Nick Cole - The Wasteland Saga

The Old Man reached into the ruck. He had four flares. He loaded one and took aim. Himbradda labored up the first grade below. He fired and Himbradda stopped, watching the flare streak over his head. When it passed, the Old Man could see the features of the wild boy. Teeth missing in a mouth agape. Thick hair. The withered arm. Animal amazement at the red streaking light. His pupils large and dark. When the flare had gone into the bushes to burn, Himbradda surged forward up the hill, closing in on the Old Man.

Start moving now.

But I am tired.

Just move forward. Get to the top. Then think of something else to do when you get there.

He began to move.

At the top of the pass he turned, breathing hard, and felt dizzy. The savage boy was running now, rounding the bend on the narrow road that would lead straight to the Old Man.

He let the axe fall to the ground while holding the handle, and he knew it was beyond himself to use it. He let it go and backed toward the edge of the cliff.

You’ve got time for one trick, Old Man.

The boy charged forward closing the distance rapidly. The Old Man could hear the savage boy wheezing as he gasped for breath to close the gap.

I’ve got nothing.

Try the flare.

Without thinking he loaded another round.

I’ll just shoot him in the chest and that will be done.

But he doubted it would stop the savage boy. Not twenty feet away, the animal child raised the club over his head to smash it down on the Old Man.

The Old Man stumbled backward, knowing the cliff’s edge was nearby. He felt himself falling and, for a brief moment, thought he was going over the edge, but the dusty ground greeted him with a dull reassurance as he fell onto it.

I came this far. If I had just a moment, I’d see Tucson at the other side of the pass.

That would have been enough. To know. To know it still exists, could exist for the village.

He raised the flare gun lamely as sweat poured cold and clammy across his forehead. He aimed it right into the face of the charging boy.

The wild snarling youth bore down upon him. Himbradda had crushed many. Many had raised their hands in defense, hoping to ward off the blow of the parking meter, to change the inevitable. Himbradda knew what to do in these moments. He wanted nothing between him and the skull of the Old Dragon. He kicked the Old Dragon’s arm away with his leathery foot.

The Old Man’s aim went wide. He urged his finger not to squeeze the trigger, to re-aim, and try once more. But the impulse to squeeze raced ahead of the caution not to, and he felt his finger, his hand squeeze off the flare. It shot skyward past Himbradda’s feral grin of rage and triumph.

This is death.

Himbradda jerked his head skyward, gigantic pupils following the falling star, the angel, the most beautiful thing he would ever see. The peyote revealed the world to him as he wanted it to be.

He watched the flare arching skyward, falling out and away from him, against a universe of broken glass. He twirled to follow its course and felt himself falling away from it.

The rocks at the bottom of the pass greeted him with a jagged reception. First his feet hit, then his wrist snapped, and finally his skull struck a rock. It felt as if those things could have been separate events, instead of the single instant they were.

THE OLD MAN knew he was about to be killed. He had closed his eyes, waiting. But the blow had not come. And when he replayed what should have happened, what must have happened, he knew it had not happened. He saw the rush of the boy, the flying kick at his hand. Saw the flare racing away and felt Himbradda stumble forward, out over the cliff. He heard the crunch below. But his mind had not accepted it.

He lay there breathing, his fever breaking for just a moment. He sat up to drink water and felt his stomach turn. He curled into a ball and fell asleep.

Morning wind caressed his old head and when he awoke, wrapped in his emergency blanket and using the ruck as a pillow, he felt hollow. His eyes ached and he hoped the weakness of the day before might have been just a short fever.

He sat up and drank some water. His throat was still sore, but not on fire as it had been.

Maybe that was the worst of it and now I’ll just be sick. I can handle that.

At the bottom of the cliff near the bend in the road below, he saw the broken body and blood of the boy. The boy still clutched the club that was a parking meter.

What life did you live?

Is it your concern?

He never knew the things of the past. Never knew the first day of school. How the fog of California smells like damp wood in the morning. Never knew those things.

Let it go.

The Old Man sat for a long time in the golden rays of morning. It was still cold, but the sun at the top of the pass felt good and seemed to get down into his bones.

You’ve made it. You should go and see now.

The Old Man left his gear and walked to the far side of the pass. He crossed an old stone wall and then a parking lot scorched and faded by forty years of sun and rain.

The rising eastern sun burned bright. For a moment it blotted out everything and the Old Man had to look away. He remembered coming to Gates Pass with his mother one time. To talk. She bought some jewelry from an Indian woman who sold them on a blanket. He had been maybe twenty-five.

He looked again and saw the city. It was a low collection of buildings with a few tall ones at the center. The city was dark against the brightness of the sun.

It didn’t get hit.

Then he began to laugh. But it didn’t feel right.

You made it.

He went back to his gear and soon was on the road toward the city. Morning birds flitted in the brush, calling rapidly to one another. To tell what they had seen or done. Or that they had survived. Or that they were still there. Or maybe that they were simply happy. Later, he passed the overgrown remains of a golf course. He saw a bobcat on a rock.

Soon he entered the old part of Tucson. Buildings were still standing. In a store, he saw the items it had once sold within. The front window had been shattered. Within lay a collection of sewing machines and vacuum cleaners.

He passed a grocery store and stopped to look in through the dark holes where the glass had once been. The shelves all lay atop one another but the cans and products still remained, piled in the dark against the bottoms of the toppled shelves.

He passed apartment complexes and finally came to a bridge that spanned the dry riverbed girding the western edge of Tucson. At the freeway off-ramp, blowtorched into the abutment wall was the word SAFETY and then an arrow pointing to the left under the bridge.

He followed the arrow and found others leading along the streets. Soon he entered the City Center. Birds flew everywhere, their calls echoing off the silent buildings. He crossed an intersection and walked toward an arrow that pointed farther down the street. He rounded a corner near a hotel and saw the gray square structure of the Federal Building.

At its base he saw a wall of sheet metal reinforced with sandbags. Written in large letters near a break in the sheet metal wall were the words “Welcome to Fort Tucson.”

He came to the gate, which was just an opening, and saw a courtyard and the steps leading into the main building. A gate that could have closed the opening had been swung back and left open.

The Old Man walked up the steps and entered through the main doors of the Federal Building. A large marble entrance was bisected by a spray-painted orange line that ran across the length of the floor. Beyond the line, spray-painted in orange were the words “Raise your hands and walk forward or you will be killed.”