Earthbound (12 page)

Pace was getting agitated again. “It’ll be a
big deal after a day or so!”

He was completely against my plan. But we had
no other options, at least for the moment.

We inventoried what we had. Water would be
the first to go. We didn’t have anywhere near the full ration of
ten gallons each per day that the horses required. That was one of
the big problems in the Old City. There’s no drinkable water. None.
There’s plenty of standing water in the flooded section of the
city, but drinking it is like suicide. Our supply was finite.
Eventually we’d need to find pure drinking water. And our salt
licks would run out pretty quickly. Didn’t have enough food either.
We found lots of canned food as we rummaged around nearby
buildings, especially amongst the ruins of what looked like a
market. But two hundred year old canned food. Who’s gonna take the
first bite?

Before sundown it became clear that our
biggest problem was gonna be the cold. Cold’s never been much of a
concern for me. My old house in Great Falls was drafty but I could
always keep a fire going in the fireplace if I wanted to. I don’t
think it was ever colder inside than maybe fifty degrees in the
middle of the coldest nights, and I could handle that just fine.
But the Old City was a different story. I figured it was gonna fall
to maybe two degrees outside and ten degrees inside the shelter of
our lobby. What remained of the concrete walls kept the room
slightly more bearable than outside. We spent some time finding
wooden boards and other things we could use to cover up the
shattered windows. Anything to help block out the wind. Fortunately
we both had bison-hair blankets that we always rode with for our
horses. They’d be all right. Me and Pace both had on long
underwear, which would help. My bison-hair coat and gloves would
help keep it tolerable for me. But for Pace, his jacket was
leather. Of course it was leather. He used to be able to afford
that kind of luxury. But he’d trade it now in a second for
bison-hair.

I started up a fire near one of the broken
windows for ventilation. I guess that was one good thing about the
Old City – there was plenty to burn. Lots of loose and fallen
scraps of wood from buildings. Some of it was too rotted to burn
but other pieces were not too bad. Course there was plenty of
kindling in Riverside Park. We could easily grab some twigs and
branches. But we didn’t have an axe. No way to chop down a tree and
get real lumber.

When it came round for dinner time, Pace
cracked open a can of beans.

“That all we got?” I asked.

Pace just gave me a look. Yeah, if I hadn’t
rushed things, I know.

“I gotta piss,” I announced, heading over by
the electrical staircase and loosening my belt.

“Hey!” Pace protested. “Do that outside!”

I grumbled. “Fine, for now. But if it’s the
middle of the night I’m pissing inside, and so are you. Too
dangerous outside at night.”

I went outside to take a piss. And while I
was listening to my stomach growl, I heard something rustling
through some nearby debris. Smart thing to do would be to stop
pissing, but I dunno about you but once I start pissing there’s no
way to stop ‘til I’m out of piss. So instead I took my dick in my
left hand and grabbed my revolver with my right. Sounded like it
was something small, not a bear or anything, but it could be a wolf
cub. Nope, it was something else I’d seen around the Old City here
and there. A feral cat. Scrawny, mangy, old. I put away my revolver
and my dick. The little guy looked kinda curious at me. Probably
hadn’t seen a person before. He let me creep toward him. “Hey
little guy,” I said. But what I thought was “dinner.”

Felt bad killing that cat actually, but
that’s how life goes, right? Everyone is food for someone else. I
brought the cat back into the hideout and Pace nearly gagged.

“Get that thing out of here!” he yelled.

“What’s your problem? Never ate a cat
before?” Don’t think he ever did cause when I pulled out my Bowie
knife and skinned the darned thing, Pace turned kinda pale and
moved over to the corner and threw up whatever was in his stomach.
Gross.

Wasn’t much meat on that cat anyway, so I was
kinda glad I didn’t have to share. Paired kinda okay with the
beans, washed down with a swig of whiskey. Pace didn’t eat though.
Something about a loss of appetite.

When it came time for bed, well, that’s where
the lack of planning really stung me. Pace had, fortunately I
guess, grabbed the sleeping bag that he was using with Becca. Bison
hair, very warm. But a pretty snug fit for two. Pace laid the
sleeping bag out by the big desk. It was probably the best spot. No
broken windows, no chilling wind from outside.

