by Nick Cole
Without fear.
Without pity.
She was beautiful.
38
HE WANTED TO see her again.
He wanted to be left alone by all these Chinese.
He wanted to be left alone so that he might draw her.
He wanted to draw the way she had looked at him.
All about him, the Chinese were in an uproar.
Suddenly there was activity and work. Riders were dispatched to the east. A woman gave Horse an apple. The Chinese general and the girl disappeared behind the massive gate, the old soldier casting his steely gaze back upon the Boy.
She stood before the Boy, even though she was gone now.
She looked at him.
The troop leader led him to a shack by the water of the bay. The troop leader tied Horse to a hitching post nearby and pointed toward the shack.
Stay.
The Boy went inside. It had a table, a chair and a cooking pit. Stairs led to a loft with a pallet and blankets. Out the back door was a small dock and the bay beyond where tiny slender boats bobbed in the windy afternoon.
Toward evening he smelled fire. Then food cooking.
The troop leader returned with a plate of chicken, chilies, and garlic. There was a small wooden basket full of rice.
They both ate at the table.
The sun was setting when the troop leader went out for a moment and returned with a bundle of clothing. He draped the pieces over the chair.
Overalls made of wool.
A rubber trench coat with a high collar.
Rubber boots.
A hooded gas mask.
He took out a slip of paper.
“Please,” he began to read haltingly from the paper, “put . . . these . . . on . . . and . . . come . . . with . . . me.”
The Boy brought Horse inside the shack. The troop leader gave a pained look, then seemed to accept this. He left and returned with hay, setting it down in front of Horse.
The Boy nodded to himself and began to dress in the items.
He had seen them before.
Sergeant Presley had worn similar gear when he’d entered the ruins of Washington, in the District of Columbia.
The clothing made him feel warm, and within moments to the point of suffocation.
When the Boy came to the mask he donned it, unsure if he had done it properly, trying to remember how Sergeant Presley had worn it. The patrol leader went behind the Boy and pulled the straps of the mask tightly, jerking them almost. Then he patted the Boy’s shoulder.
The Boy looked out through the steamy eye holes.
He could hear his own breathing.
He tucked his withered left arm into the pocket of the trench coat and made to take up his tomahawk but the leader shook his head.
The Boy placed the tomahawk on the small wooden table.
Then they left, stepping outside into the twilight of early evening. From behind the soft-lit windows of the shantytown, the Boy could hear, muffled by the hood of the gas mask, the low murmur of voices.
Someone cackled.
There was distant laughter.
Someone played long whining notes on a lone violin, then repeated them.
Dogs barked.
They arrived at the shining wooden gate. Two sentries stood aside as the massive portal swung open.
Beyond the gate they found a long, empty street. Large houses with stone exteriors, polished wood trim, and sloping rooftops lined the street, which looked out onto a park and the open bay beyond. At the end of the street the water of the bay glimmered softly in the night behind a low wall. Torches guttered before each house along the quiet street.
Through the mask the Boy could smell the heavy scent of jasmine. A smell that reminded him of Sergeant Presley and their days passing though the South.
He thought of the map.
It was still in its secret pouch inside the bearskin.
He thought of his tomahawk and said to himself, “Might not get it back,” as though Sergeant Presley were warning him. But still, it was just his own voice.
They stopped at an old building from Before. It rested on the far side of the road, standing on pillars that rose up out of the lapping waves. The Chinese soldiers, and others more finely dressed than the dwellers of the shantytown, were gathered about its steps. A hush fell over the small crowd as the troop leader with the Boy in tow, approached.
Inside, great glass windows opened up onto a view of the wide bay and the shadowy city lying in ruins beyond its waters.
There was the Chinese general.
The Old Soldier.
A group of Chinese, dressed in soft clothing that caught the flickering light of candles, stood at the far end of the room.
They held fans over their mouths.
They watched the Boy with sideways glances, murmuring to one another.
THE GIRL WAS there too.
She watched him from the farthest corner. She watched him from just behind the Chinese general.
The Boy sat on a stool in the center of the room, as he was directed, then the Chinese general came forward, standing halfway between the Boy and the audience.
“I am General Song. Do you remember that we met earlier? Outside the gate.”
The Boy nodded.
The general smiled. Pleased. As if his greatest fear had been that the Boy might have forgotten their earlier meeting.
“Our governing council”—the general stopped and indicated those who stood behind him, pressed against the far wall, fans covering their mouths—“would like to ask you a few more questions, if that is possible.”
“I thought you were their leader,” said the Boy.
The general smiled.
“I am no longer . . . I am now merely a scholar who knows a little more of the past than most because of my military service, and only because I lived through it.”
“I will answer what questions I can,” said the Boy.
“Has our outpost, the one you drew—has it been destroyed?”
The Boy remained silent.
“The place you drew. Did anyone survive?”
