The Shadow of Armageddon

by LeMay, Jim

  He looked alternately at Mitch and Matt with pleading eyes. “I’d be real valuable to take along. I know the way. And I can keep up. I can walk real fast.”

  “Y’d have a hard time keepin’ up with Matt’s long shanks,” said Mitch. He looked at Matt. “But there’s somethin’ t’ be said for him knowin’ the way.”

  Matt considered it. “I’m not sure what Maude would say.”

  “They’s only one way t’ find out, ain’t they?”

  Matt shrugged. “I’ll walk John home after the confab.”

  There was little more to the confab. They rehashed the plan that they’d decided on before. After Matt found the town John described by the river, he’d look for a secure place to store the truck. Then, while most of the men transported the truck to the site, Stony and Doc would build rafts to transport the truck down to Kane’s Cove. The trip gave cause for worry. They would be exposed to view while transporting the truck across country and especially down the river.

  * * * *

  Maude turned out to be remarkably agreeable in allowing John to accompany Matt. John spent the night before they left with the men in the basement, the first night he had done so. Matt and John awoke early and left town before the first glow brightened the eastern sky.

  Matt carried his bedroll, scratch bag, and water bottle. He wore his machete and pistol at his sides and carried the 30.06 that had belonged to Mitch, for which he had traded the Kreutzer. It made a lot more sense for Mitch to have the impact rifle since he was most adept with firearms; Matt was certainly not. He had fashioned a scratch bag for John from a rectangle of carpeting and a leather strap. John had brought a blanket of his own for a bedroll.

  John led them west and around the curve into the trees where Chadwick’s men had disappeared two weeks before. The highway had deteriorated but would serve Stony’s “trucks” well enough. The early morning was quiet. The night birds had settled down, and the daytime birds were just stirring. At the edge of the trees the road sloped upward toward a cut through a ridge. A gravel road intersected the highway at the top of the ridge and ran south, winding back and forth along the ridge. “There’s a shorter way,” said John, “but the carts won’t work there.” Matt and Mitch had both emphasized the importance of finding a passage that accommodated the carts.

  Neither spoke much at first. John was still sleepy – he yawned a lot and stumbled once in awhile – but he made a point of keeping up with Matt. Mitch had lectured him sternly about not slowing Matt down. “If you can’t keep up, I’ll see that Matt sends you back.” When John was out of earshot, Matt had chided Mitch about hassling the kid. He said, “If John can lead me to the river, it’ll be faster for me to take him along instead of floundering around through the woods by myself.” Mitch glowered at him for a minute. “If Boss Johnson had coddled us, would we be as likely t’ be alive now?” Matt shrugged. Maybe or maybe not, but he saw Mitch’s point.

  As the morning brightened so did John. He pointed out landmarks remembered from previous trips to the river and called out the names of trees and other plants and birds they saw and heard. He became downright loquacious. Matt found communication with him less difficult than he had imagined it would with a twelve-year-old boy, especially since John did most of the talking.

  During the morning Matt learned the homespun wisdom of this boy raised in a primitive setting. John told him where to find walnuts, hickory nuts, pecans, blackberries, raspberries, gooseberries, asparagus, and several varieties of mushrooms and greens in season. He had also received a more formal, and pretty comprehensive, education from Maude and his mother that included reading, arithmetic, history, principles of general science, and geography.

  He said he liked to read, apart from school books. Matt asked what books he had read and was surprised at the extensive list John gave: Kidnapped, The Jungle Books, The Hobbit, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, a couple of Tom Swift books, A Princess of Mars and other ERB books, and a number of others from the twenty-first century. He said that he had read others when he was little but was too old for them now.

  Matt asked where he got so many bound paper books, especially schoolbooks. The electronic books that had largely become the norm in the schoolroom were unavailable now of course. Maude and his mom had found books in various houses after the Last Days, he said, and Maude had some of her own. But mainly they had gotten them from something called the com-something before it went bad and they couldn’t use it anymore.

