Drought (22 page)

‘Then you will have to find your own way.'

‘Why are you being so inscrutable, for Christ's sake?'

‘Because your people took our land and left us with nothing but our knowledge of it. This land is our mother. Why do you think our people would never grow crops? Because we would no more push a plow-blade into the soil than stick a knife into our mother's breast. In the same way, we would never tell your mother's most intimate secrets to a stranger.'

Martin stood up straight. ‘Do you know something?' he said, ‘I think you're totally nuts. But, respect.'

Mina woke up and started almost immediately to whimper. Susan put her arm around her and said to Martin, ‘Please – can't we find someplace here to stay? I need to give them something to eat and they need a proper sleep.'

‘Well, maybe we could risk it,' Martin told her. ‘Let's drive further into town, anyhow, and see if we can find anything.'

‘I still think it is a risk,' said Santos. ‘If we stay here overnight, it will be much easier for them to find out where we are. How do you think so many of my people managed to escape when your militia came to shoot them all in eighteen sixty-six? They disappeared into the forests like ghosts, because our mother hid them. Our mother, this land.'

‘Granpa,
please
,' Susan begged him. ‘Mina's soaking, I have to change her.'

‘All right,' said Santos. ‘We can ask. But if those people catch up with us, we will know who to blame.'

Martin said, ‘Who? You're talking about Saskia? You think
she's
going to tell them where we are? Why would she? She's terrified of them, and they're just as keen to get their hands on her as they are on me.'

‘So tell me,' asked Santos. ‘How come they found us at the gas station so quick?'

‘You're being paranoid, Santos. More than likely they used their heads. They knew roughly which direction we were heading in, and then a gas station alarm was set off. All of those alarms are connected to their local police switchboard, and the ESS are right in there at the moment, helping the police so they put two and two together.'

Santos shrugged, as if to say that he wasn't going to argue.

Martin walked back to his car. Ella said, ‘What are we going to do? I'm starving!'

‘I'm going to try and see if I can find us someplace to stay. There are plenty of bed-and-breakfast places here in Bear Lake. Santos doesn't think it's a good idea because he's convinced that Wrack's people will find out where we are, God knows how. But we all could use a rest.'

‘It's me, isn't it?' said Saskia. ‘Your Native American pal thinks that if I can get near a landline, I'm going to put in a call to Empire Security Services and tell them where we are. I wouldn't be surprised if he believes that I tricked you into letting me come along with you, so that they could track you down.'

Martin smiled and shook his head. ‘Saskia – he's an old-school Serrano, and you know what happened to them, even if it was a hundred and fifty years ago. He doesn't trust any of us.'

‘Well, let's go find a bed and breakfast, just so's I can prove him wrong.'

They drove a half mile further along the lakeshore, until they came to a three-story Bavarian-style building with a carved wooden shingle hanging outside saying
Tyrol Bed &
Breakfast.
Martin blew his horn again and they parked outside. Lanterns were shining along the hotel's verandah and all of the windows were lit but there were no other vehicles in the parking lot, and when they switched off their engines, they could hear no voices or music or people laughing.

In fact, the whole city of Big Bear Lake was unnaturally quiet, with only the distant barking of a dog and the warm breeze whispering in the trees.

‘Give me a couple of minutes,' said Martin, opening his door.

‘I think this place is spooky,' said Ella. ‘It's like something out of one of those horror movies.'

Martin climbed the steps and pushed his way in through the hotel's front door. There was nobody behind the front desk, only a stuffed elk's head hanging on the wall, staring down at him in glassy-eyed panic. He could faintly hear a television in another room, but otherwise there was no sign of life. He went up to the desk and called out, ‘Hallo? Anybody at home?'

There was no answer, so he picked up the brass bell beside the register and jangled it loudly.

‘Hallo?' he repeated. Then, ‘Hallooooo!'

