Soldiers and fathers in the same moment.
The older soldier walked forward.
His hand traced the broken dome.
He turned to the Boy and raised a hand pointing east, pointing over the bay, over the green hills and the river beyond, and the city it had swallowed and the fields and into the foothills and to the place of the drawing.
The Boy nodded.
He had destroyed their world more completely than MacRaven’s shining crossbow ever would.
“Name?”
The voice came from the side of the crowd, from near the open crack in the gate. It gurgled, as though erupting up through a sea of mud.
The Boy turned.
“Rank?” It was an old Chinese man. Fat. Tall. Bent. His gray hair was slicked back over his large liver- spotted and peeling head. He wore the old Red Chinese army uniform from Before. The Boy had once seen the tattered scraps of such a uniform. Sergeant Presley had shown him one they’d found inside a downed transport, crashed in a field outside Galveston.
You told me it was the uniform of a Chinese general, Sergeant.
For a moment the Boy had almost heard the voice of Sergeant Presley. It reminded him of hearing someone call out for a child at dusk, telling them to come home finally.
The Boy remembered that day. It had been cold. They’d huddled inside the creaking wreckage of the big transport crashed long ago in the plain of waving grass.
You told me, Sergeant, that they were Chinese airborne. You told me they tried to drop them all across North America after we nuked the Middle East. You told me they were all in on it, but they got scattered, shot down. Jumped by our few remaining fighters. Pockets of Chinese airborne everywhere. Even made a good defense in Reno. The map said so.
You told me that, Sergeant, and now I need you to tell me what to do.
“Serial number?” barked the old Chinese general, wearing the same type of uniform Sergeant Presley had shown him on that day they spent hiding in the wreckage.
Another uniform the same as this one.
Another Chinese general.
The Boy croaked, “I don’t…” It had been a long time since he’d spoken aloud.
“I speak… American,” said the old man, the Chinese general. He rolled forward on a crooked cane.
He probably was once very strong, but now he moved worse than the Boy.
“I am General Song. I defeated the American Army.”
The Boy lowered his eyes to the sandstone pavement.
I am glad… and then he was about to think, ‘that you are dead, Sergeant Presley.’
But he stopped.
Behind the Chinese general stood a girl. She was young. His age. Chinese.
She was beautiful.
And…
She looked at him.
Without horror.
Without fear.
Without pity.
She was beautiful.
Chapter 38
He wanted to see her again.
He wanted to be left alone by all these Chinese.
He wanted to be left alone so that he might draw her.
He wanted to draw the way she had looked at him.
All about him, the Chinese were in an uproar.
Suddenly there was activity and work. Riders were dispatched to the east. A woman gave Horse an apple. The Chinese general and the girl disappeared behind the massive gate, the old soldier casting his steely gaze back upon the Boy.
She stood before the Boy, even though she was gone now.
She looked at him.
The troop leader led him to a shack by the water of the bay. The troop leader tied Horse to a hitching post nearby and pointed toward the shack.
Stay.
The Boy went inside. It had a table, a chair, and a cooking pit. Stairs led to a loft with a pallet and blankets. Out the back door was a small dock and the bay beyond where tiny slender boats bobbed in the windy afternoon.
Toward evening he smelled fire. Then food cooking.
The troop leader returned with a plate of chicken, chilies, and garlic. There was a small wooden basket full of rice.
They both ate at the table.
The sun was setting when the troop leader went out for a moment and returned with a bundle of clothing. He draped the pieces over the chair.
Overalls made of wool.
A rubber trench coat with a high collar.
Rubber boots.
A hooded gas mask.
He took out a slip of paper.
“Please,” he began to read haltingly from the paper, “put… these… on… and… come… with… me.”
The Boy brought Horse inside the shack. The troop leader gave a pained look, then seemed to accept this. He left and returned with hay, setting it down in front of Horse.
The Boy nodded to himself and began to dress in the items.
He had seen them before.
Sergeant Presley had worn similar gear when he’d entered the ruins of Washington, in the District of Columbia.
The clothing made him feel warm, and within moments to the point of suffocation.
When the Boy came to the mask he donned it, unsure if he had done it properly, trying to remember how Sergeant Presley had worn it. The patrol leader went behind the Boy and pulled the straps of the mask tightly, jerking them almost. Then he patted the Boy’s shoulder.
The Boy looked out through the steamy eye holes.
He could hear his own breathing.
He tucked his withered left arm into the pocket of the trench coat and made to take up his tomahawk but the leader shook his head.
The Boy placed the tomahawk on the small wooden table.
Then they left, stepping outside into the twilight of early evening. From behind the soft-lit windows of the shantytown, the Boy could hear, muffled by the hood of the gas mask, the low murmur of voices.
Someone cackled.
There was distant laughter.
Someone played long whining notes on a lone violin, then repeated them.
Dogs barked.
