CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

“And they shall be desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate, and her cities shall be in the midst of the cities that are wasted.”

The Old Man watched the Stranger as he worked at pulling up the grating that covered what must have once been a pool inside the skeletal remains of a gym.

That is his answer to what lies east?

Yes, my friend. That is his answer.

When the metal cover was pushed back, the hint of kerosene bloomed in full. Inside the empty pool, salvage-fashioned fuel tanks lay along the bottom.

My eyes are burning from the fumes.

The Old Man waved the others back and dropped down into the shallow end of the dry pool. He tapped his scarred knuckles against a tank and heard the hollow echo of a half-filled volume.

Will it be enough?

It will have to be.

They brought the tank in through the shattered remains of the floor-to-ceiling windows. It crushed ancient fitness machines beneath its treads. Above them a barn owl screeched incessantly, refusing to flee into the daylight.

He has been here for some time.

If he waits, we will go away. But he must wait until we have taken all their fuel.

When they had maneuvered the tank as close to the pool as they could, they stretched out the pump hose until it barely reached the farthermost tank.

The fumes could ignite in a moment so we must be very careful.

“Go out and look for some salvage,” he told his granddaughter. “See if there is anything we can use.”

“Food would be good, Poppa.”

“Yes, food would be good.”

When she was gone he breathed a little easier.

If we explode she will at least be safe.

She will be all alone.

Yes, but she won’t be dead.

The Boy took charge of the fueling once the Old Man had shown him how it was performed. Now they waited in the silence of the ancient pool area, the APU droning like the pumps of the pool must have once done.

The Old Man turned to the Stranger.

His words are church words.

As though he will only speak what he has seen or read. As though it is his punishment or his penance. But he understands. I know he does. How has he made it all this time? What is his story of salvage?

“What is your … what is your story?”

The Stranger who had been watching the fueling process with both amazement and amusement turned back to the Old Man with laughing, mirthful eyes.

The Stranger seemed to want to say something. Then stopped himself and simply shook his head. When the Old Man seemed to accept this, the Stranger turned back to watch the fueling.

The map.

The Old Man climbed up into the tank and retrieved Sergeant Presley’s map, though he thought of it only as the Boy’s.

Again he was amazed at the information contained in its markings.

It’s the story of someone’s life.

Is that not true of all maps, my friend?

True. And also, our stories are the maps of our lives.

The Old Man stopped.

Our stories are the maps of our lives.

Yes, my friend.

He spread the map out on the ragged rubber floor of the gym, in a space between crushed pieces of fitness equipment.

“Excuse me?” He spoke loudly trying to get the Stranger’s attention.

The Stranger turned.

He saw the map. If the look in his eyes when he’d watched the tank drink up all the fuel had been one of amazement, the look in his eyes when he saw the map was one of awe.

He fell to his knees and a moment later his short thick fingers were tracing the roads. Tracing them back east. Tracing them to New York. Landing on Brooklyn.

And he wept.

His shoulders shaking.

Sobs gushing forth in tremendous heaves.

“By the rivers of Babylon,” sobbed the Stranger. “There we sat down, yea we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying sing us one of the songs of Zion.”

The Stranger hung his head and tears splashed down onto the map. The Old Man stood, frozen.

The Stranger raised his head, looking up to the Old Man. Asking him.

“How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I refer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.”

Through watery, joy-filled eyes, he spread his small hands outward, upward, and expanded them across the map.

He means, ‘Where are we?,’ my friend.

The Old Man looked at the map and laid his finger over Flagstaff.

The Stranger placed one finger on Brooklyn and then stretched another finger on his other hand over Flagstaff.

For a long time he stared at the map.

Stared at the distance between the two points.

Stared at all the stories of his wanderings.

Some making a little more sense now.

Some coming to the surface after so many years on the road.

“Do you know of this ‘King Charlie’?” asked the Old Man.

The Stranger looked up from the map.

There was fear in his eyes.

He looked back to the map and studying it, drew his finger away from the west, following the map east. Following the once great Interstate 40. Then, at Albuquerque he went north, and after making a wide circle that reached all the way down into Texas he spoke.

“Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? Art thou become like unto us? Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms; that made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners? All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory, every one in his own house. But thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcass trodden under feet. Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, and slain thy people: the seed of evildoers shall never be renowned.”

The Stranger looked at the Old Man and nodded slowly, placing his index finger over Colorado Springs.

Bad news for us, my friend.

Yes.

I think he is saying that King Charlie is the devil. And that the devil is in Colorado Springs.

Where I need to go.

“It would have to be that way,” muttered the Old Man to himself.

The Stranger took hold of the Old Man’s hand. His touch was warm and soft. He moved the hand down to Albuquerque and whispered, “Ted.”

“Ted?”

The Stranger nodded.

“Who is Ted?”

But the Stranger only smiled and nodded in the affirmative.

Whoever Ted is, he’s good. Or at least he has been to the Stranger.

And he thinks Ted will also be good to us.

Didn’t Conklin of the Dam say they’d heard there was someone who’d set up an outpost in ABQ as he called it? That they even had electricity?

Ted.

When the fueling was complete, the Old Man backed the tank out of the rickety framework of the ruin that had once been a gym and left the tank idling in the hot afternoon heat.

The Boy brought out an old weight bar he’d found in the shadows and dark of the gym.

“I can make this into a weapon,” he said as he passed the Old Man.

The Stranger motioned for the map once more. When it was opened and spread out on the hot pavement, the Stranger pointed toward the land that lay between Flagstaff and Albuquerque.

“They shall lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roareth like the sea; and they ride upon horses, set in array as men for war against thee, O daughter of Zion.”

Then he pointed toward the sun overhead and shook his head. Making a fist, he pulled it down.

“You’re saying don’t cross this area in the daytime?”

The Stranger nodded.

Then held up one finger.

“In one night! You’re saying cross all this in one night? That’s a long journey, over bad roads!”

The Stranger nodded again.

“Who are these people?” asked the Old Man.

The Stranger looked about, leaned close, and then whispered, “Apache.”

Later, under the bridge, waiting for nightfall, the Old Man walked up the street. Toward the outpost that had been.

How can these Apache stop a tank?

Who knows? But this fellow thinks they’re dangerous enough to try. Or at least try and get you stuck, then wait you out.

Go in one night as quick as you can and it might prevent them from bringing their resources to bear. Surprise them.

But we could get stuck on the road in the night.

At the top of the hill, in the gritty crumbling parking lot of the hotel, the Old Man saw words written on the wall in a sickly green neon slop-paint.

Those words weren’t there yesterday.

Someone has passed through in the night and left a message for me.

Someone on a horse.

“Up is down, left is right. King Charlie brings you Peace through Might.”

The Old Man wondered if this was the Fool thundering through the darkness on a horse too big for his gangling body, even now ahead of them, knowing where they are going, holding the stolen map in his claws.

And below that, as if addressed specifically to the Old Man, written in slop-paint strokes, was the word “Nuncle.”