The The Wasteland Saga: Three Novels: Old Man and the Wasteland, The Savage Boy, The Road is a River (51 page)

Read The The Wasteland Saga: Three Novels: Old Man and the Wasteland, The Savage Boy, The Road is a River Online

Authors: Nick Cole

“And they shall be desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate, and her cities shall be in the midst of the cities that are wasted.”

The Old Man watched the Stranger as he worked at pulling up the grating that covered what must have once been a pool inside the skeletal remains of a gym.

That is his answer to what lies east?

Yes, my friend. That is his answer.

When the metal cover was pushed back, the hint of kerosene bloomed in full. Inside the empty pool, salvage-fashioned fuel tanks lay along the bottom.

My eyes are burning from the fumes.

The Old Man waved the others back and dropped down into the shallow end of the dry pool. He tapped his scarred knuckles against a tank and heard the hollow echo of a half-filled volume.

Will it be enough?

It will have to be.

They brought the tank in through the shattered remains of the floor-to-ceiling windows. It crushed ancient fitness machines beneath its treads. Above them a barn owl screeched incessantly, refusing to flee into the daylight.

He has been here for some time.

If he waits, we will go away. But he must wait until we have taken all their fuel.

When they had maneuvered the tank as close to the pool as they could, they stretched out the pump hose until it barely reached the farthermost tank.

The fumes could ignite in a moment so we must be very careful.

“Go out and look for some salvage,” he told his granddaughter. “See if there is anything we can use.”

“Food would be good, Poppa.”

“Yes, food would be good.”

When she was gone he breathed a little easier.

If we explode she will at least be safe.

She will be all alone.

Yes, but she won’t be dead.

The Boy took charge of the fueling once the Old Man had shown him how it was performed. Now they waited in the silence of the ancient pool area, the APU droning like the pumps of the pool must have once done.

The Old Man turned to the Stranger.

His words are church words.

As though he will only speak what he has seen or read. As though it is his punishment or his penance. But he understands. I know he does. How has he made it all this time? What is his story of salvage?

“What is your . . . what is your story?”

The Stranger who had been watching the fueling process with both amazement and amusement turned back to the Old Man with laughing, mirthful eyes.

The Stranger seemed to want to say something. Then stopped himself and simply shook his head. When the Old Man seemed to accept this, the Stranger turned back to watch the fueling.

The map.

The Old Man climbed up into the tank and retrieved Sergeant Presley’s map, though he thought of it only as the Boy’s.

Again he was amazed at the information contained in its markings.

It’s the story of someone’s life.

Is that not true of all maps, my friend?

True. And also, our stories are the maps of our lives.

The Old Man stopped.

Our stories are the maps of our lives.

Yes, my friend.

He spread the map out on the ragged rubber floor of the gym, in a space between crushed pieces of fitness equipment.

“Excuse me?” He spoke loudly trying to get the Stranger’s attention.

The Stranger turned.

He saw the map. If the look in his eyes when he’d watched the tank drink up all the fuel had been one of amazement, the look in his eyes when he saw the map was one of awe.

He fell to his knees and a moment later his short thick fingers were tracing the roads. Tracing them back east. Tracing them to New York. Landing on Brooklyn.

And he wept.

His shoulders shaking.

Sobs gushing forth in tremendous heaves.

“By the rivers of Babylon,” sobbed the Stranger. “There we sat down, yea we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying sing us one of the songs of Zion.”

The Stranger hung his head and tears splashed down onto the map. The Old Man stood, frozen.

The Stranger raised his head, looking up to the Old Man. Asking him.

“How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I refer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.”

Through watery, joy-filled eyes, he spread his small hands outward, upward, and expanded them across the map.

He means, ‘Where are we?,’ my friend.

The Old Man looked at the map and laid his finger over Flagstaff.

The Stranger placed one finger on Brooklyn and then stretched another finger on his other hand over Flagstaff.

For a long time he stared at the map.

Stared at the distance between the two points.

Stared at all the stories of his wanderings.

Some making a little more sense now.

Some coming to the surface after so many years on the road.

