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One group resolved itself into men and boys painted and various in weapons and dress. Savages of the new wasteland. The other group drew itself toward Picacho Peak, running like a startled herd of buffalo.
There is the main gun and then the machine gun.
If not today, when?
I don’t think I’ve ever killed a man.
Mirrored Sunglasses? The savage boy?
They killed themselves.
I don’t think it will be just a couple today.
The wild men came on in a ragged line, running with mouths open.
What you do today determines the future of the village. Civilization even.
I don’t know if I’m the man to make that choice.
There’s no other. Act now or die. Do this today or forget tomorrow!
The Old Man tapped the accelerator and listened to the engines spool up to a high-pitched whine.
Maybe this will give them something to stop for.
The ragged mobbed surged over the soft sand, closing the distance.
Do something now, Old Man!
They were twenty yards off when he gave the tank full power and pushed forward on the control sticks. The tank jumped forward with a roar, and the Old Man closed his eyes as he crashed into their line. They were hundreds turning into thousands and the air was suddenly thick with missiles of rock and broken pipe. He tucked into the hatch and kept forward on the sticks. He heard their wild screams above the thunder of the engines.
When the rain of debris ceased, he popped out of the hatch and checked the tank’s progress as it veered across the median. He overcorrected and the tank gave a sharp right turn. Before he could get it straightened out he’d gone out over the northbound lanes and into the desert off the road.
He surveyed the mob. There were thousands surging all around the tank. Thin gaunt men the color of dust chased his wake, waving and yelling. Potbellied, sun-browned women and feral children snarled as they ran from him. Stones began to fall, but they were too far off. The main mass of the mob seemed to be collecting around the base of the peak but the warriors were gathering again for another charge.
He moved the tank back onto the road and started toward the abandoned gas station. The desert scrub was thick on the far side of the road and at times, wild-eyed men and screaming women ran gibbering before the tank, darting off into the bushes like frightened animals.
He traversed the gun and toggled the gun sight onto the building where he’d found their laws. Behind him, their main force pounded down the road after him, their eyes wild with anger and fear. He depressed the red button atop the joystick and sent a round into the building.
At once, two things happened. The tank rocked back in a cloud of powdery dust, and the wall of the building exploded in a spray of cement. Beyond the building a moment later, the round exploded in dirt and sand, having passed straight through the decrepit wall without exploding.
The Old Man traversed the gun, hearing nothing but dull silence and feeling, more than hearing, the servos that swiveled the cupola. He landed the main gun on the advancing wall of savages.
“This must mean something to you!” he screamed and barely heard himself.
He felt a sharp blow on his shoulder as a club smashed down hard upon it. He turned to see a crazed naked man with cracked skin and open sores, his watermelon head drooling crazily amid a mouth full of misshapen teeth. The savage raised a club to strike once again. His attacker had climbed from the back of the tank onto the cupola. Three others were struggling up the same way, each as lunatic as the first.
The Old Man sank into the turret, grabbing at the hatch with his free hand as he stepped hard on the accelerator. The tank bolted forward across the road and onto broken ground. Sure that they had fallen off, he popped up from the turret once more to scan the terrain ahead. As he turned to look forward he saw that the tank was headed off the lip of a dry riverbed. He took his foot off the pedal hoping to stop in time.
The tank fell. He had just enough time to swing the hatch shut and throw himself to the floor of the tank.
He awoke to a cacophony of noise. Everywhere the sound of hammers and pipes could be heard across the interior of the tank. The Old Man was bathed in red light. He stood shakily and locked the hatch, marveling that they hadn’t pulled on it.
He reached into his ruck and got out some water. It was hot, though the sweat felt cold on his back. He wondered if they would try to set the tank on fire. He wondered if the tank would burn.
He found his way awkwardly into the control seat. The tank was in a facedown angle.
At least we are not on our side.
He stepped on the accelerator and the engines whined. He pushed forward on the sticks and felt the tank strain, but refuse to go forward. He reversed the sticks and felt the tank jump backward straining and digging. He took his foot off the pedal.
I might be stuck.
Anew, the ringing sounds of metal on metal began again.
Too much and I will dig a ditch I might not get out of. Then all they have to do is wait me out.
What other choice do you have? You only brought two cans of food and some water. They might damage something and stick you here whether you like it or not.
He pulled the restraint harness across his shoulders and snapped a belt around his waist.
I can’t go forward. But I can go back just a little.
He imagined what the tank might be stuck in. What position would cause that and how to get out without making things worse.
Outside the tank, someone had found a sledgehammer or something equally capable of making a tremendous ringing gong. Mixed with the other assaults, it was becoming unbearable.
I am not beaten. I am just stuck.
He thought of the old man in the book. What would he do?
Sometimes there is nothing to do but the only thing that you can do.
He gassed the accelerator hard and held back on the sticks with all of his might, as his fingers and wrist turned sweaty with heat and tension. At the top of the rise, he pushed forward on the tank, and then almost immediately, once it leapt forward, he pushed back again.
