The Savage Boy

38



HE WANTED TO see her again.

He wanted to be left alone by all these Chinese.

He wanted to be left alone so that he might draw her.

He wanted to draw the way she had looked at him.

All about him, the Chinese were in an uproar.

Suddenly there was activity and work. Riders were dispatched to the east. A woman gave Horse an apple. The Chinese general and the girl disappeared behind the massive gate, the old soldier casting his steely gaze back upon the Boy.

She stood before the Boy, even though she was gone now.

She looked at him.

The troop leader led him to a shack by the water of the bay. The troop leader tied Horse to a hitching post nearby and pointed toward the shack.

Stay.

The Boy went inside. It had a table, a chair and a cooking pit. Stairs led to a loft with a pallet and blankets. Out the back door was a small dock and the bay beyond where tiny slender boats bobbed in the windy afternoon.

Toward evening he smelled fire. Then food cooking.

The troop leader returned with a plate of chicken, chilies, and garlic. There was a small wooden basket full of rice.

They both ate at the table.

The sun was setting when the troop leader went out for a moment and returned with a bundle of clothing. He draped the pieces over the chair.

Overalls made of wool.

A rubber trench coat with a high collar.

Rubber boots.

A hooded gas mask.

He took out a slip of paper.

“Please,” he began to read haltingly from the paper, “put . . . these . . . on . . . and . . . come . . . with . . . me.”

The Boy brought Horse inside the shack. The troop leader gave a pained look, then seemed to accept this. He left and returned with hay, setting it down in front of Horse.

The Boy nodded to himself and began to dress in the items.

He had seen them before.

Sergeant Presley had worn similar gear when he’d entered the ruins of Washington, in the District of Columbia.

The clothing made him feel warm, and within moments to the point of suffocation.

When the Boy came to the mask he donned it, unsure if he had done it properly, trying to remember how Sergeant Presley had worn it. The patrol leader went behind the Boy and pulled the straps of the mask tightly, jerking them almost. Then he patted the Boy’s shoulder.

The Boy looked out through the steamy eye holes.

He could hear his own breathing.

He tucked his withered left arm into the pocket of the trench coat and made to take up his tomahawk but the leader shook his head.

The Boy placed the tomahawk on the small wooden table.

Then they left, stepping outside into the twilight of early evening. From behind the soft-lit windows of the shantytown, the Boy could hear, muffled by the hood of the gas mask, the low murmur of voices.

Someone cackled.

There was distant laughter.

Someone played long whining notes on a lone violin, then repeated them.

Dogs barked.

They arrived at the shining wooden gate. Two sentries stood aside as the massive portal swung open.

Beyond the gate they found a long, empty street. Large houses with stone exteriors, polished wood trim, and sloping rooftops lined the street, which looked out onto a park and the open bay beyond. At the end of the street the water of the bay glimmered softly in the night behind a low wall. Torches guttered before each house along the quiet street.

Through the mask the Boy could smell the heavy scent of jasmine. A smell that reminded him of Sergeant Presley and their days passing though the South.

He thought of the map.

It was still in its secret pouch inside the bearskin.

He thought of his tomahawk and said to himself, “Might not get it back,” as though Sergeant Presley were warning him. But still, it was just his own voice.

They stopped at an old building from Before. It rested on the far side of the road, standing on pillars that rose up out of the lapping waves. The Chinese soldiers, and others more finely dressed than the dwellers of the shantytown, were gathered about its steps. A hush fell over the small crowd as the troop leader with the Boy in tow, approached.

Inside, great glass windows opened up onto a view of the wide bay and the shadowy city lying in ruins beyond its waters.

There was the Chinese general.

The Old Soldier.

A group of Chinese, dressed in soft clothing that caught the flickering light of candles, stood at the far end of the room.

They held fans over their mouths.

They watched the Boy with sideways glances, murmuring to one another.

THE GIRL WAS there too.

She watched him from the farthest corner. She watched him from just behind the Chinese general.

The Boy sat on a stool in the center of the room, as he was directed, then the Chinese general came forward, standing halfway between the Boy and the audience.

“I am General Song. Do you remember that we met earlier? Outside the gate.”

The Boy nodded.

The general smiled. Pleased. As if his greatest fear had been that the Boy might have forgotten their earlier meeting.

“Our governing council”—the general stopped and indicated those who stood behind him, pressed against the far wall, fans covering their mouths—“would like to ask you a few more questions, if that is possible.”

“I thought you were their leader,” said the Boy.

The general smiled.

