Nick Cole - The Wasteland Saga

He turned back to the valley, seeing the unbroken road heading south toward Tucson. The world was divided into blue sky and dusty orange dirt. Then he saw the flagpole and two flags hanging in the still desert air farther down the highway, near the base of the tallest peak. He hadn’t seen it from the ruins of the gas station town.

He slid down off the scree and walked in the afternoon shadow cast by the peak until he came to the flagpole.

“On June 3rd, 2061, a great battle was fought here at Picacho Peak. The 6th Troop, 1st Cav, ‘The Black Horse’ out of Fort Tucson, engaged and defeated the numerically superior main body of the Horde. This action was taken to stop the Human Sacrifice being conducted atop Picacho Peak, in which the leaders of the Horde would toss human children from atop the highest peak. During the battle and in the days that followed, over 10,000 enemies were estimated to have been killed in action against the Black Horse. They are buried at the base of the Peak and it is hoped that the Horde has scattered and will not return to this place for fear of the Black Horse.”

THE PLAQUE AT the base of the flagpole was a large piece of beaten sheet metal. The engraved words had been done in the same blowtorch-writing as those he had seen in the sewers of the burned-up village and on the highway at the Y. Above him, on the flagpole, a slight afternoon breeze out of the southeast snapped the tattered American flag to life. Drifting in the breeze below it, a yellow flag with a black stripe and the black silhouette of a horse’s head waved gently.

Himbradda had watched long enough. The scrawny Old Man had violated the houses where Himbradda, even as a child, knew he must not go. When the People had lived in the shadow of the peak, there were two places they did not go. The hut of the Professor and the top of the peak.

Himbradda had waited for the Dragon to come. He had seen the Dragon years ago. He had seen it come upon the people in the night, belching great bursts of fire that exploded into the midst of the People. When the People had tried to rally and drive the Dragon away it had spit hot bolts that left gaping holes in all the fierce ones whom Himbradda had hoped one day to be like. But that had been a long time ago when Himbradda was a boy.

Then the Old Man walked toward the cliff, as if to climb to the most sacred place. The place where the babies had come falling from the sky, rejected, to crash down onto the rocks as a gift to the hungry people. Himbradda remembered those days as though a forgotten festival of better times.

If the People could return, then all would be right again. The festivals, the feeding. Still the Dragon had not come out against the Old Man.

Himbradda, hiding in the tall rocks, watched the Old Man. Ha and Nu-Ah and the blind girl with the swollen belly waiting, not breathing, waiting.

When the Old Man moved on, sliding down the scree of the sacred peak and disappearing into the great field where the people had lived, where Himbradda had been born, where his earliest memories had taken place, the Dragon still had not come. Himbradda knew the Dragon must be dead now.

As all thirty-two of his skull-crushed victims had never moved again so, surely, he reasoned, must someone have crushed the Dragon’s head.

He made grunts and noises and hugged himself, then pointed east. Nu-ah and Ha would return to the People.

He grabbed dirt and threw it toward the peak.

They understood. They were to bring the People back. The Dragon was dead. They both turned toward the blind girl with the swollen belly.

Himbradda waved them away. Nu-ah, grabbing Ha’s chest, rode piggyback and soon the pair were leaping away to the east to find the People.

Himbradda hefted his club to his shoulder and set off at a hunched run for the Old Man. He would leave the girl here, she wouldn’t move. He would finish the Old Man and have his meat all to himself. Then he could return to the girl for what he wanted next.

TUCSON MUST HAVE survived.

The Old Man, staring at the flag and the plaque, looked toward the south. To the east clouds were bunching up fast and the Old Man knew monsoon season had come.

It will be dangerous now.

He heard the scream and whirled in time to see Himbradda standing at the top of the rise that led into the small bowl of the field beneath the peak.

To the Old Man, Himbradda appeared to be a large man with one huge arm waving a club in the air. He looked filthy and unkempt. For a moment, the dark savage was silhouetted against a gingham sky of soft blue dotted with white puffy clouds. The savage screamed in rage, whirling the club above his head and then he loped down upon the Old Man.

The Old Man turned and ran in the opposite direction. At the end of the field was a long fence twisted and bent by time. The Old Man made the fence and heard Himbradda screaming hoarsely in the hot still air, his shoeless feet slapping the hard red dirt behind him.

At the fence, the Old Man ran along its twisting path, coming to a pile of tumbleweeds that had built up against it. He dropped to the ground and crawled into a warren of weeds. The savage was no more than a few feet behind him now.

His world turned to brown dust and dry brush as he crawled farther and farther into a pile of tumbleweeds that had accumulated over forty years. Behind him, Himbradda tore through the maze, grunting and keening all at once.

This man is no more than an animal.

He turned right and pulled more weeds behind him as he crawled forward, bursting into the open. He had maybe a moment or two before the savage would be free of the weed pile.

The Old Man looked around. He was near the great highway that bent itself toward Tucson. He crossed the road and dropped to the ground on the far side. There was little cover.

Above him, on the road, the savage screamed in pain.

If he makes the right choice in the next moment, I’m going to know what it feels like when that club comes crashing down on my head. If not, then maybe I have a chance.

Himbradda screamed again but farther away, on the opposite side of the road.

He must be circling the pile looking for me.

The Old Man slithered backward down the dirt embankment and headed south alongside the road. Himbradda yelled raggedly, almost crying. The Old Man took off his huaraches to lessen the sound of his steps.

He had not gone ten steps before the thing he had hoped would not happen, happened.

The scorpion stung him on his instep. It happened a second after he felt his foot crush its peanut-shell carcass. White-hot pain shot up his leg, and the Old Man stuck one dusty huarache in his mouth and bit down on the scream. His vision went red as his eyes fought a black tunnel that seemed to crush the world about him.

He looked down, praying it was not one of the baby white scorpions.

They are the most poisonous.

Instead he was rewarded with a frightening-looking scorpion. Large, black, and crushed in the dirt.

These old ones have less poison.

They are cursed like you.

Quiet.

He hobbled along the ravine hoping the savage man wouldn’t check this side of the road. If he did, there would be no way he could outrun him now.

The pistol has no bullets.

I know. But he doesn’t know that.

The pain is blinding.

He may not even know what a gun is. I think if he finds me he won’t give me the time to explain it to him. It won’t make a difference.

The Old Man limped farther down the descending embankment below the ruined highway.

The first drops of rain began to splatter in the red dust as the Old Man looked at his foot. Large glistening drops settled on the thick dust, remaining globes of water for a moment, then dissipating. His foot, though not swollen, tingled. It felt foreign to him.