see her because he was lying flat on his back on the couch. When she didn't answer, he got up and looked for her. She was over by the sink, leaning on the counter. He snuck up behind her to tickle her, but something in her posture changed his mind. When he got close, he saw tears down her cheeks. It was crazy. All these people from the old days got crazy a lot.

  "I was just teasin," he said.

  She nodded.

  "It's just part of the old days. You know how I am about that. Maybe if I remembered, it'd be different. Sometimes I wish I remembered." But it was a lie. He never wished he remembered. He didn't like remembering. Most stuff he couldn't remember even if he wanted to. The earliest thing he could bring to mind was riding on the back of a horse, behind some man who sweated a lot, just riding and riding and riding. And then it was all recent stuff, going to school, getting passed around in people's homes, finally getting busy one year and finishing school and getting a job. He didn't get misty-eyed thinking about any of it, any of those places. Just passing through, that's all he was ever doing, never belonged anywhere until maybe now. He belonged here. "I'm sorry," he said.

  "It's fine," she said.

  "You still gonna take me there?"

  "I said I would, didn't I?"

  She sounded just annoyed enough that he knew it was OK to tease her again. "You don't think they'll have the Second C
oming while we're there, do you? If you think so, I'll wear my tie."

  She smiled, then turned to face him and pushed him away. "Deaver, go to bed."

  "I'm gettin up at four-thirty, Rain, and then you're one girl who's gonna have fun."

  "I don't think the song was about early morning boat trips."

  She was doing the dishes when he left for his little room.

  Lehi was waiting at five-thirty, right on schedule. "I can't believe it," he said. "I thought you'd be late."

  "Good thing you were ready on time," said Deaver, "cause if you didn't come with us you wouldn't get a cut."

  "We aren't going to find any gold, Deaver Teague."

  "Then why're you comin with me? Don't give me that stuff, Lehi, you know the future's with Deaver Teague, and you don't want to be left behind. Where's the diving stuff?"

  "I didn't bring it home, Deaver. You don't think my mom'd ask questions then?"

  "She's always askin questions," said Deaver.

  "It's her job," said Rain.

  "I don't want anybody askin about everything I do," said Deaver.

  "Nobody has to ask," said Rain. "You always tell us whether we want to hear or not."

  "If you don't want to hear, you don't have to," said Deaver.

  "Don't get touchy," said Rain.

  "You guys are both gettin wet-headed on me, all of a sudden. Does the temple make you crazy, is that how it works?"

  "I don't mind my mom askin me stuff. It's OK."

  The ferries ran from Point to Bingham day and night, so they had to go north a ways before cutting west to Oquirrh Island. The smelter and the foundries put orange-bellied smoke clouds into the night sky, and the coal barges were getting offloaded just like in daytime. The coal-dust cloud that was so grimy and black in the day looked like white fog under the floodlights.

  "My dad died right there, about this time of day," said Lehi.

  "He loaded coal?"

  "Yeah. He used to be a car salesmen. His job kind of disappeared on him."

  "You weren't there, were you?"

  "I heard the crash. I was asleep, but it woke me up. And then a lot of shouting and running. We lived on the island back then, always heard stuff from the harbor. He got buried under a ton of coal that fell from fifty feet up."

  Deaver didn't know what to say about that.

  "You never talk about your folks," said Lehi. "I always remember my dad, but you never talk about your folks."

  Deaver shrugged.

  "He doesn't remember em," Rain said quietly. "They found him out on the plains somewhere. The mobbers got his family, however many there was, he must've hid or something, that's all they can figure."

  "Well what was it?" asked Lehi. "Did you hide?"

  Deaver didn't feel comfortable talking about it, since he didn't remember anything except what people told him. He knew that other people remembered their childhood, and he didn't like how they always acted so surprised that he didn't. But Lehi was asking, and Deaver knew that you don't keep stuff back from friends. "I guess I did. Or maybe I looked too dumb to kill or somethin." He laughed. "I must've been a real dumb little kid, I didn't even remember my own name. They figure I was five or six years old, most kids know their names, but not me. So the two guys that found me, their names were Teague and Deaver."

  "You gotta remember somethin."

  "Lehi, I didn't even know how to talk. They tell me I didn't even say a word till I was nine years old. We're talkin about a slow learner here."

  "Wow." Lehi was silent for a while. "How come you didn't say anything?"

  "Doesn't matter," said Rain. "He makes up for it now, Deaver the talker. Champion talker."

  They coasted the island till they got past Magna. Lehi led them to a storage shed that Underwater Salvage had put up at the north end of Oquirrh Island. It was unlocked and full of diving equipment. Lehi's friends had filled some tanks with air. They got two diving outfits and underwater flashlights. Rain wasn't going underwater, so she didn't need anything.

  They pulled away from the island, out into the regular shipping lane from Wendover. In that direction, at least, people had sense enough not to travel at night, so there wasn't much traffic. After a little while they were out into open water. That was when Rain stopped the little outboard motor Deaver had scrounged for her and Lehi had fixed. "Time to sweat and slave," said Rain.

