Nick Cole - The Wasteland Saga

Moments later he was asleep.

AS A YOUNG man, passing through Yuma on that last day, that last civilized day, he remembered thinking ‘I have just three hours to go. Three hours and I’ll make Tucson.’

Above, the sky was filled with fighter planes attempting to refuel from the big airborne tankers. People camped out along the road while the state police barred any entrance into Yuma. Surely, it was too small of a target for the bombs. They would hit the major cities first, as they had been doing. Each day another city exploded. First it had been New York. Everyone watched on the news. The next day Chicago. Had it been Chicago? the Old Man wondered in his dream. Had that been the next city?

The major cities were gone after two weeks. Internet and telecommunications were down. Who knew how many cities were left. When he finally fled Los Angeles, everyone hoped Yuma would survive.

His parents were in Tucson. Tucson was just as off the map as Yuma. Maybe Phoenix would get bombed. But not Tucson. He had been sitting in checkpoints since three o’clock that morning. First the one in Orange County. Then San Onofre. Then San Diego. The Top of the Laguna Seca Pass. El Centro, and finally the dunes outside Yuma.

Suddenly there were no more checkpoints. And no entrance into Yuma. The President had finally landed after being airborne for most of the two weeks.

Yuma had been the destination of flight for so many. Who cared what lay beyond it? Now he was looking at Yuma in his rearview mirror; he was twenty-seven years old. Above, fighter planes ripped across the sky. Tankers circled and the runway was off-limits. One of the guards at the last checkpoint told him the President, who had been airborne, dodging missile strikes for two weeks, had finally landed in Yuma. Maybe the other side was out of weapons. Maybe Yuma was the high water mark. Maybe we had beaten them by surviving long enough to be left with Yuma. In his rearview mirror, heading up the rocky pass that led east from Yuma, he knew they were doomed. He didn’t know why, only knew that they were.

He awoke with a jerk. He spotted the mouse instantly. He hadn’t even needed to let his eyes unfocus, see everything, and track for movement. Instead he spotted the little mouse at the instant the mouse noticed his jerk. Its eyes wide with terror, it froze.

The Old Man darted toward its den. The mouse twitched eyes wide with fear. Once the animal remained frozen the Old Man knew he’d cut off its retreat. He advanced with great stomping strides and instantly the mouse attempted an end run, hoping to dodge past him and into the burrow. The Old Man flailed wildly and yelled “Yaah,” feeling lightheaded and stiff in his legs all at once.

The mouse retreated, scrambling back toward the middle of the clearing. The Old Man pursued, shaking off the dizziness and yelling as he flailed wildly with his arms. The creature, now in full panic, darted back across his path, hoping to break out past the Old Man. A deft stomp barely missed the mouse and sent it scurrying back toward the center of the clearing.

My granddaughter would enjoy this game.

If you had been a moment too late, the mouse would have gotten past you and the game would be over.

The mouse in full flight, panic-stricken, ran heedlessly away from the Old Man and realized its luck the moment it saw the flat stone ahead. There was enough space to squeeze under. Once inside it would be safe. With purpose the mouse raced for the flat stone, and once underneath fell into the concave hole the Old Man had dug.

When it did not emerge immediately, the Old Man knew it had fallen into the trap. He bent over, sweating hard, and closed his eyes hoping not to pass out. He picked up the rock. The mouse, teeth bared, squeaked up at him. He placed the stone over the top of the hole and returned to the camp.

He retrieved the wire from his satchel and his knife, along with a little rope. At the stream, the tracks of the foxes had dried and could still be seen. Avoiding them altogether he followed them back into the brush. After a moment he lost their trail but he could guess at where they had made a straight line from the rocks to the water.

He looked left and right of the trail until he found a sapling. Maybe just a year old. He took the stake he had carved before sleeping and sank it firmly in the narrow trail. Looping his wire he connected the stake to a length of rope that he quickly turned into a noose. He laid the rope out some distance toward the small green palo verdes and bent the tree over until its top touched the ground. Then straddling it he tied off the rope around the sapling.

He returned to the hole. With a quick motion, he stabbed the mouse and waited for it to die. Then he set the dead body in front of the noose, which hung inches above the trail. He stepped away, resisting the urge to dress the trap. Leave it alone, he heard Big Pedro say. Washing his hands of the blood of the mouse and the dirt of the trail he took a long drink and returned to his camp.

THE SUN WAS low and he thought about food. He lit his fire and stared into it, thinking his own thoughts for a long time. The falling of the sun failed to rouse him as he continued to stare into the fire. He did not think about his aches. Or the village, which would remind him of food. He thought about Yuma. And the girl whose father had been shot. Had she and her mother made it to Yuma? If so, then they too had died forty years ago.

I might hear the trap spring. But probably not. In the morning maybe there will be a fox. If not, then who knows?

He didn’t like to think about that and so, piling a few more sticks onto the fire, he wrapped himself within his blanket.

Why can’t I dream about the lions on the beaches of Africa like my friend in the book? At sunset they came down to the water to play like cats.

When he awoke there was a fox. It twisted in the morning breeze, its tongue lolling purple and its eyes wide in terror. It was beautiful. The Old Man admired its healthy coat as he skinned the little fox.

By late morning, strips of fox meat were skewered and roasting over ashy orange coals of smoking mesquite. The Old Man, calm and weak, walked among the palo verdes, drinking from the stream and looking for the honeycomb of the dead bee. Standing near the roasting strips of flesh was too much, so it was better to wander among the quiet trees.

By noon the meat was ready and at first he went slowly. He didn’t want to become sick from too much too fast. For the rest of the day he ate slowly and continued to roast more and more of the fox. It would keep for a few days.

As night fell, he looked out into the great desert he had come across.

I survived. I can return and accept the curse. It isn’t much of a curse. They will feed and take care of me. I will play my part. But as a salvager I am finished.

Maybe it is time to let that go.

Or I can continue on and try to find the town.

The dunes seemed nothing more than gentle curves and soft colors.

You tried to kill me. There was nothing in you. Nothing to take away. So what good are you? If I go across you again what could I find this time? Nothing. But if I find the town then maybe that is something, and if not I can pick up the Old Highway to the south and that will lead me back to the village.

But you will come from the east.

There is that.

He ate more fox and thought it might be nice with some tortillas. He set the rest of the meat to smoke in the coals throughout the night so that it would last for a few days more. Then he slept.

AT DAWN HE was up. He felt better. He drank from the stream and chewed a little bit of the dried fox meat.

I think I might go on a bit.

He spent the morning climbing up out of the stand of green palo verdes and onto the broken rocks of the mountain. When he gained the summit he looked east. The landscape sank away into a bowl deeper than the one he had crossed.