He heard a door close, and measured footsteps. After a few moments a large red-faced man appeared, his greasy hair parted in the center like Oliver Hardy. He was wearing a red checkered shirt buttoned up to the neck and red suspenders. As he crossed the reception area he was slowly and meticulously wiping catsup from around his mouth with a crumpled paper napkin.

‘Yes?' he said. He was plainly irritated at being interrupted in the middle of his meal.

‘Hi. Are you the manager?'

‘Brett Vokins. I'm the owner.'

‘I was wondering if you have any rooms free for tonight?'

‘Rooms?'

‘There's twelve of us altogether, eight adults and four kids, but it's only for the one night.'

‘I'm closed,' said the owner. His eyes had the same unblinking stare as the stuffed elk just above his head.

‘You're sure you can't open up just for us? The kids are dog tired. We wouldn't even expect anything to eat. Just beds to sleep in.'

‘I'm closed because the water supply has been cut off,' the owner told him, speaking very slowly and very precisely, as if he had been obliged to explain this over and over. ‘If I was to let you stay here without my having an approved water supply and sewage disposal system then I would be breaking every regulation in the book, and then I'd be closed for good and all.'

‘You're right on the shore of a damned great lake. How can you have no water supply?'

The owner continued to stare at Martin as if he couldn't believe his ignorance. ‘The lake water isn't drinkable. The city pumps all of its water from underground wells, and there's never enough to go around even when it's been raining, which you've probably noticed it hasn't been doing a whole lot of, lately.'

‘Oh. OK.'

‘I'll tell you,' the owner continued, as if he were determined to make sure that Martin understood what he was saying. ‘Big Bear Lake has some of the strictest regulations on water abuse in the whole state of California. If your home address ends in an odd number, you can only water your plants on odd-numbered days, and you can't water them at all on public holidays.'

‘All right, but we don't need to water any plants. We don't even need anything to drink and we don't need to wash. All we need is a few hours' sleep.'

‘So what do I do with all of your soiled laundry, after you're gone?' the owner asked him. ‘And don't tell me that out of eight adults and four kids, none of you is going to need to go to the bathroom. More important, supposing the place catches fire? What am I going to put it out with?'

Martin said, ‘I can't appeal to your better nature then?'

The owner didn't even blink. ‘When you run a bed and breakfast, mister, you can't afford to have a better nature. You have to smile, but there's no law that says you have to smile because you mean it.'

‘So what do you suggest I do?'

‘I have no idea. There's plenty more B and Bs in town, and hotels, too, but you won't find none of them prepared to take you in. The whole city's water supply has been shut off for thirty-six hours already and it don't look like there's any prospect of it coming back on again any time soon. Folks have been leaving in droves, although who knows what the point of that is. According to the news, every place is just as dry as every other.'

‘Oh, well. Thanks for your humanity.'

‘No need for no remarks like that, mister. This is my livelihood, this business, and my family's livelihood. Charity begins at home.'

Martin left the red-faced owner behind his desk and went back outside.

‘Well?' asked Saskia.

‘The water's off here, too. They can't take us in because it's against health and safety regulations. It looks like we're going to have to spend the night in the woods after all.'

He went across to tell Santos that the hotel was closed. Although it had been Santos' original plan to camp out overnight, he was looking gray and strained and he seemed almost as disappointed as Susan and the rest of the children. All the same, he nodded and twisted the key in the Suburban's ignition and said, ‘Let's go. The sooner we set up camp, the sooner we can give these kids something to eat and settle them down.'

‘Are you OK, Santos?' Martin asked him.

Santos grimaced and gave him an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

‘Do you want to give this up, and go back? Saskia and me, we can always take our chances.'

‘No,' said Santos. ‘I think I was always meant to do this. Like it's my destiny. One day you'll be able to look up Lost Girl Lake on Wikipedia and you will see my name there too. Santos Murillo, the man who showed that the Yuhaviatam still know their own land better than the bacon stealers who took it from them.'

