Shadows in the Scorched Fields

Caleb ran the tip of his parched tongue across his dry, cracked lips. His eyes squinted in the unrelenting sun as he scoured the distant land for what remained of his livestock. He tried to pull down the peak of his worn baseball cap further over his eyes so he could see. It was no use. He might as well have taken the damn thing off and tossed it away. But that would require energy—a waste of energy. And Caleb didn’t have energy to waste. He needed to muster all the strength he had to make his way back to the farmstead. Back to where Margo and Little Tiff waited for good news. As of yet, there wasn’t any news to give. It was exactly the same as it had been for the last twenty days. There had been a glimmer of hope last night. It had rained heavily for two whole hours, but the barren, dry, and hungry earth had drunk the water as quickly as a drunkard at a free bar.

Caleb observed the barren landscape with disappointment and rage. There was no sign it had rained at all. And it had rained like Caleb and Margo had never seen or heard before. That had been their glimmer of hope. Their salvation. Their survival.

This wasn’t the first drought Caleb and Margo had seen. They had experienced their fair share of them. In Marl Point, every three years a drought came. It lasted for around eighteen days before the rains eventually came and doused the lands. And even though it didn’t rain, the heat was bearable, and the sun wasn’t as vengeful or relentless upon the land.

Yet, this drought, Little Tiff’s first, was something very different. The wind blew awkwardly. The clouds looked different. The sun burned a brighter yellow, and its heat didn’t just feel warm. It felt prickly and angry. When it touched your skin, it was like a thousand tiny razor blades nipping at your flesh.

It took Caleb forty painstaking minutes to amble his way from the scorched land where the remainder of his livestock grazed to his farmstead. Before this drought began, it would take Caleb no more than ten minutes to make the same journey. But back then, he wasn’t wading against the heat, the dryness, or the raging sun.

“Well?” Margo urgently asked as she slammed the door. They desperately tried to keep as much heat out of the farmstead as possible. Caleb had boarded up all the windows a week ago. He nearly got severe sunstroke from doing so. “Did the water troughs catch any water?”

Caleb collapsed into a chair at the kitchen table. He placed his sweat-drenched baseball cap on the table and wiped his brow with the back of his hand. “Nothing.”

“Nothing,” Margo said, not believing her husband’s words. “There has to be something, Caleb. It rained… so much.”

“You’re more than welcome to check for yourself, Margo,” Caleb bit back. “But there’s not a single drop. The ground is bone dry.”

“How much livestock’s left?” Margo pulled out a chair and sat down opposite.

“Three cows, a calf, and three goats.” Caleb gazed down at the table. His eyes were glazed over as he contemplated how, when this drought was over, he was going to build up his livestock again. And would he want to? What if this drought was just the beginning of how droughts would be from now on?

“That’s it?” Margo flung her hands into her lap. If she had tears left, she’d cry. But the drought had almost taken them too. “We can’t lose any more. If we do…” At that moment, Little Tiff began to cry in her crib. Margo went to get up and rush to her daughter’s cot but sat back down when she heard her crying ebb.

“It’s hotter in here than it was yesterday,” Caleb said. “I don’t know what else I can do. There’s nothing else to board up to keep out the heat.” He had boarded up all the windows and any other place where sunlight could get in. But deep down, he and Margo knew that this was probably making matters worse. What else could they do? They had to do something. Not just for themselves, but for Little Tiff.

“We could try to get to the Robinsons’ place,” Margo offered. “We both know they’ve got a cellar they use in droughts. They’ll definitely be there.”

“It’s too far,” Caleb said. “Little Tiff wouldn’t make it.”

“It’s less than half a mile,” Margo urged. “I know she can make it. We both could.”

“Half a mile in this heat is like walking twenty miles, Margo.”

“Then we’ll travel at night.”

“It’s just as hot at night as it is during the day,” Caleb said. “You know this.”

“We have to do something, Caleb,” Margo said desperately, running a finger over her dry, cracked lips. “This isn’t a way to live!” Margo exclaimed, and Little Tiff woke up crying. As she wailed, Caleb got up from the table and went to tend to his daughter.

“It’s not about living, Margo,” Caleb said sharply. “It’s about surviving.”

Three nights later, the rains came: heavy and relentless. The next morning, on the twenty-fourth day of the drought, Caleb once again undertook the forty-minute arduous journey to check the water troughs and the remaining livestock. Deflated, depressed, and defeated, he returned to the farmstead in a lucid state of consciousness.

“Was there any water in the troughs?” Margo desperately inquired as Caleb slumped at the kitchen table. His face was almost white with dryness, and skin was beginning to peel from his forehead, cheeks, and throat.

With the little energy he had left, Caleb retrieved a leather water flask from his satchel. The satchel weighed almost nothing. The only item in it was the leather flask, yet the satchel felt as if it weighed ten stone. “That’s… all… there… was,” he croaked. “I tried…” Caleb shook his head slowly. He wanted to bang his hand on the table in fury but simply didn’t have the energy.

Margo opened the flask and swirled its contents. At best, there were two mouthfuls of water.

“You…and Little Tiff,” Caleb said, “Drink. Please.”

“We can share my portion,” Margo pleaded. “You need to drink too.”

Caleb carefully shook his head. “It… may rain… tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll drink.”

