Bryan comes in heaviest at last and is still seventh
Bolek leaves 30.7 buried in the ground, Bill brings in everything he owns and loses by 2.22, and two men come off the flats weighing the same to within 0.04.
By Gordon Applewhite · Staff
Kell has one working pump and it runs brown for the first minute.
The warden operates it on a rule nobody agreed to. Men go out into the dead country, come back dragging whatever they found, and at the gate they are set in pairs with their hauls on the beam. The heavier man drinks. The lighter man is walked back past the wire with a dry can. It does not matter how far he went, how clean he worked, or what it cost him to get home.
It matters who was standing at the other end of the scale.
Bryan has been coming to this gate for two seasons doing everything right and going back out thirsty.
His wire patrol had been worthless all year. Ten point two on an average trip, enough to justify the ammunition and nothing beyond that. This time it came over the ridge at dusk hauling a bowser on a rope and the packs of two men who were not with them any more.
32.5.
Behind it came the rest of it, and when the warden had finished loading the pan he had 158.36 on the beam, more than any man brought into Kell that week. There was no one on the plain who could have outweighed him. Nine out of nine.
The man they set opposite him was Bolek.
Across ten weighings in their lives Bolek has walked in heavier eight times. He is the one obstacle in this settlement that Bryan has never been able to shift. Bryan is 2-8 against him now, which is one better than it was, and the improvement was made by 47.36 of daylight.
Bolek came in with the lightest load at Kell.
What makes it worth writing down is what he did not come in with. Somewhere out on the flats there is a rock with a mark scratched on it that Bolek made himself, and under that rock is 30.7, and he walked past it on the way home. He is 3-10. Every man on the plain outweighed him. The yoke goes back around his neck, for the fourth time, which is more than anyone else in this place has had to wear it.
Now the part of the morning that a man should not look at directly.
Two survivors came off the salt at almost exactly the same weight. Nate had 113.3 in his pan. Gabes had 113.34.
0.04.
The difference between them is not measurable by any instrument at this station, and it decided nothing, because the beam does not compare all ten. Gabes was set against Justin, who came in at 111.86, and Gabes drank. He is 9-4 and second in FantasyWorld with a scavenging record that would embarrass a careful man.
Nate was set against Eric/Blakey, who came in at 126.96, and Nate was walked back out through the gate with an empty can for the third week running.
Same weight. Opposite ends of the yard. One of them heard the pump start.
There is a water tower over Kell with names cut into the steel of it, and a man's name is cut when he has survived a hundred weighings. Nate has ninety-eight strokes against him. He has had ninety-eight for a month. Justin has ninety-seven and went out dry as well, so the two of them are back on the flats together, walking in the same direction, neither able to get the last of it done.
Bill brought in everything he owned.
Understand what that means here. Most men bury something — a spare can, a coil of wire, a good man they could not carry. When the warden went through Bill's tracks he found 1.6 left behind in the whole of the dead country. Nothing. Twice now in three weeks he has come home stripped to the frame and correct, after three months of leaving the better half of his haul under a tarpaulin and being let through the gate regardless.
Jack outweighed him by 2.22.
Jack drank, and took first place in FantasyWorld at 9-4, and did not appear to notice how close it had been. Bill went back out at 6-7. Six men in Kell brought less than he did. All six of them were paired better.
Daniel did the opposite of Bill and was rewarded for it.
He left Terry McLaurin under a rock — 18.1, sitting in the shade, safe and useless — and carried Rome Odunze the whole way in on his shoulders for 1.3. That is what he chose to do with his strength. He then outweighed Mario by 12.12 and drank his fill.
Mario has hauled 1838.42 out of the wasteland this season, more than any man at this station by a distance nobody else can see the far side of, and he is 7-6. His best runner came back with 3.3 in an empty sack and no explanation.
Eric/Blakey found something at last, which after nine defeats is worth the ink, and went to the pump for the first time in a while.
The warden chalked the pairings for next week on the gatepost before the light went, the way he does, without looking up.
Bryan stood in the yard with the heaviest load anyone had brought to Kell all week, at 6-7, seventh in FantasyWorld, drinking water he should have been given a month ago.
Out past the wire, a rock with a mark on it. Under the rock, 30.7. It will be there in the morning.