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

Чтение книги онлайн.

       CHAPTER ONE

      It was dark when he stepped outside into the cool air. Overhead the last crystals of night faded into a soft blue blanket that would precede the dawn. Through the thick pads of his calloused feet he could feel the rocky, cracked, cold earth. He would wear his huaraches after he left and was away from the sleeping village.

      He had not slept for much of the night. Had not been sleeping for longer than he could remember. Had not slept as he did when he was young. The bones within ached, but he was old and that was to be expected.

      He began to work long bony fingers into the area above his chest. The area that had made him feel old since he first felt the soreness that was there. The area where his satchel would push down as he walked.

      He thought about tea, but the smoke from the mesquite would betray him as would the clatter of his old blue percolator and he decided against it.

      He stepped back inside the shed, looked around once, taking in the cot, patched and sagging, the desk and the stove. He went to the desk and considered its drawers. There was nothing there that should go in his satchel. He would need only his tools. His crowbar, his worn rawhide gloves, his rope, the can of pitch, the tin of grease and his pliers. Not the book.

      But if I die. If I go too far or fall into a hole. If my leg is broken then I might want the book.

      He dismissed those thoughts.

      If you die then you can’t read. If you are dying then you should try to live. And if it is too much, that is what the gun is for. Besides, you’ve read the book already. Many times in fact.

      He put the book back in its place.

      He went to the shelf and opened the cigar box that contained the pistol. He loved the box more than the gun inside. The picture of the sea, the city, and the waving palms on the front reminded him of places in the book. Inside the box, the gun, dull and waiting along with five loose shells, an evil number, rattled as his stiff fingers chased them across the bottom.

      Moving quickly now he took the old blue percolator and rolled it into the thin blanket that lay on the cot. He stuffed them both inside the worn satchel, reminding him of the book’s description of the furled sail. “Patched with flour sacks … it looked the flag of permanent defeat.” He shouldered the bag quickly and chased the line away telling himself he was thinking too much of the book and not the things he should be. He looked around the shed once more.

      Come back with something. And if not, then goodbye.

      He passed silently along the trail that led through the village. To the west, the field of broken glass began to glitter like fallen stars in the hard-packed red dirt as it always did in this time before the sun.

      At СКАЧАТЬ