CHAPTER FORTY TWO

They pushed north as the flames consuming Albuquerque climbed toward the old highway on the eastern edge of town. For miles they could see the billowing black smoke reaching high into the iron blue of noonday.

The old highway was sun-bleached and rent by gaping cracks as the tank pushed upward through a ponderosa of rocks and stunted twisting pines.

There is only Santa Fe between us and Colorado Springs now. It is the last major city.

When he showed the Boy the map and pointed toward Santa Fe, asking if the Boy knew anything about what they might find there, the Boy only shook his head.

In the late afternoon they arrived in Santa Fe.

The Old Man turned off the tank and watched the pink rocks in the last of the hot day.

There is nothing here.

The Old Man looked hard into the dense tangle of weed bracken and cactus that spread west of the highway across a wide rise that ended in a chalky ridge and tired rocky hills beyond.

If there was a city here it is gone now.

Were they nuked?

The Old Man checked the dosimeter.

There is radiation.

On the sudden and very light afternoon breeze that began to sweep the place, the Old Man could hear bone chimes rattling against each other, hidden but there all the same.

So what is their story of salvage?

The Old Man watched as purple shadows began to lengthen and as the sun sank into the western sands. Within the brush he could see the frames and structures of rotting buildings signaling their surrender to the landscape.

The land turned to red and what was not red was purple and cool.

The buildings are like victims tied to a stake, signaling through the flames that they were here. Trying to communicate their last message.

What do you know of such things, my friend?

They drove on until the dosimeter was back down to an acceptable level.

High. But not too high.

There will always be radiation now. With the amount of bombs we used, there must be.

I never fired one.

Yes. But it was your generation that can never be forgiven.

Silence.

In the dark, beside the tank, watching their fire turn and leap as it consumed the sweet-scented local pine, the Boy spoke.

“I know where you are going. But where did you come from?”

His granddaughter watched him, her eyes wide.

I am surprised she has not told him already.

She still listens to you.

“A city,” said the Old Man.

The Boy continued to watch the fire, its flames within his green eyes.

“Ain’t nothin’ left of cities, Boy,” said the Boy.

“What do you mean?”

The Boy shook his head.

“Just something someone used to tell me.”

The soldier.

I wish we’d more of that rabbit than we did. Tomorrow we should hunt for a while.

“It’s true,” said his granddaughter. “Isn’t it, Poppa?”

The Old Man nodded still thinking of rabbit.

“Poppa found it. We used to live in a tiny village but Poppa went out into the wasteland and found Tucson.”

The Old Man shot a quick look at her and then the Boy.

“Sorry, Poppa.”

The Old Man got up and went to get some water.

When he came back he said, “I’m sorry.” He nodded at the Boy. “I didn’t know if we could trust you. When we found you … well … you’d had a tough time. That was obvious.”

The Boy only seems to listen to me now. But really, he is somewhere else. Maybe in his past, before we found him.

How do you know, my friend?

Whatever happened before we met him scarred him, changed him. Left its mark on him. He is there even now and I doubt he wholly ever leaves that place.

Yes.

“We don’t need to know about your past,” said the Old Man. “You’ve proven yourself to us. In fact, I don’t know what we’d have done without you. When we finish with this business, you could come and live in the city with us, if you wanted to.”

“You’d like it there!” said his granddaughter. “There’s lots of salvage.”

After a moment the Boy whispered a barely audible “thank you” and nothing more.

In the night, the others were asleep and the Old Man lay awake again, watching the night and the stars.

I would give anything to sleep like I used to. Like they do.

You’re not thinking about rabbit even though you’ve been trying to.

Yes.

So what are you really thinking about?

Everything.

That’s a lot to think about, my friend.

Yes.

A lot for one person.

Yes.

The story of Santa Fe? The story you would need to know if you were going to go and salvage there?

A little of that, although it is easy to understand what happened there, but mostly of other things.

Then what happened there?

A dirty bomb would be my guess. That is why we got the higher reading on the dosimeter. A dirty bomb parked in the downtown district.

Or the art district. Or even the historic.

Did they have such things?

Wherever it was, it went off and destroyed less than a block. The fire engines and police arrived. If it was the first bomb, or one of the first in those early days before we truly understood what was going on, they hadn’t even thought of checking their dosimeters that day. But in the days that followed, before the EMP that knocked out the networks, an exploding van in any kind of populated area would have had them checking. In a moment they would’ve known.

Known what?

That the city was poisoned.

That everyone must flee.

Why?

Because, what can you do now? The bomb has gone off. You can’t put out radiation like a fire. Or clean it up like a flood. Or pack it into an ambulance and take it to the hospital. No. It is just there, somewhere under all that brush.

And that is what happened. In a matter of hours, by evening no doubt, because I remember the bombs always seemed to go off during the morning rush hour … they are all gone into the desert and the city is dead for all practical intents and purposes.

The bombs always went off at morning rush hour.

I have not thought about that in a long time. Funny, what comes back to you across the years. What surfaces in the little pond we call our mind.

Or sails across the ocean and back again.

Yes. That is an even better way to think of it.

By evening the city is dead. And in the silent years that follow, the brush grows. It covers everything. It pulls everything down into the dirt for someone to find at some far later date when we who lived through those days aren’t even a memory in the mind of the oldest of them. Then they will find what we left behind.

If humanity survives, my friend.

Yes, there is that also.

If a fire happens, then everything is so much faster.

And the bone chimes?

Unseen people who live near here or pass by. They have put those chimes up as some sort of marker to warn others away from what has been poisoned.

Stay away.

Bones.

Death.

Soft notes in a gentle breeze.

The Old Man watched for satellites beneath the stars above.

He thought of Natalie.

General Watt.

I wonder what her story of salvage is.