He is very handsome. Strong too. That is a good thing for these days. But she is still young.
But there must always be a first time for love.
He looked down into the tank and saw her face. She was deep in sleep, still wrapped in her bomber jacket.
I will take just her laugh with me to wherever I must go next. Please? Is it a deal? Just the memory of her laugh. Can I have that?
Silence.
In the night, the Old Man thought he heard a horse galloping down the highway above his head.
I am dreaming.
Maybe the horse is on the bridge.
Maybe the horse is part of the dream.
The Old Man fell back to sleep.
Chapter 37
The Old Man woke with a start.
I was falling.
Yes.
She was calling for me?
I think so.
I smell bacon.
He opened the hatch. The Boy and a Stranger watched the campfire and a cast-iron skillet between them in which the Old Man could see splattering grease leaping in the waves of heat that came up from the flames.
The Stranger wore clothing made of tanned hide. A necklace of bones. His hair fell in curls around a circle of baldness that had consumed the back of the top of his head. Large sad brown eyes turned to the Old Man and gazed upon him.
The Old Man dismounted the tank, feeling the stiffness of his sleeping position in each handhold and footfall that brought him jarringly to the ground.
The Boy stood and hobbled toward the Old Man.
The Stranger looked exhausted. It had been a long night for him also.
“I found him up there on top of the large rock,” said the Boy. The Stranger had turned back to the fire and the skillet.
“Was he alone?” asked the Old Man.
“Yes. He’s harmless. I don’t think we’ll get much out of him, though.” The Boy waited until the Stranger bent to inspect something within the skillet. Then the Boy raised his index finger to his temple and twirled it.
The Boy lay down near where he’d left his worn rucksack. He patted it once and then laid his head on it and closed his eyes. A moment later the Boy was asleep.
The Old Man retrieved a percolator from the tank and some tea, the last remaining packets in their supplies, and went to the fire. He set the percolator to boil on the coals and sat down across from the Stranger.
“Good morning,” he said to the Stranger.
The Stranger raised his clasped hands to his mouth, squeezed his eyes shut, and began to rock back and forth.
This went on for a while and the Old Man was content to wait for the water to boil and for the tea to steep. He sat out mugs on stones near the fire and poured the tea.
The day was still cool, though soon the heat would be up. In the blue shadows beneath the bridge, the Old Man watched the pork sizzle in the cast-iron pan and sipped his hot tea.
Like camping.
The Stranger produced a large meat fork and skewered a piece of sizzling pork, holding it out toward the Old Man.
“Thank you.”
The Old Man chewed.
Should I be worried about the quality of this meat?
Life has already made several attempts to kill you, my friend. This pork is probably the least of your worries today.
It’s good.
The Stranger ate none of the pork.
He watched the Old Man, nodding slightly with approval.
He’s not as old as me, but he is old enough to have lived through the bombs. Maybe he was young and never learned to speak. Maybe no one survived with him. Maybe he has been alone all this time.
“Your country is desolate,” said the Stranger in a high voice.
As if his heart was breaking.
As if he were on the verge of tears.
“Your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence.”
The Old Man nodded respectfully, chewing the pork. He picked up his tea and sipped.
“What’s your name?” he asked through another mouthful of pork.
The Stranger looked as if he were about to go on, as if the Old Man had interrupted him in the middle of his speech.
“Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates,” continued the Stranger, almost pleading with the Old Man. “They are a trouble unto me: I am weary to bear them. And when you spread forth your hands, I will hide my eye from you.” The Stranger covered his brown liquid-filled eyes with the palms of his hands. Then he looked up and, putting his hands over his ears, he whispered in horror, “Yes, when you make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.”
Okay.
The Old Man’s granddaughter emerged from the tank, rubbing sleepy eyes. He saw her look about for the Boy. She saw her grandfather watching her when her gaze had finally fallen upon his sleeping form. She climbed down from the tank, eyes still half closed, and settled next to the fire. The Stranger held out pork for her from within the skillet.
She chewed.
Just like camping.
Okay, I will try once more. But I already know I will be sorry.
“Do you have a name, sir?” asked the Old Man.
The Stranger nodded emphatically.
Then stopped.
“Wash you, make you clean: put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes: cease to do evil.”
“We are not doing evil. We are on a journey to rescue some people who are trapped in a bunker to the east. In what was once Colorado,” said the Old Man reaching exasperation. “Do you know Colorado?”
“Learn to do well, seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, and plead for the widow,” continued the Stranger.
“That’s what we’re doing!” said the Old Man, surprised with himself that he was already upset.
Usually, I am much more patient.
The Stranger stopped. He leaned forward. There was hope in his voice when he spoke again.
“Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be wool.”
