The Wasteland Saga

There were tears in the eyes of this savage that Shao Fan now recognizes, as his vision surrendered to a closing black circle.

Be careful who you love.

And then the pistol erupted in the hands of the savage and Shao Fan was no more.

THE BOY PASSED through the rape of the last Chinese outpost. It was the same as Auburn and even worse, he thought, as if seeing it all from far away.

He passed the dead guards at the gate, stepping over them. Beyond them, another guard was moving and bleeding, crawling toward the water. Numbly the Boy passed on.

He found a small canoe and set out across the bay.

Alone, the work of paddling the canoe was hard.

His left side was weak. But he did not care about it anymore.

You’ll do your work. Same as the other side.

The day was hot and he reached the far side, the southern end of the bay, by noon.

The air smelled of sage and dust.

Behind him, black columns of smoke rose in the north. He could barely see the colony. It was as if it never existed.

He climbed the low hills and found Horse.

They rode south along the old 101.

He was tired and his eyes felt too heavy, but he pushed on until twilight.

At dusk he built a fire near a long, flat bridge over a dry riverbed. He sat staring into the fire.

In time he heard the rider coming up along his trail.

The Boy took up his pack and loaded it onto Horse.

He scanned the murky darkness and saw only the dim outline of another figure.

The big bay horse clattered along the road and the rider drew up just beyond the reach of the firelight. The form was familiar. But the darkness hid everything. It was the hat, the Stetson hat, that gave away the rider, and then the voice, dry and friendly.

“Thought you might be asleep by now,” said Dunn. “Figured you’d be all wore out after goin’ ashore with them savages last night. All that blood and mayhem and fire makes a man tired, don’t it?”

The Boy stood near Horse. The tomahawk was in his hand. The pistol, loaded, waited in the saddle on Horse.

Horse complained.

Easy, boy.

“Been following you since Auburn. Thought I’d catch up to you inside the Chinese base. But surprise, surprise, I found yer horse all staked out and waiting. Figured you’d slipped in among the crazies. But I knew you’d be back for yer horse.”

The Boy said nothing.

“So I waited with my new pistols. Just like MacRaven’s.”

The Boy waited to hear the hammer of Dunn’s guns being thumbed back.

Maybe he rode up with them ready to go.

Sergeant…?

“Raleigh was a good man. Didn’t deserve what you did to him.”

Man’s come a long way to talk, Boy. Figures he’s earned hisself a speech. He won’t do nothin’ till he’s got it all out.

“Him and I was partners long before you ever come outta…”

So whatever you got to do, Boy. Do it now!

“More’n partners in fact, he was…”

In the moment the Boy threw the tomahawk, he meant it. He threw it not just at Dunn, but at a world that was cruel and made of stone.

Don’t let it go unless you mean to, Boy.

The aim was true but it caught Dunn’s horse in the throat as Dunn jerked at the reins to protect himself.

The horse screamed.

Dunn fired.

Two thundering roars erupted from Dunn’s pistols.

Two wet slaps.

The Boy felt the spray of Horse’s blood across his face as he turned and reached for the saddle, a moment later spinning away from Horse, the pistol extended toward Dunn, who rode his mount into the earth, stepping off in one smooth motion, dropping his pistols for the wicked knife he kept on his belt.

The Boy fired and Dunn fell dead, back over his fallen horse.

Flung back.

Put down.

Dead.

The Boy turned back to Horse, who looked up at him from the road once more.

That Horse look of contempt.

Resignation.

Forgiveness.

Horse laid his long head down against the cracked and broken highway as his eyes closed finally, firmly, as if to say, I’m done with the world.

Epilogue

Where do you go now, Boy?

The road turned south and the days were long and hot. A narrow valley wound its way along the coastal mountains and would continue on all the way to Los Angeles. Or what was left of it now.

But in the days that followed, the Boy turned from the 101, limping, and climbed the smooth grassy hills to the east, soft gentle hills, rising and falling in waves of green grass.

He dragged his body over the hills, his left side aching, withered, refusing to go farther.

He continued on.

On the other side of the hills, he found a wide valley that stretched away in a brown haze to the south.

Who am I now?

He stood in the gusting wind atop the hills.

He continued down into the hot valley.

Ancient roads, ruptured and disintegrating, overrun by erupting wild growth, crossed from east to west. All else was dry and brown, hard dirt and sun-rotten dead wood.

Fires had crossed the valley and there remained little of what once was.

Rusty water towers, fallen and gouged.

Wild tangles of barbed wire.

Fallen walls of blackened stone.

He crossed the old Interstate Five and continued down into the heat of the valley.

The trees here would not grow. They were stunted and sickly and even the ground seemed either unnaturally dark or washed out and spent altogether. Thorns, of which there are many, grew in wicked profusions of ochre, sickly green or pus yellow.

In a village of adobe walls he found misshapen men and women. All of them were blind and dragging themselves along through the dirt. They ate from sickly stands of a dark green kale that gave off a foul aroma when they stewed it inside an old oil drum filled with brackish water.

They knew he was there and they searched for him, but their keening and sniffing in the dusty heat after