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I’ll go as far as the town whose name I cannot remember. If there is no salvage then I’ll come back. Then the other villagers will know that I am cursed and it won’t be expected of me to go out. I can help the women. Watch the children if they’ll let me. Make things. I have always wanted to make a guitar.
You don’t even know how to play.
Yes, but that has never stopped me from wanting to.
The fire burned the logs to ash among the orange and black glow of its heart. The stars above. The gently moving palo verdes in the night’s breeze. The Old Man wrapped himself within his blanket and slept.
CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_bfbb0daa-9e1d-5e3e-9897-f689a06e7e5b)
He returned to the stream at first light. He had been lying wrapped in his blanket, and for the first time the morning was not so bitterly cold.
At the stream he waited, watching as the light came up. He was thirsty, had been thirsty through the night. But he did not drink from the stream and would not until the light was good enough to see the tracks. Then he would know what made a home of these palo verdes beneath the rocky slope.
At first light he saw the tracks. Different pairs, one behind the other, four toes and a claw. Near the water’s edge in the wet mud he could see the impression left by the fur. “It made sense,” muttered the Old Man and he knelt to drink the cool water of the stream.
Finished, he looked up to survey the rocky hill that rose above the little oasis of palo verdes. The hill was more a small mountain. Like other small mountains it was more a collection of boulders: large, broken, shattered rock turning a soft hue in the rising sun of the morning.
He looked at the tracks once more. They had definitely come down from the rocks for a drink, and to hunt. The single-file nature of the prints told him they were foxes. He knew these animals. Oftentimes they would come near the village, but never to scavenge at garbage. Once he had seen one pass him on the highway as he returned from salvage. He was in the southbound lanes walking back to the village; the fox, in the northbound lanes, carried a large dead rattlesnake in its mouth. The fox barely regarded him and continued its bouncing little trot toward the west. His son, then a little boy, had loved that story when he had told it, often asking him to tell it again.
He returned to his camp, hung his blanket in a tree, and began to search for an area under the palo verdes; an area of clearing but near enough to the trees. When he spotted a den of mice he knew he had a good area.
In the center of the clearing he dug a small two-foot hole. The bottom was deep and wide while the top was narrow. He dug two more exactly like it and then began to gather deadfall back at the camp. He thought he might like a nice fire that night even though there would be no food. When the firewood was gathered he selected six sticks and returned to the clearing. He placed two sticks on two sides of each hole and then returned to the stream to drink.
From the bottom of the rocky slope he retrieved three flat stones. He placed these atop the sticks surrounding each of the holes. Now there was a nice roof. Also there was a tiny entrance on each side of the hole underneath the rocks
Feeling tired he returned to his camp and lay down for a while. His strength was fading and he began to sweat thick salty tears. He was starving and the thought of the foxes made him hungrier. He would prefer rattlesnake, but there probably were none. Foxes also liked snake and had most likely hunted the area clean.
They are good salvagers.
After some rest and another long drink at the stream he returned to the clearing. He watched the dens at the base of the palo verdes. He would need to catch the mice before the fox. He leaned against the thin green trunk of the tree he was standing near and closed his eyes. Then he opened them just enough.
Mice will think I am asleep. That will make them bold.
He waited. The sun turned to late afternoon.
Much longer and I won’t have enough time to build a trap for the fox.
The day isn’t done yet.
Moments later he was asleep.
As a young man, passing through Yuma on that last day, that last civilized day, he remembered thinking ‘I have just three hours to go. Three hours and I’ll make Tucson.’
Above, the sky was filled with fighter planes attempting to refuel from the big airborne tankers. People camped out along the road while the state police barred any entrance into Yuma. Surely, it was too small of a target for the bombs. They would hit the major cities first, as they had been doing. Each day another city exploded. First it had been New York. Everyone watched on the news. The next day Chicago. Had it been Chicago? the Old Man wondered in his dream. Had that been the next city?
The major cities were gone after two weeks. Internet and telecommunications were down. Who knew how many cities were left. When he finally fled Los Angeles, everyone hoped Yuma would survive.
His parents were in Tucson. Tucson was just as off the map as Yuma. Maybe Phoenix would get bombed. But not Tucson. He had been sitting in checkpoints since three o’clock that morning. First the one in Orange County. Then San Onofre. Then San Diego. The Top of the Laguna Seca Pass. El Centro, and finally the dunes outside Yuma.
Suddenly there were no more checkpoints. And no entrance into Yuma. The President had finally landed after being airborne for most of the two weeks.
