Down The Path Page 11

  “What is powering this boat, sir?”

  “Listen coppertop, you gotta quit with the sir, ok? Call me Tom.”

  “Ok, Tom. Can you tell me what is making this boat move?” Cooper had so many questions. “And where are you from? And what is this lake?” he blurted out almost all at once.

  “Just calm down” he said without looking at him. “I know you might be confused, you folks always are, but I’m taking you to our village”

  Apparently, he had ignored the question about the boat. Cooper was wondering if any of this was real. It certainly seemed unreal. It was obvious the man didn’t have all that much to say to him, but the redhead was bursting with questions…

  Just then, Lupe splashed into a box with both front feet. Tom just laughed again.

  “Them ain’t the fish you’re supposed to catch dog, but you knock yourself out, I don’t use that live bait anyway.” His voice was dripping with contempt when he said live bait.

  Peering into the box, Cooper saw it was filled with water and several dozen fish nearly the size of his palm! They were unlike any fish he had seen, although they did have scales like the carp from his city, but their shape was totally different.

  “Did you catch all these fish today?”

  “Catch? Hell no, the folks in the village send me out with these to insure that I bring home the real catch. Even though I make my own artificial lures that catch more than that live bait, they figure if I don’t have those we would all starve. I usually let ‘em go once I get out in the gulf”

  “What’s a gulf? Is that what you call your lake?”

  “Lake? Ha! That’s no lake. We’re almost there though; the folks will answer all your questions. I’m just gonna drop you off and head back out, still early enough for a good catch.” He seemed to perk up at the prospect of catching fish.

  Tom confused Cooper, but then, he was confused by just about everything that happened this morning.

  They pulled up to the sandy shoreline and beached the small boat. Lupe immediately jumped off the boat onto the shore.

  Tom pushed a button on the boat and filled the beach with the sound of a loud horn. “Just wait here ‘til someone comes out. They have a procedure for newbies and since I’ve been with you I have to go through it too. But I don’t want to do that just yet, so when they come out, hop outta the boat. I’ll explain it to ‘em while I pull away” he said laughing at something hilarious that Cooper didn’t understand.

  He was considering if he should trust this man. He saw no village on the beach. He hadn’t been especially unkind though, and he did save him. He was still so confused.

  Suddenly Tom spoke again, “Ok, coppertop, now’s the time to jump out”

  Cooper did as he was told and was left standing on the beach with Lupe at his side when another dog burst out of the forest. This dog was black and gold with a thicker build but seemed to have the same hair and tail as Lupe. They danced around each other sending sand flying everywhere, then started sniffing intently. After this nose greeting, they were fast friends and went racing off down the beach kicking up divots of sand.

  Several people came out of the forest behind the black dog and they stopped abruptly when they saw Cooper.

  “He’s from the north, he has lots of questions, I’m going back out fishing, tell doc I’ll go through his hoops later” he yelled while waving his tan hand high in the air. With that, the boat cranked up the noise and sped off through the water, leaving a wide ‘V’ shape rolling off behind it.

  “Hello, my name is Cooper.” He was very nervous with all the people and again he didn’t know what to do. “I have potatoes to trade!”

  They all chuckled at this, but only one spoke up. “We’ll be happy to trade potatoes with you Cooper, just hang on; we need to check your rad levels before we come any closer”.

  Then, what he assumed was a man in some sort of pillowy white suit came lumbering out from the forest and walked straight towards him with a slow and awkward gait. The suit was heavily stained with smears of black and brown. Even some red marks that Cooper truly hoped were not blood. He began to look around, wondering if he should run from this figure…

  This suited man came up beside him and he heard hissing, then a break and the man said in a very strange tone, “Sorry about this, we’re a little out of practice. I just need to check your levels.” The hissing started again as soon as he stopped talking. He waved a wand around him and Cooper could hear distinct clicking that sped up the closer the wand was to his body.

  He heard the creature in the suite let out a sigh, and then he peeled the suit off his head revealing a mop of shoulder length, greasy, dirty blonde hair. With a large, friendly smile he said, “Howdy, I’m Owen, but everyone just calls me Doc”. Pulling one of his hands free of the glove he patted the younger man on the back and then they began lumbering toward the growing crowd of strangers. “Welcome to the best place you’ll ever come across” he said through that same grin, and then he raised a cigar to his mouth and walked off. Cooper wondered if he had that cigar inside the suit with him.

  His thoughts were cut short when he heard cheering from the crowd in front of him as they all began walking down the beach in his direction.

