by Nick Cole
44
“HOLD ON TIGHT.” Then, “Tighter!” screams the Boy.
Horse was sliding downslope through the scree that abutted the shattered remains of the road leading to the bridge. The Boy held on for dear life as Jin clung to him.
The guards at the bridge raised their weapons to port arms, as if this act, as it had so many times before, would bend the offenders to their will.
You said, Sergeant, Surprise the enemy and the battle might just be half won, Boy!
Horse checks a fall and the Boy yanks him on to the road and straight toward the bridge.
The riders who had followed their trail, at the top of the hill above the bridge now, began to fire down upon them. Their shots were wild and the sentries at the bridge began to scatter, fearing they were being shot at by invaders. A wild shot hit the chest of one of the Chinese bridge guards with a loud thump, knocking him to the pavement.
Horse crashed past two guards and raced onto the bridge, straining hard for the distant far end.
Great iron cables ran skyward toward the suspension pylons, but other numerous cables that once were connected to the roadway had fallen onto the bridge or lay draped in great coils spilling over the edge. It even seemed to the Boy that the bridge hung lower on one side. A few ancient trucks, decrepit with crusted rust, littered the bridge at odd angles.
“Stay to the right . . . it’s the safest side!” screamed Jin above the bullets, above the clop-cloppity-clop-clop of Horse’s sprint along the old roadway of the bridge.
The gusty wind dragged at the Boy’s long hair as he looked behind them to see riders and horses tumbling down the steep slope leading to the bridge.
I have a lead and a little time. That is good. But I’m riding into the unknown, and that is bad.
For a moment he felt the familiar fear that had chased him all his days. But the embrace of Jin, her thin arms about his chest, reminded him of wearing the bearskin in the dead of a winter storm.
At the end of this bridge, somewhere, there must be a cave like the bear cave for us.
Halfway across the bridge, the Boy could see the concrete piles of once-San Francisco. Huge jutting slabs of gray concrete rose up into small mountains, stacked at different protruding angles. Only a few emaciated buildings remained upright.
The destruction is almost complete here, thought the Boy, and in the moment he had this thought, his eyes, searching the rubble, watch as it began to slide in rising chalky yellow sheets of dust.
He blinked twice, assuming his eyes must be watering in the wind of the hard chase.
But now the road underneath them was shifting to the left, twisting, almost.
Cables above were waving back and forth. High and ahead, one ripped loose from the roadway and swung wildly across the bridge, sweeping a rusting wreck off the side and into the ocean below.
In San Francisco everything was shaking. Dust was rising everywhere. One of the tall buildings collapsed into itself and was replaced by plumes of thick brown dust billowing up into the bright noon sky.
Cables sang sickly in a high-pitched whine. The Boy could hear explosions as rusty metal bolts, gigantic, tore themselves away from their foundations on the bridge.
The shaking increased and the Boy drove Horse hard for the far side of the crossing.
It was only when they passed down the off-ramp and onto the other side of the bay, clearing the last of the sagging, shearing, crying, bending cables that the Boy breathes. He wheeled Horse about to check their pursuers and could see nothing of them.
The shaking had stopped and the air was filled with the sounds of birds calling and dogs barking.
The animal noise rose.
“Earthquake,” whispered Jin, shaking. “A big . . . one.”
The Boy turned Horse back to the once city.
A moment later rending metal, groaning in chorus, shears through the quiet.
When they turn back, Jin, Horse, and the Boy watch the Golden Gate Bridge twist and then crash into the ocean.
LATER, THEY RODE along the only avenue clear enough to pass through the city. It was a wide thoroughfare running along the waterfront. Every building was a pile of gray concrete and dusty redbrick. Pipes and rebar jutted from the wreckage like nerve endings caught forever in the act of sensory stimulus. What had not disintegrated into gigantic piles of rubble lay either heaped atop another building or forever fallen off at some odd angle.
“At least they cannot follow us now that the bridge is down,” said the Boy.
“But they will,” replied Jin.
They came upon the remains of a military defense. Artillery pieces lay scattered about, their long barrels blooming like sunflowers.
“Why will they follow?” asked the Boy.
“Because . . . they must.” Replied Jin.
The Boy chose a narrow avenue through the rubble that led into the heart of the once-city.
They climbed up where buildings had spilled themselves into one another and crossed streets littered with explosive sprays of redbrick thrown outward.
“They cannot let me go,” said Jin. “Because they are afraid of mixing with . . . the . . .”
“The barbarians.”
“Yes. The barbarians.”
Shortly they entered an open space. Gothic cathedral arches rose out of the debris, as did splintered beams of wood in front of what was once a small park.
They watch and listen within the silence of the place as Horse turns to the wild grass that survives in the park.
They drank water from their skins to wash away the floating dust.
“It is dangerous to be here. The rubble could shift at any time,” he said.
“Very. The old city . . . is a very dangerous place. We . . . will not want to be here for . . . long.”
