The Savage Boy

by Nick Cole

  The Boy listened for the voice of Sergeant Presley.

  I understand what you meant, Sergeant. I understand “involved,” now.

  The stranger let the tarp fall, covering the horrified faces and contorted bodies.

  “Now,” said the sad-faced stranger. “MacRaven wants to meet a Bear Killer.”

  25

  “YOU REALLY KILL that bear you’re wearing, boy?” asked MacRaven.

  The sad-faced stranger had led the Boy through the rotting pile of wood that was once a tourist lodge to a grand ballroom of warped planks, cobwebs, and guttering candles for an audience with MacRaven.

  Everywhere, there was dust and broken glass and damage. In the big room, moonlight glared through broken panes of glass set in large windows. By greasy candlelight, a banquet long laid out and thoroughly done to death revealed the carcasses of roasted animals and bones strewn with abandon. The hunger the occupants of the wagon must have possessed during the last moments of their final meal was evident.

  At the far end of the room MacRaven sat in a straight-backed chair. Among the shadows his ashen-faced warriors busied themselves in unseen tasks. There was blood on the floor and the sad-faced stranger tells the Boy not to slip in it. The tone was friendly.

  “I guess you must have killed that bear,” continued the boom of MacRaven’s voice from across the hall. “ ’Cause if you didn’t then you woulda said you did.”

  MacRaven, lean and rangy, rose from his chair in the thin light of timid candles.

  “So I guess you did.”

  The wolfish man walked forward across the rotting boards of the floor.

  “There aren’t many that ride the horse these days. That bunch outside would just as soon eat your horse as ride it into battle. All twenty thousand plus of ’em, if Raleigh can count rightly.”

  MacRaven stopped before the Boy.

  He was younger than Sergeant Presley was. Less than forty.

  “I’m trying to build up some cavalry but it’s not on this year’s list of things to get done. Instead I’ve got a few who can ride. Maybe next year. Know what I mean?”

  The Boy had no idea what he meant.

  “I’ll be direct. You’re not with that bunch you came in with, nor any of those other tribes out there. That’s as plain as day. So I don’t know if you’re a ‘merc’ or just passing through, but the truth of it is, I could use you. If you want work, I can give you that. If you want a way to go, well then I think I have something you might be interested in. An offer you should consider.”

  MacRaven walked back to his chair and picked up a hanging gun belt. He buckled it around his waist, one large revolver hanging low against his thigh.

  “You don’t want in, fine. Ride on.”

  Whatever you say, Boy, don’t say that. He ain’t strappin’on that gun for nothing. It means something, even if he don’t know what it means, it means something bad. Though I s’pect he knows exactly what he means. Watch yourself, Boy, this one’s a killer.

  “So, you in, kid?” asked MacRaven.

  The Boy nodded.

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m in.”

  “Just like that. Hell, I didn’t know if you even spoke the English until just now. Don’t matter, I speak most of their languages anyway. That you speak the English recommends you altogether. Fine, you’re in.”

  MacRaven swiped a drinking cup from off a table near the chair he’d been sitting in. He raised it to his lips. The tension in the room rose immediately. The Boy could sense the sad-faced man at his side about to burst into action. But then he stopped.

  “That’s right. This is poison.” MacRaven chuckled.

  He put the cup down.

  “That wouldn’t do now, would it, Raleigh?”

  Raleigh, muttered a tired, “No.”

  “This Army marches tomorrow,” began MacRaven. “In four days’ time we’ll be at the gates of the Chinese outpost at Auburn. Those bodies in the wagon need to be inside the walls, with the Chinese. Raleigh and the other riders are going on ahead. You’ll join them and make this part of my plan happen. Excellente?”

  The Boy nodded.

  IN THE NIGHT you ride and are not alone, though you should be, right, Sergeant?

  The Boy thought of this atop Horse, riding the old Highway Forty-nine north, in the midst of other riders little more than different shades of darkness on this long night. The mountain road twisted and wound, and at dawn the company stopped for a few hours. Shadows were revealed in the dawn light that followed and the Boy saw the riders for who they were.