“Do you know of this ‘King Charlie’?” asked the Old Man.

The Stranger looked up from the map.

There was fear in his eyes.

He looked back to the map and studying it, drew his finger away from the west, following the map east. Following the once great Interstate 40. Then, at Albuquerque he went north, and after making a wide circle that reached all the way down into Texas he spoke.

“Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? Art thou become like unto us? Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms; that made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners? All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory, every one in his own house. But thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcass trodden under feet. Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, and slain thy people: the seed of evildoers shall never be renowned.”

The Stranger looked at the Old Man and nodded slowly, placing his index finger over Colorado Springs.

Bad news for us, my friend.

Yes.

I think he is saying that King Charlie is the devil. And that the devil is in Colorado Springs.

Where I need to go.

“It would have to be that way,” muttered the Old Man to himself.

The Stranger took hold of the Old Man’s hand. His touch was warm and soft. He moved the hand down to Albuquerque and whispered, “Ted.”

“Ted?”

The Stranger nodded.

“Who is Ted?”

But the Stranger only smiled and nodded in the affirmative.

Whoever Ted is, he’s good. Or at least he has been to the Stranger.

And he thinks Ted will also be good to us.

Didn’t Conklin of the Dam say they’d heard there was someone who’d set up an outpost in ABQ as he called it? That they even had elec-
tricity?

Ted.

When the fueling was complete, the Old Man backed the tank out of the rickety framework of the ruin that had once been a gym and left the tank idling in the hot afternoon heat.

The Boy brought out an old weight bar he’d found in the shadows and dark of the gym.

“I can make this into a weapon,” he said as he passed the Old Man.

The Stranger motioned for the map once more. When it was opened and spread out on the hot pavement, the Stranger pointed toward the land that lay between Flagstaff and Albuquerque.

“They shall lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roareth like the sea; and they ride upon horses, set in array as men for war against thee, O daughter of Zion.”

Then he pointed toward the sun overhead and shook his head. Making a fist, he pulled it down.

“You’re saying don’t cross this area in the daytime?”

The Stranger nodded.

Then held up one finger.

“In one night! You’re saying cross all this in one night? That’s a long journey, over bad roads!”

The Stranger nodded again.

“Who are these people?” asked the Old Man.

The Stranger looked about, leaned close, and then whispered, “Apache.”

Later, under the bridge, waiting for nightfall, the Old Man walked up the street. Toward the outpost that had been.

How can these Apache stop a tank?

Who knows? But this fellow thinks they’re dangerous enough to try. Or at least try and get you stuck, then wait you out.

Go in one night as quick as you can and it might prevent them from bringing their resources to bear. Surprise them.

But we could get stuck on the road in the night.

At the top of the hill, in the gritty crumbling parking lot of the hotel, the Old Man saw words written on the wall in a sickly green neon slop-paint.

Those words weren’t there yesterday.

Someone has passed through in the night and left a message for me.

Someone on a horse.

“Up is down, left is right. King Charlie brings you Peace through Might.”

The Old Man wondered if this was the Fool thundering through the darkness on a horse too big for his gangling body, even now ahead of them, knowing where they are going, holding the stolen map in his claws.

And below that, as if addressed specifically to the Old Man, written in slop-paint strokes, was the word “
Nuncle
.”

Chapter 39

At dusk they drove out from underneath the bridge and into the twilight. The dry leaves and fallen pine needles crunched under the dirt-clogged treads of the tank in the warm, early evening.

The Stranger watched them, waving slowly, his sad brown eyes sorry to see them go.

And . . .

Sorry for all that had happened to the world.

The Old Man looked down into the turret and saw the Boy who’d returned to staring into nothingness. He tapped his leg, motioning for the Boy to put on his helmet. When this was done the Old Man switched on the intercom.

“What do you think of him?” asked the Old Man, referring to the Stranger. “About his information? Did you ever pass through the areas he warned us about?”

“We did not.”

Who does he mean when he says “we”?

The soldier.

“Maybe he was just crazy?” said the Old Man.

The Boy said nothing for so long the Old Man wondered if maybe there wouldn’t be a comment. But then the Boy spoke.

