Desert Clouds Like Ghosts

An interesting thing finally happened after a very long time of nothing at all happening in the life of little Penelope Winston. She sat in the dusty dirt in front of her family’s covered wagon, her little zombie rag doll named Sycamore to her right, and a potato peeler in her hand. There was a dog on the horizon.

The wind picked up and a dozen dust devils whirled about the outskirts of her family’s camp.  They looked like pale translucent ghosts dancing those whirling waltzes she’d spied her parents participating in when she was very little. Special occasion dances in great halls lit by a thousand candles in hanging iron chandeliers The adults laughing and drinking wine from wooden cups and dressed in their best Sunday dresses and ties. Behind the banister she twirled with Sycamore held out chest high by each raggedy arm; she’d been a regular doll then, with long red yard hair in a bonnet and a sunny yellow dress.

“Penny. Stop daydreaming and peel those taters. We need to eat and be tucked in before the deluge, okay Sweetheart?”

Penelope nodded and peeled. Her eyes wandered out into the no man’s land they’d travelled into. The dervishes had departed with the wind. The land was flat and hot- so dry her lips were chapping and her skin peeling. But in this season, the rains, when they came, didn’t penetrate the hard baked earth, and flooded the entire valley.

Penelope pushed the coppery strand of her hair back behind her ear in her bonnet. She looked back out to where she’d seen the dog…

This place was so different from the one she had known. Green. Green fields, green grass waving in the chilly gusts, and cattle and sheep feeding and fattening.

This place called Nevada was so ugly and plain and quiet.

“Penny! I told you---”

“I’m sorry Ma. I’m almost done chopping now. Okay?”

“Go ahead and dump them in the pot. Then you can go play until dinner.”

Play? All she had was Sycamore, a little bonnet covering her sparse red tufts and four safety pins holding her head on. But then… there was that dog…maybe she could look for it. She always wanted a dog. They’d had two cats back in Ireland. Momma said cats were useful cuz they killed the disease carrying vermin. Auntie Maeve and Uncle Ronan had stayed in Kilkenny. They’d had a dog, a big friendly yellow thing. They died of the plague and Penny often wondered what became of the dog. Momma, in between her sobs, had said, “ they shoulda had a cat.”

Penny stood and brushed the dust from her faded green jumper; the hem of the faded skirt hung just below her calves. “Ladies don’t show their ankles.”

Momma said, “You’re eight. No one will care.” She raised a hand and gestured to the desolation all around them and Penny felt silly. There were just her family’s two covered wagons, an open cart piled with crates and trunks, six horses, two donkeys, and a firepit next to a pair of planks they used as a table.

“Maybe I’ll pan for gold like Poppa and Uncle Sean. Find us some gold and buy a pretty new dress.”

“Leave the gold panning to the men. We’ll have plenty of chores to tend to when we get to Carson.”

Penelope wanted to stamp her feet in frustration. Even her cousin Malcom got to pan for gold, and he was only three years older than she. And a big mean bugger-butt. When she was four, she’d left Sycamore outside by accident. The sun had been nearly set as her and her family- momma, papa, two aunts, two uncles, and Malcom- were finishing up supper when Penelope remembered her doll. She’d raced out the door with her mother shouting behind her, “Penelope! Come back here and clear the table!”

Sycamore had been beheaded. Her pretty red hair burnt off; her dress covered in mud. Malcom had come out behind her and said, “Must have been that werewolf…” that’s all he could say. It was clear he was biting his cheeks to control his nasty giggles.

She said between tears, “no such thing as werewolves,” as if she didn’t really believe there was no such thing. “You’re a big bad wolf. A big bad meany.”

Malcom had howled with laughter like a wolf.

Pouting won her a slap on the cheek, so she refrained from doing so. Besides, she was big now. But it seemed as though along with her growing maturity, also came growing anxieties, the kind that made her chest ache and her head throb with the effort of keeping her emotions inside. She felt like the little boy plugging the dam with his finger, only the dam was holding her sanity at bay. Should a mean fish chomp her finger off (it could happen any minute) the dam would crumble, and she’d be washed away in a flood of tears with no hope of finding dry land.

She wandered out into the desert. The wind had picked up again, the waltzing dervishes swirled to life, startlingly close. A jester amongst them danced right into her, bursting in a spray of choking, eyewatering dust. She coughed and pulled her bandana up over her nose. Blinded, she sat and blinked until her tears washed the grit away. She felt like she was looking through a gauzy curtain, like the one her old maimeo had in the kitchen of her little cottage.

She did not see the six tall, thin figures on the horizon, silhouetted by the sun. They were stationary but for long strands of hair adorned with feathers wafting in the breeze. They stared.

A figure appeared at the edge of her failing vision. Just a pale shape, wavering like a phantom, but growing larger as it neared- ghostly in the growing darkness. Darkness! Oh my gosh! The sun was setting, the air cooling and pregnant with rain.

