Nick Cole - The Wasteland Saga

“Oh, Poppa, her name is Pepper. Like what we had for the whole trip. I don’t know why, I just thought it would be a perfect name for her because when you think about it, Pepper is kind of a funny word, like donkey. Isn’t it, Poppa?”

“It is.”

I feel numb.

I don’t want to do this. I don’t want things to end this way.

Remember what the Boy said, my friend.

You take everything with you .

“Are you okay, Poppa?”

“Yes. I’m fine.”

“Do you want to come watch me ride Pepper now?”

More than anything I have ever wanted to do in my whole life. And I don’t even like horses, they’re dangerous.

“You must be careful with horses.”

“Oh, I will, Poppa. The careful-est.”

“You can call me Grandpa now. Like you used to.”

“No, I like Poppa now. It’s fun. Poppa.” She giggled.

That. I’ll steal that giggle and take it with me. I will steal everything there is that is worth anything in this life and I will take it with me. You are mine, giggle.

They arrived at the tank and the Old Man said, “Wait here,” and climbed up onto the tank. He leaned down into the hatch.

You will go with her now, my friend Santiago.

Teach her.

Teach her that life cannot defeat you. Only we can defeat ourselves.

He held out the book to her.

“Read this.”

“Now, Poppa?”

“No. Later when…”

Don’t say, When you want to remember me . Then she’ll know. She’ll cling to you and she’ll want to go with you. She won’t let you go on alone if you say that.

No, Poppa. I need you .

“…later. It’s my favorite book.”

“ The Old Man and the Sea , Poppa. What’s it about?”

Easy words caught in the Old Man’s throat as hot tears began to fill his eyes. He jerked his head away as if he’d seen something on the tank that needed attending.

“It just reminds me of you and me and all our adventures together, when we used to salvage.”

She looked at it for a moment, then stuck it in the pocket of her shiny green bomber jacket.

“Okay, now we’ll go see Pepper, Poppa. Pepper Poppa.” She laughed and said it three times fast.

That. I’m taking that with me too.

Please, can I take that?

“The Boy asked for me to send you over to him near the tents. He’s going to teach you how to make a halter for your horse. Then we’ll all watch you ride. I have a few things to finish here, so get going now, okay?”

“Okay, Poppa. You’re gonna love Pepper.”

Don’t.

Hug her.

You can’t. She’ll know.

If I could have that. If I could take that with me…

You can’t.

“Give me a hug,” he said quickly as she started to skip away, her hair whipping wildly.

She did.

Don’t squeeze her too tightly, she’ll know.

And this hug, I will take this with me. I don’t know where I’m going now, but wherever it is, I’m taking this hug with me.

“Bye, Poppa.”

And that too.

Bye, Poppa .

And she was gone.

He’d already given her things to the Boy along with his own gear. When he saw her tiny shape disappear among the tents of the Mohicans, the horse people, he knew it was time for him to go. He climbed into the hatch. He started the auxiliary power unit. He waited.

You must.

And yet, I don’t want to.

Megan. Sunshine. Her unwishable wish.

The engine spooled to life, its hum whispering death.

I’ll have to pass by the tents. Why didn’t I think about that?

He was heading for the road when she came out.

She was running for him.

Tears streaming down her face.

And the Boy caught her.

Holding her back.

Her mouth moving.

No, Poppa. I need you.

I am slipping away.

The worst has come upon me.

No, Poppa. I need you.

She struggled, but the Boy was too powerful. He held her. She hit him, scratched him. Beat at him. He didn’t flinch.

The thing I never wanted to happen is happening to me right now.

And…

You take everything with you.

The good.

It was all good.

It just is.

He passed tents.

She must have seen our gear and put two and two together. She’s a smart girl. The smartest.

I love you always.

That’s what the Old Man kept saying as he drove the tank past them all. Past the Boy.

Past her.

I love you always.

Read my lips.

I love you always.

No, Poppa…

I love you.

Always.

The road leads north through the last of the grassy plain as the Rockies rise up in dark defiance of what the Old Man must do within the space of this day.

This morning I thought about death.

I thought to myself, ‘Everyone has a last day,’ as if my last day were something that might never happen or happen so far in the future I didn’t need to be bothered by thoughts of it on such a fine day. But it seems today will be my last day.

Why are you silent, my friend from the book?

Santiago?

But there was nothing. No words.

Maybe they are with her now.

Maybe I will have to catch the fish all by myself now. Just like you did, Santiago. My friend from the book.

The Old Man drove and tried to remember passages from the book. As if that would start his friend talking to him again. But he could think of nothing because of his fear of what lay ahead. As if his mind were the last of the grassy plains that were fading all too quickly into the South, a place he would never go again.

You would say, It wasn’t as bad as you’d imagined it would be in all those nightmares. Yes, you would say that. You would say that to me, Santiago. You would tell me it wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it might be.

But it was.

Then, don’t think of it. Her laughter, think of that instead.

But he couldn’t.

And then he did.

THE RUINS OF little Raton lay at the beginning of the foothills. The last of New Mexico as the map might have told him. Green trees with almost gray trunks, their leaves danced back and forth, shimmering in the breeze.

On the other side of Raton the road immediately disappeared beneath a long-ago mudslide now hardened and swallowing the road and the bottoms of the trees. The Old Man could see the tops of rusting cars and the edges of buildings poking out from beneath the calcified mud.

He proceeded forward in starts and stops as the road disappeared now and again, its winding course climbing through chopped granite hills. The forest began to thin, and as the Old Man topped a small summit and looked out onto the valley and the lands of the North, he saw a country burned and long dead.

Trees beyond counting lay fallen like struck matches, like burnt toy soldiers knocked over in long rows.

Instead of earth and dirt, there was gray and ash.

Instead of shimmering granite, there was blackened heat-torched rock, melted and blasted.

The Old Man knew if he turned off the tank at this moment and simply listened, he would hear nothing. He would hear the absence of everything.

AFTERNOON THUNDERSTORMS began to form out over the gray and foreboding mountains that rose up in hacked and jagged peaks.

The Old Man looked behind him and saw the gray smoke that had been belching up from the engine had grown thicker and more acrid.

He looked down to check the fuel and engine gauges and saw the temperature climbing. He was down to less than half a tank besides what was left in the two fifty-gallon drums. His eyes fell to the dosimeter.

The radiation is very high here.

You would say, What does it matter now, my friend?

But the voice of Santiago, the one he had carried in his head through the wasteland, and listened to, and even at times longed for, was silent and would not come to him.