  Doc had stopped to say something to them quickly, one woman covered her mouth at something he said, and then he began walking past them and back into the forest.

  19

  Walter lay in bed, his body aching from sleep. It had been two months since he had sent young Cooper beyond the gates and he was regretting his decision. Things had gone so well for the first week, but then no new pregnancies were reported and the summer heat moved in, stifling everyone’s hope.

  It hadn’t rained in weeks and many were being asked to carry water from the river to put on the gardens, it was an arduous process.

  Walter watched as John began his morning, bringing the old man tea and a breakfast meal that he knew he would not eat. John had become a nearly constant companion for him since Cooper left, although he hadn’t neglected his gardening duties.

  Unlike everyone else, John had never given up hope that his friend would return. “What do you think Cooper’s doing right now, Walt?” he asked, as excited as he was nearly every morning to ask that same question.

  At first, he had tried responding with a simple answer, like ‘eating breakfast’ or ‘still sleeping’, but these responses never seemed to satisfy the young man. John always wanted to share ideas about some crazy thing the redhead might be doing that day.

  His current favorite was that he had gone south all the way to the bottom, and was wrapping around the whole planet.

  After spending enough time with the large man, he knew that John realized that wasn’t possible. Instead, it seemed that this little game was almost like a type of therapy for him. Walter was not against creativity, so some mornings he would string a yarn together about Cooper’s adventure that would have John nearly bouncing around the room.

  Today was not one of those days. His body was aching more and more lately and he was tired all the time. Once, when he was exceptionally cranky, he had tried to tell John that Cooper wasn’t coming back. Walter immediately regretted it, even more so when John looked at him with cold eyes and said “there is no way you can know that.”

  It was a true statement, and technically, the boy was still well within his time frame. Summer was just now kicking in.

  Try as he might though, Walter could not rally the hope inside himself that he had inspired in others. He knew too well the dangers of the outside. Had seen too many people killed by it.

  The city was dwindling away, and not so slowly anymore. Far more had died in this heat wave within his city than anyone expected. The heat and drought was taking its toll on many of the elderly. Walter wondered sometimes why he was still around. Many, some much younger than he was, had succumbed in the last week or two.

  He saw no way for the city to continue anymore. The numbers had dipped below what it took to keep the si
mple things operational. The people that remained had taken to thinking only of themselves. Food from the gardens almost never came into the food bank anymore. Most were choosing to catch their own carp, or just go hungry, because the fishermen were not sharing their catch and if they did, the fish had a price tag.

  This was quickly becoming a problem for the older population that could not support themselves. Thankfully, most of those people had others, like John, looking out for them for now, but Walter feared the day when that goodwill ended.

  The handful of council members still alive were useless at enforcing order and simply chose not to. Christopher had tried to enforce the law for a brief time, as did some of the others, but they gave up when they saw what they were up against. The whole city was turning against itself, against its best interests. It was circling the drain and everyone knew it.

  With the ever increasing pain throughout his body, he assumed his time was near. Those thoughts always turned back to sending Cooper out to his death. His only son, a precious commodity inside a city that was very short on commodities. That would be his legacy. He had gambled everything and lost miserably. At least no one would be around to remember it.

  Part III

  The Village

  20

  As the crowd approached, a woman had stepped out in front and began leading this pack of people. The crowd now numbered nearly two dozen. The woman was older than Cooper; her long, wavy brown hair had large stripes of white throughout. She had creamy colored skin and large almond shaped gray eyes. Those eyes held a great deal of intelligence behind them, but also a sadness that was evident. She had a small nose that slightly turned up at the very tip and dapples of freckles across the bridge of her nose.

  She was beautiful and Cooper liked her immediately. As she approached him, she revealed a wide and caring smile with pearly white teeth. She extended her hand to shake and he grew nervous once again. Was this their leader? He wasn’t sure how to respond, but he decided against bringing up the potatoes again.

  Instead, he simply shook her hand, trying to be careful not to damage her by squeezing too hard. Her hand was surprisingly firm and strong and he could feel some calluses, this woman may be their leader, but she knew how to work.

  “Hello, Cooper, my name is Aria. It has been quite some time since we have had a guest come strolling in” Her smile was nearly intoxicating and it took everything he had not to get lost in it.

  “I would ask that you bear with us, as many who are here now don’t remember the proper procedures for welcoming guests”

  “That’s no problem ma’am. This is my first time meeting anyone outside of my city. We didn’t think anyone else was alive” except for Christopher who was certain of it, but he kept that last part to himself.