  Of course. They would have printed electronically stored books from the local school’s computers or their personal commcomps before the power went out.

  The fact that commcomp was an unfamiliar term to John made Matt realize that, except for hearsay, the world of the boy’s parents was totally alien to him. He wouldn’t know anything at all about computers, audio or video machines, automobiles, airplanes, space flight. He would never have flipped a switch for instantaneous light, turned a faucet on for running water, or turned pond scum into a porterhouse steak in two minutes in a compwave oven. He would never watch endless, mindless garbage on television. But then he’d never hear Ludwig Van’s Pastoral Symphony or Wolfgang Amadeus’ Eine Kleine Nachtmusik either.

  All in all, the kid’s better off than us though, he thought, we who had it all and lost it. We’re condemned to remember the world as it was and the people we lost and to never regain it or them. He’s free of all that baggage. He’ll never have it to lose. We’re living under a shadow that he’ll never even know exists. He’s starting from scratch.

  Well, not quite from scratch, he realized. History showed that when a culture died some aspects of it, its better parts along with the bad, survived to form a solid foundation for the one that followed. The first culture that learned to domesticate and ride the horse was long lost to the dimness of prehistory, but the cultures that followed continued to ride horses. The same was true of the moldboard plow, probably one of mankind’s most valuable and revolutionary inventions. Languages continued into new cultures, usually in different forms. Elements of governmental and military institutions, engineering and architectural standards, literature and music carried on into the future, usually the better elements but not always. Whatever society replaced the preceding one would carry vestiges of the past with it, just as John carried with him the education he had received from Maude and his mother.

  Matt began to entertain himself as he often did on the road, by thinking up trivia to illustrate his current line of thought. Latin was an example of a language that had survived in several mutated forms: as modern-day Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, French, Sardinian and Rumanian, and probably others he had forgotten. (Oh yeah, there was Romansh.) It also influenced other languages, notably English. An example of a military practice that had continued for a long time was that of officers reviewing the troops. Wasn’t it Alexander the Great who started that practice, some twenty-four hundred years ago? The military reminded him of the ancestor of the very boots he was wearing, the Roman caligae. The modern footwear of first Europe and now the world had descended from those heavy sandals that had carried the conquering legions over most of the known world.

  Matt suddenly realized that they were no longer walking. The road had left the ridge to cross the flat fertile bottomland that indicated they were approaching the Missouri River. It was covered in long grasses, pale yellow now in the drought of late summer, that were being overrun by brush and saplings. Over the years the saplings would grow into mature trees that would overshadow and kill off the grasses and much of the underbrush. The resulting timberland would resemble that of pre-Columbian America. The road, more overgrown here than on the ridge, was closer to extinction.

  Nature had patiently abided man’s civilization for centuries. Now she was taking back her own.

  John was scanning back and forth intently across this grassland. He turned to look up at Matt as he took off his makeshift carpet scratch bag and bedroll and said, “Would you mind if I stopped here for a minute, Matt? Y
ou can go on. Just follow the road. I’ll catch up real fast. I promise.” Matt restrained a smile at the look on John’s face. He wasn’t about to risk slowing Matt down.

  “Don’t worry,” said Matt, “It’s time for a break anyhow.” He watched as John extracted a slingshot out of his bag, not the kind of slingshot you’d expect a kid to wield but a heavy duty one made from a thick branch and a broad elastic band that looked almost too powerful for John to stretch. He also pulled out a cloth bag, from which he took a small smooth cobble. He stood up, positioned the stone in the sling’s pocket, and stuffed the bag into a pocket. Then he grinned briefly at Matt and waded into the tall grasses.

