Ain't Talkin'

The heaped garbage and old cars grew more and more frequent as Roche drew nearer to the lake. The 50 was a snakelike bit of cracked asphalt, and the twists and turns had long ago clogged traffic of thousands of people fleeing in both directions. Half of the cars had been folks fleeing the war ravaged coastline, while the other half had been folks hedging their bets that the turmoil along the coast was less dangerous than the chaos that had erupted in Middle America.

A nuclear blast somewhere to the south had burned all of the cars and all of the people inside to a crisp. The dust had long since settled, and those that had burned alive were the lucky ones. The lands south of the old borders had taken most of the fallout when weather patterns shoved the clouds of radiation towards Central America.

Lucky wove in and out of stalled vehicles dutifully, with sure steps. Roche wasn’t sure where she’d come from, but whoever had trained her had done so well. The mare balked at nothing and didn’t drive herself to exhaustion. She had a clear head and if Roche rode her too hard, she’d stubborn right up and take things at a walk until she got her wind back.

The dun and yellow basin that had once been Lake Tahoe grew across the landscape.

Roche woahed his mare. He’d smelled it again, and Lucky nickered.

“The fuck?” Roche scanned all around. Campfire. He’d smelled a campfire and there was not a wisp of smoke to be seen in any direction. “Do you smell that?” He asked the horse.

Lucky blew her lips at him.

“No, huh? Shit.” Roche put his heels into the mare’s sides and urged her on. they continued down the 50.

Within an hour Roche and his horse were along the Lake’s edge. For some many miles the 50 wound along the lake like a fly’s trail. The going would be even slower from then on in, but Roche knew that the old bird lived around here, or at least she had last he made his way through.

Odds were that she moved around some, and didn’t live anywhere near the actual stills. It was never a good idea to keep to one place for too long in the wastelands. Highwaymen picked their way through the dust back and forth and over and over again sometimes, looking for food or relics or folks to rob. Some of them looked for folks to rob and then eat. Didn’t make a whole lot of difference, none of them could be trusted.

Horse and rider rounded a bend for the hundredth time that day and Roche head the old bag before he saw her.

She jittered along like she was always dancing to music that wasn’t ever playing. Her calves were sticks of white beneath rough-spun wool shawls packed atop one another until her hunchback seemed to tower above the span of her shoulders, to the point where her head almost appeared to jut from her chest. Her old tits sometimes hung out the bottom of her woolen garments and Roche imagined that bothered some people. Her face was as worn and dry as the sands she lived in, and her eyes behind those thick, old glasses might as well have been a pair of garnet marbles stuck into her face too close together.

Roche didn’t slow the horse but kept walking right on up to her.

That good mare didn’t even startle when the old bag whirled with a double-barreled shotty aimed at it. Lucky just blinked twice and tossed her head a little.

“Hello, Alma.” Roche hopped down off his horse respectfully.

“Roche? That you?” The old woman sucked at her gums and turned her head up and down trying to see him better.

“Yes, ma’am. It’s me. Been a long time.” Roche smiled and lit a smoke.

“Not for you it ain’t, walker. But, me I only got a year left in these old bones!” She put up the shotty with a paper-thin hand and tucked it under her woolens.

“No, I spose not. How is the desert treating you, Alma?”

“Oh, the same, dear. Ever the same. What brings you out Tahoe way?” The old woman puttered closer on tiny feet and held out her hand. Roche took it politely and gave it a small shake and held it a long second.

“Job. Always a job, Alma. That and I took the 50 hoping you still made that old kicker drink o’ yours.” Roche dragged on his smoke and grinned.

“I do, dear. I do. Follow me then. Fancy seeing you on a horse.”