The Old Man and the Wasteland. Nick Cole
me to the rocks of the ridge. And that also is a lie.
Standing, a dull bomb went off with a solid crack in the back of his skull as stars raced forward toward the rocks.
But it is my lie.
He continued forward. Moments later he saw a bee which came diving at him, and then quickly tore away off toward the rocks. The Old Man shambled forward, trailing the bee which hopped from shrub to shrub, sometimes methodical at other times racing off toward the horizon. Just when The Old Man thought he had lost the bee forever, again the bee would leap up and head off along the same bearing.
Ahead, The Old Man could see a spur jutting out from the ridge, and following the spur back to the crook it left in the ridge, he saw a splotch of green.
But it is too far.
He continued after the bee, still holding the dead bee between his thumb and forefinger. The line from where he had met the bee and the splotch of green was true and straight.
Falling forward, he tripped on an exposed root and fell into the sandy chalk that rose up in plumes around him.
I have never been so comfortable in all my life.
If you don’t get up, the bee who is flying will be gone and you will never find the water, never find salvage, and you will die curst.
I am curst. I don’t care. I want to sleep now.
He closed his eyes and when he did, he thought of his granddaughter who was just thirteen. It was she who had stayed faithful to him after the other villagers had cursed him and refused to salvage with him. She had begun to salvage with him. He had enjoyed that. The salvage had become more enjoyable and less desperate on those long mornings he spent with her as they walked and talked. Talked of all manner of things from the way the world had been to the way it is and sometimes of the way it might be. That had been enjoyable.
I am sorry my brother bee.
Arms of sleep beckoned him a little farther down the well of darkness.
I must use your help for a moment little bee. I am sorry. I have to wake up for a while. Long enough to see what lies in the crook of the ridge.
He squeezed his palm hard shut and felt the stinger of the dead bee enter the flesh of his palm. An electric jolt coursed through his body and instantly the palm was alive with fire.
The Old Man kept his fist shut as he pushed away from the sand and began once more to the ridge.
Desert scrub, sandy and brown, gave way to large sunburnt rocks. Reaching the crook in the ridge, he entered a stand of palo verdes. The Green Sticks the villagers called them. Back amongst the rocks a quiet stream, barely more than a trickle, came out of the rocks feeding the little stand of palo verdes. The Old Man dropped his satchel and lay down to drink. The water was cool.
Noon turned to afternoon and soon a stiff breeze picked up amongst the feathery branches of the palo verdes. For a long time The Old Man returned to the stream to drink and drink again. All the while he gathered dead branches, piling them high for the night’s fire.
There were just a few beans and one tortilla left. He had not felt hungry during the thirsty hours of torment amid the dunes, but now as his body began to soak up the water, his appetite returned. The few beans and tortilla were a coming feast to his hungry mind.
He went out beyond the perimeter of the palo verdes once more, into the scrub that bordered the wasteland. The dunes through which he had passed were now falling to pink and orange. Thin ribbons of snakelike shade slithered onto the desert floor while the graceful arcs of the dunes told the lie that he did not exist, had never existed among them.
He returned to his camp and started a small fire. In the twilight he finished the remaining beans and reluctantly saved the tortilla for morning. Tomorrow he would look for animal tracks and make the appropriate traps. Once he had enough food and water he could either return across the wasteland to the village or he might continue on.
He had failed to find salvage in the wasteland. The known parts of the wasteland were behind him and he could only guess where he might be now. If he had to say, he would say west of what was once Phoenix and north of what was Tucson.
In the days of the bombs, he thought while the first stars began to peak through the drifting branches of the palo verde, there had been a large town in that area. The name was lost to him, but the memory of once having known it was not.
If he could find the town he might find salvage. Might find others too and that would present a whole different set of problems.
There is the gun. Yes, he mumbled his throat still raw. There is that.
He was glad his granddaughter was not with him. People, strangers who came to the village, made him think of this. After the bomb these people, had not found villages, had not banded together to survive. They had wandered, and in their eyes he saw that they had done things. Things they found it hard to live with, but things they had done nonetheless. Too many years of ‘done’ things, too many years of desert. Too many years in the cold and heat and condemnation. They didn’t seem human anymore. So, if he had to meet strangers, then it was good he didn’t have his granddaughter.
It is good then, he laughed, that I am cursed.
But what if you stay out here too long? What if you do too many ‘done’ things?
‘Too long out there’ is what the villagers would say whenever those strangers who had no village of their own would show up to trade, to beg, to die. Too long out there.
Now the sky was speckled with the stars above, as the blue light of the west seemed to draw away. He returned his eyes to the fire and tried to think about traps.
He thought of the traps he had been taught by Big Pedro in the days after the bombs when the village was not a village but just a small refugee camp. Traps for varmints, as Pedro had called them. Traps for serpente. Snake would be good. He had enjoyed snake.
I’ll go as far as the town whose name I cannot remember. If there is no salvage then I’ll come back. Then the other villagers will know that I am cursed and it won’t be expected of me to go out. I can help the women. Watch the children if they’ll let me. Make things. I have always wanted to make a guitar.
You don’t even know how to play.
Yes, but that has never stopped me from wanting to.
The fire burned the logs to ash amongst the orange and black glow of its heart. The stars above. The gently moving palo verdes in the night’s breeze. The Old Man wrapped himself within his blanket and slept.
He returned to the stream at first light. He had been lying wrapped in his blanket, and for the first time the morning was not so bitterly cold.
At the stream he waited, watching as the light came up. He was thirsty, had been thirsty through the night. But he did not drink from the stream and would not until the light was good enough to see the tracks. Then he would know what made a home of these palo verdes beneath the rocky slope.
At first light he saw the tracks. Different pairs, one behind the other, four toes and a claw. Near the water’s edge in the wet mud he could see the impression left by the fur. It made sense, muttered The Old Man and he knelt to drink the cool water of the stream.
Finished, he looked up to survey the rocky hill that rose above the little oasis of palo verdes. The hill was more a small mountain. Like other small mountains it was more a collection of boulders; large, broken, shattered rock turning a soft hue in the rising sun of the morning.
He looked at the tracks once more. They had definitely come down from the rocks for a drink, and to hunt. The single file nature of the prints told him they were foxes. He knew these animals. Often times they would