"Are we sleeping in the car?" Leigh asked. He had huddled himself in the passenger seat beside her. The worn fake leather of the chairs had loose seams, but they were heavily padded, and Mary had put hers as far down as it went, which wasn't much, but aided in the illusion of laying more supine. Leigh, burrowed in the blankets she had nestled him in, was looking out at the nightly desert. The light between them was still on, and Mary imagined he could only see his own reflection in the darkened windows.
"Yes. We won't get back to Meru in time."
Leigh looked outside. "It's hot," he declared.
"It won't stay that way."
Silva had made himself comfortable on the cot between the tailgate and the crates. Van t' Sand lay on the other side and the light in the back had been turned off five minutes ago. As Leigh shuffled around in his seat, conflict was evident in the young man's expression. Mary tilted her head back against the seat and regarded Leigh. Her hands lay loosely in her lap.
"How's Henderson treating you?"
"He's good." Leigh was onto his back, his socked heels against the dash. "He's often away, though. It's like I've got a private tent." He was talking to the floor but Mary was still caught by the candidness of his response. She knew the kid to be notorious for his emotional temper, but she'd always found him to be shielded. Sure, he was open in his wit and the things that tipped the scale of his frustrations, but he was not usually one to be frank. Mary regarded Leigh carefully as he shifted again.
"The man has been an insomniac for as long as I can remember." She spoke.
Leigh hid his hands into his sleeves and started playing with the seams. "I see." He swallowed. Then, he licked his lips, and, appearing to have come to a decision, he glanced briefly at her, "I read the report, you know."
Mary exhaled heavily. One hand gripped the bottom of the steering wheel tightly in an unconscious reaction and she trained her eyes ahead before turning back to Leigh. The tension was almost palpable in the air. What good would hiding give her? It was a disclosed incident.
"I'm sure you did." Mary fixed him a look, reminding herself not to glance away no matter what was asked nor give recognition to the sickening unease coming up below her sternum. "Was it a good read?"
"After seeing you— meeting you, I decided you weren't— didn't take you as the cruel type. I mean— I'd assumed. Well. I. I suppose—" Leigh kept glancing between his own lap and the dark reflections on the window. "I guess. It didn't occur to me—"
"I've never been, kid."
"So... what I'm asking, I guess is— why?"
"I had to."
"But. Did you really?" he put up a hand in defence though Mary hadn't moved from where she lay. Leigh played it off in a vague, awkward gesture, hand hovering in the air between them, "I, I mean... how did you know?"
She hadn't. "I just did."
Leigh nodded. Falling silent. His hands back in his sleeves. Mary sighed and looked out into the darkness, then reached up and turned the light down. The starry night sky became promptly visible; the rocky plains spread out before them. Further back, van t'Sand softly laughed at something Silva had been saying. "Go to sleep, kid." Mary told Leigh. "It'll be fine."
"What happened?" Leigh asked. And at first, Mary thought he was still talking of the past. But then he continued, clumsy and self-conscious, "I didn't understand it. I think I did something but I don't know what. And don't know whether I want to understand it." The attitude was all a front. And underneath, Mary could make out the genuine care and curiosity the kid held.
"Well," Mary began. "There's one thing you need to know about colonialism, kid. Here, and for people like Bentham-Moore, the struggle has not been to push the native population into the 20th century, but at all costs to keep them away from it. She does not look down on them because she thinks they're lazy, or uncivilised, but because they're wise enough to resent working for her— for us… the problem has been how not to educate them at all." Mary said, and spared a look at Leigh. He was looking pensively at the dash. "But— at the same time, teach them just enough to drive our cars, and push a mining cart," a pause, "that's part of what's going on here, but that's only part."
Leighs voice, when he spoke, was timid: "and the other part?"
Mary sighed. She felt a migraine coming up behind her eyelids. "I'll tell you. I'll tell you, kid. Go to sleep, now. But I'll tell you."
"When?" He demanded.
"Soon."
There was a momentary stillness as if Leigh was going to keep pressing, before Mary heard the rustle of his covers. She leant her elbow against the door and pressed her palm over her mouth, leaning heavily into it. Her jaw locked. Leigh's breath didn't even out for quite some time, and when it did, she only remarked on it long after she'd actively stopped listening for it, having been pulled along a slipstream of thoughts of her own. The hand resting on her thigh curled into a fist. Breath in. No choice. And no certainty. — and then relaxed her fingers.
❧
When Mary Graves returned to the truck after being out to relieve herself, van t' Sand was lying halfway and face-down on the far end of the cot. It was dark and one could just barely hear Silva's heavy breathing.
"Sleeping?" Mary asked her.
"No."
"Would you like a drink?"
"I don't think so. Thanks."
"How's your head?"
"Just swelled and sore. It's nothing."
"You feeling alright?"
"Sure." Van t' Sand looked up then. "The kid's been asking some questions?"
"It was bound to happen."
"He'll have more in the morning."
"I'll answer them."
Van t' Sand studied Mary but said nothing.
"It will be fine." Mary said.
"Was the governor fine as well?"
"It was."
"Then why'd you refuse to talk about it?"
"You're sure you wouldn't like a drink?"
"No. But you have one."
"Maybe I'll have a something to sleep on." But then she didn't get up and sat there in the dark with Van t' Sand lying on the cot.
"You sure as hell know how to work yourself up." Van t' Sand sighed, after a while. She turned over on the bed and lay face up. "You know, there's an awful lot of real bad people out there. You're going to meet them and have to be civil to them often enough."
"I wasn't civil."
"You taught her a lesson?"
"No. I don't think so. I tried humiliating her and I ruined it. And she'd take it out on someone either way."
"She brought it on."
"Sure. But I wish I'd finished it."
"And then what?"
"What?"
"Much good that's going to do."
"It'd make me satisfied with myself." Mary said.
"But it'd be worse for anyone else."
"You don't know that." Mary said. And she was silent a while. "There's a lot of bad people at large. Really wicked. You're right about that. And fighting them like this is no good. You're right about that again."
"Plenty of people would brand you the same," Van t' Sand told her. Not meanly or gently, but truthfully.
"I never claimed to be good. Unlike Bentham-Moore. Neither of us is good nor anywhere near good," Mary spoke to the roof. Her head lay tipped back. "I wish I were though. But I suppose being against evil doesn't make you good."
"Most fights'll be bad."
"Not all of them. Some are worth it."
"I suppose."
"But I was taking pleasure in it from the minute it started."
Van t' Sand regarded her. "And I guess you took even more pleasure in it because she gave you a fight."
A sour note slipped into Mary's voice. "I'm not an agitator, Anne."
"Trouble is, there are too many who are. They have them everywhere and you'll meet them all the time." The other woman studied her closely. "Want to tell me?"
Mary studied the roof. "No. I'm going to sleep." She rose from the floor and went back up front. Van 't Sand turned around and settled.
It's still falling, Mary thought as she watched the desert through the windshield. And she looked at Leigh sleeping peacefully. Bates — damn him— was right, she thought. The whole damn thing is still falling.