by Nick Cole
He heard a roar, far off, then another one and another, almost on the heels of the echo of the first.
More lions?
Trouble always looks for company, Boy. Always.
Then I’ll be ready. Whatever it is, the best I can do is to be ready.
He climbed to the top of the bell tower and looked out from the arches. The Big Lion, the male, was on his feet and staring into the darkened west. A thin strip of red dawn cut the eastern desert in half like a hot knife. The Boy followed the Big Lion’s gaze into the dark and saw three male lions, smaller—not by much, manes almost as big—pacing back and forth in the dark.
The females were drawing the cubs back from the Big Lion.
If there is going to be a fight, the newcomers might not know I’m here. If they win, then this could be good for me.
SHE LIMPED TOWARD her mate.
Had she ever been special to him?
She liked to think so. She liked to think there was something special between her and him that her sisters had never known. Would never know.
She’d seen him fight other males before. The desert was full of their kind. The mule deer and wild animals had been abundant in all the years she had known and the prides had grown large. And now, from some unknown pride much like her own, the young lions had come to find mates for themselves among her pride. Just as he had once found her.
Limping forward to stand behind him, she could at least do that for the love of her existence. She could at least do that. But when he turned, she saw the flash of anger in his eyes, warning her to get back, and maybe something she had never seen before. Fear.
He roared again. It was his way and his answer to the challengers. His roaring anger at the horse within the bell tower had most likely summoned these challengers out of the dark. She knew his roar, beautiful and safe to her, had cost them all.
She lay down in front of her sisters, between them and her mate—their mate—and watched.
When the battle started in earnest, it transformed from a storm to a whirlwind in the space of a moment. The newcomers, baiting the big male halfheartedly, as though they might leave at any moment, suddenly came at him at once, silent, focused, hopeful.
His great claws pinned the first and he sank his jaws into the back of his challenger’s neck. She heard the crunch of bones and knew that one was finished, though it continued to flail wildly, its claws drawing blood across her mate’s belly.
Another challenger circled wide and landed on her mate’s back after a great pounce. The challenger was unsure what to do next. The third came in hard at his flank and began to tear away great strips of fur and skin with claws that looked long and sharp.
Here was their leader, she thought. He had been smart enough to wait.
The male shook the one in his mouth as he tried to draw his victim upward.
She cried out for him to be done with that one and to handle the other two, but her cries were drowned out by his as he roared and whirled on the leader. He batted at the flanker, who tumbled away and then turned the momentum into something to fling itself right back at the male.
The challenger on his back held on for dear life and she could sense the fear in that one. That one didn’t have it in him to sink his fangs into her mate. He was the runt. He would never have a pride of his own.
The male pinned the lion he’d cast off; it was his technique, she knew, to use his size to subdue and strangle his enemies. Enraged, he crushed the leader beneath him and tore out his throat.
Her paws, kneading the soft sand of the desert, relaxed. She knew he had won. He would be wounded, badly if the blood streaming down his belly was any indicator, but he had at least beaten these challengers. She was proud of both him for his strength and herself for her faith and love.
Thunder broke across the darkness like dry wood split sharply.
Thunder was what she’d thought the sound was, and for a moment she’d expected lightning. But the sudden white light that would illuminate the land never came. Instead she watched him roll off his foes in a great spray of blood.
The Back Biter rolled away, confused. For a moment the runt raised a paw as if he might step this way or that, flee or attack. Then another bolt of thunder erupted, and a fraction later the Back Biter’s head exploded.
In the wind she found a new horse and acrid smoke; a mule also.
Her sisters were fleeing into the night.
The young whimpered.
She turned back to him and crossed the short space to his body. Her eyes were on his mane and the face that had once expressed so many thoughts to her. So many thoughts that she knew she had never known him completely.
He was still.
Asleep.
Beautiful.
Noble.
Even when she heard the thunder erupt again, near and yet as if part of a dream she was only waking from, she watched his face.
The bullet struck her in the spine.
And she watched him.
She watched him.
She watched him.
Chapter 10
“All my skins is ruin’t!”
Early light had turned the night’s carnage golden. The Boy listened to the man below.
“This one, that one over there! Hell, Danitra, all of ’em.” Then, “Maybe ’cept this one.”
The Boy listened from the shadows of the bell tower.
You be careful now, Boy! There’s little good left in this world.
“Might as well come out!” thundered the voice. “Seein’ as how I saved ya and all such.”
He knows I’m here. And he has a gun. Not like the rusty “AK Forty-sevens” and broken “Nine mils” we would find sometimes. His gun is different, like a polished piece of thick wood. As though it were different and from some place long ago.
For all that Sergeant Presley had tried to explain about guns to the Boy, he’d never guessed one would’ve made such a sound, like the crack of distant thunder heard from under a blanket.
He patted Horse and climbed up into the high arched openings once more.
“There ya’re!” roared the man.
He was barrel-chested and squat. He wore dusty black leather and a beaten hat, hair dark and turning to gray. He stopped his cutting work to look up from one of the lions, holding a large knife in his bloody hand.