“What lies to the south?”
“I have only heard . . . there are ruined cities in the south. But many have burnt down or are little more than . . . ruins. There is a fishing village along the Pacific Ocean beyond a city that faced south into the sea and burnt down long ago. I . . . have been there once, when I was a girl.”
“And beyond that?”
“The war . . . before the battles here . . . the big war was fought there. Many ‘nukes’ and . . . chemicals. The land is said to be poisoned and filled with monsters.”
“Oh.”
He brought her toward him and they kissed in the quiet and shattered remains of the square.
“Are you happy?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Even if we must go past the monsters?”
She kissed him again.
“Yes.”
THE REST OF the day was long and hot. At times they had to walk Horse up long hills of dangerous rubble, picking their way through the broken rock and twisting rusted metal.
In the late afternoon the wind picked up and they could hear the sound of bones dully knocking against each other in a haphazard fashion.
“No one else lives here?” asked the Boy.
“There are dogs and ghosts. The dogs . . . are very wild.”
Dusk was falling to gloom as they rode slowly down the long highway leading away from the city. In the darkness ahead the Boy saw a building standing off by itself. It was only two stories high. It was long and squat.
M-O-T-E . . . he spells.
Probably “motel.”
He left Jin atop Horse in the parking lot as he checked the ruined place. All the doors had long since been torn off. He found the evidence of campfires in the bathtubs of most of the rooms.
Someone had stayed here for a time, but not for long. Now they were gone.
They take a room downstairs. The bed was little more than exposed coils and springs. He pushed it against the wall and tried to clear the floor of debris as best he could. There was a large hole in the wall leading to the next room. He led Horse through the doorway of that room and settled him for the night.
“I’ll be back,” he told Jin.
He was
gone for some time, and when he returned he brought wood and placed it in the bathtub for a fire.
Once the fire was going he gave her the last of Horse’s corn and they chewed it and drank cold water.
He watched her dark eyes staring into the fire.
“Are you happy still?”
She turned to him and smiled.
“So happy. So . . . free.”
Other women are not like you, he thought as he watched her . Most—all the ones I have ever met in all the villages, and places like the Cotter family’s old dark house—are merely possessions to be had by whoever is strong enough to take and keep them. But you want to find out who you are and you will let no one own you. And I do not think anyone could keep you if you did not want to stay.
“It will not be easy. But in time we will find a place and make it our own,” he said.
“We will,” she agreed softly.
He pushed the frame of the bed against the doorway of the room and draped a blanket across it. The Boy hoped this would help hold the heat of the fire in the room. About the hole in the wall between rooms he can do nothing. Their breath was now forming tiny puffs of moisture in the cold night air.
When he turned back from securing the doorway, he found Jin at the end of the room near the door to the bathroom, close to the fire.
She had wrapped only herself in the bearskin.
She beckoned him within.
45
THEY RODE SOUTH the next day, stopping early to make camp in an abandoned place that would hold for the night. There was fire. There was water. The Boy hunted during the day, using the rifle to take small game.
The night that followed was long and cold, and their embraces became deeper and more meaningful in the passing quiet.
Lying awake, she on his chest in deep sleep, the Boy thought.
He thought of all that he had to do and places they might go and be safe.
He thought of life, and though there was a new problem he could think of in each day ahead, he was glad.
To have these problems was to have her.
My life has never been this good.
And . . .
I never want it to be another way.
He slept and did not dream.
IN THE MORNING they crossed a small mountain ridge and saw the ocean stretching away to the south and west. The Boy saw the overgrown ruins of a thin spreading town that must have once climbed up to the ridge.
But it had been consumed and little remained other than concrete pads and crumbling, blackened walls that poked through the coastal vegetation.
“The village is farther along the coast. I . . . doubt they will be looking for us there yet. We can purchase . . . food and other things. Where will we go after?”
He looked toward the south.
How far away is the city of Los Angeles? On the map it seems a long way off. If those who she says must follow us are afraid of the damage caused by radiation then maybe they will turn back if we head into the worst of it. Or at least make them think that we intend to.
“Into the poisoned lands,” he said.
She was silent.
“Do not worry. I have faced monsters. Our bearskin was once one.”
“But . . . why must we go there?” she said softly.
“You said that they must follow us?”
“Yes.”
“Then we will go where they will not follow us.”
46
SHAO FAN WALKED the road at night.
It will be a good spring after such a hard winter, he thought.
His hunters were spread out behind him, his trackers far ahead, looking for any sign of the fugitives.
We will not find them tonight.
It has been a long day. And yet you must be out and away from your home for another night.
Yes.
This day, for Shao Fan, had started just before dawn, out on Point Reyes, above the lighthouse. His trackers had been watching the lighthouse keeper and his family.
When the man left at dawn, they’d followed him along the coast and up to a little bay. Savages had been allowed to dwell there and sell the fish they took from those waters where the old Chinese aircraft carrier had been grounded in the shallows and surf.