  They were men. Mere men. And yet, in every one of them was the look of a hard man.

  He’s a hard one, Boy. Steer clear.

  The Boy remembered Sergeant Presley’s warning from villages and settlements they’d passed through in their seemingly endless—at the time—wanderings, when they’d come upon such a man.

  A “hard one” was that mean-faced giant who carried the long board tipped with rusty nails, who’d watched the trade going on at the big river.

  He’d had trouble in his eyes.

  Trouble in his heart.

  But they’d only found that out later, after they’d come upon the corpse of one of the salvagers who’d made a good haul out in the ruins of Little Rock, in the State of Arkansas. Then they knew the mean-faced giant had also had trouble in mind.

  Each of these shadowy riders, in their own way, was that man.

  Hard men.

  Weapons. Spears, axes, metal poles studded with glass and nails. Swords. Machetes worn over the back like MacRaven’s ashen-faced warriors. Whips.

  Men who made their daily living dealing in the suffering trade.

  In the shifting light of a cool and windy morning near a bridge along the crumbling mountain highway, the hard men seemed tired, and as if the leader of their company led in all things, the droopy-eyed and sad-faced Raleigh yawned as he approached the Boy.

  “You take first watch with Dunn. When the sun’s straight overhead, swap out with Vaclav.” He pointed to a thick man with coal-black eyes and a beard to match. Vaclav carried an axe. Uncountable notches ran up the long haft.

  The sun rose high over the trees and for a while Dunn takes the far end of the bridge while the Boy watched over the sleeping riders.

  If I go now, these men will catch me.

  That’s a fact, Boy. Now’s no good.

  I know too much of what they’re about. They can’t let me go.

  But they don’t even know you want to leave, Boy. They’re testing you to see if you’ll become one of them. Mainly ’cause of Horse. No doubt one of them, probably that Raleigh character, is watching everything you do. So whatever you do, Boy, don’t pull out that map.

  At times, the voice seemed as if Sergeant Presley was really talking to the Boy. Other times the Boy knew it was his own voice and just something he wanted to hear him say.

  It felt good not to think and instead just listen to the noise of the river under the bridge.

  He remembered winter and the cave above the rapids.

  I should have drawn more.

  I never should have left.

  Go west, Boy. Get to the Army.

  The Boy thought of the marks on the map.

  Chinese paratroopers in Reno.

  This MacRaven has an army. I Corps will want to know about this and the Chinese in this place called Auburn. Should I try to get away soon, Sergeant?

  Now’s not the time, Boy. They’ll be all over you like white on rice.

  Sergeant Presley would’ve said that.

  In time Dunn crossed the bridge, sauntering lazily with a long piece of green grass sticking out the side of his mouth, back toward where the Boy stood guard.

  Dunn was an average man: old canvas pants; dusty, worn boots; a hide jacket. In his sandy blond hair the Boy could see the gray beginning to show beneath his ancient Stetson hat.

  “Dunn,” said Dunn, extending a thick and calloused hand.

  The Boy r
emained silent and then after a moment took Dunn’s hand.

  “Bear Killer, huh?” Dunn chuckled in the quiet morning, the noise of the river distant, almost fading as the heat of the day increased.

  After a moment . . .

  “Might as well be, as opposed to anything else, right?” Dunn paused to spit chewed grass off the side of the bridge. “Times are strange anyway. Names might as well be too.”

  “I never said my name was Bear Killer. That’s just what the Rock Star’s People called me.”

  The Boy saw a flash of anger rise up like an August storm and slip through Dunn’s easygoing cowpoke façade.

  Dunn turned and regarded the far end of the bridge, as if counting off moments to himself.

  “That’s one explanation. I’ll buy it today for the sake of being friendly.” He turned back to the Boy. The August storm had passed.

  “And I’ll give you this one for free,” continued Dunn, his tone easygoing, his manner quiet. “How you want to spend it’s up to you. Okay?”

  The Boy nodded.