Yuma had been the destination of flight for so many. Who cared what lay beyond it? Now he was looking at Yuma in his rearview mirror; he was twenty-seven years old. Above, fighter planes ripped across the sky. Tankers circled and the runway was off-limits. One of the guards at the last checkpoint told him the President, who had been airborne, dodging missile strikes for two weeks, had finally landed in Yuma. Maybe the other side was out of weapons. Maybe Yuma was the high water mark. Maybe we had beaten them by surviving long enough to be left with Yuma. In his rearview mirror, heading up the rocky pass that led east from Yuma, he knew they were doomed. He didn’t know why, only knew that they were.
He awoke with a jerk. He spotted the mouse instantly. He hadn’t even needed to let his eyes unfocus, see everything, and track for movement. Instead he spotted the little mouse at the instant the mouse noticed his jerk. Its eyes wide with terror, it froze.
The Old Man darted toward its den. The mouse twitched eyes wide with fear. Once the animal remained frozen the Old Man knew he’d cut off its retreat. He advanced with great stomping strides and instantly the mouse attempted an end run, hoping to dodge past him and into the burrow. The Old Man flailed wildly and yelled “Yaah,” feeling lightheaded and stiff in his legs all at once.
The mouse retreated, scrambling back toward the middle of the clearing. The Old Man pursued, shaking off the dizziness and yelling as he flailed wildly with his arms. The creature, now in full panic, darted back across his path, hoping to break out past the Old Man. A deft stomp barely missed the mouse and sent it scurrying back toward the center of the clearing.
My granddaughter would enjoy this game.
If you had been a moment too late, the mouse would have gotten past you and the game would be over.
The mouse in full flight, panic-stricken, ran heedlessly away from the Old Man and realized its luck the moment it saw the flat stone ahead. There was enough space to squeeze under. Once inside it would be safe. With purpose the mouse raced for the flat stone, and once underneath fell into the concave hole the Old Man had dug.
When it did not emerge immediately, the Old Man knew it had fallen into the trap. He bent over, sweating hard, and closed his eyes hoping not to pass out. He picked up the rock. The mouse, teeth bared, squeaked up at him. He placed the stone over the top of the hole and returned to the camp.
He retrieved the wire from his satchel and his knife, along with a little rope. At the stream, the tracks of the foxes had dried and could still be seen. Avoiding them altogether he followed them back into the brush. After a moment he lost their trail but he could guess at where they had made a straight line from the rocks to the water.
He looked left and right of the trail until he found a sapling. Maybe just a year old. He took the stake he had carved before sleeping and sank it firmly in the narrow trail. Looping his wire he connected the stake to a length of rope that he quickly turned into a noose. He laid the rope out some distance toward the small green palo verdes and bent the tree over until its top touched the ground. Then straddling it he tied off the rope around the sapling.
He returned to the hole. With a quick motion, he stabbed the mouse and waited for it to die. Then he set the dead body in front of the noose, which hung inches above the trail. He stepped away, resisting the urge to dress the trap. Leave it alone, he heard Big Pedro say. Washing his hands of the blood of the mouse and the dirt of the trail he took a long drink and returned to his camp.
The sun was low and he thought about food. He lit his fire and stared into it, thinking his own thoughts for a long time. The falling of the sun failed to rouse him as he continued to stare into the fire. He did not think about his aches. Or the village, which would remind him of food. He thought about Yuma. And the girl whose father had been shot. Had she and her mother made it to Yuma? If so, then they too had died forty years ago.
I might hear the trap spring. But probably not. In the morning maybe there will be a fox. If not, then who knows?
He didn’t like to think about that and so, piling a few more sticks onto the fire, he wrapped himself within his blanket.
Why can’t I dream about the lions on the beaches of Africa like my friend in the book? At sunset they came down to the water to play like cats.
CHAPTER EIGHT (#ulink_4c6510f0-1ab5-5c98-9038-0ebd67426806)
When he awoke there was a fox. It twisted in the morning breeze, its tongue lolling purple and its eyes wide in terror. It was beautiful. The Old Man admired its healthy coat as he skinned the little fox.
By late morning, strips of fox meat were skewered and roasting over ashy orange coals of smoking mesquite. The Old Man, calm and weak, walked among the palo verdes, drinking from the stream and looking for the honeycomb of the dead bee. Standing near the roasting strips of flesh was too much, so it was better to wander among the quiet trees.
By noon the meat was ready and at first he went slowly. He didn’t want to become sick from too much too fast. For the rest of the day he ate slowly and continued to roast more and more of the fox. It would keep for a few days.
As night fell, he looked out into the great desert he had come across.
