Читать книгу Kawanga - Jack Halliday - Страница 5

CHAPTER ONE

Heat.

Blinding, blistering, blazing heat.

How had he gotten here?

Where was he, anyway?

And why this incredible heat?

His shirt was a drenched beach towel. Sweat stung the creases of his neck as he strained to look up from the sand on which he sprawled, face down.

He winced and gasped as the sun seared his eyes for the split second he took to look directly in front of him. Ninety-three million miles were reduced to a few hundred yards; the white globe was sucking the life from him as it hung suspended in a cloudless sky on the horizon.

His face fell back onto his folded arms; he lapsed into unconsciousness...again.

* * * *

The ceiling fan turned slowly, rhythmically, one with the heartbeats of the men gathered around the dusty, wooden table.

“He’s gone; finished; history,” Harley muttered. He spat the words out through pursed lips surrounded by a week’s growth of beard. He leaned back in his chair, contented. He folded his arms over his pot belly and with a pompous smile nodded as if to punctuate his “verdict.” He straightened his musty excuse for a hat and waited for the others to reply.

Tom shifted in his seat. A drop of perspiration ran down his spine, chilling him, causing the hairs on his sunburned forearms to stand up.

“I still don’t understand,” Tom said. His brow furrowed as he vocalized his uneasiness. “What if he left it...with someone...the girl; or what if the old man got a hold of it?”

“What if the old man has it; what if the old man has it?” he said, his anxiety becoming panic.

Harley rocked forward on his chair, his gnarled elbows landing with a thud on the table. The bartender looked up from his glass-drying, his eyes widening with interest.

The rough seaman strained closer, squinted into the eyes of the men across from him and whispered, “I said he’s done. It’s all finished, and he’s not coming back and no one has it and it’s over!” He slapped his pudgy palms on the table, grabbed his drink and sent the whiskey down his throat. He patted his stomach as the gentle warmth began to radiate through him. He leaned back in his chair once again and surveyed his nervous comrades.

Tom shook his head, unconvinced.

“Okay. What about you two? Are you sure it’s so, ‘over?’”

The boys looked at each other, then Harley, then Tom, sheepishly, wishing for all their lives the whole thing had never happened.

“Sure...sure it’s over,” Jim said. “Me and Toby...why, we’re gonna relax now. “Ain’t that right, Toby?” he said, a half-smile creeping over his face.

“Damn right. S’far as we’re concerned, we did our part; we settled it; and it’s all over. We’re outta here,” he sighed, trying to speak a confidence he lacked. The boys heartbeats were definitely out of step with the slow-turning ceiling fan now.

Harley smiled.

“Well...then...what’s left?”

“Nothing,” Tom mumbled. “Nothing at all.” He looked out the window at the desert expanse.

Night would fall soon. The barren terrain would offer a different type of cruelty: cold.

His thoughts were a million miles from the dingy bar.

“Nothing at all,” he muttered.