by Nick Cole
Chapter 5
She and her sisters came out that night, south out of the desert wastes ranging up toward the road. Winter was coming on fast, and they needed to make their kills soon and return south to their home near the big canyon. They had hunted the area lean of mule deer and for the last week had been reduced to eating jackrabbits. Far too little and lean for a pride of lions.
Did she think about what the world had become? Did she wonder how she had come to be hunting the lonely country of northern Nevada? Did she know anything of casinos and entertainments and that her ancestors had once roamed, groomed and well fed, behind glass enclosures while tourists snapped their pictures?
No.
She only thought of the male and their young and her sisters.
Tonight the wind was cold and dry. There was little moonlight for the hunt. If they could only come across a pack of wild dogs. It would be enough to start them south again. Once they were south, they would have food in the canyons. And if they had to, they could always search the old city. There was always someone there, a lone man digging among the ruins. There was always someone hiding within the open arches and shredded carpets, the overturned machines and the shining coins spilled out as though carelessly thrown down in anger.
She topped the small line of hills and saw the dark band of the highway heading west. They had always regarded this road as the extent of their northern wanderings. Now they had to turn south.
Her sisters growled. She watched the road, looking for a moving silhouette in the darkness. One sister came to rub her head with her own.
Let’s return. He is waiting.
And for a moment she smelled… a horse.
They had taken wild horse before.
When she was young.
Running down the panicked mustangs.
There had been more than enough.
She scented the wind coming out of the east and turned her triangular head to watch the curve of the road as it gently bent south along the ridgeline.
There was a horse along the road.
Chapter 6
In the late afternoon of the next day the Boy rode alongside the highway listening for any small sound within the quiet that blanketed the desolation of the high desert.
There is nothing in this land. It’s been hunted clean.
The Boy, used to little, felt the ache in his belly beginning to rumble. It had been two days since the last of a crow he’d roasted over a thin fire of brush and scrub wood.
So what’s that tell you, Boy?
Death in some form. Either predators who will see me as prey or poison from the war.
That’s right, he heard Sergeant Presley say in the way he’d always pronounced the words “That” and “is,” making them one and removing the final “t.”
A place called Reno is in front of me. Maybe another day’s ride.
All cities are dead. The war saw to that, Boy.
Some cities. Remember the one called Memphis. It wasn’t poisoned.
Might as well have been, Boy. Might as well have been.
The big roar came from behind them. Horse turned as if to snarl, but when his large nostrils caught the scent of the predator he gave a short, fearful warning. The Boy patted Horse’s neck, calming him.
I’ve never heard an animal make a sound like that. Sounds like a big cat. But bigger than anything I’ve ever heard before.
He scanned the dusty hills behind him.
He saw movement in the fingers of the ridge he’d just passed.
And then he saw the lion. It trotted down a small ridge kicking up dust as it neared the bottom. For a moment the Boy wondered if the big cat might be after something else, until it came straight toward him. Behind the big lion, almost crouching, a smaller lion, sleeker—no great mane surrounding its triangular head—danced forward, scrambling through the dusty wake of the big lion.
He wheeled Horse about to the west, facing the place once called Reno, and screamed “Hyahhh!” as he drove the two of them forward.
Chapter 7
‘The idiot,’ thought the lioness. She’d only made him come along so he could roar at just the right moment and drive the horse into her sisters and the young lying in wait ahead. Instead he’d cried out in hunger at the first sight of the meaty flanks of the horse. She could hear the saliva in his roar. The cubs would be lucky to get any of this meal.
His cry had been early and she knew from the moment the horse began to gallop that her run would never catch the beast. For a short time she could be fast. But not for long. Not in a race. Her only hope now was that her sisters and the young were in a wide half circle ahead, and that the horse would continue its course into their trap.
‘The idiot,’ she thought again, as she slowed to a trot. ‘He’s only good for fighting other males. For that, he is the best.’
THE BOY RACED down alongside the ancient crumbling highway, but Horse was slowing as the ground required caution. A broken leg would be the death of them both. He reined in Horse hard at an off-ramp and sent them down onto an old road that seemed to head off to the south. Ahead, a slope rose into a series of sharp little hills, the ground smooth, windblown sand and hardpack. He spurred Horse forward up onto the rising slope. At the top he stopped and scanned behind him.
In the shadow of a crag, he could see the big lion doggedly trotting along the ridgeline. Ahead of the lion, crouched low and crawling, the sleeker lion had stopped. The Boy could feel its eyes on him.
“It’s us they’re after, Horse. I don’t think they’re going to take no for an answer.”
Horse snorted derisively and then began to shift as if wanting to turn and fight.
That’s jes big talk, Boy! Those lions’ll kill him dead and you with him. Don’t pay no attention to him, Horse’s jes big talk. Always has been.
Ahead to the west he could see a bleached and tired city on the horizon. But it was too far off to be of any use now.
And it could be poisoned, Boy. Radiation. Kill you later like it did me.