“It might not rain for another three days,” Margo said, looking crazily at the water in the flask as it swilled side to side. She could drink both mouthfuls herself. That would ease her parched throat, if only briefly. Without realising it, she held the flask to her lips.

“Little… Tiff,” Caleb reminded her.

Embarrassed by what she was about to do, she put the flask on the table and went to wake Little Tiff for her portion of the warm rainwater.

The rain came a day later; heavy and relentless. The next morning, Caleb, with barely any strength or willpower left, shuffled his way to check on his livestock. It took him over an hour to make the journey. When he finally arrived, he found all his remaining livestock dead. Flies were swirling around their rotten carcasses. In the intense heat, it didn’t take long for things to decompose quickly.

Over an hour and half later, Margo rushed to open the farmstead door, and Caleb stumbled through it, collapsing on the floor. Margo flung the door shut and tended to her husband. Little Tiff muffled a concern about the slamming door from the darkness of her room.

“Gone,” Caleb said faintly. “All. Gone.”

Margo was surprised the beasts had lasted as long as they did. She had prayed for them to die sooner. It was a small blessing that they no longer roamed the scorched, barren earth. It was just a crying shame that when this drought was finally over, Margo and Caleb would have to rebuild their livestock from scratch. But as the drought entered its twenty-sixth day, Margo started to wonder whether it would ever end.

“We have to go to the Robinsons’ place,” Margo urged. “We have no other choice, Caleb.”

“Dangerous,” Caleb wheezed. “Little… Tiff. Dangerous.”

“Caleb, you need to listen to me.”

“Flask,” Caleb croaked as he weakly pointed to his satchel on the floor. It had fallen from his shoulder as he stumbled into the farmstead.

Margo retrieved the satchel and took out the leather flask. She swilled it around. There was just over two mouthfuls of warm rainwater. Before Caleb could incoherently protest that the water should be for her and Little Tiff, Margo opened Caleb’s mouth and poured his portion down his throat.

“You,” Caleb said. “Not me. You.”

“Just rest,” Margo said as she held her husband’s head in her arms.

And Caleb did just that.

Caleb awoke on the twenty-eighth day of the drought. He had rested for a full day, yet he didn’t feel any better. Beyond dehydrated, every part of his body ached with extreme dryness. He rose from his cot and winced as his sore feet touched the warm wood of the farmstead. Drawing a breath, his throat was assailed by the humid air. Stumbling into the main living quarters, it took him a few moments to realise Margo wasn’t there. He tried to call out for her, but all that emerged was a pathetic wheeze. Caleb ambled over to Little Tiff’s room, only to find her crib empty.

Exiting his daughter’s room, something caught his sore, dry eyes. A folded piece of paper lay on the kitchen table. Unfolding it, Caleb let out a wheezed “No!” as the paper dropped from his hand. He picked up his satchel, donned his baseball cap, shuffled over to the farmstead door, and with one hand and his waning strength, flung it open.

“Gone to Robinson’s to get help,” Margo had written. “It’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission.”

The Robinsons’ farmstead was half a mile east of Caleb and Margo’s place, lying on flat terrain, devoid of any boundaries or obstacles. Caleb had visited the Robinsons’ farmstead so frequently over the years that he felt he could walk there blindfolded. 

Caleb had lost all concept of time since leaving the farmstead. Had it been five minutes or five hours? Surely it couldn’t have been longer, as more than two hours in the drought would mean certain death. Mumbling incoherently, Caleb’s cracked lips bled as he shuffled, or stumbled – whatever one might call it – barely making progress towards the Robinsons’ farmstead in the intense heat.

He stopped shuffling when he noticed shadows swirling above him. Raising his eyes cautiously, he saw that the shadows were vultures, circling, waiting for him to fall so they could feast on his flesh, just as they probably had on his livestock. But Caleb doubted the vultures were real, even though he could now hear as well as see them. “It’s too hot for birds to fly in this drought,” he told himself, believing the vision to be a product of his water-deprived mind. Yet, to be safe, he wasn’t going to give the vultures the satisfaction of feasting on his corpse. Onward he ambled towards the Robinsons’ farmstead, to find Margo and Little Tiff.

Margo awoke on the twenty-eighth day of the drought. For the first time since the drought started, she found herself alone in an empty cot. Caleb’s absence was odd. He had been resting for almost a day and hadn’t shown any signs of waking. If he had woken, he would never venture outside without telling her, and with all their livestock dead, there was nothing to go outside for. It hadn’t rained in the night, so checking the water troughs was pointless too.

Then she felt it.

The heat.

But it was not the stifling heat of the farmstead. It was the intense heat from outside.

Margo stumbled from the cot into the main living quarters. She gasped in horror when she saw the farmstead door wide open. She ambled as fast as she could to the door and slammed it shut. Her next instinct was to check on Little Tiff. A deafening wail of grief escaped her when she found Little Tiff’s cot empty.

Margo began to panic.

Where were Caleb and Little Tiff?

Her eyes were drawn to a crumpled piece of paper on the floor. Unfolding it, she found it to be a blank piece of writing paper. It wasn’t on the floor when she went to bed last night. So Caleb must have left it there. But why? Where had he taken Little Tiff?

Margo’s gaze turned towards the door. “Please, God, no.” She ambled to the door, flung it wide open, and was instantly met by the intense, dry heat. Standing on the porch, she surveyed the barren landscape as the sun burned her face. “Caleb!” she screeched from the porch. “Caleb…!”