Penny blinked, blinked, blinked, like mad. At last, her vision cleared like parting storm clouds. And speaking of them, the sky was a massive sea of them, blotting out every shred of light. The phantom had vanished into thin air. Where is it? On her knees, she scanned the hills on the horizon. Nothing.

Then heavy breathing from behind her!

She turned and there it was. Before she could scream, it licked her salty cheeks. This was the dog she had seen. They backed away from each other, she mesmerized; it, grinning with ham-pink tongue lolling. Phantoms didn’t have warm breath. “Only you’re not a dog, are you? You’re a great big wolf.” Bigger than big, twice her size at least.

“I see you’ve met Luna. She likes you.” A boy’s voice, on her other side.

She looked and saw indeed a boy perhaps a couple of years older than her. With tanned ochre skin, shoulder length black hair and eyes that looked like polished onyx in the waning light. She’d never even liked a boy before, let alone thought one was beautiful.

He bent and offered her a hand. She didn’t think twice about taking it.

“It’s getting dark, the storm is nearly here. Can I walk you to your camp? Um…”

“Penny. Uh…Penelope.” It sounded more grown up. “Sure.”

“I’m Karey.” He wore coarse cotton britches like her poppa wore, and no shirt but a soft tan vest of some sort of animal skin. He wore a sliver pendant- a wolf’s head with a small turquoise eye. She said, “Is your family traveling too? Are you camped nearby? Are you an Indian?”

He looked at her and frowned. She covered her face with her delicate white hands and said, “Oh! I’m so sor---”

He laughed. “Yes. Shoshone. We are native to this land.”

Luna matched their pace. Every now and then, she looked up with ears perked forward. She was grinning along with the boy. He said, “Where are you from? I’ve not seen people out here in a very long time.”

“We’re on our way to Carson City. For the gold. Poppa and my uncle will pan for it.” She went on to talk of Ireland.

As the encampment loomed just ahead, the warm yellow lantern light flickered in the wind, and the cookfire waned in intensity as Momma and her sister prepared supper animatedly quick. Quick before the storm. Luna halted at Karey’s feet. She froze and growled deep in her throat, her head lowered, her black lips curled up in a menacing snarl.  

“What’s wrong with her?”

“She’s saying it’s time for me to go. Look, storm’s nearly upon us.” He pointed west.

Penny observed the sky in that direction. From the bruise-colored ceiling of clouds, a fine mist appeared below them. She said, “When---?” But when she turned to look, he and his wolf were -shockingly- already a hundred feet away and disappearing into drizzly atmosphere and eastern darkness.

Penny ran to help bring the women bring the cookware and anything else left outside. Left outside…oh my gosh. I’ve left Sycamore out in the desert…all alone.

She was not alone for long. As her button eyes stared upwards, rainwater pooled then ran over their edges, they didn’t even blink when lightning flashed like Thor’s hammer slamming the earth. By the brief flash, however, an image appeared over the doll. A hand. Dark skinned and glistening, as it reached towards the doll, another bolt flashed, closer and brighter and longer. The hand was dripping and gory with black blood.

In the tent, the family huddled around the makeshift plank table and sat on dry earth as the rain pelted the oiled canvas loud as firecrackers above them. They ate hurriedly and spoke of little.

“Penny, you okay? You look downright cheery,” Poppa said.

Everyone looked at her. Penelope swallowed. “I met a boy today.”

Chewing stopped. Her reddened face prickled hotly.

Momma said, “Really Penny? Out here in the middle of nowhere?”

Malcome the Meany smirked and said in cockney, “Blimey, she’s gone daft. A ‘maginary friend egads!” He laughed. They all snickered but Momma frowned.

Penelope said softly, “He’s very nice. And smart and tall…he’s got a dog...” She almost said, and she’s actually a wolf…but the adults were nodding smugly. Rivulets of rainwater were snaking across the dirt floor in the tent. Time to retire to the wagons.

As the lanterns extinguished, flashes illuminated the tents, but Penelope found the lightning display wonderfully exciting like the fireworks display her family experienced back home for the Cat’s Laugh Festival. It was not scary. There was nothing in the middle of the desert after all.

A hundred tall, dark figures dressed in tattered rags and draping cloaks were silent as death as they surrounded the encampment. By the flashes of the God’s wrath, they advanced. Long dark hair dripping, sodden bloody stained buckskin. Oily dark feathers hung limply and as the next flash flashed, many heads turned upwards revealing black empty sockets in skeletal faces and downturned mouths opening and closing like shore-stranded salmon.

A wolf howled a long and undulating song. Tucked under a thick quilt, Penelope smiled as she drifted off to sleep…Luna.

The warrior spirits obeyed the wolf and halted their advance…then dissolved into the rain just as the dust dervishes had dissipated into the air before the rains.

Storm clouds hung on the horizon in the indigo light of dawn. The adults were hustling around packing up their belongings; it was slow going as everything was sodden and heavy. A couple hours in the desert and all would be dry, so they decided to postpone leaving until then.

