by Nick Cole
“If that were true, then that is very sad,” said the Old Man.
“Only the good feel guilty. So that means you are good.”
“Thank you.”
Silence.
“Natalie?”
“Yes?”
“I hope this works. I hope we’ll be able to set you and your children free.”
“I hope so too.”
Chapter 44
At dawn the next day, the air was thick and the heat already in the day, as if the two were one thing and could not be separated from each other.
Today we need to find water.
And food.
They traveled north again, following the straight arrow highway into a horizon that blended with the featureless landscape of rolling green grass, sun, and gray haze.
The tank rumbled and shuddered, its sound more metallic, its smoke thicker.
For a while there were fewer bodies.
Then all at once there were clusters, tossed like rag dolls to the side of the road by some petulant and perpetually unsatisfied child.
In the distance they could see a conical hill rising up out of the plain, and the silhouettes of horsemen and men on foot driving others, huddled figures, forward toward the hill under the harsh bright blaze of noon.
We’ve finally caught up with them.
What did you expect you would do?
I didn’t think it would be our problem.
But now it is, my friend.
Yes.
“Poppa?” she said over the intercom.
The Old Man handed his field glasses to the Boy.
After a moment the Boy lowered them and said, “They’re trying to take shelter by that hill. They have a small fort around the bottom that encircles the whole.”
“They’ve known we were behind them, that’s why they’re running,” said the Old Man.
And why they drove these people so hard.
And why we have passed so many bodies alongside the road.
“We can still catch them,” said the Boy. “They’ve got about two miles to go before they reach the hill.”
The Old Man looked again.
“But what will we do? I can’t fire this,” he said patting the long barrel of the gun. “We might hit some of Ted’s people.”
Even Ted perhaps.
Yes.
The Boy, he is on the edge of something.
Yes, my friend.
He’s been here before, at this moment between things. Between attack and retreat.
The Boy seemed to move and remain still at once.
Suddenly the Old Man knew, or rather felt by the sudden electricity in the air, that the Boy had decided what must be done next.
“Get her in there with you,” said the Boy pointing toward the hatch.
He’s decided.
The Boy disappeared down inside the tank.
His granddaughter was already crawling up out of the driver’s hatch and making her way, hand over hand, along the gun barrel up to the turret of the tank.
“What’re we going to do, Poppa?”
“I don’t know,” said the Old Man wiping sudden sweat from his forehead. “But I think he has a plan.”
“To help those people?”
“Yes, I think so.”
The Boy emerged from his hatch, then bent down and drew up the weight bar from inside the tank. Secured to its tip was the blue bowling ball.
He’s certainly made a weapon, my friend.
The Boy set the weapon down against the turret and reached back into the tank once more. His powerful right arm drew up the manhole cover. For a moment the Boy struggled to attach it to his weak left side, forcing his thin, trembling arm through a makeshift strap he’d fashioned for it.
“That’ll be too heavy for . . .”
‘Your bad side,’ you almost said, my friend.
The Boy, sweating, nodded.
“It will do its work today, just like the rest of me!” he said with a grunt as he pulled the strap tight. The manhole cover seemed to draw his entire left side downward.
The Boy reached down and took up his new weapon as if it were merely a stick.
On that side he is strong. Stronger maybe than anyone I have ever met.
Beneath the gray haze of summer heat and the clicking buzz of the unseen insects in the tall grass, the Boy stood like some bygone warrior and pointed his mace at the running slavers who drew whips high into the air and brought them down with a sonic crack across the backs of the terrified.
“Get me as close to them as you can.”
This is madness.
The Old Man’s trembling hands fell to the controls.
“What will you do then?” he asked the Boy.
“I’ll fight them from the tank as if it were a horse.”
We’re leaving the highway. We could throw the bad tread and that would be the end of us.
Yes.
“Have you ever fought from a horse?” asked the Old Man.
The Boy looked away across the grassy plains.
If only his friend, Horse, would appear now. They might ride once more, one last time together, into battle.
“I have,” he said. But his words were lost beneath the spooling turbine of the terrible engine as the Old Man throttled up to power.
Madness.
“Poppa?” she said, worried.
“Just stay down and hang on. Everything will be all right.”
“Are you sure, Poppa?”
He nodded and tried to say something, but felt his dry throat constrict with dust.
I am in over my head, my friend. What do we do?
Sometimes you can do nothing other than hold the line and hope the fish will tire, my friend. That your strength will outlast his will to live.
The Old Man pivoted the tank and left the highway, descending down a ditch and into the tall grass of the plain.
What if he falls off?
He won’t, my friend.
The tank picked up speed as the ground leveled out, and the Boy hooked his arm with the manhole cover shield around the barrel and leaned back against the turret.
From midway up the conical hill, white puffs of smoke erupted almost in unison.
What is that?