The Boy turned Horse and raced below the ridgeline, skirting its summit. They rounded the outmost tip of the rise, and beyond it lay a vast open space, empty and without comfort.
The ground sloped into a gentle half bowl and he could see Freeway beyond.
I should never have left the road. We could have found a jackknifed trailer to hide in. Sergeant Presley said those were always the best places to sleep. We did many times.
He patted Horse once more on the neck whispering, “We’ll sprint for the road beyond the bowl. We’ll find a place there.”
Horse reared impolitely as if to say they should already be moving.
Halfway down the slope at a good canter, watching for squirrel and snake holes, places where Horse could easily snap one of his long legs, the Boy saw the trap.
There were five of them. All like the sleeker, mane-less lion. Females. Hunters. They were crouched low in a wide semicircle off to his right. All of them were watching him. He’d come into the left edge of their trap.
You know what to do, Boy! barked Sergeant Presley in his teaching voice. His drill sergeant voice. The voice with which he’d taught the Boy to fight, to survive, to live just one more day.
Assault through the ambush.
Horse roared with fear. Angry fear.
The Boy guided Horse toward the extreme left edge of the trap, coaxing him with his knee as he unhooked the crossbow, cocked a bolt, and raised it upward with his withered left hand.
Not the best to shoot with. But I’ll need the tomahawk for the other.
The sleek females darted in toward him, dashing through the dust, every golden muscle rippling, jaws clenched tight in determination.
This is bad.
The fear crept into the Boy as it always did before combat.
Ain’t nothin’ but a thang, Boy. Ain’t nothin’ but a thang. Mind over matter; you don’t mind, it don’t matter.
The closest cat charged forward, its fangs out, and in tha
t instant the Boy knew it would leap. Its desire to leap and clutch at Horse’s flanks telegraphed in the cat’s wicked burst of speed.
The Boy lowered the crossbow onto the flat of his good arm holding the tomahawk, aimed on the fly, and sent a bolt into the flurry of dust and claws from which the terrible fanged mouth and triangular head watched him through cold eyes.
He heard a sharp, ripping yowl and kicked Horse to climb the small ridge at the edge of the bowl. On the other side he could see frames of half-built buildings below on the plain before the city.
Half-built buildings.
Construction site.
Maybe houses being built on the last day of the old world. Houses that would never be finished.
If I can stay ahead of them for just a moment…
Horse screamed and the Boy felt the weight of something angry tearing at Horse’s left flank.
One of the female lions had gone wide and raced for the lip of the ridgeline. Once on top, it had thrown everything into a leap that brought it right down onto Horse’s flank.
The Boy cursed as he swiped at the fierce cat with his tomahawk. But the lioness had landed on Horse’s left side and his axe was in his right hand. The Boy batted at the lioness with the crossbow. Its mouth was open, its fangs ready to sink into Horse’s spine, the Boy shoved the crossbow into the cat’s open jaws. Gagging and choking, the lioness released Horse’s torn flesh as its paws attempted to remove the crossbow. It fell away into the dust and Horse continued forward. Already the Boy could feel Horse slowing. His own feet, bent back onto Horse’s flanks, were dripping with warm blood.
“Don’t slow down,” he pleaded into Horse’s pinned ears, doubting whether he was heard at all. “Just make it into those ruins.”
When Horse didn’t respond with his usual snort, the Boy knew the wound was bad.
Chapter 8
The Boy drove Horse hard through the drifting sand of the old ruins. Rotting frames of sun-bleached gray and bone-white wood, warped by forty years of savage heat and cruel ice seemed to offer little protection from the roaring lions now trotting downslope in a bouncing, almost expectant, gait.
They wove deeper into the dry fingers of wood erupting from the sand of Construction Site. The Boy heard the crack of ragged wooden snaps beneath Horse’s hooves. He hoped they might find a hole or even a completed building to hide in. But there was nothing. Behind them he could hear the cats beginning to growl, unsure how to proceed through the rotting forest of ancient lumber. The Big Lion gave a roar and the Boy knew they would be coming into the maze after them.
Near the far edge of the spreading ruins, the Boy found a half-constructed bell tower ringed with ancient scaffolding over a narrow opening. It was their only hope. He steered Horse in under the rickety scaffolding still clinging to its long unfinished exterior. In the shadowy dark he dismounted Horse and raced back outside. He swung his tomahawk at the ancient scaffolding, cutting through a rusty bar with one stroke. He stepped back inside once he’d smashed the other support bar. The scaffolding began to collapse across the entrance as he saw the Big Lion come crashing through the warped and bent forest of dry wood, charging directly at him.
The scaffolding slanted down across the entrance as shafts of fading daylight shot through the dust.
The Big Lion crossed the ground between them in bounds.
Focus, Boy.
The Boy reached up and crushed another support with his tomahawk and more abandoned building material came crashing down across the entrance. Dust and sand swallowed the world and the Boy closed his eyes and didn’t breathe. Horse screeched in fear as the Boy hoped the collapsed scaffolding would be enough to block the entrance.
When he opened his eyes he could see soft light filtering through the debris-cluttered opening.
