Nick Cole - The Wasteland Saga - The Old Man and the Wasteland, Savage Boy and The Road is a River

They will think you are one of the Horde. You must look like one.

I will tell them there is a village. They might help us. Or we could trade.

You are cursed. This whole journey has been nothing but a curse, and here you are in a graveyard of airplanes without food or water or a weapon.

Then I must get into one of these planes. At least for the axe.

He still had not made up his mind as he sat working with the gear he had collected. It had taken him a long time to get into one of the airplanes but he finally had. Going up through the nose gear of a four-engined plane, he’d found the trapdoor that led into the belly of the aircraft. Working hard at the pin and lock that secured it, he’d finally gotten it open. His head pounded with thirst and hunger and he was tired.

He wound his way up into the dark plane. Feeling his way along a gloomy corridor that twisted to the right once, he saw light coming from a square in the ceiling above and found a ladder that led up to the square. It swung open easily and he was overwhelmed by the smell of stale fabric and dust.

He had some ideas about what he might find aboard the plane that might be of use. Now he put these ideas to the test. He went to the door at the front of the plane, the one where passengers had once embarked. After a few moments reading the instructions, he pulled the red handle marked EMERGENCY. Nothing happened. He read the instructions again. Realizing his error he tried again, and this time the oval boarding door swung open to the desert sky. He deployed the safety slide. With a bang and a hiss it flung itself away from the aircraft. Inside the compartment he found instructions for deploying the life raft case if the plane needed to land in the ocean. With what strength was left, he found the case, then threw it out onto the runway. After bouncing a few times the large suitcase opened and a round raft burst forth, inflating at once.

He slid down the slide and entered the covered raft on his hands and knees. He found a pouch built into the rubber floor marked SUPPLIES. The pouch contained a stash of stale protein bars and silvery bags filled with water. He ate and drank.

Now later, in the last moments of twilight, sitting near the fire of mesquite and working on his supplies, he still did not know what to do next.

He had found three more life rafts and collected an abundance of supplies. Besides the emergency food and water, he’d collected medical kits, scissors, matches, a flare gun and some flares, fishing line, and hooks. Now he sat cutting a raft into strips. Later, when the firelight cast too many flickering shadows making it difficult to focus, he stopped work and carried his supplies back up the boarding slide into the plane. Back outside he sat by the fire for awhile drinking a pack of water, then he went into the plane and closed the door. He slept on a row of seats with an emergency blanket and several pillows.

For a long while Himbradda lay beside the raging floodwaters. Stunned. Numb. He had lost the man, and his rage boiled up within him. His knuckles turned white as he gripped the club.

He would return to the People, but when he stood, his right leg collapsed and he screamed in pain. It was broken.

He stood again, crying and grunting all at once. He began to limp back along the river’s edge. He would return to the People and maybe he would get food.

Then he saw the tracks. Thick and gloppy in the mud. The tracks of the man. Dragging the broken leg, he followed them and forgot the pain that rushed up in him at every step. He drank greedily from evaporating pools of muddy water and chewed hungrily at seeds the People carried for nourishment. He would save the peyote for the kill.

Himbradda followed the muddy tracks until it was too dark to track them anymore. He would find the man and that would make him happy again. For a while he sat shivering in the dark. Then he slept.

The next day the Old Man made a rucksack using cut strips of yellow rubber from the raft. He sat in the shade under the large wing, sewing it together with some needle and thread from the emergency medical kit. Then he made a vest and finally a hat. In the emergency kit he found a little bottle of sunscreen. He would use that also.

I have enough to head back.

The heat made everything quiet. His voice seemed to carry under the wing of the plane and then fall into the dirt beyond.

This is salvage. We could come back here and search these planes. There’s medicine, axes, pillows. These things would be good for the village. For a moment he saw movement underneath the wings of faraway planes. He crouched low, looking.

It was the savage. Dragging a leg, he came limping toward the Old Man.

Quickly the Old Man packed his ruck with supplies. He donned the vest and rolled up his hat, stuffing it in the rucksack. He grabbed the fire axe from the nose wheel where he’d left it to lean.

You can’t lead him back to the village.

I’ll head south for now. I must go to Fort Tucson.

At the perimeter fence, as the Old Man crossed onto the road leaving the air park, the savage gave a cry that pierced the still desert air. The savage had seen him.

Looking back, he saw the boy limping furiously after him. The boy was slow and the effort he exerted great. But the Old Man felt he could stay ahead of the savage. Turning his back he hustled off down the road.

A few hours later he entered a series of rocky rolling hills. Saguaro cacti littered the sides of the hills, their arms upraised. The road began to twist and he passed a weather-beaten granite sign. He was now entering the Saguaro National Monument.

Aha, I am west and north of Tucson. I can follow this road and it will take me to Gates Pass. I remember that. From Gates Pass it’s a short downhill walk into Tucson. I’ll see the city from there. If it is gone, then I can turn west and head back to the village.

What will you do about the boy?

He turned back to see. The boy was falling farther behind. For a while, flailing his good arm, he’d chased the Old Man. Now he seemed to be stumbling. Weaving. Sometimes he would raise his head and scream at the Old Man, then return to his efforts, limping forward in angry determination.

The Old Man set off into the park. In the afternoon the clouds began to build up thick and white, and the Old Man could smell the musty scent that came before the desert rain. His bones felt tired and his muscles remained cold. When he stopped at a covered picnic area to rest, he felt dizzy.

Maybe the water? Or maybe the food from the plane?

Maybe it’s been too much.

When the rain came a few minutes later he felt hot and sweaty. He’d lost sight of the boy.

I can’t rest.

Shouldering his pack, he started off into the rain moving steadily, slowly but steadily up the winding road.

Can he still be behind me?

It got dark early and the air became cold. The rain continued as a slight mist. Standing in the gloom, the Old Man smelled the pavement and wondered what he should do.

If it comes to a fight I have the axe.

He’s a boy. Your granddaughter’s age.

I think he means to harm me.

He smelled woodsmoke from a breeze that came at him out of the north. In the distance he saw a small orange fire farther down the valley.

He has fallen far behind.

It could be a trick. To make you think he has stopped for the night.

The Old Man shouldered the pack and set off into the evening drizzle. Moments later, a flash of light caught the image of him receding into the negative, against the photograph of a land turned bone white and shadow.

Himbradda heard the thunder and sat shivering in front of his fire. He ate the last handfuls of the seed. He took out the peyote and fingered it, chanting over and over his nonsense words.