You know the answer, my friend; you’re just not ready to accept it, but now you must.
I can almost see the cannon rounds moving through the air, between us and them, like the rumor of a shadow.
The ground between the tank and the hill sprang upward in a series of dirt fountains. Earth showered the charging tank, and a moment later they passed through the rising smoke of the impacts.
They have artillery.
Ahead, the slavers were breaking off into two groups. The whip wielders drove their prisoners forward, their whips arching high across the sky like dark strands of a girl’s hair dancing in the wind. Others on horseback turned to face the oncoming tank, drawing their weapons.
The Boy pushed himself away from the turret, his legs bending, as if he were riding the tank, his manhole cover shield rising to protect his chest and body. His powerful right arm began to draw the weight bar with the bowling ball at the tip in huge slow circles about his head.
The horsemen thundered straight on toward the tank.
The Old Man could see the sweat running down their grim, ash-covered faces. He could see broken teeth jutting up through their red gums as they began to shout and whoop.
Their horses frothed, eyes wide with terror.
The Boy leaned outward and far to the right, still swinging the great mace in a wide circle.
Spears jutted forward from some of the horsemen, while machetes danced wildly about the heads of others.
‘This is madness,’ thought the Old Man again.
A moment later, they met.
Six riders.
One went down beneath the tank.
Forget that sound. The sound that man and horse make when that happens. Never think of that sound again in all your li
fe, my friend.
Yes, I won’t ever if I can help it.
And in the next moment, the Old Man forgot as the Boy lowered his powerful arm and swept the club past the Old Man’s head and straight into the chest of the nearest oncoming rider.
In one moment, the man changed direction from charging atop a terrified horse, to flying backward and alone, almost keeping pace with the tank for the merest second before he disappeared beneath the tread.
The Boy pivoted and watched the riders wheel their horses about.
They’ll catch us if I don’t go faster.
But the tread?
The Boy nodded toward the main body of prisoners, telling the Old Man to continue forward.
The ground all around and behind them exploded again as the Old Man looked up to see smoke drifting away from the mouths of the cannons that rested midway up the hill behind a low bric-a-brac wall.
Ahead, the slavers were throwing down their weapons and outrunning Ted’s people who also continued to run forward in terror.
Turning back to the Old Man as if to tell him something, the Boy suddenly raised his shield. A spear shattered against it, emitting a small metallic note.
The Boy climbed back to the Old Man and uttered a breathless, “Keep moving forward!”
The Old Man turned to see the riders closing up the distance on the tank’s sides. The Boy whirled his club quicker than the Old Man thought possible and brought it down onto the head of one of the nearest horsemen who crumpled instantly.
Ted’s people were huddled together now, bloody, screaming, crying, protecting each other. The Old Man swerved wide to completely avoid them.
Halfway up the conical hill, ashen-faced warriors waving spears and machetes surged out from behind the bric-a-brac wall.
Once more, the Old Man saw the cannons belch forth with their sudden puffs of white smoke.
Duck!
A moment later he felt a jarring impact slam into the side of the tank.
His granddaughter screamed.
“Poppa!”
The Old Man’s ears were ringing.
“It’s okay!” he yelled down into the dark. “Are you all right?”
Please don’t let this be a worse nightmare. Please don’t let this be the nightmare too terrible to imagine. The one in which she is hurt.
Can you let go?
Stop! I cannot because too much depends on me and I am not enough.
A shot had fallen amid the prisoners. Bloodied bodies were being dragged back within their huddle in the midst of the battlefield.
“I’m okay, Poppa.” But he could hear her fear.
We’ve got to protect those people.
But how?
And . . .
Where is the Boy?
I can’t see him!
The Old Man gunned the tank and pivoted hard, throwing up giant clods of dirt and torn grass.
Be careful of the tread!
There is too much to worry about.
The Old Man drove the tank between the prisoners and the cannon on the hill.
Leaning down, he beckoned Ted’s people toward the side of the tank.
“Get close to the sides, you’ll be safer here!” he yelled above the roar of the engine.
Where is the Boy?
“Poppa, what’s going on up there?”
A battle is nothing but confusion, my friend.
Maybe this is how the world was destroyed. Confusion took charge in the absence of leadership.
Yes.
But the fear-struck people would not move from their huddle.
“Stay here!” he called down to his granddaughter.
“No, Poppa!”
Don’t say it, please. Because even if you do, I still need to do this.
The Old Man dropped to the ground.
My legs feel weak and far away.
That is just fear, my friend.
He stumbled forward to the wild-eyed prisoners. Waving with his hands, he urged them to take cover alongside the tank.
Out in the tall grass he could see the Boy battling three horsemen. He swept his club into the legs of one horse, and a second later raised it high above his head to strike down its fallen rider. The other two horsemen wheeled about trying to bring their spear points to bear.
Again the Old Man heard the distant boom of cannon.