“These are mine,” he said and turned back to his business with the hide. “Any more in there besides you?”
The Boy said nothing.
“That means nope,” said the stranger.
“My horse.”
“Well, you better get down and get him out of there.”
The Boy continued to watch the man as he skinned the lion, swearing and sweating while he made long, sawing cuts, then stood, wiped his knife, and pulled back a great streak of hide.
“C’mon boy. I got work to do. No one else here but me and my horse and Danitra. She’s my mule.”
He set to work on the next lion.
“This one’s even worse than the last! That was a mess. Coulda done that better myself. What tribe you with, boy?”
The Boy said nothing and continued to watch.
“You with them tribes out in the desert?”
The Boy remained silent.
“Well, pay it no mind. I’ve got to get these hides off and cut some meat. So if you don’t want to be a part of that then I’ll ask you to get your horse out of there and move along.” The man stood staring at the Boy, his bloody knife hanging halfway between forgotten and ready.
“My horse is injured.”
The man wiped the knife once again on the leather of his pants and spit.
“Well, get him out of there and let’s take a look. I know a thing or two about horses.”
The Boy climbed down the side of the bell tower using the wooden slats exposed after the attacks of the lions. At the bottom, he began to remove the debris blocking the entrance as the man returned to skinning the dead lions.
“It’s bad.” The man
spit again as he ran his hands across Horse. For a moment Horse grew skittish, but the man talked to him in a friendly manner and Horse seemed to accept this as yet one more thing to be miserable about.
“Not the worst. Best we can do for him is get him up to the river, the other side of Reno. Good water there. We can clean the wound and get him ready for the fever that’s bound to be come. If he can survive that fever, then, well maybe. But fever it’ll be. Always is with them cats.”
‘I’m not ready to lose Horse,’ thought the Boy. ‘It would be too much for me right now. First you, Sergeant, and now…’
Ain’t nothin’ but a thang, Boy! You do what’s got to be done. Without Horse you’ll be finished in a week.
“Name’s Escondido. I’ll lead you up to the river—goin’ that way myself and I’ll show you the path through Reno. Now get to work and help me with these hides, then we’ll be movin’ on out of this forsaken planned community of the future.”
The Boy stared at the ground.
“That’s what you was holed up in when I found you,” said the man called Escondido as he pointed first to the bell tower and then the rotting timber. “Someone was building a neighborhood here on the last day. Never got finished. See all that rotten wood? Frames for houses. This bell tower was probably the fake entrance. Make it seem like something more’n it was. They would’ve called it some name like Sierra Verde or the Pines. Probably something to do with the bell tower. Bell Tower Heights! Yes siree, that’s what they woulda called it. Old Escondido knows the old people’s ways. I was one of ’em, you know. I lived in a house once. Can you believe that, boy? I lived in a house.”
I’ve got to do whatever it takes to save Horse.
“How far is this river?”
“Be there by nightfall. We don’t want to be in Reno after dark, that’s for sure.”
“Reno wasn’t nuked?” “Nuked” was a Sergeant Presley word.
“No. But it looks like a big battle was fought there out near the airport. So the city might as well have been nuked. Strange people live in them old casinos now. Had a partner used to call ’em the Night People, ’cause they get crazy and howl and cause all kinds of havoc at night. Last two or three years when I crossed over the Sierras I liked to avoid Reno. Got into a bad spot there one time about dusk. It was a bad time, even with my guns.”
The Boy followed Escondido’s gaze to a bent and broken horse. Its hair was matted and lanky, and it cropped haphazardly at what little there was to be had, as if both tired and dizzy. In the worn leather saddle, the Boy saw two long rifles.
“That horse ain’t much to look at. But best part of him is he’s deaf, so when my breech loaders go off he don’t get scared and run off.”
The Boy worked for the rest of the morning scraping the hides of the lions as Escondido finished the skinning and then cut steaks from the female. He built a small smoky fire and the meat was soon spitted and roasting in the morning breeze.
“We got to eat these now. It’ll be a long day gettin’ through Reno. Then we still got to ride up into the hills to reach the river.”
Once the mule, Danitra, as Escondido called her, was saddled with hides, they sat down next to the fire and ate.
“How much water ya got?” asked Escondido through a mouthful of meat.
“Not much. I’ll save it for Horse.”
“There’s no water worth havin’ between here and the river, so keep that in mind. Don’t go gettin’ thirsty. I’ll trade you some for that old Army rucksack you got there on your horse.”
The Boy continued to chew, putting Escondido’s offer away until later, hoping the heat and dust would not force him to trade Sergeant Presley’s ruck for a mouthful of water.
THEY RODE OUT of the bloody camp. Escondido’s nag could do little more than trot and so the pace was slow. Escondido filled the silence of the hot afternoon with conversation and observations, all the while watching the crumbling remains of the world for shadows and salvage.