“I guess we could share it,” Pace
suggested.

“I’m no girl,” I grumbled. “No way I’m
sharing that with you. Floor is fine.”

I laid down on the stone floor. It was
freezing cold.

“It’s too cold.”

“It’s fine.”

“Use your horse’s blanket.”

“It’s fine!” No way I was gonna let Charon
suffer for my shortcomings. But there was no way I could sleep. So
I got up, stole what was left of the whiskey and propped myself up
in a corner by the fire. I’d drink myself to sleep.

“You’re drinking up all our whiskey!”

“We’ll buy more tomorrow!”

It was inevitable. We needed to head out the
next morning and resupply, to make up for my lack of planning.

That night as we tried to sleep, the Old City
was plenty loud. Lots of wolves howling. Coyotes yelping. Owls
hooting. I learned there was a whole bunch of owls sharing the
skyscraper with us. And vultures. The vultures that nested in a
hole in the drywall watched us ominously. I figured they’d swoop
down and peck out our eyes. But they left us alone. At least until
we stopped breathing of course.

It was also, despite the adequate fire, far
too cold. Pace in his sleeping bag seemed all right more or less.
But I was shivering. After an hour or two, I dunno, maybe I dozed
off.

In the morning, after maybe a couple hours
sleep, the lobby warmed up a bit with the sun. The first thing I
noticed was the smell of shit. “Your horse shit on the floor,” I
said.

“Yours too,” Pace replied.

“Smells like shit.”

Wasn’t much more to say than that. We both
got up and started packing our supplies. When it was time to leave,
I saw Pace staring at the shoulder bags filled with gold coins. “We
need to hide these somewhere,” he said.

“Don’t we take it with us? Spend some of
it?”

“Some, sure, we should take a little. But we
should hide the rest.”

I nodded. Didn’t think it was great for
Charon to be carrying that much weight anyway, especially if we had
to run again. But it did mean we were committing to returning to
the Old City at some point. I guess that was inevitable. Pace and I
found a good hiding place for the gold. More on that later.

When we were done we mounted up.

“Where to?” I asked. I was done making
suggestions. It was Pace’s turn.

“Augusta. About sixty miles west.”

So long as Augusta had whiskey for me and
feed for Charon, that suited me fine.

“What do we do when we get there? Just live
there?”

Pace was quiet for a moment. That meant he
was thinking. “And tell them what – that we’re wanted men back in
Great Falls?”

“We’ll give fake names.”

“Which will work until someone from Great
Falls inevitably comes down to trade. And what would we do then?
Besides, I can assure you that the Great Plains Holding Company
alerted all of the other settlements about us. I can’t imagine
we’ll get much of a friendly reception. Might even have more of
those robots looking for us. We’re going to have to get in and out
pretty quick, and move on from there.”

We had to cross the Missouri again, which
would prove to be tricky. The old maps said there’s a bridge on
1
^st
Ave. It only took a few minutes to find that road,
and then we headed west. The road was in poor shape, and then we
hit a thick forest that didn’t look penetrable. So we rode around
the perimeter until we got back to the road. And by that point, we
saw the bridge. Or what was left of the bridge. It’s likely the
steel supports had corroded, and it was usually so cold that the
connection points probably froze up. A perfect situation for a
bridge to come straight down.

Route 87, back the way we came, was an
option, but one of the Nuggets was likely watching that bridge just
in case we were stupid enough to cross it again. “Guess we need to
go across at route 15,” I grumbled, not happy with that idea. There
was a working bridge across the river on route 15 to the south.
This was one of the few roads that did get some small amount of
use, as it was considered the only safe way to travel between
Augusta and Great Falls, and also further south to Helena. Course
if there was any sort of posse on the lookout for us this was the
road they’d take.

Fortunately Pace came up with a better
idea.

“There’s supposed to be some railroad tracks
around here. I think I saw on the map they used to cross the
Missouri.”

