Читать книгу The Wasteland Saga: The Old Man and the Wasteland, Savage Boy and The Road is a River - Nick Cole - Страница 12

When he awoke there was a fox. It twisted in the morning breeze, its tongue lolling purple and its eyes wide in terror. It was beautiful. The Old Man admired its healthy coat as he skinned the little fox.

By late morning, strips of fox meat were skewered and roasting over ashy orange coals of smoking mesquite. The Old Man, calm and weak, walked among the palo verdes, drinking from the stream and looking for the honeycomb of the dead bee. Standing near the roasting strips of flesh was too much, so it was better to wander among the quiet trees.

By noon the meat was ready and at first he went slowly. He didn’t want to become sick from too much too fast. For the rest of the day he ate slowly and continued to roast more and more of the fox. It would keep for a few days.

As night fell, he looked out into the great desert he had come across.

I survived. I can return and accept the curse. It isn’t much of a curse. They will feed and take care of me. I will play my part. But as a salvager I am finished.

Maybe it is time to let that go.

Or I can continue on and try to find the town.

The dunes seemed nothing more than gentle curves and soft colors.

You tried to kill me. There was nothing in you. Nothing to take away. So what good are you? If I go across you again what could I find this time? Nothing. But if I find the town then maybe that is something, and if not I can pick up the Old Highway to the south and that will lead me back to the village.

But you will come from the east.

There is that.

He ate more fox and thought it might be nice with some tortillas. He set the rest of the meat to smoke in the coals throughout the night so that it would last for a few days more. Then he slept.

At dawn he was up. He felt better. He drank from the stream and chewed a little bit of the dried fox meat.

I think I might go on a bit.

He spent the morning climbing up out of the stand of green palo verdes and onto the broken rocks of the mountain. When he gained the summit he looked east. The landscape sank away into a bowl deeper than the one he had crossed.

It will be hotter.

At the extent of his vision he could see mountains, jagged and gray.

Almost at the center of the bowl, halfway between himself and the mountains, he could see a collection of buildings. Too small to be the town he once knew.

There might be a map or a sign that might lead to the town.

By late afternoon the small mountain was far behind him. The going was mostly smooth and downhill. The heat reminded him of the bread oven back in the village.