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

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      The Old Man began to crawl over the length of the tower. At once the wolves were up and pacing, whining and crossing back and forth underneath him. Some growled.

      This requires all the concentration you have ever had in your whole life, so pay attention. You must focus like your friend in the book. He needed to bait the hooks and cut the tuna while his hand was cramping. And still he held the line the big fish was on.

      I will.

      Patiently, unlike the rest of the pack, the big Alpha below paced the Old Man above, each of the paws tracing each of the hands and knees of the Old Man.

      When he arrived at the end of the tower, he was at least ten feet higher and the girders were wider. The power lines were draped and bunched on the desert floor around the tower but they continued up across the base of the fallen tower and out across the riverbed.

      I must be fifty or sixty feet up from the riverbed.

      I don’t think I have the strength.

      The heavy cables swung in the morning breeze.

      He tried them. He would never know for sure. Never know if halfway across the gap they might start to slide downward.

      These are heavy cables. They stretch for miles and miles. They weigh tons. Surely they can support the weight of just me.

      You will never know.

      I don’t have much choice.

      Most of the wolves below were losing interest and they began to chase small animals. All except the big Alpha. As the Old Man began to work at his satchel, cutting it into strips, the big Alpha began to growl. And when the Old Man began his journey across the void, the big Alpha let out a sudden mournful howl, and soon all the wolves were back and baying at him.

      His tools were in his pockets and he had secured the grease in his bandolier with his water bottles. Everything he had tied across his waist.

      Cutting the leather satchel into strips, he missed his wife.

      She had made the satchel for him before she died. It had not been salvaged. It had been made. He left it at that. He didn’t think anymore about their love. Their love after the end of everything. Or the short time they had together. Or her olive skin. Or the boy he raised. Or all the things that are made when love is reason enough.

      He tied the strips three times about one wrist. He tied another set of strips about the other wrist. He did the same with his ankles, ending up with a leather collar for each limb. He ran thicker straps made of sturdier leather through those bands about his wrist. He did the same with his ankles.

      Moving to the cable that stretched across the riverbed, he greased the tough straps and then tied them to the other bands about the opposite ankle and wrist, leaving the power cable between his body and his arms and legs.

      The sun was directly above him. He looked across the gap to the other fallen tower.

      Two hundred yards.

      He started out headfirst, using his hands to pull and his feet to brace. He was thankful for his gloves.

      The big Alpha howled and then stopped.

      This might be tougher than I’d thought.

      The cables were dropping down at first and so the Old Man was braking himself more than pulling. Halfway across when he would be most tired, he would need to pull.

      Just work and think about something.

      What will the wolves do?

      Think about something else.

      What is the name of my friend in the book?

      He is not much of a friend if you don’t know his name.

      I would like to have been in the boat with my friend. I could have helped him with the fish.

      Great drops of sweat broke out across his body, and by the time he was three quarters of the way down the descent, one glove tore above his index finger.

      Listen. Do you hear the wolves?

      I think they have gone.

      He looked down and saw the big Alpha bounding across the rocks of the dry riverbed. Two leaner wolves paced behind him.

      At the lowest point of the descent, he could barely see from the glare of the sun and the salty sweat running into his eyes.

      He gripped the cable with his legs and felt it slip, or thought he did. He opened the tin of grease he had placed in the bandolier across his chest. Trembling fingers flipped open the lid as he poured the rest of the grease across the straps and the cable.

      He let the empty tin of grease that had accompanied him on so many salvages for so many years fall as the wolves danced away from it.

      Now you must pull.

      Ten feet farther up and climbing, he was exhausted.

      I can’t. I am too tired.

      You have no choice. You must pull. Think about something.

      I wonder what the wolves will do when I get to the other side.

      Think about something else and pull.

      Pull.

      You must pull.

      You should teach your granddaughter to do this in case she is ever surrounded by wolves and trapped on top of a fallen power tower.

      I would rather teach her to read.

      You must pull.

      I am pulling.

      Pull. Pull. Pull harder.

      There is nothing left.

      You have no other option, now pull, Old Man.

      I am pulling.

      Whatever happened to all the people you ever knew? Knew before the bombs.

      I don’t care.

      The women you loved?

      I still love my wife.

      Pull. Pull. Pull.

      I can’t see. There is too much sweat in my eyes.

      There is nothing to see now. Pull harder. Pull harder.

      I can’t go much farther.

      You must go to the end.

      Then the end is the farthest I’ll go.

      Pull and stop with the nonsense.

      Okay.

      Pull.

      Pull.

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