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

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СКАЧАТЬ the mountain. To the side of the road, lone stands of scrub grew up in solitary dark patches, as if too hurt to ever grow near another living thing.

      Further along the highway, he passed the remains of a burnt fueling station off to one side. It was little more than a concrete pad and blackened cement. In the lone shade of a mesquite tree he ate the last of the fox and drank some water.

      Now you have two problems.

      Now I have no food and no salvage. If I could walk straight to the village day and night for three days I might make it. But not without food. The effort would be too great and I might make a mistake if I were so hungry I couldn’t focus. Then a broken leg would be the end of me.

      Tonight I will stop early and make some traps.

      A gas station like this once had a tin awning that made a singsong noise in a strong wind.

      Another thought that has no place in the present.

      Maybe just another memory trying not to be forgotten.

      I might know that because I once stopped here for fuel.

      You always came to visit your parents on the Eight. Not the Ten.

      Amazed, he stopped chewing. He hadn’t referred to the Old Highway as the Eight in a long time. Since the days just after the bombs. The names of places had been forgotten. Or were too painful to remember.

      The Eight.

      He tried to remember the name of the town he was looking for. Something “Big” he remembered. But it wouldn’t come and the air seemed to be getting hotter with the noonday heat.

      He began to move again, south along the highway.

      In the afternoon, brilliant white sails of cloud began to form to the east. Climbing upward, each full-blown sail exploding beneath an eruption of white foam. The armada of clouds came no closer than a dark ridge of jagged mountains to the east that embodied everything he felt about that direction.

      The monsoons were coming.

      The Alpha led the thirty wolves of his pack off the mountain and passed the Winnebago on its side. At the road, he smelled the night wind coming out of the south. He didn’t smell the man. But he knew men. He had watched them. Men always moved in one direction, as if always on the hunt of just one animal.

      The two killers challenged him briefly as he started off down the highway but his mate snarled back at them. For a moment, it looked as though the pack might split. The two killers wanted to circle to the north and for a while they yelped about it, making the noises that indicated mule deer.

      But the females went with the Alpha, and soon the entire pack lay strung out behind him as he scented the sides of the road for the man.

      Near the bridge where the Old Man made camp the night before, the wolf picked up the scent of urine. The Old Man had urinated just before sleeping.

      Slowly the Alpha crept down along a path and followed the trail directly into the camp under the bridge. He smelled the gray ash of the night’s fire. Some paper the Old Man had wrapped the dried fox in. The rest of the pack milled about above the camp on the main road. Dawn wasn’t far off and they’d nothing to eat so far.

      One of the killers howled in warning and the entire pack turned toward the sound of it.

      A family of havalina had come up the dry riverbed under the bridge from the east and the wolves fell upon the wild pigs, easily snatching the babies as the male and the females stubbornly stood their ground hoping to minimize losses.

      But the wolves were too good for the wild pigs. Had hunted too long under the Alpha. Soon, the last sow’s eyes rolled back in her head. She’d watched the killers tearing out the entrails of the male that had presided over the brood for as long as she could remember. Seconds later, a warm softness came over her as the Alpha sunk its teeth deeper into her jugular vein, forcing her to release.

      Swinging her to the side, the Alpha looked at the two killers. They should have known the females were the most dangerous. She could have killed them or made the victim wish for death. That might have solved his problems right there. But treachery was not in the Alpha.

      The snarling pack devoured flesh and blood. The Alpha settled down to the dead sow. He had lost the pack for the night. There would be no going any farther after this meal. Dawn would soon be upon them. They would sleep in the shade under the bridge in the man’s camp from the night before. And tomorrow they would hunt him again.

      Tearing at the haunch of the desert pig, he thought it might be good for them to sleep in the man’s camp. They would have the smell of him. That way he wouldn’t have to do all the work.

       CHAPTER FIFTEEN

      In the twilight at the end of the next day, the Old Man standing on the road didn’t feel as tired as he should have. He’d caught two snakes in the late morning coming out on the highway to sun themselves. Big rattlers, he’d pinned their flat heads and swung the crowbar down with a ring on the old highway.

      He’d roasted them quickly and eaten. Just after noon he was headed south again. Later the “thunder-bumpers,” as some of the villagers called the big late afternoon cumulus clouds, though Big Pedro had called them “the Chubasco,” built up to the east over the iron gray mountains. As twilight came, a cool wind whipped up from the south, and in the dust of it he could smell rain.

      I might walk a bit longer tonight. The snake tasted so good I might walk a bit longer. Maybe I will make the town in the night, and if anyone lives there it might be better that way.

      A few minutes later he heard the first mournful howl. Behind him. To the north from where he had come.

      If it is just one I might be fine.

      If not?

      A chorus began, but each successive howl was more urgent as if hoping to outdo the previous one by speed.

      The Old Man shifted his satchel higher onto his back and bent quickly, hoping, praying, that the wolves were about some other business. He tied his huaraches tighter, adjusted his burden once more, and moved off quickly.

      If I can find something tall, they might not get to me.

      But the road seemed a straight flat course bearing off into the south and the night. There were no rocks or boulders, no wreckage of overturned tankers or piled cars. There had not been since the days before the bombs. Tucson had evacuated early. After Phoenix had been hit. The roads had been empty as survivors fled into the desert or other places they hoped might be safe.

      Going south the town will be off to my right.

      Ay, but you’re not anywhere near it. You don’t even know where it is. And Mirrored Sunglasses told you it burned.

      He lied about other things.

      The Old Man darted off into the scrub and down an embankment. Behind him, the wolves were calling back and forth.

      They are still away off, but wolves must move fast.

      He СКАЧАТЬ