The Savage Boy - By Nick Cole Page 0,2

to get my guns after, I couldn’t tell you to this day. I knew there was no ammo. I didn’t have any ammo. But having a gun . . . People don’t know, see? Don’t know if it’s loaded. I musta walked a thousand miles round-trip to find out someone had dug up my guns. Stupid. Don’t ever do anything stupid, Boy.”

Later, the Boy limped alongside Horse thinking of “Reno,” and “Slave Camp” and “Billings” and “Influenza” and “Plague” and especially “Gone,” which was written next to many of the places that had once been cities. All the words that were written on Sergeant Presley’s map. And the names too.

In the night, the Boy and Horse entered a long valley. The old highway descended and he watched by moonlight its silver line trace the bottom of the valley and then rise again toward the mountains in the west. Below, in the center of the valley, he could see the remains of a town.

Picked over. Everything’s been picked over. You know it. I know it. It is known, Boy. Still you’ll want to have your look. You always did.

For a long time the Boy sat atop the rise until Horse began to fidget. Horse was getting crankier. Older. The Boy thought of Sergeant Presley. He patted Horse, rubbing his thick neck, then urged him forward not thinking about the slight pressure he’d put in his right leg to send the message that they should move on.

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