The Savage Boy - By Nick Cole Page 0,51

because . . .

. . . this would have killed you.

All the way.

Tell them who I was, Boy.

Tell who, Sergeant?

And who am I now, Sergeant Presley? Now that you are gone and the dream that you promised me is dead, who am I now?

But there was no answer.

35

HE SMELLED SMOKE.

The smoke of meat came to him on the wind of the next day, in the morning, before light.

At first light, he scanned the horizon and saw, across the bay, the columns of rising smoke. He checked the map. Sausalito.

He’d spent the day before combing the wreckage of the Army. There was nothing to be had. Everything that was left had burned long ago. When he went to the cemetery below the ridge, he found bones in the bottom of each open grave. Nothing more.

Maybe there is someone, maybe even I Corps, over there on the other side of the bay, Sergeant?

But there was no answer.

Someone was there.

Later he rode out to the north, crossing large sections of muddy bay where ancient supertankers rested on their sides. Occasionally he passed large craters.

At the northern edge of the bay, mudflats gave way to the tall brown grass of the estuaries. A long thin bridge, low to the water, stretched off toward the west.

A heron, white and tall, stood still, not watching the Boy.

The bridge may only go so far.

After a small break and time spent looking at the map, he decided to try and cross the bridge.

You would ask me why I was in such a hurry to get to the other side, Sergeant. You would say, Whatchu in a hurry about, Boy?

I would say, “I want to know what’s in Sausalito.”

Then you would say, You always did.

That is what you would say.

But the voice didn’t say anything.

The Boy had not heard the voice since the open graves and the tattered canvas.

The ride out into the marshes made the Boy feel lonely—lonelier than he’d ever felt in all his life. Other than the heron he’d seen at the eastern side of the thin bridge, he saw no other life.

That is why I feel so alone, because there is no other living thing, he thought. He’ll speak to me again.

In the afternoon, the wind stopped and fog rolled in across the bay. Faster than he would have ever expected, the fog surrounded him and he could see little beyond the thin road ahead.

Only Horse’s hooves on the old highway broke the silence.

He expected some bird to call out to another bird, but there was nothing. No one to call to, even if it were just another bird.

It was then he began to think the bridge might never end—that he would ride forever through the fog.

And what about food? I can’t go off in those marshes to hunt. I would be stuck. And Horse, what of him if I have to run?

Stop. You would tell me to stop, Sergeant.

The road will end. And if not, I will turn back and go the long way around the bay.

The thought of having to ride back through the eerie stillness at night did little to comfort him, and for a long time he rode on until at last the bridge began to rise back onto dry land.

See, I had nothing to be afraid of, right, Sergeant?

36

THEY WORKED IN the small bay. They were tall and brown skinned like the Chinese of Auburn.

The day had turned cold and gray.

For a long time the Boy stood with Horse, watching them from the dusty road. In time they became aware of him and began to gesture to one another regarding him. Still, they continued to work with their long rakes, sweeping beneath the cold dark water of the bay. Out in the deep water beyond, whitecaps were beginning to form.

I thought I might find the Army here, Sergeant.

His voice had gone now. It had left him in the fog of the bridge over the marsh.

No, it was before that. It was when he saw the open graves and the bones within.

Maybe the knowledge of what happened to I Corps finally killed you, Sergeant. Killed you in a way death could not. Killed the mission you left me to finish.

In time they came in from the water, rolling down their pant legs and donning leather-skinned long jackets trimmed with sheep’s wool. A man, older than most, but not the oldest he’d seen, waded out through the tall grass to the road and climbed the embankment to where the Boy sat atop