hand, stepped back, and rushed at the wall, leaping for its edge. He dangled, grasping the edge, as the thunder of the debris wave erupted with a rumble at the far end of the ravine he had just come down. With one hand holding on to the edge, he waved his other hand across the ground above the lip, and finding a root, he quickly passed his cord underneath it. Just before the surge hit him, his other hand grasped the loose end of the extension cord. The flood drove into his waist like a wild bull.
Chapter 24
He hung on as long as he could, but soon the walls of the ravine had turned to mud and began to collapse into the torrent. The Old Man heaved himself upward, even as the wall collapsed, and felt himself scrambling to stand. At last he kicked away from the collapsing mud and found himself breathing hard in a pool of water a few feet from the cliff’s edge.
The sky was gray with rain. Wet slaps hit the mud about him, embracing him in a soft white noise. He turned skyward and opened his mouth, drinking what rainwater fell into it. After he’d filled a mouthful he would swallow. It tasted of iron. It was bitter and it burned his throat. He drank again.
You are a dead man.
Not yet.
Your stuff is gone. How will you survive?
I’m glad I didn’t bring the book. Now when I return I can read it again.
He stood shakily. In his pocket was a soggy book of matches and the pliers. The rest had been carried off. Gone.
You are a dead man.
Not yet.
He walked for another few hours. The flooded ravine forked south and east. He headed south.
If Tucson still stands, I will see it tonight or tomorrow. That is my only hope.
His other voice did not reply.
The valley floor was filled with the violence of the flash floods, and at times he waded through pools and, at others, followed the course until he could jump across, knowing this was dangerous.
At one such crossing, the far side caved away at his sudden weight and all he could do was fall forward into the mud to keep from falling back into the torrent. He lay panting.
I am feeling very weak.
When was the last time you ate?
I can’t remember. Maybe the snake.
Start looking for flint.
For a fire?
Yes.
I have nothing to eat.
Again his other voice was silent.
He forgot to look for flint, and when he had gone on another few hours, he stumbled and realized he’d been stumbling for some time.
There is nothing here.
You are beaten.
I am cursed.
That is the same.
I don’t agree.
The sun came out and everything dried almost instantly. If there had been rain, rain in abundance, the evidence was hidden. Only the clean smell of air without dust betrayed the monsoon. The sun made him sleepy, and when he began to crawl, he remembered he must look for flint. Flint to make a fire. But again he forgot and soon it was night.
The wind came up and he found himself on hands and knees in a sandy depression. He heard a sound. A sound he knew. A sound he had heard in the village.
I will lie down for a few hours and then walk.
He slept the whole night. He dreamed that he was back in his shed, back among the village, listening to the desert wind move through the tin and corrugated metal that was the village. Waiting for morning. Waiting to go salvaging once more with his granddaughter. He kept waiting. He should get out of bed, he thought during the dream. Get out and get ready his tools and breakfast. Get ready for his granddaughter who would spend the day walking. Talking. Listening. It was she, of all the village, who had not given up on him. Just like the boy in the book. He was very excited just for those things. Not so much the salvage. But if they did find salvage, then of course that would be nice also. In the dream, he kept looking out the door of the shed to see if she was waiting. But it was still the middle of the night, dark and cold and clear with the stars like the broken glass east of the village. He had woken too early.
When he awoke it was light. The light was soft. Wind blew sand across his skin. The sound of the tall grass was the sound of a husky broom being swept purposefully in long strokes across a stone floor.
The tail of the airplane was white. It was tall, and it rose above the field of tall grass.
An airliner.
He stood slowly. His side ached where the flood had hit him. There were many tails. Like tombstones shifted slightly right, one to the next.
He moved through the waving grass and found himself standing on the concrete apron that girded the airport. Airplanes stretched away across the field, their metal groaning in the morning wind.
Marana Air Park. The airplane graveyard.
Of all the names from the past that you cannot remember, you remember this one?
My dad… was a pilot. He was an airline pilot. I haven’t thought about that in years.
He walked forward.
The planes, all of them white, faded paint visible on some, stood like headstones. Large wings had collapsed. Some lay on their bellies. Their number stretched off into the distance.
Their doors sealed tombs.
If I had my crowbar, maybe I could get in.
What could there be of use inside?
He thought of electronics, seat cushions. Flotation devices. The galley. Maybe he could find a knife or a fire axe. Planes had fire axes. He remembered that from the many times his dad would take him to the cockpit where he worked.
He found the hangars that once stood watch over the graveyard of planes. They had fallen down. What tools or a crowbar he might have used to violate the tombs of the airplanes lay underneath and out of reach.
He walked toward the far end of the airfield.
These planes once crossed the world.
He thought of Hawaii. He had been five times. Flown there five times as a child. It was his dad’s route. He and his mother in back. A vacation.
Had such a thing like that ever happened? He stood in the bright sunshine of the place. The wind was dying and the cemetery music of lonely tin slowly faded.
In the book my friend talked of Africa. Of the lions on the beach at sunset. I remember.
“When I was your age I was before the mast on a square-rigged ship that ran to Africa and I have seen lions on the beaches in the evening.”
Had ever such a thing happened?
If I could get in. If I could get into one of these, I might stay for a while. Gather tools. Hunt. Then trek back to the village.
I could head back to the peak and turn west. The Eight leads back to the village.
What if there are more of them? More of that boy. Chasing me with the club. The plaque said Human
