At the two roads the large wolf padded back and forth scenting the air. Even the wolf knew what was north. He had seen the ruins of Phoenix with his own eyes. He knew it was lifeless, and what remained there long was soon poisoned. The deer they killed there always had that taste of death. Often the pack would leave after a few torn strips had been tested. In those times the kill had been enough.
Satisfied the man had gone south, the wolf turned, heading back toward the mountain above the ruined overpasses. He picked his way up through the broken rocks in the early morning light.
How long could he keep his two killers at bay?
At the top of the pass, not far from the den, he turned to look at the valley floor. Where would the man be? Turning toward the den where the pack lay sleeping, exhausted from the night, the wolf trotted into the darkness.
Chapter 14
At dawn the Old Man was up. The cool morning air wouldn’t last long. He hadn’t had coffee in years. Hadn’t missed it in years. But now in the cold air beneath the broken road, he wished for it.
He stretched slowly and began to pack his things while taking cautious sips of water.
Where are you going?
South. I am going south today.
Really more east than south.
Just for this morning, let us say it is south.
He had a momentary memory of fog. Fog outside the windows of the house he’d grown up in. The first foggy days of school in autumn. Arguing with someone.
It is because you are arguing with yourself. That is why you remember fog.
For the next few hours he stayed to the side of the great bent and warped highway. The road headed south, mostly. Looking ahead, it seemed the road must eventually turn to the east.
If I can find salvage before it goes east, then I’ll head straight west. At some point I will find the Old Highway and from there I will find my way home.
Crossing another fallen bridge, he stopped in the late morning shade of the broken sections. Rebar sprang from the chunks like wild strands of hair. When he resumed his climb out of the tall ditch of red earth, he was sweating.
Let’s be clear my friend.
All right.
You say that if you find salvage you will head west and return to the village. Your curse will be lifted?
If you say so but I do not care.
Then why are you out here?
Be quiet.
On top of the dirt embankment, the gentle slope of the road fell away. In the distance a small mountain rose up, broken and dusty brown.
I know that mountain. There was once a large A on its side.
That was common in Arizona in those days. To put a large A on the side of every small mountain near a town or city.
Then it means there must be one nearby. I think it is the one whose name I cannot remember. It seems familiar.
He crossed the flat landscape toward the mountain. To the side of the road, lone stands of scrub grew up in solitary dark patches, as if too hurt to ever grow near another living thing.
Further along the highway, he passed the remains of a burnt fueling station off to one side. It was little more than a concrete pad and blackened cement. In the lone shade of a mesquite tree he ate the last of the fox and drank some water.
Now you have two problems.
Now I have no food and no salvage. If I could walk straight to the village day and night for three days I might make it. But not without food. The effort would be too great and I might make a mistake if I were so hungry I couldn’t focus. Then a broken leg would be the end of me.
Tonight I will stop early and make some traps.
A gas station like this once had a tin awning that made a singsong noise in a strong wind.
Another thought that has no place in the present.
Maybe just another memory trying not to be forgotten.
I might know that because I once stopped here for fuel.
You always came to visit your parents on the Eight. Not the Ten.
Amazed, he stopped chewing. He hadn’t referred to the Old Highway as the Eight in a long time. Since the days just after the bombs. The names of places had been forgotten. Or were too painful to remember.
The Eight.
He tried to remember the name of the town he was looking for. Something “Big” he remembered. But it wouldn’t come and the air seemed to be getting hotter with the noonday heat.
He began to move again, south along the highway.
In the afternoon, brilliant white sails of cloud began to form to the east. Climbing upward, each full-blown sail exploding beneath an eruption of white foam. The armada of clouds came no closer than a dark ridge of jagged mountains to the east that embodied everything he felt about that direction.
The monsoons were coming.
THE ALPHA LED the thirty wolves of his pack off the mountain and passed the Winnebago on its side. At the road, he smelled the night wind coming out of the south. He didn’t smell the man. But he knew men. He had watched them. Men always moved in one direction, as if always on the hunt of just one animal.
The two killers challenged him briefly as he started off down the highway but his mate snarled back at them. For a moment, it looked as though the pack might split. The two killers wanted to circle to the north and for a while they yelped about it, making the noises that indicated mule deer.
But the females went with the Alpha, and soon the entire pack lay strung out behind him as he scented the sides of the road for the man.
Near the bridge where the Old Man made camp the night before, the wolf picked up the scent of urine. The Old Man had urinated just before sleeping.
Slowly the Alpha crept down along a path and followed the trail directly into the camp under the bridge. He smelled the gray ash of the night’s fire. Some paper the Old Man had wrapped the dried fox in. The rest of the pack milled about above the camp on the main road. Dawn wasn’t far off and they’d nothing to eat so far.
One of the killers howled in warning and the entire pack turned toward the sound of it.
A family of havalina had come up the dry riverbed under the bridge from the east and the wolves fell upon the wild pigs, easily snatching the babies as the male and the females stubbornly stood their ground hoping to minimize losses.
But the wolves were too good for the wild pigs. Had hunted too long under the Alpha. Soon, the last sow’s eyes rolled back in her head. She’d watched the killers tearing out the entrails of the male that had presided over the brood for as long as she could remember. Seconds later, a warm softness came over her as the Alpha sunk its teeth deeper into her jugular vein, forcing her to release.
Swinging her to the side, the Alpha looked at the two killers. They should have known the females were the most dangerous. She could have killed them or made the victim wish for death. That might have solved his problems right there. But treachery was not in the Alpha.
The snarling pack devoured flesh and blood. The Alpha settled down to the dead sow. He had lost the pack for the night. There would be no going any farther after this meal. Dawn would soon be upon them. They would sleep in the shade under the bridge in the man’s camp from the night before. And tomorrow they would hunt him again.
