by Nick Cole
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.
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 th
e 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.
Knew it was a lie he wanted to believe, which is the worst kind of lie we tell ourselves.
The Weathered Man was already out in the water with his rake.
He was working.
Long strokes through the water.
Only the rake betrayed the Weathered Man’s presence in the water and the fog. Then the troop passed the bend on the coast road and the Weathered Man was gone.
The troop rode on through the quiet morning mist. From a small inlet they could see a great shroud of fog clutching at the ruins of San Francisco, across the bay.
I can go there now, Sergeant; if you will not stop me I will go there.
He hoped the voice would come. He hoped it would tell him, as it had all the other times before, that he must avoid such places.
But it didn’t.
AT A SMALL farm, the troop leader dismounted and knocked at the door of a large spreading house. After words and more words, a small man, squinting and hobbling on bad feet, opened the door and came out. He peered at the Boy as if seeing him from across a great distance.
The leader spoke softly and then the small man walked forward, standing in front of the Boy.
“Hey canna me?” the small man said.
The Boy had no idea what this meant.
“Whas goons runnna you?”
The Boy shook his head to mean he didn’t understand.
“Betcha ken rednecks?”
After the third failure the small man turned back to the Troop Leader and shook his head sadly. The leader laid his hand on the small man’s shoulder and whispered something in his ear. Then he patted the old man and moved off to remount his horse.
They rode farther south and for a moment, the Boy thought they might be going to cross a massive bridge that spanned the entrance to the bay and landed in the ruins of San Francisco.
The Boy felt a surge of excitement.
The troop descended into a little cove that opened up onto the bay. A small city ran alongside the edge of the water and climbed up into the green heights overlooking Sausalito.
The edge of the bay was guarded by rock walls that ran upward over the green hills inland and down to the water’s edge. Soldiers with guns watched from the high walls as the troop came down the road toward the gate and disappeared into a spreading shantytown that threw itself along the mudflats and out into the calm waters of the bay. In the shantytown there were many Chinese mixed with others like himself. Like the outpost at Auburn.
There were buildings where the smells of food came wafting heavily out onto the muddy lanes. They passed stores where he could see objects waiting in the dark beyond the front porch. He smelled fish. He smelled the oil of the rifles. He smelled the same smell of the fields that he’d tasted in the Pee Gee Oh.
Children and women came out and watched as the Boy was escorted through the winding maze of the shantytown that lay at the foot of the gates to the city beneath the green hills and along the edge of the bay. Soon a small crowd followed at a distance.
The troop came to a large gate of polished dark wood set in a smooth white wall. Tall buildings rose up in stone and timber on the other side. But only their tops could be seen.
The leader dismounted and indicated the Boy should wait. Then he disappeared through an opened crack in the gate.
When the leader returned there were many other Chinese soldiers with him now. There was chatter, voices bouncing and bubbling, but over all pervaded a sense of seriousness, even concern.
An older Chinese soldier, steely eyed and with an air of command, his iron-gray hair streaked with black, came forward in highly polished leather boots.
He barked in Chinese at the Boy.
The troop leader interceded.
The older Chinese soldier watched the Boy.
The troop leader, who’d been inspecting the drawing that morning at the village by the water, turned to the Boy and waved his hands at the ground.
He wants me to draw what I drew at the village where they eat stones.
The Boy went to his saddlebag and took out his bag of charcoal.
He took out a long piece and sharpened it with his knife.
He looked at the troop leader, letting the thought, “Where should I draw?” form itself on his face.
For a moment the troop leader, intent and hopeful, didn’t understand.
Then he raised his hand to his head. He looked around.
He led the Boy to the smooth wall that encompassed the gate.
The Boy tried to see the attack.
The old courthouse.
The bodies.
The horror.
He limped forward until he could feel the wall blocking out all the watching pairs of eyes.
He raised the charcoal to the wall and made the first line. A curving arc that represented the dome of the old courthouse from Before.
At once there was a gasp from the crowd.
The older soldier began to speak in definite and harsh tones to the troop leader. But the troop leader gave a quick reply and silence returned.
The Boy looked back at the troop leader.
The Chinese soldier nodded.
The older soldier rolled his eyes toward the sky and then lowered them into a thin slit. Then, he too nodded at the Boy.
The Boy gave them war.
The Boy gave them the rain of arrows.
Fire and smoke.
The staring dead.
The Boy went big.
He showed the ashen-faced warriors, grim and determined as they worked their shining crossbow.
He showed them the Psychos in their mohawks and tattoos, their axes held aloft, reminding him even as he worked of winter trees in morning’s first light.
He showed them MacRaven in armor.
When he stepped back, he heard his foot make a sandy scraping sound as he dragged it across the flagstones of the pavement. It was the only other sound he’d heard besides his charcoal scratch-scratch-scratching against the high wall.
He turned.
He saw horror in their eyes.
They had known those people.
A woman wept. She was Chinese. She was pregnant.
The Boy thought of the Chinese snipers in the courthouse windows.
Soldiers and fathers in the same moment.
The older soldier walked forward.
His hand traced the broken dome.
He turned to the Boy and raised a hand pointing east, pointing over the bay, over the green hills and the river beyond, and the city it had swallowed and the fields and into the foothills and to the place of the drawing.
The Boy nodded.
He had destroyed their world more completely than MacRaven’s shining crossbow ever would.
“Name?”
The voice came from the side of the crowd, from near the open crack in the gate. It gurgled, as
though erupting up through a sea of mud.
The Boy turned.
“Rank?” It was an old Chinese man. Fat. Tall. Bent. His gray hair was slicked back over his large liver-spotted and peeling head. He wore the old Red Chinese army uniform from Before. The Boy had once seen the tattered scraps of such a uniform. Sergeant Presley had shown him one they’d found inside a downed transport, crashed in a field outside Galveston.
You told me it was the uniform of a Chinese general, Sergeant.
For a moment the Boy had almost heard the voice of Sergeant Presley. It reminded him of hearing someone call out for a child at dusk, telling them to come home finally.
The Boy remembered that day. It had been cold. They’d huddled inside the creaking wreckage of the big transport crashed long ago in the plain of waving grass.
You told me, Sergeant, that they were Chinese airborne. You told me they tried to drop them all across North America after we nuked the Middle East. You told me they were all in on it, but they got scattered, shot down. Jumped by our few remaining fighters. Pockets of Chinese airborne everywhere. Even made a good defense in Reno. The map said so.
You told me that, Sergeant, and now I need you to tell me what to do.
“Serial number?” barked the old Chinese general, wearing the same type of uniform Sergeant Presley had shown him on that day they spent hiding in the wreckage.
Another uniform the same as this one.
Another Chinese general.
The Boy croaked, “I don’t . . .” It had been a long time since he’d spoken aloud.
“I speak . . . American,” said the old man, the Chinese general. He rolled forward on a crooked cane.
He probably was once very strong, but now he moved worse than the Boy.
“I am General Song. I defeated the American Army.”
The Boy lowered his eyes to the sandstone pavement.
I am glad . . . and then he was about to think, ‘that you are dead, Sergeant Presley.’
But he stopped.
Behind the Chinese general stood a girl. She was young. His age. Chinese.
She was beautiful.
And . . .
She looked at him.
Without horror.