I have to pop the nose up. It’s the only thing I can imagine that must be done.
He felt his stomach float for a second and knew that the attitude of the tank had changed. He hoped it was enough. He gassed it forward, and then at the last second, felt he needed more of one stick than the other. He went with the right stick, pulling back on the left before he could think further on the subject. He felt the tank turning and finally moving forward. The attacks on its shell ceased.
I’ve got to see or this will happen again.
He opened the hatch but kept the tank moving. He traversed the turret, taking in the panorama of savagery that surrounded him. Black smoke filled the area and the sun was low in the sky, turning everything blood red. As he traversed east, monsoon clouds built up in angry red and purple bruises.
I must have been out for a while.
The Horde, toothless, angry, misshapen, twitching, hobbling, screaming, gashing, beating, wild animal thing that it was, surged in every direction as he gunned away from the center. His passing clotted quickly as they followed him howling and yelling.
There must be an end to this.
Atop Picacho Peak, a large bonfire burned against the deep blue of the high altitude.
When he had some distance from them, he swiveled the tank to face the peak.
It must be this then.
He traversed the gun and set it on the face of the peak just below the topmost edge and fired. This time he put one finger in his ear. He heard the reloading system eject a hot shell and re-load another. He fired again once the ready light went from red to green, near the firing button.
The rounds began to fall directly into the side of the peak, and almost instantly the walls began to crumble in great sheets of dust and rock.
He fired again and saw the savages scream, dropping to their knees, unable to comprehend the horror of what was happening to them.
In the last moments of daylight, he switched on the tank’s high beams and fired again. The Horde fled the field, heading east into the dark.
When he had fired most of the rounds, he alone remained. Bodies crushed by the tank turned up as he crossed the field. But the rest had gone. He returned to the main road and set the tank on it.
We will have to watch them.
Over the hum of the engines, he considered the place as he readied for the long push back to the village.
What had been the difference between this place and the village?
He set off down the road making slow but steady progress. A harvest moon came out and it stayed dry. It smelled dusty when he arrived at the burnt town where the two highways intersected. The bodies were still spaced across the blacktop. He maneuvered around them and set the high beams on the road heading west.
If I remember right, the village will be beyond the next valley. But it has been some time.
He crossed a small plain where once crops had grown. An overpass had collapsed across the road and he went around it. Shaking with hunger, he stopped and turned off the tank. He opened the can of chili and ate it as he walked around the silent tank. It was cold and he began to shiver.
Back in the tank, he started it, momentarily knowing it wouldn’t. But it did and soon he eased forward into the night as the road climbed a small desert plateau, crossing a pass and descending into a valley of jagged peaks.
I remember this part. I remember driving it many times.
Thoughts that had seemed so important then, as he passed over the same ground now, seemed foreign.
I was different then, he said in the wind and the night.
When he reached the end of the valley he felt tired enough to stop. He thought about buttoning up the tank and sleeping on the floor.
I need rest. I know I am very sick.
If you die … or if in the morning you cannot get up … no one will know. Eventually the Horde will find the Fort. The machine gun won’t keep them away for long. Once it runs out of bullets, what then?
He drank some water and pressed on. He passed a conical mountain, and then came to the Gas Station that had burned down at the edge of the town that was the farthest limit the villagers would salvage.
Just a ways more.
The Old Man in the book is not his name. His name is Santiago. In the book he wanted the boy with him as he fought the fish. Just as I wanted my granddaughter with me.
He passed the blackened ruins and a little later the moon fell low in the sky.
He topped the rise and saw the village. He turned off the tank feeling the heat dissipate quickly. He was just a mile off from the village but he could see it below. It was a collection of sheds and huts built around an old processing plant. It was his home. He could see the field of broken glass glittering like the stars above.
He left the tank, feeling hot and sore.
I will walk home and go to my house and in the morning they will see the tank.
There has never been such a fish.
He knew he made little sense. But it seemed right not to wake anyone.
Let them sleep in the village one night longer. To have the village one more night. Then they can have the world.
My journey was like the one in the book.
That is the thing about books. You take their journeys with you.
You came home with something more than just the remains of a fish.
The book was never about the fish.
He neared the sleeping village and passed through unseen.
Even the dogs are asleep.
I want to tell my granddaughter the lesson of the book. The lesson that they can beat you, but they cannot defeat you. I must tell her that.
At the door to his shed, he wondered if someone might live here now. His thoughts were scrambled and came in waves. But he knew it was the sickness and the fatigue.
He pushed open the door and heard its sound, knowing it as his own. He loved the sound of it. All was as he’d left it. Still holding his rucksack, he lit a candle and carried it to the desk where he kept the book. He looked at the cover for a long moment and then set down his pack.
Your must tell her that.
What?
They can beat you but they cannot defeat you.
He put the book on his bed and lit a fire in the stove.
My friend in the book is safe.
Maybe just some tea. Then sleep.
But when he sat on the bed to take off his new boots, he couldn’t get back up.
Be sure to tell her.
I will.
For just a moment he mumbled, then lay down.