The Boy spoke through the mask, his voice muffled. The insides of the mask were slick with sweat and heat. Mist clung to the lenses.
“I didn’t understand you. Could you please say that again? I’ll come closer,” said the Chinese general, and when he did he asked the same question again.
“I don’t know,” replied the Boy. “I doubt that anyone who remained there could have lasted much longer.”
The Chinese general turned back toward the audience at the far end of the room and spoke in their language. The people in the audience murmured among themselves and then someone spoke above the others. The Chinese general turned back to the Boy.
“And how is it that you survived?”
“I escaped.”
And thus a pattern formed. The general spoke in Chinese. The audience murmured. Someone spoke. The general asked a new question.
“Where did you come from?”
“The east.”
“Who are your people?”
“I don’t have any.”
“How far east?”
“A place that was once called Washington Dee Cee.”
“What is there now?”
“A swamp.”
“Who destroyed the outpost, I mean the place that you drew?”
“A man named MacRaven. He has an army of tribes.”
“How big?”
“More than you have in all the soldiers I have seen who carry your rifles.”
“The characters on your rifle indicate it was given to a man who was a known skin trader. What has become of this man and how did you acquire his rifle?”
“He rescued me from lions in the high desert beyond Reno. We fought together on the walls of your outpost. He did not survive and I took his rifle when I escaped.”
“Will this MacRaven the barbarian come here?”
“I don’t know.” Then, “If I were you I would
plan for him to. He seemed that sort of man.”
“How do we know you are not part of this MacRaven’s barbarian army and that you yourself didn’t kill the owner of the rifle and come here as a spy or a saboteur?”
“I know ‘spy.’ I am not that. The other word I do not understand.”
“A destroyer. A terrorist.”
“I am not a terrorist.”
“And how do we know you are telling the truth?”
The Boy stopped for a moment. He was hot. Sweat was dripping down the inside of his mask. He moved to take off the mask and the Chinese general lunged forward with sudden vigor and command.
“Do not take that off! It is forbidden here for you to remove your mask.”
The Boy could feel his audience pressing themselves farther away from him, toward the back of the room.
The Boy lowered his hands from the mask.
The general walked closer. “I am sorry,” he said softly, his eyes speaking an unspoken message of friendliness. “They do not understand.”
“And why,” began the general again, “should we trust your account?”
The Boy stared for a long moment at the crowd surrounding him. When his eyes rested on the girl he forgot everything he’d intended to say.
He forgot . . .
. . . everything.
When he was reminded of the question by a gurgling cough from the Chinese general, he spoke.
“I don’t know why you would trust me.”
The audience murmured at the translation.
A discussion started.
“May I ask a question?” said the Boy.
Silence.
The general walked back toward the Boy.
“Ask.”
“What has become of I Corps?”
The general did not translate.
His face fell.
His mouth opened.
His shoulders slumped.
He seemed suddenly older.
The general shook his head to himself as if finishing an argument he’d started long ago and lost many times since. Then he looked at the Boy.
“They are no more.” And, “I know that for certain.”
There was no pride in his voice. No triumph. No satisfaction.
But there was guilt.
There was shame.
“When I was young I thought it would be different,” said the Chinese general very plainly. “I thought only of victory.”
The general sighed heavily.
“I know differently now.” He looked at the Boy, maybe beyond the Boy. “I am responsible.”
“You were there?” asked the Boy. “At the end of I Corps?”
The general whispered, “Yes.”
“If the man who brought me here,” the Boy indicated the troop leader, “would return to my things and bring me the bearskin I wear . . . I have something for you.”
Orders were given and the discussion among the Chinese renewed. All the while, the general watched the Boy and waited for the return of the requested bearskin.
I have given away all my intel, Sergeant. I know that is not what you taught me to do. But what good is it to anyone, now that all of you are dead?
There was no reply.
The bearskin arrived and the Boy laid it out and retrieved the map from inside the hidden pouch.
Sergeant, I’m doing this so that maybe they’ll trust me. I’m doing this so they’ll be ready for MacRaven when he comes. I remember what we both saw outside Oklahoma City.
The Boy stood.
He raised his right arm and saluted the Chinese general.
He held out the map.
Tell them who I was, Boy.
Tell them I made it all the way, never quit.
Tell them there’s nothing left.
“There’s nothing left,” said the Boy.
39
THE NIGHT AIR felt cool and dried the sweat on the Boy’s face as he was led back from the meeting beyond the gate. The wind had picked up from off the bay. It would be a long, cold night. The shantytown was quiet and only a single candle burned in the odd window they passed along its lanes.
In the shack it was warm from the heat given off by the brazier, its glow a dull orange. Inside, Horse raised a sleepy eye then returned to his rest and dreams. The troop leader left and came back with more hay. He said something in Chinese, a farewell perhaps, then closed the door to the shack behind him as he left.