“Was tracking them lions for three days before they got onto your big one. I heard him roar and I knew I’d lost ’em. Couldn’t get a shot off on ’em all night. But I knew I had to find ’em before they got into that fight. Hides’ll be ruined and Chou’ll make his usual fuss ’bout it and all. Still I got ways and means. What tribe did you say you was with?”
When the Boy didn’t answer, Escondido continued on.
“My family came from out of the South. I had another name. Prospero, my mother used to call me. But, in the little refugee camp we started out in, they called me Escondido. That’s where my family had been before the bombs: a place called Escondido. Tried to ask my papa where that might be. All he said was that it was gone now. A fantasy place.”
And…
“I cross over the mountains beginning of summer every year. This year I got a late start. Mountains is gettin’ weirder every year. You know about the Valley? No, don’t make no difference, you don’t look like them people. Say, was you born that way or’d you get bust up when you was little?”
And…
“What was you doin’ out here? This part of the desert ain’t safe. Though for that matter, what part is?”
Don’t tell anything about ye’self, Boy.
“You don’t say much, do you? Is that your tribe’s way? Don’t say much?”
It was afternoon by the time they crossed onto the dusty streets of Reno. Buildings lay collapsed or shattered to little more than rusting frames that groaned in the sudden gusts that came in off the desert.
In the silence of late afternoon, shadows turned to blue and Escondido continued to talk in a low whisper though he would stop when they passed piles of rubble and twisted metal that lay across the wide thoroughfare leading into the heart of the darkened city.
“The people, the tribes, savages all up in the mountains, everywhere I’ve gone, they wear hides to show what mighty hunters they are. Now up at the trading post in Auburn, everybody wants hides so they can trade with them savages. Them lions, if’n they’d been perfect, woulda fetched a high price from old Chou. That’s a shame. A perfect shame.”
Ahead, each of them could see the rising pile of bleached casinos crumbling around a bridge that rose over the wide avenue they would follow. A bridge that connected two of the ancient palaces and seemed to loom over the road like the wingspan of some prehistoric dead bird.
Escondido withdrew one of the rifles from its saddle holster and rested the butt on his thigh as he gave a soft chick, chick to his nag.
Then he looked at the Boy and drew his finger to his lips.
Chapter 11
Cities ain’t got nothing left for you, Boy.
And yet, Sergeant, I’ve always wanted to go into them. To know what’s in them.
Places where you might have lived, Boy, had things been different.
Sergeant Presley’s voice seemed to ignore Escondido’s whispered commentary and remembrances as they led their horses through the dust and rubble.
I try to find myself in them, Sergeant Presley. I try to find who I might have been.
Why, Boy?
It might tell me who I am, Sergeant.
“I come through here must been something like five years ago with a partner. Dan was his name.” Escondido’s face looked gray and dusty in the last orange light of day. His mouth, full of crooked teeth, hung open, sucking at the dry desert air.
The Boy could hear Escondido’s heavy breathing.
They entered the long, crumpled stretch of casino row. Hollow-eyed windows gaped blindly down on them from along shell-dented walls.
“Said he might go in and jes’ take a look around. I tells him it’s jes’ not done, Dan. Jes’ not done.”
They passed a burned U.S. Army tank poking its melted barrel out from a storefront whose sign had long since been scoured to meaninglessness.
M-1 Abrams, thought the Boy.
“Toughest hour of my life was waitin’ for Dan to come out. I sat there holding that horse of his for the
longest time. We’d had a good haul in lions that year. What was the point of going in?”
Ahead, a sweeping bridge spanned the gap between two casinos like a broken arm reaching out from the wreckage of a terrible accident to touch another victim.
“Worst part’s just ahead,” muttered Escondido.
Escondido cocked back the hammer on his long rife.
This is what I mean, Boy. Told you not to get caught up in things and here you are, caught up.
I could answer you, he thought to Sergeant Presley. But you would tell me I was crazy. You would tell me that you are dead and the problems of this life no longer concern you. Wouldn’t you?
“I waited an hour and he never come out,” whispered Escondido.
The laughing started.
One voice cackled, clear and very near at once.
Moments later two others responded, as if only politely and at a mediocre jest.
Then another burst out, hysterically almost.
Finally the rest were laughing uncontrollably.
Sniggering.
Guffawing.
Giggling.
Snickering.
Hooting.
Wailing.
Sobbing.
Moaning.
Crying.
Laughter careened across the broken casino walls.
Laughter was everywhere.
“Keep straight on!” yelled Escondido over the echoing din.
For a moment there were almost-shadows within the recessed gloom of the buildings high above. Not quite, but almost.
Leading Horse, the Boy pulled his tomahawk from his belt.
“They won’t come out. Never do. But you don’t want to go in after ’em all the same,” warned Escondido.
They crossed the shadow of the broken bridge and a sink crashed to the dusty pavement behind them.
Horses reared and snarled fearfully.
The Boy held him around the neck, whispering softly.
“I know. I know. I know,” he said over and over.
Once they were almost out from underneath the broken walkway, Escondido muttered, “I think that’s what all the silliness is about. Tryin’ to get us to come in and take a look.”
