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The Old Man stopped the tank.
They were on a small rise far out in the bowl of the desert. Somewhere within all the brown dust ahead lay the Proving Ground, the military base north of Yuma the villagers had avoided simply because it shared the same name of another place they had all seen destroyed.
I feel I don’t know everything I need to know about what we’re doing. But what am I supposed to ask her? This person, this General, she could be keeping the truth from me. And the others, Pancho, they could have been right all along.
For now, you must play the game according to its rules, my friend.
Maybe I should turn back.
“Our installation keeps a record of all the communications we tracked before the nets went completely offline. I’ve conducted a data search and found that a convoy carrying JP-9 arrived in the Yuma Proving Ground a week before the city of Yuma was destroyed. There is a chance that you may find the remains of that convoy somewhere within the facility.”
“Would this JP-9 be usable? It’s been forty years,” asked the Old Man.
“If it still exists, then theoretically, yes. JP-9 was a prototype fuel rushed into production in the lead-up to the war. The Defense Department officials foresaw the need for a long-shelf-life fuel replacement and ordered as much of it as they were able to in the months prior to the war. There were some concerns over its use, but at this stage, it might be your only option. Unless someone took the time to use fuel stabilizers and conduct an additive removal process, the chances of finding a completely airtight fuel source are highly improbable. Your only other option will be clean diesel or kerosene. Again, these are not optimal sources, but the M-1 Abrams Main Battle Tank uses a multifuel vehicle system.”
“What will these tankers look like?”
“They resemble standard military fuel transports and there should be twelve of them. JP-9 had a projected eighty-year shelf life. Though this was never tested, reports indicate the lifespan was achievable.”
Our whole journey depends on the word “reports.”
“All right then, we’ll try and find the tankers.”
The Old Man listened to the tank, letting the massive turbine idle in its screaming high-pitched drone as he scanned the horizon once more with his binoculars.
There is no sign of the Proving Ground. We are nearing the end of our fuel. Soon, I’ll have to pump our two fifty-gallon drums.
“Grandpa, below that mountain there’s a sign sticking out of the ground. Maybe we should go and see what’s written on it?”
It’s a good thing she has come with me; I never would’ve seen that sign.
“I can’t see the sign,” said the Old Man. “Where is it?”
“See that mountain, the low one off to our left that’s all shadowy and bumpy and rocky?”
“Yes.”
“Right in there.”
The Old Man found the sign through his binoculars but it was still too far away to read what, if anything at all, was still written upon it.
He took hold of the controls, pressed his foot onto the pedal slightly, and watched the terrain ahead. I have to keep the tank on the firmest ground. We cannot get stuck. If we do, there is no way to rescue the tank that I can think of right now.
Then maybe you will think of a way when you need to, my friend. Try not to worry about what has not happened to you. And may never happen at all.
“How did you see the sign?”
“I can make this target thing bigger with a dial on the side of it.”
“I don’t think we should touch those buttons. We don’t want to make the gun go off.”
“It also sees in the dark if you turn this knob,” she continued.
“You’re very smart. But we must be careful. We don’t know everything yet. Still, you’re very smart and I am proud of you. Much smarter than me.”
When they reached the sign, the Old Man got down off the tank as his granddaughter watched him from the hatch she’d learned to open on the side of the tank. Again a new thing she understood about the tank and which he hadn’t yet figured out.
The sign was sand scoured, and what words had once been written upon it were gone. But the Old Man could feel the hard remains of a road buried beneath the drifting sand under his boots. He took out his map and began to look around.
The Proving Ground must be that way. On the map they are north of Yuma.
There were people all alongside the highway that day, camped out, hoping to get to the airport, onto a plane, and flee. I remember the rumor that airplanes were waiting to take us all somewhere safe.
I remember wanting to believe the rumor was true, which is the terrible thing about rumors.
In his mind he could see Air Force One floating across the sky. Black smoke trailed from one of its engines, coming in to land one last time.
That was a long time ago.
Concentrate! That last day doesn’t have anything to do with today. Today you must find these trucks that contain the fuel. If you don’t find them, then you have failed.
The Old Man climbed back into the tank and checked the dosimeter.
The needle is still within the green, so we must be far enough away from Yuma to avoid its radiation.
Are you asking or hoping, my friend? Because all your hoping and asking depends on whether the weather compass that is your dosimeter still works.
They followed the mostly buried road as best they could. As it rounded the craggy hill his granddaughter had called a mountain, ahead of them ran the fading, spider silk line of a highway, and off in the distance, the Old Man could see buildings.
