The Savage Boy

3



THE BOY KEPT Horse to the side of the road, and in doing so he passed from bright moonlight into the shadows of long-limbed trees that grew alongside the road. He watched the dark countryside, waiting for a light to come on, smelling the wind for burning wood. Food. A figure moving in the dark.

At one point he put his right knee into Horse’s warm ribs, halting him. He rose up, feeling the ache across his left side. He’d smelled something. But it was gone now on a passing night breeze.

Be careful, Boy.

Sergeant Presley had avoided towns, people, and tribes whenever possible.

These days no good ever comes of such places, Boy. Society’s mostly gone now. We might as well be the last of humanity. At least, east of Frisco.

On the outskirts of a town, he came upon a farmhouse long collapsed in on itself.

I can come back here for wood in the morning.

Down the road he found another two-story farmhouse with a wide porch.

These are the best, Boy. You can hear if someone’s crossing the porch. You can be ready for ’em.

The Boy dismounted and led Horse across the overgrown field between the road and the old house.

He stopped.

He heard the soft and hollow hoot, hoot of an owl.

He watched the wide night sky to see if the bird would cross. But he saw nothing.

He dropped Horse’s lead and took his crossbow from its place on the saddle. He pulled a bolt from the quiver in his bag and loaded the crossbow.

He looked at Horse.

Horse would move when he moved. Stop when he stopped.

The Boy’s left side was stiff. It didn’t want to move and he had to drag it to the porch making more sound than he’d wished to. He opened the claw his withered left hand had become and rested the stock of the crossbow there.

He waited.

Again the owl. He heard the leathery flap of wings.

Your body will do what you tell it to, regardless of that broken wing you got, Boy.

The Boy took a breath and then silently climbed the rotting steps, willing himself to lightness. He crossed the porch in three quick steps, feeling sudden energy rush into his body as he drew his tomahawk off his belt.

Crossbow in the weak left hand, waiting, tomahawk held high in his strong right hand, the Boy listened.

Nothing.

He pushed gently, then firmly when the rotten door would not give. Inside there was nothing: some trash, a stone fireplace, bones. Stairs leading up into darkness.

When he was sure there was no one else in the old farmhouse he went back and led Horse inside. Working with the tomahawk he began to pull slats from the wall, and then gently laid them in the blackened stone fireplace. He made a fire, the first thing Sergeant Presley had taught him to do, and then closed the front door.

Don’t get comfortable yet. If they come, they’ll come soon.

He could not tell if this was himself or Sergeant Presley.

The Boy stood with his back to the fire, waiting.

When he heard their call in the night, his blood froze.

It was a short, high-pitched ululating like the sound of bubbling water. First he heard one, nearby. Then answers from far off.

You gotta choose, Boy. Git out or git ready.

The Boy climbed back onto Horse, who protested, and hooked the crossbow back into its place. He pulled the tomahawk out and bent low, whispering in Horse’s ear, the ceiling just above his head.

It’ll be fine. We can’t stay. Good Horse.

Horse flicked his tail.

I don’t know if he agrees, thought the Boy, but it doesn’t matter, does it?

The face that appeared in the window was chalk white, its eyes rimmed in black grease.

That’s camouflage, Boy. Lets him move around in the night. These are night people. Some of the worst kind.

The eyes in the window went wide, and then the face disappeared. He heard two quick ululations.

More coming, Boy!

The Boy kicked and aimed Horse toward the front door. Its shattered rottenness filled the Boy’s lungs as he clung to Horse’s side and they drove through the opening. He saw the shadow of a man thrown back against a wooden railing that gave way with a disinterested crack.

Other figures in dark clothes and with chalk-white faces crossed with black greased stripes ran through the high grass between the road and the farmhouse. The Boy kicked Horse toward an orchard of ragged bare-limbed trees that looked like broken bones in the moonlight.

Once in the orchard, he turned down a lane and charged back toward the road. Horse’s breathing came labored and hard.

“You were settling in for the night and now we must work,” he whispered into Horse’s twitching ears.

Ahead, one of the ash-white, black-striped figures leaped into the middle of the lane. The figure planted his feet, then raised a spear-carrying arm back over his shoulder.

The Boy tapped twice on the heaving flank with his toe and Horse careened to the right, disagreeing with a snort as he always did.

You wanted to run him down, thought the Boy.

They made the road leaping a broken fence. He stopped and listened. The Boy could hear the ululations behind them. He heard whistling sounds also.

Down the road quickly, get outta Dodge now, Boy!

He took the road farther into town, passing the crumbling remains of warehouses and barns long collapsed. Stone concrete slabs where some structure had burned down long ago rose up like gray rock in the light of the moon. Sergeant Presley had always spoken simply at such places.

Gas Station.

School.

Market.

Mall.

The Boy didn’t know the meaning or purposes of such places and possessed only vague notions of form and function when he recognized their remains.

In the center of town he saw more figures and brought Horse up short, hooves digging for purchase on the fractured road. The Ashy Whites formed a circle and within were the others. The Ashy Whites were standing. The others sat, huddled in groups.

“Help us!” someone cried out and one of the Ashy Whites clubbed at the sitting figure.

Behind him, the Boy could hear the ululations growing closer. Horse stamped his hooves, ready to run.

“Rumble light!” roared a large voice and the Boy was suddenly covered in daylight—white light like the “flashlight” they’d once found in the ruins of an old car factory. It had worked, but only for a day or so. Sergeant Presley had said light was once so common you didn’t even think about it. Now . . .

No time for memories, Boy!

Horse reared up and the Boy had to get hold of the mane to get him down and under control. Once Horse was down and settled, the Boy stared about into the blackness, seeing nothing, not even the moonlight. Just the bright shining light coming from where the Ashy Whites had been.

An Ashy White, large and fat, his face jowly, his lower lip swollen, his eyes bloodshot, stepped into the light from the darkness off to one side. He was carrying a gun.

What type of gun is this, Boy?

When they’d found empty guns Sergeant Presley would make him learn their type, even though, as he always said, They were no good to anyone now. How could they be? After all these years there ain’t no ammunition left, Boy. We burned it all up fightin’ the Chinese.

Shotgun, sawed off.

The Ashy White man walked forward pointing the shotgun at Horse.

What will it do? He heard Sergeant Presley ask.

Sprays gravel, short range.

The Ashy White continued to walk forward with all the authority of instant death possessed.

There can’t be any ammunition left. Not after all these years, Boy.

He kicked Horse in the flanks and charged the man. Pinned ears indicated Horse was only all too willing. Sometimes the Boy wondered if Horse hated everyone, even him.

In one motion the Boy drew his tomahawk.

The man raised the weapon.

Don’t let it go unless you mean to, might not get it back, Boy. He always heard Sergeant Presley and his words, every time he drew the tomahawk.

He’d killed before.

He’d kill again.

He was seventeen years old.

The world as Sergeant Presley had known it had been over for twenty-three years when the Boy whose own name even he had forgotten had been born on the windswept plains of what the map had once called Wyoming.

You strike with a tomahawk. Never sweep. It’ll get stuck that way Boy. Timing has to be perfect.

Jowls raised the shotgun, aiming it right into the Boy.

There can’t be any ammunition left, Boy. The world used it all up killing itself.

And the Boy struck. Once. Down. Splitting the skull. He rode off, out of the bright light and into the darkness.