  “Fine then. You ride hard and watch our backs. We’ll watch yours. Don’t question the work. There’s no such thing these days as dishonorable work. Whatever the work is, someone’s paying to have a job done and a job done is the way we do it.”

  After a moment the Boy said, “I can live with that.”

  Dunn watched the Boy for a long moment.

  “There ain’t nothin’ left anymore. So sometimes work is something that’s just got to be, regardless. We could use a kid like you. But you’re gonna find some of the things we do might not sit right with you.”

  Dunn paused.

  “If you’re gonna ride with us then you might need to let go of some of those sensibilities.”

  Dunn nodded to himself, as if checking a list of things that needed to be said and finding all points crossed off.

  “That’s for free, kid. Next one’ll cost ya.”

  Dunn smiled, then ambled over to another of the Hard Men to wake him for his shift.

  When Vaclav awoke, black fury and a knife came out at once.

  As if expecting someone else, Vaclav was ready.

  But in that same summer-storm moment, the dark and swarthy Vaclav got up from the dust, then nodded to the Boy.

  Hard men, Boy. Each and every one of ’em. You watch yourself.

  I will, Sergeant. I will.

  26

  THE CHINESE PATROL, or what was left of it, waited on their knees in the pasture as the Hard Men watched their interrogation.

  Only their leader stood. He was standing in front of a stump, a day’s ride from the outpost at Auburn.

  Vaclav and the Boy worked with shovels in the big pit the Chinese prisoners had been forced to dig. It needed to be deeper, so Raleigh tells Vaclav, and with a maximum of spitting and curses Vaclav grabbed a shovel and threw another at the Boy.

  “New guy digs too,” he spat.

  They worked in the pit while Raleigh screamed in Chinese at the patrol leader.

  Krauthammer, another of the Hard Men, who the Boy knew by the brief introduction of post-battle observation to be a searcher of pockets and a cutter of fingers for rings that don’t slide off so easily. He had the patrol leader’s pack out on the grass of the pasture and was going through it, tossing its contents carelessly out for all to see.

  Dunn stood by the stump, one dusty boot resting upon it. He was chewing on another blade of grass.

  Earlier, when Vaclav was up riding point, he’d spotted the Chinese patrol.

  Leaving the wagon full of bodies in the road, the Hard Men pulled back into the forest after staking the wagon’s horses and locking the brake.

  “You’re with me, kid,” said Raleigh. “You too, Dunn. Rest of you circle around down by the river and come up along the road behind them. Once we attack, come on up and give us a hand.”

  No one said anything. They’d done this before.

  Back among the trees, the hot afternoon faded in the cool green shadows of the woods.

  “Chinese are killers, kid,” whispered Raleigh. “You’re too young to remember, but they killed this country. Now we’re gonna take America back.”

  Dunn laughed dryly.

  Raleigh rolled his eyes.

  The battle was short.

  When the Chinese came walking up the road, they fanned out once they spotted the wagon full of dead bodies. A few of them moved forward to inspect it.

  A moment before they reach the back of the wagon, Dunn whispered, “I don’t see no guns.”

  “They wouldn’t have ’em this far out, Dunn. Too afraid of losing ’em.” Raleigh’s voice reminded the Boy of a rusty screen door.

  Good, don’t think about the fight until you have to, Boy. You don’t know nothin’ about it till it starts up, so no use gettin’ worked up before it begins.

  The Chinese carried long poles, spear-tipped ends.

  Dunn charged out of the foliage, his horse snorting breathily as he beat the croup hard with a small cord. The Chinese recoiled as first Dunn broke the brush, then Raleigh, and finally the Boy.

  Don’t think about it, Boy.

  He knew Sergeant Presley meant more than just the fight. If for a moment he’d harbored the idea of riding away during the confusion of this battle, he knew they’d forget the Chinese and come straight after him.

  I know too much.

  They closed with the Chinese and the Boy chopped down on one of the patrol with his tomahawk then wheeled Horse about to swing into the face of an enemy shifting for a better position.

