Nick Cole - The Wasteland Saga

Not like in tents, not like your people .

All gone over to animals, not like your people .

They don’t ride horses, like your people do .

THAT NIGHT THE temperature dropped and the snow came down in hard clumps without end. He lay next to Horse, who moved little and whose breathing was shallow. At one point, the Boy was so cold he thought he should surely die.

When he awoke in the morning everything was covered in snow.

THE BEST TIME to do something about a thing is to do it now, Boy!

We won’t last out here another night.

When Horse opened his eyes they fluttered.

You won’t make it out here like this, will you, Horse?

He laid his hand on Horse’s belly, feeling the heat both comforting and sickening at once.

He knew what he had to do. He had known it in the freezing night when the snow had stopped falling and the wind rushed through the pines, seeming to make things even colder than when the snow had fallen. Even the sound of the icy water falling along the rapids seemed to make the world colder.

The Boy had known in the night what he must do.

He’d waited for Sergeant Presley to tell him not to do it.

“You would say,” he thought aloud, pretending to be Sergeant Presley’s voice. “You would say it was fool’s business. That’s what you would say.”

He waited, listening to the rush of the water in the river.

He looked upriver, his eyes falling on the small, steep, conical mountain.

You would say that.

Ain’t nothin’ but a thang, Boy. Mind over matter. You don’t mind, it don’t matter .

You would say that also.

You got to kill that bear, Boy. No two ways about it .

That morning he collected three long poles of fresh wood that wouldn’t snap. Working with his knife he sharpened the ends into stakes, hardening them in the fire until the tips were black.

By noon he’d fed Horse, who ate little of the fire-dried grass the Boy had placed before him. He sat by the fire putting a fresh edge on the steel tomahawk Sergeant Presley had given him. Its bright finish was a thing made in the past, never to be seen again. Often, when they had encountered strangers, he’d seen their eyes fall to it, wanting it for their own.

Laying aside the sharpened tomahawk, he gave the knife an edge. They’d made these knives at the Cotter family forge. Sergeant Presley’s knife lay wrapped within a bundle the Boy had carried away from the grave on the side of the road surrounded by the wild corn that had seemed to grow everywhere, a bundle the Boy had no desire to open.

You might need it for this one, Boy .

But the Boy couldn’t see what an extra knife might do for him. He knew if his plan was a “no go” and he found himself down to his own knife, there wouldn’t be much hope left in an extra knife.

That’s right, Boy; work smarter, not harder. Knife work is hard work .

Let’s hope it doesn’t get to that.

The last thing the Boy would need for his plan would be what was left of the precious parachute cord. There was less than thirty feet of it now. As a child, the Boy had always been fascinated by the large coil, amazed at it, as he always was of the things from Before. There had been so much of the parachute cord, it had once seemed endless, always coiled about Sergeant Presley’s shoulder to hip as they walked. One time Sergeant Presley had even made a knotted section of it for him to play with, muttering, Merry Christmas, as he’d handed it to the Boy on that long-ago winter day. Years passed, and traps and snares and other bits that could no longer be salvaged had reduced the large coil to less than thirty feet.

The Boy withdrew the last of it from his pack.

I don’t want to use even this, but if I have to I will.

He thought of the bear.

He’d seen bears killed. The Cotter family hunted them for sport and meat. He’d followed one hunting party and watched them run down a small, fast black bear that was more interested in getting away than fighting. In the end, it had played dead until they’d put a bolt under its left shoulder blade.

They had seen big bears in the Rockies. Most of them had kept their distance, or charged, only to veer off. Horse was good for scaring things away. Once Horse went up on his hind legs, most animals knew he wasn’t interested in running.

He looked at Horse.

Are you dying too? Like Sergeant Presley?

He patted the big brown belly; Horse stirred only slightly.

“I’m going to clear out a place for us to hole up in through the rest of winter.” Then, “I’ll be back.”

He went down to the river and speared another of the broken-wine-bottle trout. Gutting and filleting the trout, he laid its body out on planks of charred wood over the embers of the fire.

After eating the fish he collected his gear, shouldering the three heavy poles and placing the thin coil of rope over his head to hang down from his neck.

Everything was moving too fast.

He could feel the tomahawk hanging from his belt, the knife in its sheath at his back.

What am I missing?

Mind over matter, Boy .

You don’t mind, it don’t matter .

HE CLIMBED THE conical hill, hauling himself up its snow-covered granite ledges. He avoided any pines that grew out of the rock, knowing them to be untrustworthy because of the shallow soil they grew in.

He found the cave just underneath the top of the hill. It would be a useless exercise if the cave was too low for Horse to squeeze into. What would be the use of dislodging the bear only to find his shelter too small? But the cave was like a wide frown on a mouth. It was tall enough at its highest point for Horse. Getting him up here would be another story—collecting wood also.

It’s not ideal, but it’s all I have.

You’re assuming victory, Boy. First you got to kill that bear. But it’s good you’re thinkin’ about tomorrow all the same .

A wide, flat ledge lay before the opening and below that, a sheer drop to the river below. He set the poles down, laying them gently in a crevice running through the cold gray granite. The poles came together, echoing, and the Boy waited, unsure what he would do if the bear were suddenly to appear.

I’ll attack her.

That would be bad, Boy .

But what else was there to do? If she chases me I won’t get away. If I attack, maybe she’ll run.

In the moment that followed, the Boy could hear only the distant sound of the river below.

On a thick tree, stunted and growing out of the rock, he could see the deep indentations of the bear’s claw marks.

What do you know about your enemy, Boy?

It’s a bear.

A sow.

Cubs two years back, which means they’ve left.

I don’t know if it’s a grizzly or one of the browns, which are the worst. Too bad it’s not one of the black ones.

And you would ask me about the battlefield. That’s what you would ask me next, Sergeant Presley.

Where you gonna fight, Boy?

He looked at the flat ledge. It wasn’t more than twenty feet wide and as much across.

I could make a trap, but I don’t know where. I’d have to get her down the hill and chasing me.

Deadfalls are the best, Boy .

To do that, I’ll have to get her down the side of the mountain and into the forest. Even then, the ground is frozen. It would take me a day or two to make a pit. One more night like the last and we won’t make it.

So it’s the ledge then, Boy .

I go in hard with a spear. If she’s asleep I put one into her. I back up, grab another and put it in. By the time I get to the third…