He put his good hand on Horse, conveying calm where the Boy felt none, willing the terror-stricken animal to understand that they were safe for now.
Then he looked at the wound.
Claw marks straight down the side. The whole flank all the way to the hock was shaking. He took some of his water and washed the wound. Horse trembled, and the Boy placed his face near Horse’s neck, whispering.
“It will be okay.
“I will take care of you.”
The wound is still bleeding, so I’ll have to make a bandage.
He poured some water into the sand and made mud. He didn’t have much water, but it was vital to get the bleeding stopped.
He can’t bleed forever, Boy.
When the mixture was ready he packed it into the wound, steadying Horse as he went, murmuring above the lion’s roar as he applied the wet mud.
SHE PACED BACK and forth outside the never-to-be-finished bell tower.
Horse was definitely inside. She could smell it. She could smell its fear.
At the top of the bell tower, fifteen feet high, she could see narrow arches. If she could leap from another structure she might get in there and make the kill.
The male rose up on his hind legs and began to bat away at the collapsed opening. Wood splintered and cracked as he put all of his four hundred pounds onto the pile of debris. As usual he tired quickly and went to lie down, content to merely wait and watch the entrance. The sisters came up to him one by one, trying to reassure him that all would be well, but he seemed embarrassed—or frustrated. Normally expressive, his great face remained immobile, which the young usually took for thinking. But she knew he was merely tired and mostly out of ideas and generally unconcerned at how things might turn out.
She knew him—and loved him.
She paced away from the tower and then turned, gave two energetic bounds, and leapt. She almost made the top. Her claws extended, ripping into the dry stucco of the bell tower, revealing ancient dry wood beneath. She began to climb toward the opening, and a moment later a sheet of stucco ripped away and she fell backward.
There is wood like a tree underneath. ‘Once this skin is off,’ she thought, ‘I’ll be able to climb in.’
She began to stand on her hind legs and rake her claws down the side of the tower as chalky stucco, dry and brittle, disintegrated.
As if not to be outdone by her sister, another of the females began to dig at the base of the tower like she might for the making of a den. Now it would be a race. Who would get to the horse first? The male would like that. He would reward whoever got in first. It was his way.
The sun was going down. It would be a long night.
Chapter 9
Horse had stopped trembling. He seemed resigned now to the tight space and had stopped threatening to fight present conditions. The Boy climbed atop Horse and reached for the high arched openings just below the roof. Leveraging himself upward, he was able to climb into them.
Below, the lions were instantly aware of him. Multiple pairs of glowing dark eyes watched him. By the barest of moonlight he could see them lying about while the one who had been digging at the base of the tower stopped.
If I had my crossbow I could pick her off.
Never mind what you don’t have, Boy. You better start thinking about a jailbreak, otherwise…
The Big Lion roared loudly, opening its mouth and showing its fangs as it turned its head, throwing the roar off into the hills. When the lion finished it stared straight at the Boy.
The Boy listened to the echo of the roar bounce off the far hills, its statement reminding him of the vastness of the high desert and how alone he was within it.
‘So that’s how it is,’ thought the Boy. ‘All right then, no surrender.’
One of the females suddenly ran forward, leapt, and almost caught the edge of the arched opening. The whole bell tower shook and Horse cried out in fear. The lion slid down as her claws raked the stucco off, revealing the dry wooden slats beneath.
This thing was not well constructed in the Before, and these hard years since haven’t improved it. You would tell me to stop and think, Sergeant.
He removed his tomahawk from his belt.
That should give me some time.
The Lioness watched the Boy for a moment, the contempt naked in its cool eyes, then lay down apart from the others, and began to lick the wound. The Boy could not tell how badly he might have hurt it.
He lowered himself down into the dark, finding Horse with his dangling feet. Then he gently let himself down onto Horse’s back. He sat there, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness.
I’ve got to do something about the digger next. If I can do something about her, maybe they’ll get the point that I’m not coming out. Maybe then they’ll go away.
You sure about that, Boy?
The only thing else I can think of is to strike at them as they come through the sand under the wall.
It seemed a thin plan, but looking at the four walls and Horse, what else could he do?
For the rest of the night he listened to the digger. Occasionally the lions would growl and he thought it best not to go up into the high arched openings.
If I remain invisible to them, then maybe “out of sight, out of mind” as you used to say, Sergeant?
Or…
If they can’t mind me, then I won’t matter to them.
And it was there in the dark that the Boy realized Sergeant Presley had been full of knowledge. Full of words and wisdom. Those things were a comfort to him in the times he and Sergeant Presley had been in danger.
I’m young. I haven’t had all the years it takes to acquire wisdom. Now death is closer than it has ever been.
Everyone dies, Boy, even me. Maybe it’s not as bad as you think.
SOFT, PALE LIGHT shone the through arched windows above. The night had passed and though he had not slept much, the Boy felt as though he’d slept too much. As if some plan of action should have occurred to him in the hours of darkness. But none had and he cursed himself, not knowing what the coming day might bring.