I survived. I can return and accept the curse. It isn’t much of a curse. They will feed and take care of me. I will play my part. But as a salvager I am finished.
Maybe it is time to let that go.
Or I can continue on and try to find the town.
The dunes seemed nothing more than gentle curves and soft colors.
You tried to kill me. There was nothing in you. Nothing to take away. So what good are you? If I go across you again what could I find this time? Nothing. But if I find the town then maybe that is something, and if not I can pick up the Old Highway to the south and that will lead me back to the village.
But you will come from the east.
There is that.
He ate more fox and thought it might be nice with some tortillas. He set the rest of the meat to smoke in the coals throughout the night so that it would last for a few days more. Then he slept.
At dawn he was up. He felt better. He drank from the stream and chewed a little bit of the dried fox meat.
I think I might go on a bit.
He spent the morning climbing up out of the stand of green palo verdes and onto the broken rocks of the mountain. When he gained the summit he looked east. The landscape sank away into a bowl deeper than the one he had crossed.
It will be hotter.
At the extent of his vision he could see mountains, jagged and gray.
Almost at the center of the bowl, halfway between himself and the mountains, he could see a collection of buildings. Too small to be the town he once knew.
There might be a map or a sign that might lead to the town.
By late afternoon the small mountain was far behind him. The going was mostly smooth and downhill. The heat reminded him of the bread oven back in the village.
CHAPTER NINE (#ulink_b6fefc2c-0f88-5b03-848f-475738986b8b)
After the bombs there had been dreams. Dreams everything lost had come back. The dead might walk through the barroom door two years after the global car wreck. The survivors, drinking to forget, would put down their cups. All would be as it once was. The dreams after the bombs were like that.
The neon sign came stuttering to life in the twilight of the desert. The Old Man stopped in the smooth blown sand.
There is power here.
The sign showed a sleepy little boy, in nightgown and night cap drifting toward a bed. In rockets bursting script the words “Dreamtime Motel” loomed large, then recessed toward a universe of smiling faced stars. Vacancy, air-conditioning, and color TV were all available.
The cluster of buildings were merely an L-shaped motel complete with swimming pool and the blackened remains of a nearby gas station, its metal twisted in telltale strands away from where the pumps had once been.
The lights of the hotel came softly to life here and there where bulbs still burned.
The east is cursed.
He moved forward cautiously, remembering the pistol within his satchel.
The parking lot was gritty with the windblown sand of the years. Still, the cracks in it were nowhere near the rents and buckles of the main highway back near the village.
From the office, a man emerged wearing a Hawaiian shirt, his eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses.
“Room for the night, mister?” His voice the desiccated husk of a reptile. Used. Spent.
The Old Man remained staring.
If I am dreaming then this does not exist. Maybe the oasis of palo verdes did not exist. Maybe I am dying in the dunes still clutching the dead bee.
“Got room if yer lookin’.” Then the man with the mirrored sunglasses began to wheeze and laugh. After a second he said, “Have ever since before the bombs.”
The Old Man still standing in the twilight, his face illuminated by the flickering glare of the last wisps of neon, remembered the gun. His fingers, bony and old, adjusted the strap of his satchel.
“I got snake.” Mirrored Sunglasses moved forward. His body was long, though he wasn’t tall; the only roundness a potbelly that seemed more pregnant than fat. “You want snake for dinner?”
“What is this place?” croaked the Old Man.
Mirrored Sunglasses whirled, taking in the motel against the dying light in the west.
“This my hotel. Even before the bombs, I swear.” He seemed all out of breath and ragged at once.
“You got power.”
“Just a little ever’ night. Went solar before the bombs, but the panels ain’t doin so good these last few years. Got a well for water. Power ever’ night. No air-condition though. And snake. Lotsa snakes east of here.”
East is cursed.
“Where ya headed?”
“Into the town I thought used to be near here.”
“The town? Why ya wanna go there fer? Burnt down during the bombs.”
The Old Man was silent.
Still.
“Nothing left that way. All of it’s gone. Seen two clouds that week. First Phoenix then Tucson. Nothing there but death. Won’t be for another hundred years. Say where you come from?”
“West.”
“Really?”
“Three days to the other side of the dunes. On the Old Highway a couple days this side of the Great Wreck.”
“Never heard of no ‘Great Wreck.’”
They remained standing in the parking lot, the Old Man considering what was his and his alone.
“I’ll get the snake reheated. Et myself earlier, but I can get you some going.”
“That would be nice of you. Thank you.”
Mirrored Sunglasses turned and headed back into the darkened office mumbling, “Maybe afterwards you’d like to see the pool.”
The Old Man lowered his satchel to the ground.
