by Cole, Nick
Blackened. Burnt. Abandoned. High up on the hill he could see the ragged remains of canvas tents and the flower blossoms of spiked artillery pieces.
Sergeant, your dream of finding them here couldn’t have survived this.
He led Horse up the hill through the long grass and around the craters and foxholes long since covered in a waving sea of soft green and yellow.
When he reached the spiked artillery pieces now resting forever in permanent bloom, he could see the remains of the Army, of I Corps, below. All the way to the shores of the sparkling bay’s eastern edge he could see burnt tanks, melted Humvees, helicopters that would never fly, a fighter jet erupting from the rubble of the few houses that remained along the bay.
I followed you through the rain and the snow and along all those long moonlit nights while you told me about this place. The people. What we would find. Who you were.
And.
Who I might be.
He stood among the tent posts on top of the hill.
Of the Army he’d waited his whole life to meet, only ragged strips of canvas remained, fluttering in the breeze.
Off to the right, down along a ridgeline, he could see a field of white crosses. The graves were open and the crosses lay canted at angles.
I’m glad you died with your dream of this place, Sergeant, because . . .
. . . this would have killed you.
All the way.
Tell them who I was, Boy.
Tell who, Sergeant?
And who am I now, Sergeant Presley? Now that you are gone and the dream that you promised me is dead, who am I now?
But there was no answer.
Chapter 35
He smelled smoke.
The smoke of meat came to him on the wind of the next day, in the morning, before light.
At first light, he scanned the horizon and saw, across the bay, the columns of rising smoke. He checked the map. Sausalito.
He’d spent the day before combing the wreckage of the Army. There was nothing to be had. Everything that was left had burned long ago. When he went to the cemetery below the ridge, he found bones in the bottom of each open grave. Nothing more.
Maybe there is someone, maybe even I Corps, over there on the other side of the bay, Sergeant?
But there was no answer.
Someone was there.
Later he rode out to the north, crossing large sections of muddy bay where ancient supertankers rested on their sides. Occasionally he passed large craters.
At the northern edge of the bay, mudflats gave way to the tall brown grass of the estuaries. A long thin bridge, low to the water, stretched off toward the west.
A heron, white and tall, stood still, not watching the Boy.
The bridge may only go so far.
After a small break and time spent looking at the map, he decided to try and cross the bridge.
You would ask me why I was in such a hurry to get to the other side, Sergeant. You would say, Whatchu in a hurry about, Boy?
I would say, I want to know what’s in Sausalito.
Then you would say, You always did.
That is what you would say.
But the voice didn’t say anything.
The Boy had not heard the voice since the open graves and the tattered canvas.
The ride out into the marshes made the Boy feel lonely—lonelier than he’d ever felt in all his life. Other than the heron he’d seen at the eastern side of the thin bridge, he saw no other life.
‘That is why I feel so alone, because there is no other living thing,’ he thought. He’ll speak to me again.
In the afternoon, the wind stopped and fog rolled in across the bay. Faster than he would have ever expected, the fog surrounded him and he could see little beyond the thin road ahead.
Only Horse’s hooves on the old highway broke the silence.
He expected some bird to call out to another bird, but there was nothing. No one to call to, even if it were just another bird.
It was then he began to think the bridge might never end—that he would ride forever through the fog.
And what about food? I can’t go off in those marshes to hunt. I would be stuck. And Horse, what of him if I have to run?
Stop. You would tell me to stop, Sergeant.
The road will end. And if not, I will turn back and go the long way around the bay.
The thought of having to ride back through the eerie stillness at night did little to comfort him, and for a long time he rode on until at last the bridge began to rise back onto dry land.
See, I had nothing to be afraid of, right, Sergeant?
Chapter 36
They worked in the small bay. They were tall and brown skinned like the Chinese of Auburn.
The day had turned cold and gray.
For a long time the Boy stood with Horse, watching them from the dusty road. In time they became aware of him and began to gesture to one another regarding him. Still, they continued to work with their long rakes, sweeping beneath the cold dark water of the bay. Out in the deep water beyond, whitecaps were beginning to form.
I thought I might find the Army here, Sergeant.
His voice had gone now. It had left him in the fog of the bridge over the marsh.
No, it was before that. It was when he saw the open graves and the bones within.
Maybe the knowledge of what happened to I Corps finally killed you, Sergeant. Killed you in a way death could not. Killed the mission you left me to finish.
In time they came in from the water, rolling down their pant legs and donning leather-skinned long jackets trimmed with sheep’s wool. A man, older than most, but not the oldest he’d seen, waded out through the tall grass to the road and climbed the embankment to where the Boy sat atop Horse.
Standing in front of the Boy, he said something in Chinese.
He repeated it.
The Boy shook his head.
The man was weathered like the sides of their clapboard shacks.
The Weathered Man stared off toward the bay for a long time. His face was tight and brown, his cheeks red like apples. He watched the dry brown and gray shacks of their farm.
