Pins (25)

 

They spent several hours mapping out various shapes on the flint-hard land beneath the brush grove. The safe shapes indicated within the notebook were complex, and in most cases involved more than twelve pins. 

Interpreting the measurements and then applying them was the trickiest part. In the notebook, each shape was accompanied by short, indecipherable hieroglyphs. Symbols that looked like jagged lines. Symbols that looked like sharp peaks, or curved rods, and many more. The blockish text was dense and foreign, and offered no help. However, there appeared to be a finite number of hieroglyphs, and the same ones cropped up frequently. 

They started with the simplest shape, and worked to map it out correctly; driving pins into the ground until they heard the familiar whump sound, and the landscape around them flickered silver. Black threads flared into being, and a glossy umbrella-shaped web arced into the sky above them, before dissolving into ashen flakes. 

They remained on the outside of the first few shapes. By the time they had successfully triggered five shapes, they had applied units of measurement to several of the short hieroglyphs. A jagged line with two peaks was twenty steps. Three peaks was thirty steps. A curved rod was a right angle, followed by twenty steps. 

Angles were harder to gauge, but once the distances became clearer, the shapes began to fall into place more naturally. After they had attempted three safe shapes, Emmett felt confident enough to step inside. He was already sick, and it didn't seem that a few more seconds would make much difference. He stood inside the perimeter of the shape - a large fifteen-sided polygon - and stabbed the final pin into the ground. 

After the quivering grey saturation and the heavy sound he moved in slow, impeded movements within the shape. Detail came in warped arrangements, but eventually he saw a white maggot root snaking along the basin floor, and stooped to pull the pin out. 

The shape collapsed. They had got the measurements wrong: it was not safe.

Dawn spilled over the desolate flats, and they paced out their measurements again, marking off sections on the chalky surface, checking and re-checking. A scalding crimson dome crept up the horizon. 

Emmett moved inside the shape again, and punched the final pin into the sandy crust. He saw Abigail back away and flinch as the world was stripped of colour, and then she disappeared from sight. He pressed against the waxy envelope around him, and moved within its confines. He raised his palms, and felt the unseen wall trapping him inside. 

Grey mist swirled around him, but the essential landscape remained the same. The dry dusty floor of the basin. The spiny stems of barrel cacti. There were no roots. No strange buildings. He lingered for several seconds, but did not want to risk the potential time discrepancies. It seemed safe. It seemed a safe shape.

Despite his care - and it had seemed like only seconds within each shape - dusk came on, and they packed up and retreated into the cover of the brush. Abigail was tired and dehydrated from hours of waiting in the desert heat. Stratus clouds were strung across the low-hanging cumuli, and they were all of them streaked with a seething salamander glow. They fed and watered Buck, ate and drank themselves, and slept for several hours amongst the tangle of mesquite. 

When Emmett awoke his cotton shirt was slick with sweat. He peeled it off, reached round, and felt along his back. There were no cuts. His barfight wounds were gone. He stared through the sage branches to the dark plain below, and the strange unreality of it all hit him anew. He buttoned the shirt back up and lay numb with terror, pawing at the dirt beneath his blanket.

After Abigail woke they trudged down to the basin and set about testing her lock mechanism theory. Emmett felt better for having her awake and by his side, and as they moved about the clay spread, driving pins into the dust, he felt oddly grateful for the methodical and calming nature of constructing the shapes. 

The 'locks' appeared to occur only in congruent shapes, and were therefore harder to map out specifically using their haphazard method of pacing out distances. The mechanism also seemed to be dependent on 'anchor' pins, of a kind; pins that were placed in the ground with no apparent relation to the overall shape, but which provided a balancing and unifying point, or axis, through which they could all be locked down simultaneously. 

The desert was turning copper under the rising sun when they hit upon it. A safe shape that Emmett was able to collapse from the interior, but that Abigail could not affect from the outside. The black threads flickered softly just above the ground, but try as she could, she could not remove the pins. 

They looked at separate shapes in the notebook that appeared to suggest a reverse locking function - the inability to collapse the shape from the inside - but the thought of being trapped within one terrified Emmett, and he was unwilling to attempt it. 

They returned to the thickets and slept for a third time amongst the mesquite and sage. He was unsure of what exactly they had achieved through their night-time research, but the pins felt safer to use, and he was glad to have a better handle on the construction of the shapes. 

They slept fitfully through the daylight hours, waking at times to find themselves still encased in a thatch of mesquite branches. At one point Emmett awoke to find a string of black fluid leaking from his mouth. He glanced at his sleeping sister, and for a brief moment was filled with the desire to feed the discharge to her. He shook his head and wiped his mouth hastily.

When it was dark again they packed up their small camp. They ate dried apples and apricots for breakfast, along with biscuits crumbled in water. The horse was well-rested after several nights in the grove, and they set off across the plain at a brisk pace, passing as a shadow over the dark open country for many hours. 

The stars became a whip-fast spangled spray. Distant mountains lay black and rumpled in the darkness like felled bodies. Gleaming pinpoint pricks became a howling pack of skinny coyotes, that scattered slick and snapping as Emmett drove the horse on through patches of wildflower bloom, and arid ochre flatland. Serpentine Joshua tree branches groped out of the darkness, their bell-shaped blossoms like little lamps, and everything was beautiful, harsh and alien.

