The Wasteland Saga

“Hell, keep it. Vaclav’s coming up with Raleigh’s horse and yours also, I suspect. Where’d you say the chief was?”

The Boy stared for a long moment, then pointed toward the field.

Dunn kicked his mount and tore off across the grass of the on-ramp. The crossbow sang again and now the ashen-faced warriors were marching in formation toward the courthouse.

Won’t be long now before things get sorted out. You better get while the gettin’s good, Boy.

He trotted through the broken timbers of the gate, smashed by the iron bar flung from the space crossbow.

The rising highway to the east was flooded with carts and wagon teams. Wild-eyed women and scrawny children who had followed the army of tribes watched the fort with hunger. On the other side of the highway, buildings from Before lay fallow and fallen amidst a pine forest that had overrun that section of town.

Vaclav led Horse and Raleigh’s mount down alongside the grass-covered highway. The other horses were wild with fear from the smoke and gunfire as Vaclav cursed and spit, trying to keep them under control.

When he saw the Boy he yelled, “Take your stupid animal already.”

The Boy limped forward and took hold of Horse. The bearskin was tied across Horse’s back and he found his tomahawk inside the saddle pack. A moment later he was up and whispering as he patted the long neck of his friend.

“What’s going on in there?” said Vaclav, looking at the rifle with the coal-black version of Dunn’s hungry blue eyes.

The Boy was just about to lie when they both heard shouting at the gate as Dunn came thundering through on his mare, knocking back two ashen-faced guards. He screamed something at Vaclav.

If the meaning isn’t clear it shortly will be, Boy.

“What’s he saying?” asked Vaclav.

Dunn waved his machete, still shouting as he drove his horse hard up the old highway.

Whatchu gonna do now, Boy?

Vaclav will be busy with the extra mount. Dunn, on the other hand…

The Boy raised the rifle and sighted down the barrel. The rifle was too long to steady with just his one good arm, which he needed the hand of to pull the trigger.

Horse has never heard a rifle before. Be ready, Boy. Horse might not like it.

He raised his withered left arm and set the rifle on the flat of his thin arm.

“What’re you doing?” Vaclav screamed.

Is it loaded, Boy?

Dunn’s eyes were wide with fear and hate as he raced to close the distance between them.

Horse danced to the right, turning away.

I’ve never fired a gun before, Sergeant.

Ain’t nothin’ but a thang.

Explosion.

The bullet rips into Dunn’s mount and Dunn goes down hard, face-first on the grassy slope.

The Boy urged Horse forward and they were off across the broken and grassy highway, down an overgrown embankment, and into the ruins and the forest beyond.

Chapter 32

The Boy had passed by the overgrown ruins of places almost familiar many times before. There had always been in him that desire to understand such places, to investigate them. But in this moment of shouting men behind him, and soon the inevitable dogs, he knew there was no time for the usual consideration of things past.

Green grass sprouted through the split asphalt of a wide avenue, the remains of an old road led up through the ruins that the Boy suspected was the other half of the Auburn that existed before the bombs. At the top of the rise, looking back toward the smoky pillars climbing over the outpost, the Boy saw the remnants of the Hard Men coming for him. Other men, ferocious lunatics, followed behind Raleigh’s riders with bellowing hounds at the ends of thick straps of leather.

Escape and evade, Boy, we done it a million times. If they’re bringing dogs, then distance is what you need. Out of sight, those dogs will start to slow down when they start searchin’ for your trail. Then you can confuse ’em.

The Boy patted Horse and knew that an outright race would put him beyond the dogs. But the Hard Men on their horses would spot his trail and the following would be easier.

He turned and started through the overgrown brush and tangle of a collapsed bridge that once crossed the road.

I’ll keep moving west, Sergeant.

He rode Horse hard for a time, working his way down a wooded ridge and following a twisting maze of dense brush and warped trees along falling ridges and a steep slope that will eventually lead into the river delta around Sacramento.

By noon he had lost the Hard Men, but his progress had been slow. Way off, back up on the ridge, he heard dogs baying, moaning as if in pain.

If they catch me, will those dogs stop their noise, satisfied at what will happen next?

Sometimes I wonder if there is any good left in this world.

He thought of the bodies and carnage of Auburn.

At sunset, he pulled out the map from its hidden place in the bearskin. Sacramento was far ahead to the west.

Behind him, he could smell woody smoke in the fading light and he wondered if it was from Auburn or the campfires of his pursuers.

It was good to be alone again.

Is that the way of my life, Sergeant? My way through this world? Alone?

But there was no answer.

Why should there be an answer, Sergeant? When you were alive we never talked about those things. We talked of food and survival, and sometimes I just listened to your stories about the way things were Before. And sometimes also, why they had to end.

You take everything with you, Boy.

Yes.

He looked at what forty years of wild, unchecked growth had made of the terrain. It was a wall through which nothing could pass undetected.

The Old Highway is maybe a mile off to my right. I’ll have a better chance evading them there.

They could be searching the road for you, Boy.

If I put as much distance tonight between myself and the hounds, by morning I’ll have a better chance.

He remembered Sergeant Presley’s hatred of “chance.”

If all you got is a chance, Boy, you ain’t got jack!

It’s all I have now, Sergeant.

He rode the highway at a trot. The night was cool and mist rose from the lowlands on both sides of the highway. Cars and trucks, forever frozen in rusty dereliction, littered the road and made him wonder, as they always did, of the stories behind and within them.

You’ll never know, Boy. I could make up a story for you like I used to. You could tell yourself a lie. But what good would it do, even if you could know how things ended for those people?

Sometimes the Boy heard himself asking, What has happened here? Sometimes the cars were jammed together, as though frozen in a single moment of waiting. Sometimes they were overturned. Sometimes they were parked by the side of the road, every door open, every window broken. What was within was gone, even down to the seats. All that was left was rusting metal and an untold story he would