‘He is wondering what to do with me,’ thought the Boy.
The Weathered Man turned and walked down the embankment, and as an afterthought waved his hand at the Boy, as if he should come along with him.
There was a fire pit outside a long weathered barn that reached out into the gray waters of the bay. The rakes were stacked neatly against the side of the old building.
The Weathered Man drove a stake into the ground for Horse and returned shortly with hay. He laid it down in front of Horse and reached up to caress the long nose, muttering softly in Chinese once more.
He pointed toward a worn long table near the water’s edge and the fire for the Boy to sit at.
A giant blackened grill was placed over the fire and then piles of green wet seaweed atop the grill. Salty, white smoke rose up in billows. The rest of the people worked at cleaning small, flat stones they’d brought in wide baskets up from the waters of the bay.
Rough clay plates and cups were set out. There was fresh hot bread and a stone crock of creamy butter, another of red sauce, and another of a pungent dark liquid that smelled of fish and salt.
The wind rose up off the bay in breezy gusts. The Boy’s left side was stiff, and he massaged what he could to work life back into the thin muscles of that side.
More of the Chinese appeared, coming from inland, setting down rakes and hoes to go down to the bay and wash their hands in the stinging cold water.
More round loaves of crusty bread were set out, as the flat stones that had been brought up from the bay went onto the grill.
‘They eat stones?’ thought the Boy, who had seen many different people eat many strange things.
The Weathered Man watched the fire dully, his eyes far away as he stood over the grill with a short rake, moving the stones about.
Shortly, the stones came
off the grill and were thrown onto the long flat table. More stones were laid upon the grill and the Chinese sat down, each grabbing at a stone and prying off a hidden lid. Then they raised their stones to their mouths and slurped. They threw the stones into a basket and each of them reached for the next stone, this time adding either the red sauce or the dark liquid smelling of fish and salt, or even the creamy butter, and in some cases a bit of one or the other, and for a few, all three.
The Weathered Man sat down on the bench next to the Boy and looked at him and then the stones. The Weathered Man took one, cracked the lid and slurped, watching the Boy.
The Boy reached out and took one. He peeled back the lid with difficulty, as his withered hand was required to hold the stone. Inside he found the oyster, gray and steaming, swimming in liquid. He ate it, feeling it slide into his mouth and then explode in warm saltiness as he chewed its meat. He looked into the shell where the oyster had once been and found a pearl-colored base swirling white and gray.
It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his short and very hard life.
They ate more oysters and bread. A few talked. The Boy tried the red sauce. It burned slowly and made him sweat at even the few drops he’d added to the oyster using a knife-shaped tool kept in the stone crock.
‘It’s too hot,’ he thought of the sauce.
Afterward, as the heat faded, he liked the taste it left in his mouth. It reminded him of the wild peppers they’d found in the South along the salty marshes of the State of Louisiana.
He tried the dark liquid. It had a salty, deep, satisfying flavor that was almost overripe. But when combined with the yellow butter and the heat of the cooked oyster, it was like eating a good cut of meat taken from a fresh kill, tender and young.
Of their talk he understood nothing. In time, the looks that had been cast his way ceased, as if they had assigned him a place in their world—as if he had always been there and would remain there.
The last batch of oysters was laid out and finished with almost the same zeal as the first.
Two women wearing gray clothes and bright headscarves, their faces tanned and apple cheeked, struggled together with a flat-iron-gray tub brought out from one of the clapboard shacks. The Boy heard a sound like the tinkling of bells, light and musical, as though whatever things were in the tub tapped back and forth against each other.
The tub was set down and the rest of the Chinese gathered around it, taking up bottles of every shape and size and twisting off the caps that sealed them. The bottles made a small popping hiss. They drank from the bottles, few the same color: some green, some brown, a few blues or almost clear. In the clear ones the Boy could see a pale yellow liquid, foaming near the top.
The bottles were from Before, but they had been filled with something from Now.
Later he would think of that sentence.
Especially the part about something from Now.
As if there had ever been such a thing.
The villagers drank in long pulls, then expelled a breathy “Ahhh.” There was much burping.
The Weathered Man, weathered like the clapboard shacks of the village, returned to the table, said something seemingly final in Chinese and handed a green bottle to the Boy.
The Boy took the bottle. He looked inside and could only see a few bubbles. He looked at the cap, which seemed pressed as if stamped onto the bottle. He looked at the Weathered Man.
The Weathered Man took the bottle and with a twist brought the cap off and handed it back to the Boy as foam rose out its top. The Weathered Man drank from his bottle, watching the Boy, telling him with his eyes that the Boy should do the same.
The Boy closed his eyes and drank. Foam and suds raced up into his nose. But the drink was cold, ice cold. It tasted of the fields.
When he opened his eyes the Weathered Man was smiling at him, as if saying “See,” and then, “What do you think?” all at once.
A warm flush rose up in the Boy.
And he was not so cold.
And he was not so alone.
