Beyond the Horizon by Ryan Ireland Page A

gravel.
    At night, while the man placed his trust in the long-burned-out stars of a universe bent on crushing itself, the stranger guided himself by the street lamps, casino lights and reflective stripes of the freeway. The stranger would lay down to sleep at dawn, his head resting on a scrap of driftwood or a stone. The sun glowered up from the crags of mountains and baked all that splayed out on the altar of midland America.
    Each man had visions—one of the world as it had been, the other inventing the story of destiny as he came upon it. Both of them envisioned the time in the Sargasso. A month, maybe more, had passed since there was any breeze to speak of. Several of the crew committed suicide by weighting themselves down with chains and throwing themselves overboard.
    â€˜Keeps them from being eaten,’ the boy’s father said.
    The crew of the ship roamed the deck like sleepwalkers. They burned their clothes and trolled for food naked and despairing, letting the sun take its toll on their bodies. The men’s skin boiled and dripped, ran with blisters and puss. In the night they sodomized each other, taking the boy and his father up to the deck and holding them down.
    Up in the crow’s nest the Portuguese sat as a silent sentinel to the events unfolding below. The men called up to him as they beat one another and groped at the unwilling participants, but he ignored them, staring off into the ocean as if there was a place beyond here.
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    Taking the body of the woman into the hatch proved more difficult for the stranger than he imagined. He stopped from time to time as he tunneled farther downward to scrabble for his baggage. He located the abdomen of the woman and placed his hand across the expanse of her belly. The baby inside stirred; less so than a few moments ago when he last checked, but still alive nonetheless.
    He went deeper into the total absence of light to where the soil hardened into stone and the caverns ran slick with moisture. Drips from stalactites echoed. There was still deeper to go. He crawled frantically, following a path from a memory he had yet to form. The palm of his hand slid on the rock and he tumbled forward, the sack and body falling with him. He landed in a shallow pool of water, the bell of the skirt undone and the body in pieces around him.
    The water rippled, but instead of coming to a calm around him, the liquid continued to swirl and torrent. The walls of the cavern shook and stones crumbled in on either side. The stranger closed his eyes and did his best to imagine the world he had told himself about.
    The man woke in the midafternoon. Some vision—a dream—had been circulating in his head. Something called from the outside world and filtered through his memories and formed into a new experience all together. He sat up. Nearby the mule grazed, lazily swooped his tail at some flies. The man had sweated in his sleep, sweated right through his shirt. No more than a few hours passed since he let slumber overtake him.
    He took a canteen from the saddlebag, drank from it. He swore, shook his head. Out on the horizon whence he came there was nothing. Even as he rode away, he cast a glance over his shoulder. A feeling of being watched welled in his gut and propelled him forward.
    At the end of the tunnel the sky showed as a spot of blue. The stranger scrambled through, toward the source of light. He heaved stones aside and freed himself from underneath the rubble. He looked around the landscape at the fallen adobe brick tower, at the vultures circling above. If there was a way out of here, he had already taken it. Now was where he needed to stay.
    Ruins from the Indians folded limply in the rumpled hills. Little stood as it had decades, centuries before. The bricks, once dried and blocked with sharp edges, had eroded into egg-shaped curiosities, things unable to be stacked. Walls spilled over, the mortar turned to grit and cake. Occasional storms as they blew in this