  So these are the Chinese, Sergeant.

  My whole life has been filled with the knowledge of them as enemies, as monsters, as destroyers. I have seen them play the devil in all the villages and salvager camps we passed through on our way across this country. But you taught me they weren’t the only cause of America’s destruction, Sergeant. You said they only came after, trying to carve away a little bit of what was left for themselves. I’ve never seen them as the devils so many have. You fought them for ten years in San Francisco, Sergeant Presley, but you taught me they weren’t our worst enemy.

  We destroyed ourselves, Boy.

  You taught me that.

  Now it was parry, thrust, and chaos as the Chinese oriented themselves to the attack of the Boy and Dunn and Raleigh. Some fell, bleeding and screaming and crying, but their leader organized the rest quickly and it seemed, at least to the surviving Chinese, as though they had turned back the main assault.

  In moments, the other Hard Men were up out of the woods and all over the Chinese patrol.

  A few hours later the Boy found himself in the pit, digging out its edges.

  Above him Raleigh was still screaming in Chinese.

  “Got it,” said Krauthammer and held up paper. Then he held up a stick. After that, he pulled a bottle of dark liquid out of the pack.

  “Put that one down first.” Raleigh pointed toward one of the Chinese waiting on his knees.

  Like sudden lightning, Dunn grabbed the Chinese and forced his head down onto the stump. Another of the Hard Men whipped a leather noose about the struggling head and pulled, stretching the brown neck taut as Dunn pulled the struggling body back.

  “Vaclav,” called Raleigh.

  “What?” screamed Vaclav from the bottom of the pit.

  “Can I use your axe?”

  “Sure, why the hell not.” Vaclav followed this with curses and muttering and finally, more spitting.

  Raleigh took up the axe, and as all the Chinese started to chatter, he brought it down swiftly on the stretched neck of the chosen victim.

  And then they chose another.

  And another.

  Raleigh turned to the leader and spoke.

  The Chinese soldier nodded and held out his hand.

  Krauthammer put the paper down and dipped the stick in the bottle of dark liquid.

  Raleigh dictated and the leader began to copy.

  When it was done Raleigh held up th
e paper, squinting as he read.

  “Right. Kill the rest of ’em,” he said, satisfied with what was on the page.

  “Get to work, you!” muttered Vaclav through clenched teeth at the Boy, who had watched all of this.

  They finished the trench while sounds that rose above those of spade and dirt pierced the hot afternoon of the pasture.

  They buried the Chinese and took to the road once more.

  27

  “THEM BODIES ARE smelling,” said Vaclav.

  They had been for some time.

  “Tough. We need ’em to get through the gates, smell or no smell,” replied Raleigh. “Only way them Chinese are gonna let us in, is if they think we’re bounty hunters. These are the bounty.”

  The Hard Men, as the Boy thought of them, were held up in a ravine south of Auburn.

  They were waiting for MacRaven.

  “Those Chinese up in the outpost are gonna smell ’em out here first. Then where will we be?” continued Vaclav.

  “Shut it,” replied Raleigh. They sat in silence, the wagon at the center of the perimeter, each man up on an edge of the sloping ravine, waiting.

  When MacRaven did arrive, he was alone. His ashen-faced warriors absent.

  For a while MacRaven and Raleigh talked in whispers a little way up the ravine, away from the wagon. Then Raleigh summoned the Boy. “Get over here, kid,” he whispered.

  MacRaven rested a warm hand on the Boy’s shoulder.

  Don’t show him you don’t trust him, Boy. Don’t even flinch in the slightest.

  “Raleigh tells me you done good in the ambush. All right then, I got a new mission for you. If you’re in? Good,” said MacRaven without waiting. He was dressed in the mishmash battle armor of the tribes. His breastplate was an old road sign covered in hide. His shoulders were padded and reinforced with bent hubcaps. He wore a skirt of metal chain across his pants. His smile, like some hungry beast’s, encompasses more than just the Boy, as if the whole world were a meal, waiting to be taken in and devoured between his long teeth.