They watched the lighthouse keeper. He entered an old building, perhaps once a seaside resort. Smoke came through the roof and Shao Fan and the hunters could smell bacon cooking.
Later, when the man came out, holding his tea, the little half-caste children racing out behind him onto the dewy grass in the golden light of midmorning, Shao Fan knew that the rumors about the lighthouse keeper were true.
The air had seemed thick with salt.
The children were tainted, so you know . . . you had to . . . do what must be in done in such cases, thought Shao Fan.
Did I?
Now, on the night road far to the south of Point Reyes, on the other side of the bay, searching for the barbarian and the general’s granddaughter, drawing his long, thick coat down across his lean frame, Shao Fan did not answer his own question.
That morning, when Shao Fan, followed by his crew, came out of the scrubby coastal pine, crossing the field onto the beach, the man, the lighthouse keeper, did not move. His handleless cup is held too high. As if, in that moment before one drinks his tea, he has decided that this day should be the measure by which all days are judged.
As if one could make such a request.
And then when the lighthouse keeper saw Shao Fan and his men, he knew the error of such thinking on the subject of days and their measure.
Today of all days, the Lighthouse Keeper must have thought, was the end of the measuring stick.
They’d drowned the children.
It was the law.
The birth defects that always come with the American barbarians, the survivors of our nuclear weapons, must not be allowed to continue. In time, they, their ways, their defects will disappear, and the world will be a better place.
Or so says the council.
The concubine was dispatched, swiftly, even as the lighthouse keeper’s cry for mercy was drowned out by the thundering surf in the misty morning air.
There was no protocol for her demise. Only that it must be.
And then the march with the lighthouse keeper to the crossroads.
That also was the law.
And for that there was a protocol.
The salty cold of morning and crashing waves had faded in the hot steaming fields inland. Everything was golden.
It would be a good spring and a hot summer.
They’d hung the lighthouse keeper at the crossroads.
A warning.
Do not mix with the barbarians.
Shao Fan recalled the words he always thought of whenever the sentence was carried out.
Be careful who you fall in love with.
Shao Fan always remembered those words when the transgressor was pulled aloft by the rope and horse.
Be careful who you fall in love with.
And that was how the day had begun for Shao Fan and his hunters.
And the day ended and night fell as Shao Fan sought another who had broken the law.
The general’s granddaughter.
He had crossed to the southern end of the bay by swift sail. His men, without their horses, walked the fields near the old highway leading inland. They waited in the sudden night breezes that swept the southern bay for the scent of campfires. But there were no camps to be found and no trails to be followed on this windy night.
They have gone south across the mountains and into the ruins of Santa Cruz, thought Shao Fan. We will not find them tonight.
They will try for the village at Moss Landing.
He called for a halt and the men turned to their packs seeking food and hot tea.
We’ll halt for an hour and march hard for Moss Landing through the night.
47
THE VILLAGE LAY on the far side of a muddy estuary. They passed long-gone field
s that had lingered through a hard winter. A cemetery of wrecked boats wallowed near the entrance to the estuary.
They crossed a small road leading to a wide bridge.
The village was little more than a line of warehouses from Before, arranged along a narrow road running the length of the islet. An ancient and rusting large commercial fishing boat, now rigged with a mast and furled sail, had come into port to unload the night’s catch. Villagers flocked to its side as the fish were unloaded in great netted bundles.
“Where do we go?” asked the Boy. He was leading Horse while Jin rode.
“Take us to that long hall there. We should be able to . . . purchase there. Remember . . . say nothing. Otherwise they will think you are more than just . . . my servant.”
The Boy led them onto the street and they pass down its length until they reach the parking lot of an old warehouse. Fish were being trundled within by handcart.
The Boy helped Jin down from Horse. She adjusted her robe, insuring the bag of silver coins was tucked within her sleeve.
Then they wandered the stalls.
There was little they needed to purchase beyond a large, wide wok made by a local blacksmith. At another stall she purchased oil and spices. Later they find a few more blankets of good quality and some rice. Finally they decide upon two large bags to carry their purchases.
The sun was high overhead when they exited the warehouse. They smelled frying oil and saw the villagers gathered around a large fire where a bubbling cauldron seethed and hissed. Strips of fish were being fried and quickly eaten.
A villager, jolly and smiling, waved them over.
The villagers talked with Jin in animated Chinese. The Boy held Horse and shortly Jin returned with a woven grass plate of fried fish and a small shell full of dark sauce.
The jolly villager smiled at them as they stood in the warm sunshine eating the fish, dipping it in the pungent, salty sauce.
“I do not . . . think . . . they care . . .”
“Care for what?”
“Care that we . . . we are together.”
“We could stay and join their village?”
“No . . . that will never be possible. In time the leaders will send someone to look for me . . . they will find us here. And then it does not matter what the villagers care for. Still . . . all the same it is nice that they do not care. Maybe one day things will change.”