  Matt sat on the shoulder of the road and watched John move skillfully through the grass, barely making a ripple, holding the slingshot high. He soon passed behind a thicket and was lost to sight for awhile. John’s quest soon became apparent. The meadow swarmed with rabbits. The grass served them as manna from a coney heaven, as it would until the maturing forest shaded it into extinction. He was sure that hawks and owls viewed it similarly as a paradise because of the presence of the rabbits. As did young boys with monster slingshots.

  He sat there for some time, occasionally seeing signs of John, sometimes moving silently through grass or thickets, sometimes standing motionless. The midmorning sun arrived, drawing sweat out of all the accustomed places. He wished John had chosen a place to stop near a tree.

  Some time after Matt realized that John had been out of sight for some time, he heard a crash through some brush to his right. He looked up to see John striding through the brush with a triumphant grin, holding two very dead rabbits up by their hind legs. “Lunch?” he called to Matt.

  Matt grinned back. “Absolutely.”

  John plopped down beside him, hot, flushed, obviously exhausted. “Go on ahead, Matt,” he said. “I’ll catch up.”

  “No, we need to dress those rabbits. I’ll do it while you watch, but let’s get under those trees up ahead. Don’t know about you, but I’ve had about enough of this sun.”

  Matt stifled another smile at the look of abject gratitude on John’s face for the chance to rest.

  * * * *

  The heat increased as the sun rose and the cloud of dust stirred up by their feet followed them down the road. Except for the occasional meadowlark’s trill or the distant chitter of squirrels, they were surrounded by intense quiet.

  The silence came to oppress Matt as it so often did when he traveled, especially when he went alone without the rest of the gang. He had never gotten used to there being no signs or sounds of people. The overgrown fields should have had orderly rows of crops or carpets of grain or hay; there should have been livestock in the fields, and the buildings of that burnt-out overgrown farm they just passed should have been standing with a neatly trimmed lawn around the house.

  They reached the town at midday, with the river beyond it. Though Matt had often seen the river, its powerful serenity impressed him as though this were his first time. But seeing it and the ruins of the town on its bank only depressed him further. The river was mighty and beautiful. But there should’ve been people around. There should have been barges on the river. And little boys like John fishing from its banks. And cars driving down this dusty road. And below in the town, the sounds of traffic and crowds jostling on the streets and children playing. He looked up to the sky. What he wouldn’t give to see one goddamn contrail! They hadn’t seen a sign of human life, not a soul, on the way here. Matt watched for that carefully, as always. He would have avoided them in any case, but he sure as hell would have welcomed evidence of them.

  He turned abruptly to John and demanded, “Does anybody live in this godforsaken town?”

  John started, and Matt regretted his brusqueness immediately. They hadn’t spoken for some time. John couldn’t have known what was going through his mind. Matt tried to temper his abruptness with a milder tone. He said, “I only meant that if someone is here we should let them know we’re friendly right away.”

  “Oh, yeah,” said John, relieved that he hadn’t done anything wrong. “No, nobody lives here now. There used to be people. There was a kid named Tony who had a dog. A little older than me. They all went down the river. They heard there was a lot of people in St. Louis and thought things would be better there.”

  A lot of St. Louis was under water and the rest inhabited by people who roamed the ruins in a near-savage state. Maybe the refugees had settled nearby, though. There were several settlements in the area, including Nellie’s Fair, though it certainly didn’t welcome refugees from a place like this.

  “Didn’t your people think about going with them?” Matt asked.

  “Scott wanted to, but Maude and some of the others said they were too old to make the trip. Mom wouldn’t go and leave them alone, said someone had to stay with them. And Scott wouldn’t go without Mom. So we all stayed.”

  If Scott and John’s mother had taken John away with the people of this river town, all three may have still been alive and together in a larger, more secure community, and the oldsters would be no worse off than they were now. Whether Scott and John’s mother were living somewhere else or dead, as they were now, was all the same to them.

  But of course there actually was someone left to care for the old folks: John. Matt knew enough about John to know that, in spite of his youth, the boy could already take care of himself and would be able to care for the others when they weren’t able to get around themselves. He was proficient in hunting and fishing and gardening, knew how to find food in the wild and had undoubtedly learned all the domestic skills he needed from Maude and the others.

