Name with no Horse by Cora Tate
In his head, Bob could hear the sound of a single violin playing a dirge-like melody but at an uptempo pace. Bob had made a name for himself as a guitarist, a fiddler, and especially a singer. His performances attracted many single women, of whom he chose one and stuck with her through thick and thin for two decades. The spare, open sound in Bob’s mind seemed at odds with the rainforest surrounding his home but fit well with the feeling of desolation in his heart after the end of his twenty-three year marriage. The melody demanded an open and empty space.
A strong and enthusiastic swimmer, Bob thought of driving down to the coast and going out to the Reef. With no boat of his own, though, getting to the Reef would involve associating with other people, and that did not appeal to him. Instead, he decided to seek solace, or at least surcease, in the open and empty spaces in the opposite direction.
Via empty backroads, Bob made his way cross-country to Highway 27, where he turned left. After passing Almaden, Bob hid his car in the scrub and began walking west, or as close to west as he could determine. A few degrees one way or the other would make no difference, and Bob started out walking slightly south of west unaware of the discrepancy. Walking until the fading daylight prevented him from seeing where he placed his feet; he reached and crossed the dry bed of the Tate River just before full dark, then lay down and slept.
Bob woke to a faint glow on the eastern horizon, drank the last of his water, and headed more nearly west than his route of the previous afternoon and evening. He crossed the Lynd River’s dry bed and correctly identified it, holding steady to his course. The course of the little Red River had stood so long empty that Bob didn’t even notice its bed as he crossed it. With the western horizon a tangent to the sun’s disc, he reached the channels of the Gilbert River, which surprised him with their breadth but held no water. Having walked all day on only the water he consumed when he set out, Bob felt more than a little thirsty and also more than a little tired. Once beyond the Gilbert’s channels, he again lay on the ground and slept.
The next morning, the thirsty hiker again woke with the first dawn light. He felt less strong than the previous morning but managed to maintain a steady, if somewhat slower, pace among the scanty vegetation. From early in his walk, Bob had felt surprised by the number of roads he crossed. About six hours and eighteen miles from the Gilbert, he encountered a well-formed road running roughly north and south and wondered where its ends lay. After crossing the road, and with the dirge-like tune and thoughts of water vying for pre-eminence in his mind, he thought of his initial intention: to walk as far as he could, and, if against all odds, he reached the west coast, to buy a bus ticket home.
Feeling weaker by the hour, Bob thought, If I haven’t wandered too far south, I might reach the Gulf. If I hit one of the highways, maybe I’ll catch a ride into Normanton and buy a ticket there. Heck, with a short bus trip from Croydon to Forsayth, I could even take the train most of the way home. Not at all sure he even wanted to get home, the despondent pedestrian managed to walk, albeit at a decreasing pace and with an increasing frequency of aquatic hallucinations until sunset again.
Bob managed to get to his feet the third morning but did not feel steady. Nevertheless, he pushed on west despite feeling every few minutes that he would like to lie down and rest, maybe sleep and forget the thirst that tormented his mouth and throat. Visions of water rose one after another before his mind’s eye. He found himself wanting not only to drink but to swim, to immerse himself in the beautiful pools his delirium produced.
Somewhere northeast of Blackbull, Bob realized he was swimming, had been swimming all along. He swam through the hot desert air. Thinking of a pop group of his childhood, he imagined new lyrics to their big hit. His throat too dry to sing or even hum, he nevertheless displaced the dirge in his mind with the line “A desert is an ocean with the water underground ...” for minutes at a time. Even to the violin’s lament, he swam through the air, although his feet stumbled more than walked.
Bob wondered about the possibility of stumbling onto the Norman River, thinking how nice a drink of water would feel. He also thought that dipping water from the river might bring a new danger. After I get a drink, he thought, I’ll go for a swim and see if I meet any friendly salties. Excepting humans with firearms, saltwater crocodiles are pretty much the apex predator in the Gulf Country. A few humans have survived encounters with salties, but very few. Almost any part of the Norman River with water in it contains saltwater crocs.
In the event, Bob never reached the Norman, nor did he reach any of the highways. He stopped to rest, slept an hour, then swam or walked or stumbled on west, and repeated that sequence several times. One of those times, the last of course, he did not get up. He lay drifting in and out of consciousness in an agony of thirst, imagining himself swimming, sometimes hearing the sound of the violin presto agitato despite the slowing of his body’s systems, and seeing images of the ex-wife he loved more than life itself. After four hours, his last period of consciousness and his suffering ceased.
Educated as a scientist, graduated as a mathematician, Cora Tate has earned her living as a full-time professional entertainer most of her life, including a stint as a regular performer on the prestigious Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee. Cora’s repeated attempts to escape the entertainment industry have brought work as a librarian, physics teacher, syndicated newspaper columnist, and city planner, among other occupations. Cora has written five novels, six novellas (two published), six novelettes (two published, one forthcoming), and about a hundred short stories, of which seventy-three have been published by eighty-two literary journals in ten countries.
Posted on December 21th 2023