The Tree of Knowledge
Chapter 36: Small Talk

Somewhere on the other side of the desert, in another entrance to the same cavern I’ve been living in for over a week, these cave dwellers have built themselves a home much like mine. They’ve got fire pits and sleeping bags. They’ve stockpiled an impressive amount of firewood. Under a mesh basket cactus fruit is drying out.

“We have to be able to preserve and store food.” Susie explains.

“So is that…?” I start to ask, pointing at the salted, drying strips of meat suspended from a low section of ceiling.

“Yup.” she says, “That’s bat jerky.”

Aside from the addition of their temple, the primary difference I notice between the home I built and theirs is-

“What the hell is that?” I ask, indicating a giant, ancient looking bucket hooked up to a rusty pulley system going to the opening.

“That’s there’s a shit bucket.” the redneck says. I’ve learned his name is Billy.

“You mean, you use it to haul stuff?”

“Nope. I mean it’s a literal shit bucket.” he responds, laughing at my confusion.

“It was used for guano mining.” Marcos explains. “It’s probably over a hundred years old.”

I eye the rusty pulley mechanism warily.

“And you actually use this to get up and down?” I ask.

“What else can we do, fly?” Rosa jokes.

And this is where I earn my keep.

Billy volunteers to go with me, probably because he doesn’t trust me not to run to the crazy cannibal people and tell them where to replace lunch. We set out the next morning, following my painted red arrows back to the other entrance. It takes hours walking and crawling through the dark before we finally emerge in my “home”.

Billy eyes my camp with approval. “Well shee-it, darlin’. You came prepared. These MRE’s? You got the ones with them little brownies?”

We break for lunch, Billy happily devouring an MRE.

After lunch, I pack everything back into my backpack, along with all the food I’ve gathered and as much of the firewood as I can carry.

It doesn’t take long to teach Billy to climb up using the prussic knots. Once he reaches the top, he unties the knots and tosses the pieces of rope along with the harness and ’bineer down to me. I clip in a follow him up to the top. He’s standing guard when I reach the surface, shot gun at the ready.

I uproot my anchors and pull up the rope, stuffing the whole thing into my overburdened backpack.

We hike back. It takes Billy a few minutes to figure out which direction the other entrance is, and then we set off.

As we walk I ask him, “I don’t understand where you fit into all this.”

“All what?”

“Everyone else either worked at the University or the museum. So where did you come from?”

“Me? I saved their sorry asses. That’s where I come from. You and me, we got the right idea. We came out here with guns and survival gear. Them igits head out in the desert with nothin’ but books n’ paint. That little Ingin girl just ‘bout died, weren’t fer me. They was starvin’. You da think them Ingins at least would know something ‘bout livin’ off the land.”

After some deliberation, I opt to skip right over his use of the word “Ingin” and the suggestion that their race naturally imbues them with outdoor survival skills.

“So they came to Carlsbad before you?”

“Yup.”

“Why did you come to Carlsbad?”

There’s a long pause, punctuated only by the sound of the wind and our shuffling feet. I just settle on a certainty that he has no intention to answer when he replies.

“I worked on a Sunday.”

“What’d you do?”

“I shot a deer.”

I burst out laughing.

“Hey! It ain’t funny, sugar!”

“Sorry.” I say, stifling my giggles. “Very serious. But why would you shoot a deer on a Sunday?”

“This weren’t just no deer. This, darlin’, was a twelve point buck. And it just walks into my yard and stands there nice and pretty like a sign from the good Lord. What the hell else was I to do but shoot it?”

I just about die laughing again.

“Alright big shot, what’d you do?”

“I committed adultery.” I say.

He looks me up and down.

“Shee-it. You married? How old are you?” he asks.

“Seventeen.”

“And how old’s your husband?”

“Fifty-five.”

He slowly shakes his head.

“That ain’t right. You meant to be fumblin’ in the backseat with some boy you think you love that don’t know what the hell he’s doin’. Not with a grown man. Grown man got no business with a little girl.

“You got some boy you think you love?”

I think of the way Jace’s smile lights up his eyes.

“Yes.”

“That’s good. Way I see it, puddin’ cup, you ain’t done nothin’ wrong.

“So where’s this boy of yours now?”

“He’ll be executed in nineteen days.”

“Damn…well…you’ll replace another one, honey. Don’t you give me that look! You don’t think so now, but you will, pretty lil’ thing like you. You’ll think you love the next one too.”

“You don’t think I’m going to Hell for my sins?”

“Nah.”

“Do you think you’re going to Hell?”

“I think God wanted me to have that buck.”