The land rose, the red sand rippling in the moonlight, and beyond a spread of russet buckwheat and gnarled cholla cacti, they set up camp amongst a thicket of juniper bushes. They fell asleep as the sun came up, and were woken by drops of rain leaking through the branches. 

Within seconds the drizzle became a deluge, and they were scrambling to tie canvas sheets between the bushes. The torrential rain continued throughout the afternoon. They managed scant sleep, while the canvas above them rattled like a snare drum. 

Emmett was lying listening to the rain when he heard the sound of hooves cut through it. He eased his blanket off, and crawled to the edge of the grove. Abigail stirred behind him. He peered through a thatched network of branches. 

The plain below was obscured behind sheets of rain. He saw a small remuda, spectral and almost floating within the downpour, passing over a ridge, heading west. There were no white horses; he saw flashes of black, grey, and brown. He was relieved, but felt certain nevertheless that the men were on their trail. He had no doubt that certain residents of the boomtown would be seeking answers. He edged back under the cover of the juniper, and slipped beneath the blanket. Abigail found his hand and rolled close to him. Her hair was wild and tangled.

'Are we safe?' she whispered.

'I think so,' Emmett said. 'It ain't them awful people, and whoever it is, they've passed us by anyways.'

Abigail pulled the blanket over her shoulder. The rain hit a galloping beat on the tarp above them. 

'Your eyes are gettin' whiter, Emmett,' she said. 'Does that mean you're sicker? How far is it to them islands now?'

'I don't know, and I don't know,' Emmett muttered. Abigail looked at him.

'You promise me you ain't never going to lock me in one of them shapes,' she said.

Emmett laid his head back and brushed a wiry lock of hair from her eyes.

'What if it's the only thing that can keep you safe?' he said. Abigail wrinkled her nose and pushed his hand away.

'I don't care,' she said, 'I'll be unsafe. I've seen them. A few seconds can be a few hours. How long d'you reckon a few days could be? It's too scary, Emmett. Promise me you won't ever lock me in one of them.'

Emmett closed his eyes, and felt a wave of panic wash through him. 

'I'll certainly try not to, Abi,' he breathed.

*

He woke later in the evening. It was dark, and the rain had let up. He raised himself up on his elbows and saw a large diamondback coiled amongst the shrubs nearby. He threw the cover off, reached for the knife in his boot, and moved in front of Abigail. 

The diamondback lifted its little triangular head, and a forked tongue slipped out as it hissed at him. Emmett threw the knife at the patch of ground before the snake. The blade embedded itself in the dirt. Abigail stirred, sat up, and grasped him. 

The diamondback reared up and swayed. Its tail rattled feverishly. They backed slowly out of the bushes. The snake lowered its belly to the dirt, and slithered back into the undergrowth. Abigail stood shaking as Emmett retrieved his knife. They packed up hastily, keeping a close eye on the ground, and rode down to the plain. 

The downpour had been replaced by a heavy, all-encompassing blanket of fog, and it was impossible to see through the murk. The horse stepped hesitantly into the dark swirl, and they trudged blindly for a short distance. Soon it was nickering and throwing its head. Abigail clung to the saddlehorn, and Emmett looked nervously out into the mist. 

Patterns and shapes moved within the thick miasma, as if thousands of lost souls were swimming across the desert by night. Twice the horse stumbled, and twice it almost threw them. Emmett thought of turning back to the juniper grove, but remembered the diamondback, and either way a glance round showed that everything behind them had also been swallowed by the haze.

He studied the murk, searching for trees or brush, but it was useless. They climbed a shallow slope, and the horse teetered at its crest. Gauzy clouds rolled around them. Emmett dug his heels into the horse's flank and drove it over the ridge. It skittered and slid down a sharp bank. Billowing dust mingled with the fog. 

They hit a level surface, and the horse regained its footing. Emmett saw a red light swaying amongst the sepia-tinged haze, and then there were men around them. He palmed his gunbelt, but there was already a shotgun muzzle pressed against his shoulder. 

He heard Abigail screaming as she was wrenched away from him. There was a heavy impact sound. Everything was muddy and indistinct. He swayed and swung a fist. Hands seized him and he went down, kicking and biting. His face was pushed into the dirt ground. His arms were pulled back, and there was a boot on his head. He yelled Abigail's name. Dark shapes moved around him, and he felt his hands being bound. The boot ground his face into the earth and he started crying. Words drifted out of the fog.

'Ellos son niños.'

'Ellos son niños.'

He was pulled up by the collar of his duster and led through the fog. His legs wobbled, and the red light became a flickering fire. Men moved around him. He looked for Abigail. The fog rolled, and he was placed on his knees. He felt the backpack being pulled from him. His head fell forward, and he thrashed and tugged at the knots binding his wrists. A voice came to him across the fire. 

'Nos tomaste por sorpresa.'

Emmett's face contorted, and he looked up. Flames licked the air before him. He saw men sitting cross-legged. Tarp fluttered above them. Fog drifted, but it was less prevalent, and when he glanced around he saw that they were in a makeshift camp. 

He saw Buck snubbed to a shoulder-high organ pipe cactus. Beyond the camp, a rope corral was strung around a large remuda, and beyond that there was a separate rope pen full of skinny longhorn cattle.

His shoulders trembled and his head burned. They had blown it. They had completely blown it.
 

 

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