Nick Cole - The Wasteland Saga

You need that, my friend, so take it because it is being given away for free and also because you are too poor to disagree.

Yes.

“There is nothing to worry about at this present time,” said General Watt. Natalie. “It’ll be all right. We will find a way to get you here.”

But the Old Man knew that it wasn’t all right. That some change had taken place in the wind and weather, the current and tide, and finally as it must, the last port at journey’s end.

And.

There is always a price to pay for such things.

Yes.

Always.

And someone will have to pay for it.

Someone will.

In the hatch, beneath the sun, the Old Man felt cold.

THE ROAD UP and out of southern Las Vegas climbed through tired rocks and vast crumbling urban sprawls of falling houses and collapsed roadways. A barely readable sign indicated the way to Lake Mead.

In time Las Vegas disappeared behind them, fading into the heat of a day that chased them with its memories of the night. The road led alongside the outlines of buildings once standing and now long gone. The land opened up onto a massive downslope of red earth and gray rock. At the bottom lay the glittering blue of a wide lake stretching out and away from them.

The road began a series of twists through rock formations that seemed foreign and somehow of another world. Another world the Old Man dimly remembered from the covers of science fiction books about strange and alien planets. A crumbling tower rose up from the red rocks alongside the lake and the road. Its tenure seemed thin and merely a matter of time.

The road that led to the Dam cut across the face of this reddish-brown rock above a steep drop into canyons below. Beyond all this, the Dam climbed skyward and their eyes saw what man had once made.

“We made this, Poppa?”

“Yes,” was all the Old Man could say, his voice unexpectedly choking with pride.

I did not think it would affect me this way.

And…

I had no idea.

The Boy lay sleeping. The Old Man stopped the tank and shook him.

He should see this too.

He should know we weren’t all bad.

They climbed out from their hatches, his granddaughter in her new flight jacket, the Boy still covered in blood. The Old Man shielded his eyes against the blaze of noon with his wrinkled and calloused hand. The massive Dam stretched high above them.

Yes.

We built this.

And…

We were not all bad.

THE PEOPLE WHO came out from the Dam wore the same shreds of armor and carried the same rifles as Kyle, Grayson, and Trash.

A large man walked out in front of them. There was a smile on his face. He wore faded denim and an old Stetson hat, sun-bleached and torn.

“You can’t be with King Charlie if you’ve gotten out of your tank,” he bellowed, his voice bombastic, echoing off the canyon walls and the Dam.

“We aren’t,” said the Old Man, sounding thin and dry, his voice a small croak.

When did my voice start to sound like that of an old person?

The people behind the Big Man began to clap. Someone whooped with excitement. They patted each other. There was even weeping.

These people are in need of good news.

Yes, my friend, and they seem to think you are it.

The people of the Dam approached the tank, surrounding it at once. Feeling it. Touching it. Marveling.

These are Kyle’s people. Grayson’s.

And Trash’s too.

We took her in .

That’s what Kyle had said.

We took her in .

There were questions all at once and each one different.

Who are you?

Where’d you get the tank?

How’d you make it through?

Where are you going?

Do you need fuel?

Have you seen…?

The Old Man grew confused in his rush to answer each question. Starting an answer and then being pulled away by another. Until he saw the Big Man staring at him. Still smiling. Waiting. And even though there was a smile, a big smile, there was also worry. Worry in the eyes. There was a question about the three and the Old Man could tell it was waiting for him and that the Big Man would never ask it. He would never ask it because maybe in the long days since its first being asked, he had answered it for himself. In his mind Kyle, Grayson, and Trash and all the others who had been trapped beyond Vegas had perished long ago. They must’ve.

But there are nights. Nights when one wonders what might still be possible despite all evidence to the contrary. Nights when you rise alone for just a drink of water, and in the silence you sigh and think of unanswered questions.

You think of loved ones and where they might be.

And even…

If, they might be.

And when there are no answers in the night, you sigh and think…

What am I going to do now?

“Do you know Kyle?” asked the Old Man.

The Big Man nodded, his eyes changing to hope and belief and then disbelief all at once. Speaking as he nods. Speaking words as if he cannot believe these words he has said so many times in the night might actually be real words.

“He’s alive? My son is…” the Big Man’s voice faltered, unwilling to form that last word again.

Alive.

His son. All this time he has imagined him dead and hated himself for it.

“He…” tries the Old Man and stops.

Tell them, my friend.

I’m afraid to. How?

Just tell them. In time it will be a mercy to them, though they will not know it today.

No.

No, today will be for grief. Which is also, sometimes, a mercy.

Other names are quickly shouted out. Names that are not Kyle or Grayson.

There were others before it was only just the three of them.

An older couple. She is already clinging to a man turning white with shock, holding on to her as much as she is holding on to him.

Holding on to each other.

The Old Man sees his own son.

And wonders…

What is he doing right now?

And…

How do I tell them?

The truth, my friend. The truth. In the end it is what we must have. There is nothing else.

All eyes watched him.

He shook his head slowly.

“They made a way for us,” said the Old Man. “Where there wasn’t one.”

The Old Man wanted to lower his eyes. He wanted to look away as they stared at him for meaning, for answers, for some shred of long denied truth.

But it would be wrong to look away. Cowardly.

And then someone asked, as if it wasn’t already known to all. Someone asked, “Did they make it?”

THE OLD MAN remembered weeping and feeling he had no right to. The three were theirs, not his.

But he wept for them all the same and they did not stop him.

Grayson’s mother cried out her son’s name.

The Old Man saw her husband pulling her into him, holding on to her. He was like a man being swept away by a river.

The Old Man sat in the cantina drinking clear, cold water and listening to the old pipes above his head creak and gurgle within the Dam. Only a frail lantern illuminated the small dark room.

This is where they gather when the day is done.

Like when the boy would bring you the papers, Santiago, that were a few days, or even a week old, and you would read them together and talk about baseball.

And like your village, my friend, in the late afternoon, when the first of the evening brought out the scent of the desert sage, heavy and thick.

We did not have papers with baseball scores, though. But yes, this place is where they come at the end of the day or when they have something to celebrate like a birthday. Just like we did back in the village, in the old mining hall outside the kitchen. So I know this place, and I know these people.

The Big Man came in.

Kyle’s dad.