“I do not think he is touched in the head. Sergeant Presley would say . . . well, it does not matter, but, no, I don’t think he is crazy. There was truth in his riddles.”

“So what do you think he meant by all those riddles?” asked the Old Man.

Flagstaff fell behind them, and ahead, the long straight road cut through the high rolling plains.

It feels like we’re still heading upward.

Still heading to the top of the world.

In the far west, fading blue light still shone distantly. Ahead the land lay covered in soft mist and darkness.

“There are people who act crazy,” started the Boy out of the silent hum of the intercom. “I think it’s some kind of defense. A way of keeping them safe on the road. Most villages treat such people with respect. They give them food and send them on their way. They’re superstitious about such people.”

“Are there many villages out there?”

The Old Man looked into the distant east and saw only the rising night.

“Some,” said the Boy.

For a long time the Old Man kept the tank on the road. But when the road became impassable, they would deviate around broken chunks of highway and scattered concrete pylons and even the wild-haired rebar jutting from the remains of bridges.

Far out into the plains, miles off-road, they would see the skeletal remains of recreational vehicles rocking in a wind that blasted across the rolling landscape, causing the grass to bend in great waves like the tides of an ocean.

The Old Man switched on the night-vision optics and saw no one among the lonely outposts of wreckage.

People must have come here in the days of the bombs, forming up into small settlements. They would’ve driven here in those RVs and made alliances once they’d arrived.

Or murdered each other for what few supplies could be had.

How long did they last?

Not long. How could they? They only had what they’d brought. There are no places to salvage up here. No major towns or industry. What could they have found where there was little or nothing?

Later, the road disintegrated into little more than swallowed chunks of concrete through which tufts of yellow grass sprang upward. The tank moved slower along the broken highway, the Old Man not wanting to chance the fragile right tread.

You must go all the way, tread. You cannot give up tonight or even when we get there. After this is all done, we still have to get back home.

The last part sounded like an empty promise to the Old Man.

He began to think of the other dark possibilities that existed besides returning home.

But he cut himself off and would not think of such things.

Tonight I must concentrate. I cannot think of what will go wrong tomorrow or even the day after. Those things are for another day.

In the darkness there seemed to be no one out there. All the rumors of Apache might just simply be rumors. All the talk of Apache nothing more than the talk of ghosts. Boogeymen to frighten misbehaving children.

He drove on and watched the road, seeing nothing but scattered pockets of rusting and beaten destruction from long ago.

He saw the bridge far ahead as the road began a series of descents and rises through rolling hills. It should have been a bridge like any other overpass crossing. But it wasn’t.

The bridge still stretched across the two hills that had been both its on-ramps and off-ramps for east and west traffic. But beneath the overpass, where the highway ran, lay a collection of vehicles tilted upright, their hoods pointed into the sky as if they had been suddenly forced upward.

Tacked across the front of each rusting hood was a human skeleton with a dog’s head.

The Old Man switched on the high beam of the tank as they approached.

It’s a message.

“They don’t want us to come this way?” said the Boy over the intercom.

Or anyone for that matter.

“Is your hatch closed?” he asked his granddaughter.

“Yes, Poppa.”

“Lock it now.”

The Old Man maneuvered the tank up the overpass to the road that crossed atop the bridge. Against the bright moon, he could clearly see the pennants made of rags and oily crow feathers flapping madly in the windy darkness.

We are in their land now.

If we tell them what we’re going to do, maybe they will let us pass.

And if they don’t, my friend?

The Old Man started down the on-ramp on the far side and re-entered the old highway.

A few miles farther along, and the highway descended into a series of curves that entered a long and narrow ravine, which soon widened into a valley that cut through low, flat-topped mesas.

A small gas station town lay alongside the road and the Old Man could see greasy firelight behind some of the windows.

For a while the road paralleled a river. Weeping willows hung gloomily along the banks in the night. Later, in the deep of the valley, the road disappeared under a wash of sand where the river must have once overflowed.

Probably in the days after the long winter.

Yes.