Penelope grabbed two biscuits with jam, wrapped them in a tea towel, and went out into the desert as far as she had the day before. She hoped her knee prints were deep enough to remain a little bit, but she saw nothing.

After an hour, she headed back. Flat-bottomed clouds indicated another storm. She held a storm within her, her own flood approaching as she faced a precipice like one only a little girl fearing the loss of an only friend could.

“Hey.”

She spun and there he was. How he’d snuck up so quietly…oh nevermind, he was here. She wanted to scream and put her arms around him. But ladies didn’t do that. She said, “Hi Karey. It’s so good to see you. I’ve brought you a biscuit with jam.” She pulled the hard little pucks from her pocket and offered them.

Karey smiled. Penelope saw that his eyes weren’t black like yesterday, but deep umber with green and gold flecks. She was smitten. He said, “Thank you Penelope.” He took one and said, “I’ve eaten already, do you mind if Luna had this?”

“Of course, I don’t mind!”

Luna had appeared at her side. She’d not seen her; she’d been focused on Karey.

Karey said, “Here, I found this.” From his back he produced Sycamore.

Penny squealed in delight then covered her mouth with her hands. Sycamore’s head was sewn back on, with stitches you could barely see. Her dirty dress was fresh and bright, and the tufts had been combed out, so she had a short red nappy afro under her bonnet.

She took her beloved doll and cradled her. She blushed and said, “She looks wonderful! Thank you. I’m too old for dolls you know. But---”

“Nonsense. Never too old for old friends. My mother did the sewing.” He looked as bashful as she felt. “I know you don’t like it here…find it unappealing. But look how beautiful it is now.”

She looked and was indeed hypnotized by its beauty. Clouds were amassing again. The sky was like a biblical scene painted by monks: a kaleidoscope of pinks, golds, blues…every detail of the desert in angular contrast with its shadow.

They walked together back to her camp with Luna running off ahead and then back like a big puppy. As they neared the camp, Luna crouched on her belly and growled. Karey stopped and Penelope turned to him. “Won’t you meet my family?”

“No. I can’t.”

“But---”

“Penelope. Listen to me. Your family must leave now. Tell your father to veer north, only a little ways, there’s a passage up into the foothills. You’ll be safe from flooding there. But you must keep going. Do not stop.”

“I don’t---”

“Please. Your family is in danger. My ancestors---”

“Who you talking to Penpen?” It was The Meany. Ugh.

“My friend…” she turned and was mortified to see no one there.

“Aaaahoooo!” he laughed, “crazy as a loon!”

Penelope was angry at her cousin but more concerned by what Karey had said. It seemed too important to be distracted by kid stuff. She ran to her father as he was loading the last of their belongs into their wagon. The horses were tethered, the donkeys attached to their carts.

Poppa said, “Get on up with your mother. We’re heading out.”

“Poppa! We need to go up north a ways, safe from the waters…”

“What do you know about trailing?”

“Poppa! We can’t stop again, we have to keep going!”

“Hush child. We’ll have to stop again when the storm comes.”

“No! We---”

Her father slapped her then. “Get in the wagon.”

She did as she was told and felt the first drops on her shoulders as she climbed aboard.

As the wagon train headed west ghostly figures wavered into the air behind them. Two hundred strong, skeletal, and dripping blackness.

“Momma, what happened to the Indians that lived here before we came?”

“What an odd thing to ask. Well, I suppose we conquered them.”

“You mean killed them?”

“Well yes. They were savages. Uneducated, and with no religion.”

“But that’s not true, they had their own---”

“Oh, hush child. The savages were all rid of within the last six years or so.”

“Slaughtered you mean.”

Her mother took in her glare and said, “Well that’s a fine---”

“Shut up mother.”

A scream sounded from behind them, high pitched and child-like. Malcome. It cut off like the cry of one hung from a gibbet. Poppa halted the horses and grabbed his rifle and leapt from the seat of the wagon.

A boom! The smell of cordite and the whiff of gun smoke puffed as Penelope leapt from the wagon, her mother on her heels and yelling, “Penny! No!” More screams…and thunking sounds like when her father broke logs for the fire. After every thunk, the screams grew quieter.

Penny took in the scene in disbelief, Malcome’s body lay in the sand, his head was ten feet from it, blood soaking the sand. Her aunt and uncle were dark lifeless shapes. Her father was chopped in half, his intestines ropes between the two body slabs.

She ran back to her mother and turned, knowing…

Karey was there. “I tried but my family only listens so much. Like yours.”

Penelope nodded, tears streaming. “Please… my mom…”

Her momma looked at her daughter talking to thin air but for once remained silent.

Karey said, “I’m sorry. There’s nothing I could do but warn you. I must be with my family now, I wish you well.”

Penelope now understood why she could not hug the boy, and why he did not eat, and why he was so sneaky quiet. “Thank you,” she simply said.

The last thing the ghost boy said was, “Luna will be by your side now. She’s real, not a ghost. Heh heh. A very nice protective friend.”