The Boy shook his head and said, “Nothing.”
When the story was done and the Boy had told how Sergeant Presley had died and how he’d buried him in the cornfields, the Old Man said, “He sounds like he was a good man.”
Silence.
Sergeant Major Preston.
Staff Sergeant Presley.
Long after the country had given up, they were out there, still soldiering. Still trying to save their country when the rest of us were only trying to save ourselves.
We need more of those kind of people.
More Staff Sergeant Presleys.
More Sergeant Major Prestons.
What is a soldier?
A soldier is someone who never gives up.
Yes, my friend.
The Boy finished his tale by the side of the grave in the cold cornfield with winter coming on.
But there is more he will not tell us tonight.
When I found him he was mad with grief. So it’s probably something he still carries with him.
He said to you,
The meat was ready.
A woman in soft buckskin carved the first piece and offered it to the Crippled Man.
He nodded his head toward the Boy.
All eyes watched as the dripping and steaming haunch of meat was carried to the Boy. They had all seen him carry that massive shield, wielding that immense weapon, riding an ancient war machine into battle against impossible odds.
They had seen him stand alone against many.
The Boy swallowed thickly.
Hungry.
Then…
“Please give it to my friends.” He turned to the Old Man and his granddaughter. “They found me when I was… lost.”
The Old Man held up his hands in protest.
But the look from the Boy, the look from all of them, stopped the Old Man.
The Old Man tore it in half, handing a piece to his granddaughter.
“Thank you, we are very honored.”
Chapter 46
“And now the other question is ‘Where are you going?’” the Crippled Man said as he and the Old Man sat in the golden dawnlight of the next morning.
They drank a brewed tea by a smoking fire.
“We are heading north.”
The Crippled Man’s face darkened.
Beyond them, warriors fed and brushed their horses, exercising the animals with short sprints or gentle walks.
“Why go there? There is nothing up that way anymore,”
The Old Man nodded. “There is someone there.”
The Crippled Man’s eyes went wide. Then he sipped his tea, blowing away the steam.
“Where?”
“Beneath the mountain at Colorado Springs. The old NORAD bunker.”
“I didn’t think they’d survived,” said the Crippled Man.
“They contacted us by radio. They said someone is trying to break into their bunker from the outside. If that happens, the complex will flood with a lethal dose of radiation. They’ll all die in there.”
“Who’s in command?”
“Natalie… I mean someone named General Watt.”
The Crippled Man thought for a moment, sipping his tea again, smacking his lips.
“I don’t remember that name. But it has been a long time.”
Small sleepy-eyed children emerged from patchwork tents and were dragged down to the stream by women.
“You won’t survive. That is, if you go north beyond a deserted place once called Raton.”
“How do you know we won’t?”
The Crippled Man refilled his tea, leaning from off his multihued carpet, holding out the kettle that hung over the fire, filling the Old Man’s cup.
“I was a Lightning driver in those days. Flew the F-35.” The Crippled Man nodded to himself. “I flew the F- 35,” he whispered.
“I can’t remember what I did,” said the Old Man. “Whatever it was, it must not have been that important.”
“I can’t remember my wife’s maiden name,” said the Crippled Man. “Age is funny like that, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“So how do you know… about the North?” asked the Old Man.
“Operation Running Back. I’ll explain. Sorry. I’m lost. Talking about, saying those words makes it all seem like… like it just happened. Like it was yesterday. And this is funny, but sometimes it seems like it all happened to someone else. Does that… do you ever feel that way too?”
“I do,” agreed the Old Man.
Yes.
“That’s good. It would be terrible to be the only one who ever felt like that.”
The Old Man nodded and blew on his tea.
Today will be very hot, my friend. Do you ever think that today will be your last day? Like those men on the slopes. Like all those people back during the days of the bombs. Everyone has a last day. Everyone dies.
I am only thinking this way because of what he has told me about the North. About where I must go.
Yes.
“When the bombs started going off…” began the Crippled Man. “When we lost New York, we had to keep the President airborne in… oh, I forget… wait, Air Force One. Yes.” He laughed. “That was it. Air Force One. I was based out of Dover. I flew shotgun for… Air Force One. I’d been somewhere else… in the desert before that, then I got reassigned. Moved my… yeah. That’s right. I moved my wife and kid there. Two weeks later I’m on the tarmac. Engine to max power and I’m following Air Force One for the next three days. Maybe the last three days of the United States, I kept thinking. For three straight days I flew and flew and when my plane got thirsty I was refueled by an air tanker. We couldn’t put the President down anywhere. We were trying to make it into the bunker at NORAD. D.C. had been hit, so we couldn’t get him in to the bunker there. A civilian plane got a little too close outside of Chicago and I shot him down. I didn’t think it was a terrorist, but we couldn’t be too careful. I wasn’t proud of that. So we’re vectoring in on Colorado Springs. I’ve been flying for three days straight. I remember that I got to set down twice. Once in a field. The other time on a highway. They let me get a few hours of sleep and then I was back on cap again. That night over Colorado I was falling asleep at the stick. I kept slapping myself, doing everything I could to stay awake. On top of that, Air Force One was running dark, which is a hell of thing when you’ve got to follow it real close. Hell of a time. The controller contacts me from Air Force One and tells me we’re turning for the air base at Colorado Springs. It looked like we’re heading straight in. Then she adds, I remember it clear as day, she adds, ‘Oh yeah, and for your own personal beatification, we just went nuclear on the Chinese fleet.’ We were tired. We’d been talking to each other for three days. I’d always imagined