The Old Man drove the tank down onto the sand bed, letting the high beam stay on, watching for places where the tank might get stuck. Ahead he could see the single remaining pylon of a bridge that must have once crossed over the wide river that ran through the canyon.

As they entered the dry riverbed, they dropped suddenly and the Old Man banged his head sharply on the side of the hatch.

His first thought was that the ground had suddenly given way underneath them.

Soft sand.

But he could see crumpled tin and splintered wood in the optics and a wall of sandy dirt beyond.

We’ve fallen into a trap!

“Are you all right?” he asked his granddaughter over the intercom as he reached up and shut the turret hatch.

“What happened, Poppa?”

“I think we fell in a hole.”

The Boy, bathed in the red of the interior emergency lights, gripped his chair.

Rain began to fall against the sides of the tank.

Not rain.

Arrows.

The Old Man dogged the hatch.

Remember, be gentle with the right tread. We can get out of this like I did when I was stuck in the sand at Picacho Peak. But if you break the tread, we really will be stuck.

The Old Man switched on the night vision.

All around them, wild figures like white blobs against green and gray ran forward as torches flared too brightly in the night vision. The Old Man tried the left tread and the tank pulled forward. He could hear the snap of wood and rending metal above the whine of the engine. When the tank was almost at the top of the trap, the Old Man pushed the right tread forward and the tank popped nose upward as he gave it full throttle.

“Hold on!” warned the Old Man.

The tank slammed down hard into the sand and sped off, careening through a crumbling pylon that jutted from the riverbed.

The Old Man scanned the optics.

The figures were running back into the night, their torches burning angrily on the ground.

Did I just see the Fool?

Standing atop a small sandy hill, the gangly figure appeared for a moment, his wild fool’s crown springing in all directions, his claw waving a torch frantically forward at the retreating figures, urging them to turn back and attack the tank.

It’s him!

The Old Man backed away from the viewfinder in shock.

Don’t be afraid of him, my friend.

When the Old Man looked again the Fool was gone. He drove the tank to the other side of the wash and surged up onto the road at full speed.

Now the road entered a tight series of turns that wound through the hills where the Old Man saw an ambush in every bend, or at the tops of the small hills that loomed above them alongside the road. The gibbous moon had turned a sickly red from some distant dust storm. It rose through spindly barren trees above the desert plateau. It shifted wildly across the sky as the Old Man fought to keep track of the twisting road in the night.

It must be after midnight.

The Old Man felt himself sweating heavily, his shoulders tensed like iron bands as he drove the tank forward into the night.

The road twisted into a series of long curves that reversed themselves into still more curves and the red misshapen moon swung even more frantically across the sky.

It’s making me dizzy.

The clutching fingers of a dead orchard rose up all around them as they passed through the rubble of a town. Ahead, great piles of concrete had toppled onto the highway. Above them, the sides of cutoff mountains rose up into the darkness.

Are they forcing me off the road and into the town? Or are they forcing me to take the narrow opening ahead? Where is their trap?

The Fool is forcing you, my friend. It is the Fool who forces you into his trap.

I only thought I saw him. Maybe it was just a mistake or a trick of the light.

This must have once been a state checkpoint. The path looks too narrow for the tank to pass.

But if you get off the highway you could get lost in that abandoned town, and its streets are probably very narrow. A good place for a trap. There is no guarantee that there is a way around this obstacle or that the roads in the town are even any better.

No, there isn’t.

“Are you ready to drive?” said the Old Man over the intercom to his granddaughter.

“I’m on it, Poppa!” she almost shouted.

The Old Man tapped the Boy and motioned for the hatch.

“We’ll guide you through the rubble and make sure the path is wide enough,” he said to his granddaughter. “Don’t run over us, okay?”

“Okay, Poppa, I’ll try not to.”

Yes, please try not to run over me with the tank.

The Old Man took the left and the Boy the right and they walked into the dusty maze of rubble, waving the tank forward slowly. They crossed under a wide overpass and the Old Man spotted, with the moving beam of his flashlight, the words the Fool had left for him to read. They were written all the way to the end of the tunnel.