“Do people still drive cars?”
Bill shook his head and took the bottle back, sipped. “Gasoline goes stale after a while and nobody’s refining anymore. Horses are coming back. Man, I’d love to get me a horse.”
“Coming back?”
“People ate them.”
“Jesus.”
“You really don’t know any of this?”
Mortimer shook his head, took the bottle and gulped.
Bill said, “Goats too. Dogs and cats. Rats. Meat is meat. I heard tell they turned cannibal in some places, but I don’t know if that’s true or not.”
I could turn around right now, thought Mortimer. I could go back to the cave. There’s no Burger King down the mountain, no world I remember.
“Why are you dressed like a cowboy?” Mortimer was curious as hell.
“Does it seem weird?”
Mortimer shrugged. “I don’t know the standard of weird anymore.”
“I’m always afraid people will think it’s weird.”
“Do they?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want.”
“I don’t know why I did it at first,” admitted Bill. “I always liked westerns, John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart, you know? Think about what a cowboy is, what he represents. The new order rolling across the prairie, right? Even when he was slaughtering buffalo and red Indians, he still left civilization in his wake, towns and railroads and all that. I guess maybe I thought we needed cowboys again. Maybe not. Hell, I don’t know. Probably sounds stupid.”
“No it doesn’t.” Yes it did.
“Anyway,” Bill said. “Everyone else looked like a refugee, dressed in rags. Everyone looked lost, like they’ve got no place to go. If you’re a cowboy, you’re not a refugee. You don’t need anyplace to go. Cowboys are supposed to drift, ride off into the sunset. If you’re a cowboy then you ain’t lost.”
The man had found his purpose through costuming. Sure. Whatever helps a guy cope. Buffalo Bill was an un- lost non-refugee.
“I want to find my wife.” Mortimer belched. It tasted like barfy booze.
“You didn’t take your wife into hiding with you?”
“It’s complicated.”
“No it’s not,” Bill said. “Everything’s real simple now. She’s either alive or dead.”
Mortimer thought about that. Outside the wind howled. Inside the fire crackled and snapped. Mortimer’s eyelids grew heavy, and he faded into whiskey dreams.
IX
“You okay?” There seemed to be genuine concern in Bill’s voice.
Mortimer leaned into the rope, trudged in the shin-deep snow, one foot in front of the other, every step an effort of titanic proportions. His head throbbed. His stomach rebelled. He had not been this hungover in…how long?
A decade.
Abruptly, Mortimer dropped the rope, dashed to the side of the road and went to his knees. Heaved. The puke was acidic, made his eyes water. He hurled three times in quick succession, splattering the snow. Steam rose. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
“I’m a little fuzzy myself this morning,” Bill said.
“Get bent,” Mortimer muttered, then spit.
“What?”
“I said I’m fine. Let’s go.”
They made their way down the mountain. Landmarks began to look familiar. A flood of memories. Mortimer found himself hurrying. He wanted to see his town, his old office, his old house.
His old life.
The gas station and convenience store at the bottom of the hill was a charred husk, blackened and hollow. He’d bought beer and newspapers there. Toilet paper, Slim Jims, ice cream, unleaded. In an odd way, Mortimer was relieved. He would have felt like a grade-A jackass if he’d hidden in a cave for nine years and then come down the mountain only to find the convenience store selling cigarettes and lotto tickets like nothing had happened.