The Boy took off the sweaty gear they had given him and went out the back door.
He walked to the end of the narrow two-plank dock and lowered himself into the freezing dark water of the bay.
It was cold.
Maybe the coldest water he’d ever felt.
He thought of the girl as he floated in the darkness.
Back inside the shack he put his clothes on and, as though he had known all along what he would do next, he took up the carved piece of charcoal once more.
He made a line. The outline of her hair. Long and straight. A curve over the top of her head.
Then another line for her delicate chin.
And a line falling away from the chin for her neck.
They’ll see this.
He put the charcoal back in its pouch and sat by the glowing coals of the brazier, watching the simple lines he had drawn.
The lines were enough to remember her by.
IN THE MORNING it was the troop leader who appeared once more. They both took Horse out into the mist and walked him along the bay’s edge, following a winding muddy street. Fishing boats lay motionless in the calm waters of the fog-shrouded bay.
They crossed into a ruined section of the shantytown.
Ruins from Before.
Buildings with chunks of concrete and whole sections missing. Buildings where the plaster facade had fallen away long ago. Buildings from which metal girders twisted wickedly upward. Buildings that had fallen into little more than piles from which rusty strands of rebar sprung like wild hair.
A work crew hovered over the ruins of a building, testing it with their crowbars and the occasional shovel. Other men moved piles of rubble in wheelbarrows.
They are removing the town that was here Before, Sergeant.
They came to a building. It was in better shape than most.
Inside they found the Chinese general.
He hobbled forward, his big frame leaning heavily on a bent cane.
“I have studied the map you gave me.” After a pause the general continued breathily, “Can you tell me about all those places? What is there now? That’s what we wish to know. Our outpost was our farthest settlement. We cannot go south due to the nature of contamination in that area, so it seems we must know what lies to the east. If we could go over the map together, you might tell me a little bit about each place. If that would be acceptable to you?”
The Boy thought of the girl.
He thought of leaving this place.
He had left every place he had ever been.
He wondered if he might see her here.
If he left he would never see her again.
“Yes.”
“Good,” said the general and led him to a large desk. The map lay spread out across its expanse. The floor that surrounded the desk was a sea upon which books rose like sudden and angry waves. Leaning against the walls were all manner of things. Tools, ancient rifles from Before, many things the Boy had no name for.
“So we know you came through Reno. What were your experiences there?”
The Boy thought for a moment. How did one describe the fear of an unknown mad animal lying in wait in the dark? How did one describe that laughing terror and the single leering face seen as a shadow through dirty glass for even just the part of a moment?
“Reno is like a hole where an animal lives.” He thought of the bear cave. “Where something that isn’t human makes its home now.”
The general laid his finger on the map over Reno.
“Colonel Juk was their commander. I have alwa
ys wondered, over the years, what became of his unit and the men we sent there. Their last report told of being dug in and facing American armor coming out of the desert to the southeast.”
The Boy watched the map and all the places Sergeant Presley had been.
“How is it like a wild animal in a cave?” asked the general.
The Boy thought for a moment. He approached a wall and moved aside a heavy machine gun, dusty and untouched. He cleared a space along the wall.
He took out his charcoal.
He began to draw.
He drew the blind window-eyes of a corpse that was once a city. In his mind the angles were somehow distorted and maniacal. The buildings took on a surreal aspect, as if sanity hadn’t been a requirement for their architect. As if the years since, and the madmen within, had somehow turned the buildings “wrong.” He drew the bridge they’d passed under. The Boy, Horse, and Escondido. It was an open mouth, full of smashed teeth. He drew a high window, a long window twisting to the side, almost bending away from the perspective of the viewer. A window among a hundred other lunatic windows in shadow. In it the Boy placed the shadow of a man seen for just a moment. With a few quick lines he began the face, the jaw, the hair, and before he could add more to those few scribbled, hesitant, unfinished lines, the lunatic seemed complete.
When the Boy turned back, the general, watching him, nodded.
The old soldier turned to the map, his finger still resting above the word “Reno.”
“I understand.”
After a moment of looking again at the map, the Chinese general cleared his throat.
“Tell me about Salt Lake City.”
And then . . .
She entered, carrying a tray of teacups and a pot.
40
AT THE END of the week General Song sat in his patched leather chair from Before. Shoulders slumped. Eyes wide. Staring.
On the walls that surrounded him were many charcoal markings formed into drawings.
At Des Moines, two figures, a small boy, eyes wide with terror, and a black man, his face an angry curse—heavy oversized packs on each of their backs—ran across a field of sickly grass. Above them, crows—all the crows in the world—swarmed, diving and attacking them. In the foreground, a crow swooped away from the boy and the man. The crow’s eyes were two black oblongs of animal indifference. The wings seemed to rise in triumph. Its beak was open as if the cawww! that must come from it was a mighty roar. All the birds were rendered with such malevolence.