“Please!” he beckoned the terrified people.
All at once they ran forward screaming and crying, like a stampede of frightened animals. Or a hurt child wailing, racing for the comfort of its mother’s arms.
The Old Man could see their bloody backs and torn clothing, their haunted tearstained faces.
“Thank you,” someone sobbed. A woman holding a small child. “Thank you.”
There was a series of deep thuds as the earth shook about them and seconds later it was raining dirt.
The Old Man turned to see the Boy who danced away from the last standing horseman, limping away from a striking axe that glanced off his manhole cover shield. The Boy retaliated, dragging his mace from the ground and slamming it into the man’s ribs, crushing them.
Again the Old Man could hear the cannons bellow their dull whump.
Someone screamed, “Oh no, please not again!”
Thuds. Sudden and terrible. Near and close.
Dirt falling from the sky.
How can I save them all?
How can I get us out of this place?
This is too much for just me.
The Boy was running toward them now.
How are we going to get these people out of here?
The Boy loped past the tank, disappearing around the gun barrel, his broken feather flying out from his hair as though it had followed him everywhere he’d ever gone. Would go. Even if it was to his death.
What is he doing? Where is he going?
“Wait here!” the Old Man shouted at those huddled about him. Then he climbed up onto the tread, keeping the low flat turret between him and the cannons on the hill. When he peered over its edge he saw the Boy running now, no longer limping, he was running, running forward to meet the ashen-faced warriors who were coming down the hill for them.
There must be a hundred of them, at least.
The Old Man watched the warriors surge out from the gates and leap through the tall grass, waving their machetes, screaming as they came on.
The Boy raced to meet them.
His mace circling above his head.
He’s going to give you the time you need to get out of here, my friend. So I suggest you go now.
“Get up on the tank,” he called down to those huddled at its sides. He had to say it again and a moment later they were all climbing up onto the tank, pushing children down inside the hatch. Everything in chaos.
Children screamed.
Men swore.
A woman begged for someone to leave her behind.
The Old Man watched helplessly as the Boy ran forward to meet the oncoming mass of ashen warriors.
He is braver than anyone I have ever known.
And . . .
He will be killed for sure.
What can I do for him, my friend Santiago? What can I do to help this Boy?
Nothing, my friend. Nothing.
To the south, the Old Man saw dark figures coming up out of the earth.
More horsemen, dark riders to encircle us.
Moments later the dark riders were charging forward.
They have been down in a riverbed that must run through this plain, and now they are coming to attack us from behind.
The Old Man climbed into the driver’s seat at the front of the tank.
The cannon fired once more.
But this time the rounds fell amid the charging horsemen. The dark riders.
Wait!
The dark horsemen thundered past the tank.
The Old Man could see the Boy. He’d crashed into the line of ashen-faced men, swinging his mace in wide arcs as they fell back from him.
&
nbsp; Encircling him.
Pressing down on him.
Wait!
One of the dark horsemen who’d been thrown from his mount by the falling artillery rounds remounted and dashed past the tank, whooping like a Plains Indian, long black hair streaming behind, almost touching the flying tail of the chestnut mare. And in that hair a long gray feather, following in the wind.
Like the Boy.
Green eyes turned and smiled for the briefest of moments at the Old Man, and then the dark rider was gone, riding forward into battle. Riding forward to fight by the side of the outnumbered Boy.
WHEN THE BATTLE was over the Old Man watched as the outnumbered dark horsemen climbed the heights, vaulting the low bric-a-brac wall, falling on the artillerymen, cutting and stabbing.
The bodies of the ashen-faced warriors lay in the tall grass and at the foot of the hill and up along its dusty slopes.
The Old Man and his granddaughter left the tank. Looking among the bodies. Looking for the Boy. And they found him.
He was drinking water from a water skin held up to his mouth by a large, bloody horseman. The Boy’s massive arm was shaking. The bowling ball mace and the manhole cover shield lay in the dust. The crushed bodies of slavers scattered in a wide arc about him.
The Boy, standing, spoke haltingly in a strange language to the bloody horseman between gasping pulls at the water skin. The Old Man could make out only a few of the many words.
“What’s he doing, Poppa?”
The large horseman suddenly embraced the Boy. A feather, long and gray, just like those of the other horsemen, like the broken feather in the Boy’s hair, lay on his shoulder, resting against a bloody scratch.
“I think . . .” said the Old Man. “I think he has found his people.”
“Oh,” she said.
Chapter 45
The Old Man moved the tank closer to the hill, near the falling walls of a village that had once occupied the slopes nearest the highway. A place once called Wagon Wheel Mountain if a faded sign was to be believed. Ted’s people huddled in small groups, eating shared rations given out by the horsemen and drinking water from leather-skinned bags. The Old Man walked forward to where the Boy stood amid the warriors.