“Can you see those building through the target scope?” asked the Old Man.
“Gimme a second, Grandpa.”
Suddenly the turret began to rotate as the gun barrel came to rest on the far horizon.
In every moment she figures out some new thing.
“Yes, they’re brown and dirty. Low and flat.”
“Do you see the tankers we’re looking for?”
After a moment she said, “No. They’re not there.”
The Old Man waited, watching the tiny buildings shimmer in the heat of the fading afternoon.
“Do you see any people?”
“No. There’s no one there.”
The needle in the fuel gauge hovered just above empty when the Old Man finally shut down the tank amid the silent buildings being swallowed by the first low dunes of sand.
If we don’t find these fuel tankers soon, I’ll need to pump the drums and head back to Tucson.
He took his crowbar and exited the hatch stiffly, his granddaughter already lowering herself down onto the intersection they’d stopped in.
Flat, dust-brown uniform buildings from a different era stretched off in orderly lines down quiet, sand-swept streets. Murky windows hid what lay within. The air was dry and hot.
Signs and street markings had been scoured to meaninglessness. The outlines of once-lawns were everywhere. Within their borders, brown weeds withered under the final waves of the day’s heat.
“Hello,” the Old Man called out into the silence.
There was no reply and his voice was swallowed by the soft quiet of the dunes.
“It’s spooky, Grandpa. I don’t think anyone has been here for a long time.”
They searched the small streets for any sign of the tankers. But there weren’t any vehicles, of any kind.
Inside buildings they found dust-covered museums of life as it had once been. Coffee mugs forever waiting to be picked up lay next to piles of yellowed and desiccating paperwork on dry desks that felt sapped of any sturdiness they’d once possessed.
When the Old Man picked up a newspaper it came apart, and he was left holding only a few feathery scraps. He tried to read the paperwork without touching it. But anything meaningful was lost in a haze of military jargon that he could not understand. He scanned for the words “fuel” or “tankers.”
There is no mention of either.
Outside, the day was turning to orange as the sun sank into the dusty west. Gray shadows threw themselves away from the flat military buildings. A light breeze came and shifted the sand a little closer to the surrendering outpost.
“So what do we do now, Grandpa?”
The Old Man stood in front of the largest building.
Probably the headquarters. They picked an idiot. They picked an idiot to come and rescue them. Remember the curse of the hot radio.
The Old Man walked back to the tank. He felt stupid and useless.
It isn’t my fault the tankers aren’t here.
“We’ll camp outside tonight. It seems safe enough. In the morning, maybe we’ll have a new idea.”
“We’re not giving up, are we, Grandpa?”
“No, we won’t give up.”
She seemed relieved and soon she was back in the tank handing out their bags and sleeping gear for the night.
“Can we have a fire?”
“Yes.”
“A story?”
“Yes, of course.”
“A ghost story?”
“I don’t know any.”
“I do.”
“I don’t like them before I go to sleep.”
“Oh, Grandpa.” She snorted and laughed.
Later, when their gear was out and they’d made camp in front of the ancient headquarters building, clearing a space along the broad sidewalk that ran through the ghost of the once-lawn, she said, “This is the best salvage trip ever, Grandpa.”
“But we haven’t salvaged anything yet.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s not the best.”
“Yes, you’re right, it is the best.”
They ate food as the stars began to appear, as the sky turned from orange to purple, then from purple to deep blue.
Night.
The Old Man watched, listening to his granddaughter talk about the tank. He watched for the satellite above. The one that General Watt was using to talk to them.
The satellites are still up there crossing the sky.
Like me crossing this land.
Which is something, if you think about it.
In the night, long after she had drifted to sleep listening to him tell about the time he had seen the fox walking down the old highway, he awoke. The fire was low. There is nothing left to burn but the weeds of this old lawn. Unless I want to pull the boards off these buildings, but the sound would wake her. Besides, the night is warm enough.
The Old Man rose.
Because the ground is too hard and I need to pee. And also because I am not sleeping.
Tomorrow we will have to turn back. Without fuel, it’s just not possible to make it all the way. The tankers were most likely in Yuma, at the airport, when the bomb went off. Now, they are gone.
He tried to remember if he’d seen any such vehicles forty years ago on the last hot day of his country.
I can’t remember. She will be disappointed.
He turned and crossed the ancient outline of the weed-choked lawn, hearing the dry crunch beneath his feet.
Why would the Army have lawns in the desert?
I guess that was the way the military did things. They imposed order and rules regardless of the situation and location.