They drove out of Big Bear Lake and continued eastward. The night was warm and black and moonless but it was thick with stars. Lightning was flickering in the distance, although Martin doubted if the storms would bring any rain. The air was so dry and so heavily charged with static that it made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle.

After about forty minutes Santos slowed down and signaled that he was turning right. He led them down a narrow road which had been tarmacked for the first three-quarters of a mile but then degenerated into nothing but a rutted, dusty track. Their three vehicles jostled and jolted like three small boats in a choppy sea. Martin could see nothing ahead of him but the rear of Peta's turquoise-blue Hilux, and nothing on either side but grayish-green chaparral and a few scrubby knobcone pines.

‘My God,' said Saskia, clinging on to her doorhandle. ‘Where's he taking us?'

‘Your guess is as good as mine. Are you OK in the back there, Ella?'

‘I feel sick,' said Ella.

‘Do you want to stop?'

‘No, I'm all right for the moment. But I'll tell you if I need to barf, I promise!'

The track rose steeper and steeper, and they found themselves climbing at a sideways angle, too, their suspensions squeaking and banging with every deep rut that they had to drive over. On their left-hand side, the pines grew increasingly dense and close together, and then they began to crowd into their right-hand side, too, until they were engulfed by forest.

Just when branches were beginning to scrape and scratch against the fenders of Martin's Eldorado, Santos turned to the left. They followed him and saw in their headlights that they had reached a wide and level clearing, thickly carpeted with brown pine needles. Seven small wooden cabins were clustered around it in a semi-circle, and a broken wooden sign said
Camp Knobcone
.

Martin took his flashlight out of the glovebox. Then he folded his seat forward and helped Ella out of the back seat. ‘How are you feeling?' he asked her, putting his arm around her.

She took three or four deep breaths. ‘Better now. But I felt so pukish. It was all that jiggling about and all of those exhaust fumes.'

Everybody was climbing out of their vehicles now. Santos came over and Martin said, ‘Camp Knobcone. It's not exactly Day's Inn but I guess it's better than sleeping in a tent. How did you know about this place?'

‘My uncle used to take me hunting up here,' said Santos, stretching and looking around. ‘Then, when I was older, I used to take girls up here. So … it has some good memories.'

Martin went to the nearest cabin. The door wasn't padlocked but it had jammed solid so he had to kick it open. He shone his flashlight inside and saw that there were two wooden bunks, one on each side, and a table in between them. The cabin smelled musty, and there was a dented collection of empty Coors cans under the table, but apart from that it was reasonably clean. Peta came up to him and laid her hand on his shoulder. ‘I brought plenty of blankets,' she said. ‘We should be all right for tonight, anyhow.'

Martin looked at her. He couldn't tell by her expression if she was suggesting that they should sleep together. Before he could say anything she turned away and went to talk to Ella.

Along with Santos and Tyler, he went from one cabin to the next, pushing and kicking the doors open. They wanted to make sure that no raccoons or skunks had made themselves at home there, and that no snakes were hiding beneath the bunks. The roof of one cabin had collapsed and it was filled with debris and two old birds' nests, and in the cabin next to it they found the remains of a long-dead coyote, so gray and mangy and decayed that it was hardly recognizable.

‘Poor creature probably came inside to take a look and the wind slammed the door shut,' said Santos. He peered down at it, and then he said, ‘Either that, or it was some guy who pissed off a Yuhaviatam shaman, and got turned into a
wa ya ha
to teach him a lesson.'

‘Oh, for sure,' said Martin. There was a folded copy of
The San Bernardino
County Sun
on the table, so yellow that it must have been as old as the dead coyote. ‘And I suppose he was reading the sports pages when it happened.'

Santos said, ‘You should never mock magic, my friend. What is this drought, but the Great Spirit, punishing us with weather magic? You even half believe that yourself.'

Martin looked at him sharply. He was tempted to say, ‘
How the hell did you know
that?
' but he decided to leave it. He was never sure if Santos were ribbing him or not.