We doubled back heading north and this time
stayed as close as we could to the river’s edge. We passed by what
looked like a few hotels. There’s probably still some comfortable
linens in there if we dared go inside the structure. Then we passed
what looked like an old restaurant. Pace read the sign.
“Applebee’s.” Not sure who or what Applebee was, but it sure would
have been nice if they were still open for business.

Finally we saw a railway bridge jutting out
to the west across the Missouri. It seemed to be in decent shape,
much like the railway bridge by Rainbow Falls. They must have been
built better, I dunno. Anyway, it looked safe enough and, without
any other good options, we risked it. The bridge seemed a little
creaky, but we managed to cross safely. We rode west until we
connected to route 15 well past that bridge. But the only way you’d
know there was a road there was because forests had sprung up on
either side, leaving a pretty big width of moss with the occasional
chunk of concrete sticking out.

Now that we were on route 15 we needed to
stay alert. If we were gonna run into anyone we didn’t want to run
into, this would be the road.

When we reached a fork in the road, we
actually just followed the road signs pointing us toward Augusta.
We rode silently for a while. I think we were both weary and in
need of a good meal. But as the air started to warm up a bit,
Pace’s mood brightened. Soon he was his usual conversationalist
again.

“What’s your horse’s name?” he asked.

“Charon.”

“Where’d you come up with that name?”

“Greek mythology. Something Becca used to
read to me about. Charon was the boatman in Hades who would take
newly dead souls across the river Styx into hell – if you paid him
a gold coin. Seemed fitting. Cause wherever Charon takes me, it
feels like hell.”

“A gold coin, eh?” Pace reached into his
pocket and tossed me a coin. I caught it and pretended to stare at
it as if I was checking its authenticity.

“Good enough. I’ll take you across. So what’s
your horse’s name?”

“I don’t know.” I stared at Pace with
surprise. “I never thought of a name. Didn’t think it was
important.”

“Come on,” I scolded. “He’s not just a stupid
animal. He’s your companion. He deserves to have a name. And a good
one.”

Pace thought for a minute. “You’re right.
I’ll have to think of one.” After a few minutes Pace started
rattling off some names. “Peter. Montana. George Washington. Lewis.
Clark. I know – I can call him Lewis Clark!”

“That’s a stupid name.”

“Why?”

“Cause you’re just taking those two guys’
first names and putting them together.”

“That’s their last names. Meriwether Lewis
and William Clark.”

“Oh who gives an eff. Why the eff are they
important anyway?”

“Are you kidding? Do you know how significant
Lewis and Clark are to this region?”

“Why, cause they have some kind of stupid
museum along the Missouri? They’re dead. They don’t mean
anything.”

“They were the first to explore this region!
They discovered the Five Falls!”

“You mean after the native Indians discovered
them? I’m not that impressed.” Okay, I did pay attention just a
little in history class when it interested me. I did like that
those Lewis and Clark guys ran around with some hot Indian girl.
Saca-whatever-her-name-is.

“Okay, you win,” Pace laughed, not sore at
all about caving in to my argument. “Lewis and Clark were worthless
sacks of shit.”

We rode for a bit – me on Charon and Pace on
“Lewis Clark.” As I looked around, I was just in awe of what I was
seeing. Not that it looked very different that what I was
accustomed to. It looked almost exactly the same. But it was just
that I’d never been that far west before. Everything I saw was a
discovery. And it would only be new once.

Aside from hoofbeats, some bird calls and the
occasional howl of the wind, it was silence. I liked it. Until it
was interrupted by Pace again.

“How come you always wear a black hat?”

Pace was right, I always chose to wear a
black cowboy hat from the time I had enough money to buy my own. It
was inspired, probably not the way she intended, by Becca. In
addition to stories, sometimes she’d read to me from the Bible.
Never understood much of a word of it but it seemed to have some
significance for her. I never forgot one passage. I made her read
it over and over again.
Behold a pale horse, and his name that
sat upon it was Death, and hell followed with him.
That felt
like me. And black always felt like the color of death. So it
seemed fitting that I wear as much black as I could.