“Pee Gee Oh,” said the Weathered Man, holding the bottle up.
“Pee Gee Oh,” said the Boy, and drank again. The Weathered Man smiled and drank.
They each considered the bay, watching the whitecaps roll and disappear across its waters. There was still daylight now as winter faded and spring appeared.
‘The days were growing again,’ thought the Boy.
He drank and looked at the little village by the bay. It was a collection of weathered clapboard buildings and steep roofs, growing out of the tall green grass among the curvy stunted trees whose limbs gathered in bunches like hats. All around him the Chinese talked seriously or laughed or whispered. Some played games with rectangles of stone.
He thought of their apple cheeks, bright red from the cold water and the wind.
He thought of their oysters hidden each day beneath the waters.
They were kind.
They were a village of kind people.
If he could mark things on the map he would spell this as the Village of Kind People Who Will Give You Food.
And Pee Gee Oh.
Whatever that was.
It was good.
He took the last drink from the bottle, feeling warm and fuzzy. He considered the hills to the east, on the other side of the bay, the lands there broken and bent, mired in destruction and overrun by the swollen rivers he’d crossed.
He thought of MacRaven and Dunn and all the tribes.
Those people, those Chinese, were like these.
And now they were dead.
He went to his saddlebag and took out his sack of charcoal. He looked around.
I need a place to draw. But the charcoal won’t show on the sides of their shacks.
He found a patch of concrete back toward the road. Weeds and grass grew up through the broken spaces.
He made a small fire.
He drew the courthouse first.
He saw the Chinese watching him from afar, standing around their tables, enjoying the last of their Pee Gee Oh.
He drew the dome of the courthouse, sketching the part of the dome that had been sheared off by the giant crossbow bolt.
He could hear the singing twang as it launched.
He drew the streets as he remembered them, mainly the intersection where he’d seen the bodies riddled with arrows.
He heard the villagers muttering over him as he worked on all fours drawing the fire and the smoke and the carnage.
He heard them and forgot them all at once.
He drew the ramparts, the pine logs burning like the breath of evil monsters, as the tribes, feathered and in war paint, crawled over the spiked tops. He drew Escondido firing into something unseen.
He drew smoke.
He drew falling arrows.
He drew fire.
He drew the woman lying in the street, staring at the sky.
He could not draw the crying of the baby or all the other screams he seemed to remember now.
He stood back.
He could feel the weight of the Chinese watching him. He could hear their breath escaping through their open mouths.
Someone dropped a bottle and it exploded with a crash.
No one said a word.
There was one more thing.
He stooped to the drawing once more. His side was not stiff. He didn’t feel anything here by the bay. He was there at the outpost, on that golden morning just after dawn.
The smell of burning pine.
The screams and bullets and smoke appearing in the windows of the old courthouse.
He was on the median of grass astride the great highway.
MacRaven told him: “I’ll conquer the world.”
MacRaven, his wolf’s face smiling like a child’s, his eyes shining. MacRaven, in armor, staring out at the Chinese.
The Boy stood, letting the last of the charcoal fall from his numb fingers.
And someone began to cry.
&
nbsp; Chapter 37
They gave the Boy and Horse a shack to sleep in for the night. It was small and it lay next to the road and the ocean, its only furnishing a baked clay brazier with hot coals. The wind beat at the shack in the night, and once, when he stepped outside to urinate, he saw a clear night sky and the moon riding high over the bay. He saw the dark shapes of birds crossing the waters in the night toward the broken shadows of the ruins of San Francisco.
He was so tired and so comfortable from the meal and the Pee Gee Oh that he almost could not sleep.
But then he did.
Later the Boy was not sure if he was dreaming or awake when he heard the hooves of another horse disappear off into the night.
HE AWOKE TO the hands of the Weathered Man gently shaking him, giving him a cup of tea, beckoning him to come outside into the morning light.
The Boy wrapped himself in his bearskin and led Horse out into the gray mist, drinking the tea, his withered hand holding the lead. Horse would only go as far as the Boy went and when he stopped, so did Horse.
The Chinese soldiers wore the same uniform as their comrades in Auburn. They also wore cartridge belts about their waists and carried long rifles.
One of the soldiers turned from inspecting the concrete pad and the charcoal drawing.
Their leader, a bright-eyed thin man walked toward the Boy, speaking in Chinese. When he realized the Boy did not understand, he turned back to the others, speaking rapidly.
They mounted their horses and made signs that the Boy should come with them.
The Weathered Man nodded in agreement.
THE TROOP OF Chinese horse soldiers, along with the Boy and Horse, rode away from the village a short while later, following the coast road. Just before the village was lost to a bend in the landscape, the Boy turned back to look upon it once more.
‘I am always arriving and then leaving,’ he thought.
What would it be like to stay?
I wish you would speak to me again, Sergeant Presley. That you would say, Ain’t nothin’ but a thang.
But the Boy knew it was only his own voice.
Knew it was what he wanted to hear.