  Deaver sat on the middle bench, settled the oars into the locks, and began to row.

  "Not too fast," Rain said. "You'll give yourself blisters."

  A boat that might have been Lake Patrol went by once, but otherwise nobody came near them as they crossed the open stretch. Then the skyscrapers rose up and blocked off large sections of the starry night.

  "They say there's people who was never rescued still livin in there," Lehi whispered.

  Rain was disdainful. "You think there's anything left in there to keep anybody alive? And the water's still too salty to drink for long."

  "Who says they're alive?" whispered Deaver in his most mysterious voice. A couple of years ago, he could have spooked Lehi and made his eyes go wide. Now Lehi just looked disgusted.

  "Come on, Deaver, I'm not a kid."

  It was Deaver who got spooked a little. The big holes where pieces of glass and plastic had fallen off looked like mouths, waiting to suck him in and carry him down under the water, into the city of the drowned. He sometimes dreamed about thousands and thousands of people living under water. Still driving their cars around, going about their business, shopping in stores, going to movies. In his dreams they never did anything bad, just went about their business. But he always woke up sweating and frightened. No reason. Just spooked him. "I think they should blow up these things before they fall down and hurt somebody," said Deaver.

  "Maybe it's better to leave em standing," said Rain. "Maybe there's a lot of folks like to remember how tall we once stood."

  "What's to remember? They built tall buildings and then they let em take a bath, what's to brag for?"

  Deaver was trying to get her not to talk about the old days, but Lehi seemed to like wallowing in it. "You ever here before the water came?"

  Rain nodded. "Saw a parade go right down this street. I can't remember if it was Third South or Fourth South. Third I guess. I saw twenty-five horses all riding together. I remember that I thought that was really something. You didn't see many horses in those days."

  "I seen too many myself," said Lehi.

  "It's the ones I don't see that I hate," said Deaver. "They ought to make em wear diapers."

  They rounded a building and looked up a north-south passage between towers. Rain was sitting in the stern and saw it first. "There it is. You can see it. Just the tall spires now."

  Deaver rowed them up the passage. There were six spires sticking up out of the water, but the four short ones were under so far that only the pointed roofs were dry. The two tall ones had windows in them, not covered at all. Deaver was disappointed. Wide open like that meant that anybody might have come here. It was all so much less dangerous than he had expected. Maybe Rain was right, and there was nothing there.

  They tied the boat to the north side and waited for daylight. "If I knew it'd be so easy," said Deaver, "I could've slept another hour."

  "Sleep now," said Rain.

  "Maybe I will," said Deaver.

  He slid off his bench and sprawled in the bottom of the boat.

  He didn't sleep, though. The open window of the steeple was only a few yards away, a deep black surrounded by the starlit grey of the temple granite. It was down there, waiting for him; the future, a chance to get something better for himself and his two friends. Maybe a plot of ground in the south where it was warmer and the snow didn't pile up five feet deep every winter, where it wasn't rain in the sky and lake everywhere else you looked. A place where he could live for a very long time and look back and remember good times with his friends, that was all waiting down under the water.

  Of course they hadn't t
old him about the gold. It was on the road, a little place in Parowan where truckers knew they could stop in because the iron mine kept such crazy shifts that the diners never closed. They even had some coffee there, hot and bitter, because there weren't so many Mormons there and the miners didn't let the Bishop push them around. In fact they even called him Judge there instead of Bishop. The other drivers didn't talk to Deaver, of course, they were talking to each other when the one fellow told the story about how the Mormons back in the gold rush days hoarded up all the gold they could get and hid it in the upper rooms of the temple where nobody but the prophet and the twelve apostles could ever go. At first Deaver didn't believe him, except that Bill Horne nodded like he knew it was true, and Cal Silber said you'd never catch him messin with the Mormon temple, that's a good way to get yourself dead. The way they were talking, scared and quiet, told Deaver that they believed it, that it was true, and he knew something else, too: if anyone was going to get that gold, it was him.

  Even if it was easy to get here, that didn't mean anything. He knew how Mormons were about the temple. He'd asked around a little, but nobody'd talk about it. And nobody ever went there, either, he asked a lot of people if they ever sailed on out and looked at it, and they all got quiet and shook their heads no or changed the subject. Why should the Lake Patrol guard it, then, if everybody was too scared to go? Everybody but Deaver Teague and his two friends.

  "Real pretty," said Rain.

  Deaver woke up. The sun was just topping the mountains; it must've been light for some time. He looked where Rain was looking. It was the Moroni tower on top of the mountain above the old capitol, where they'd put the temple statue a few years back. It was bright and shiny, the old guy and his trumpet. But when the Mormons wanted that trumpet to blow, it had just stayed silent and their faith got drowned. Now Deaver knew they only hung on to it for old times' sake. Well, Deaver lived for new times.

  Lehi showed him how to use the underwater gear, and they practiced going over the side into the water a couple of times, once without the weight belts and once with. Deaver and Lehi swam like fish, of course—swimming was the main recreation that everybody could do for free. It was different with the mask and the air hose, though.