“I am no longer . . . I am now merely a scholar who knows a little more of the past than most because of my military service, and only because I lived through it.”

“I will answer what questions I can,” said the Boy.

“Has our outpost, the one you drew—has it been destroyed?”

The Boy remained silent.

“The place you drew. Did anyone survive?”

The Boy spoke through the mask, his voice muffled. The insides of the mask were slick with sweat and heat. Mist clung to the lenses.

“I didn’t understand you. Could you please say that again? I’ll come closer,” said the Chinese general, and when he did he asked the same question again.

“I don’t know,” replied the Boy. “I doubt that anyone who remained there could have lasted much longer.”

The Chinese general turned back toward the audience at the far end of the room and spoke in their language. The people in the audience murmured among themselves and then someone spoke above the others. The Chinese general turned back to the Boy.

“And how is it that you survived?”

“I escaped.”

And thus a pattern formed. The general spoke in Chinese. The audience murmured. Someone spoke. The general asked a new question.

“Where did you come from?”

“The east.”

“Who are your people?”

“I don’t have any.”

“How far east?”

“A place that was once called Washington Dee Cee.”

“What is there now?”

“A swamp.”

“Who destroyed the outpost, I mean the place that you drew?”

“A man named MacRaven. He has an army of tribes.”

“How big?”

“More than you have in all the soldiers I have seen who carry your rifles.”

“The characters on your rifle indicate it was given to a man who was a known skin trader. What has become of this man and how did you acquire his rifle?”

“He rescued me from lions in the high desert beyond Reno. We fought together on the walls of your outpost. He did not survive and I took his rifle when I escaped.”

“Will this MacRaven the barbarian come here?”

“I don’t know.” Then, “If I were you I would plan for him to. He seemed that sort of man.”

“How do we know you are not part of this MacRaven’s barbarian army and that you yourself didn’t kill the owner of the rifle and come here as a spy or a saboteur?”

“I know ‘spy.’ I am not that. The other word I do not understand.”

“A destroyer. A terrorist.”

“I am not a terrorist.”

“And how do we know you are telling the truth?”

The Boy stopped for a moment. He was hot. Sweat was dripping down the inside of his mask. He moved to take off the mask and the Chinese general lunged forward with sudden vigor and command.

“Do not take that off! It is forbidden here for you to remove your mask.”

The Boy could feel his audience pressing themselves farther away from him, toward the back of the room.

The Boy lowered his hands from the mask.

The general walked closer. “I am sorry,” he said softly, his eyes speaking an unspoken message of friendliness. “They do not understand.”

“And why,” began the general again, “should we trust your account?”

The Boy stared for a long moment at the crowd surrounding him. When his eyes rested on the girl he forgot everything he’d intended to say.

He forgot . . .

. . . everything.

When he was reminded of the question by a gurgling cough from the Chinese general, he spoke.

“I don’t know why you would trust me.”

The audience murmured at the translation.

A discussion started.

“May I ask a question?” said the Boy.

Silence.

The general walked back toward the Boy.

“Ask.”

“What has become of I Corps?”

The general did not translate.

His face fell.

His mouth opened.

His shoulders slumped.

He seemed suddenly older.

The general shook his head to himself as if finishing an argument he’d started long ago and lost many times since. Then he looked at the Boy.

“They are no more.” And, “I know that for certain.”

There was no pride in his voice. No triumph. No satisfaction.

But there was guilt.

There was shame.

“When I was young I thought it would be different,” said the Chinese general very plainly. “I thought only of victory.”

The general sighed heavily.

“I know differently now.” He looked at the Boy, maybe beyond the Boy. “I am responsible.”

“You were there?” asked the Boy. “At the end of I Corps?”

The general whispered, “Yes.”

“If the man who brought me here,” the Boy indicated the troop leader, “would return to my things and bring me the bearskin I wear . . . I have something for you.”

Orders were given and the discussion among the Chinese renewed. All the while, the general watched the Boy and waited for the return of the requested bearskin.

I have given away all my intel, Sergeant. I know that is not what you taught me to do. But what good is it to anyone, now that all of you are dead?

There was no reply.

The bearskin arrived and the Boy laid it out and retrieved the map from inside the hidden pouch.

Sergeant, I’m doing this so that maybe they’ll trust me. I’m doing this so they’ll be ready for MacRaven when he comes. I remember what we both saw outside Oklahoma City.

The Boy stood.

He raised his right arm and saluted the Chinese general.

He held out the map.

Tell them who I was, Boy.

Tell them I made it all the way, never quit.

Tell them there’s nothing left.

“There’s nothing left,” said the Boy.