  What a lonely, depressing future for the kid though. Clarence, the youngest of the oldsters, would probably be the last one John had to nurse through his last years. Matt shuddered inside to think of John stranded alone with that irascible lout. To John’s immense surprise, after having snapped at him so recently, Matt put his arm over the boy’s shoulder.

  Scott must have been John’s mother’s boyfriend. John’s father had probably succumbed to Chou’s during the Last Days or to one of the maladies that followed: starvation, disease, murder, or God knew what else.

  You had to hand it to whatever mad Fates ran things. They had a creative, if sadistic, sense of humor.

  John started a fire and cooked the rabbits while Matt explored the town. It was remarkably intact but had been thoroughly scrounged. After lunch, John accompanied Matt in his exploration. They found a metal pole barn that had been used as some kind of warehouse that would more than hold all their truck. It was located some distance from the river so nobody would be likely to see any activity around it from there. They found some lumber and other building materials from which to make rafts, and even a couple of rowboats. They took it all to the barn for safekeeping.

  By the time they finished, it was mid-afternoon, too late to return before dark even though John assured Matt the way back was quite a bit shorter because they didn’t have to follow the road. John seemed happy to stay. He searched through his scratch bag until he found enough fishing tackle for two fishermen. He grinned at Matt. “I always take it along. Just in case.” They caught several big channel catfish, almost more than they could eat for their supper. After eating, they talked while watching the reflection of the sun’s slow stately brilliant descent into the river, surrounded by the crickets’ and frogs’ evening cacophonous symphony. They talked of things of boyish interest for some time until John asked to hear of Matt’s travels and adventures. Evening cool replaced the heat of day. They stayed up talking for a long time.

  In the morning they got up early and started back to Newcastle. Both had thoroughly enjoyed their outing.

  * * * *

  Matt and John reached town in late morning. After Matt saw John home, he went to the basement, found it deserted, dropped his gear off, and went looking for the others. He found Stony and Doc in the draw smoking venison, some rabbits, and a couple of quails. While Matt and John were aw
ay, they told him, Mitch had assigned them to concentrate on hunting and gathering food for their trip to Kane’s Cove. They had killed a deer the previous afternoon. The cool evening allowed them to let it hang overnight to age a little. Stony planned to cook the hindquarters and invite the townspeople for a meal that evening, much like the one they’d had when they killed the pig.

  They told him where he could find Lou and Mitch gathering truck so he joined them. The two took a break while Matt described his and John’s journey, the town by the river, and the pole barn that they could use for storage. Matt said it took John and him at least five hours to get to the river town by way of the gravel road so they should count on seven to haul the carts. One trip would take two days, one to load the carts and get them down there and one to unload them and bring them back.

  “So when do we leave?” asked Matt.

  “Day after t’morra,” said Mitch. “That’ll be September First. The harvest markets’ll be startin’ purty soon.”

  “That’s about right,” said Matt. “You said we’d stay two weeks and that’s probably about up.”

  “It was up yesterday,” said Mitch. “It’ll take us four, five days t’ haul the truck down there. I’m not gonna be much help; my leg’s still botherin’ me some.”

  “We figured Mitch and Doc and Stony would stay down there,” said Lou, “to build the rafts, while the rest of us cart the truck down. That leaves six of us to take turns on the four carts. We can carry some truck on our backs too.”

  “How far do y’ figger Newcastle is from Billy’s?” asked Mitch.

  “It was kind of hard to tell where we were,” said Matt, “but surely not more than a couple of days.”

  “At least we got plenty of food,” said Lou. “We even gave some of the game to Maude and her folks, and they gave us some produce from their garden. We didn’t have time to cure the deer hide so we let them have it too and told them how to make buckskin from it. They might as well have it to replace some of those rags they wear.”