  ---

  Cooper was ecstatic. This was what he had hoped for. He had found a settlement! He found himself wishing that he had gone over more diplomatic skills, as he was nervous of offending anyone. All he had to fall back on were his manners, so he did just that.

  After meeting Aria, he walked around and was introduced to everyone else on the beach. Everyone had wide smiles and seemed genuinely happy to meet him. All of these people seemed so healthy and happy.

  Aria spoke again, her long, brightly colored dress flowing in the breeze along the beach. “Cooper, I know you have many questions.” He nodded vigorously. “We also have many questions for you. All this debriefing will take time, so we will start with a gathering in your honor. You can meet the rest of the village.”

  The rest of the crowd grew even more excited about this and began whispering things about the party.

  “Yes, everyone, we will show young Cooper here how we do things in this neck of the woods.” She shouted as she raised both hands up in the air. Everyone cheered louder. “I’m guessing Tom introduced himself?” She raised one eyebrow higher than her other as she said this.

  “Oh, yes ma’am. He saved my life, I couldn’t be more grateful to him. I hope I didn’t put him out. He seemed to rush off…” he said in a fluster.

  “It’s fine. That’s his way, he can be a little shy and most likely he figured we would celebrate a new arrival so he wanted to catch lots of fish. I swear that man can read my mind most of the time.” The affection she had for Tom was obvious and Cooper was very relieved to learn that he hadn’t somehow bothered him.

  They began walking off the beach and onto a well worn path leading down through some grass and into the thick of the woods.

  “Speaking of Tom, ma’am, I’m very curious what was powering his boat?”

  “First, just call me Aria, second, you’ll need to talk to Scoob about the motor. I have no idea how he works his magic, but he’s the one that makes things go.” As she said this she looked off in the distance. “What you will find here Cooper, is that every fills their niche, so no one person really knows about everything. We function like a great machine.”

  “But it was a motor? An actual functioning motor?” He had assumed that was it, but he didn’t want to get his hopes up. If these people had a functioning motor, it changed everything. He had never even seen one work and he doubted anyone living in his city had either. This was more than he could even process and if he could bring a guidebook about building motors back to the city it would be beyond anyone’s expectations for his journey.

  This was the whole point of his journey though. He was realizing that now. Christopher hinted at it, but Walter must have known, somehow, that he would come across people. He was unsure why the old man didn’t prepare him better, but when he compared what he had learned on his entire journey with what he had gathered in the small amount of time he had been on that beach, his whole mission was obvious.

  “Yes, it was a motor. You should see, or taste rather, the ‘fuel’ the brewers work up” she said while laughing out loud. “I’m sure you’ll get a sample this evening.”

  Cooper didn’t know what a brewer was, but if they were making the fuel, he would need to learn all about how they did it as well as spend time with this person, Scoob.

  The forest was very different than the forest by the river. He noticed as they walked the path, that the trees were very large, and so loaded with the nuts that he could see great clusters of them on many of the trees. The trees themselves were thick, but none of them seemed to touch and light cascaded down the floor of this great woodland. The forest floor was blanketed with several different kinds of thick grass. Most of it was no taller than his waist, but it was so thick that he couldn’t see the ground.

  One of the things he found very interesting were the massive rocks poking right out of the ground. Some of them were alone and some were connected to form a small ridge, poking through the earth. Also, this land wasn’t flat at all. He could see several large peaks and valleys just from that path and he suspected more must exist around the ones he saw. It was a great forest indeed.

  “Tell me a little about yourself Cooper, where are you from?” He noticed as she walked through the woods, her dress never clung to any plants as she seemed to swirl it out of the way with very subtle movements. It gave her a gracefulness that bordered on floating. It was an impressive skill considering Cooper was clomping down the path, tripping on every small stone and had nearly been pulled over once when some briars grabbed his shirt.

  As he looked around, he saw everyone moved through the woods with nearly the same ease of movements. Even though they were moving quickly, they were not awkward in their movements and every footfall was confident and didn’t slip. This must come from years of walking through these woods, he assumed.

  There was a familiarity in all of their movements. They all seemed to glide through the woods, as if the plants and rocks nearly bended out of their way. It was just like Lupe running through the woods. It was amazing to watch them move like that.

  This reminded him of Lupe. She had run off with the other black dog. He hoped she would be ok. He realized he hadn’t mentioned her at all in his wonder of thes
e new people.

  “Aria, I have a dog traveling with me, did you see her?”

  “Ah, of course, that blonde beauty that ran off with Rufus. Don’t worry; he’ll take good care of her. He is probably just showing her his favorite stinky things to roll in.”

  “She’s not actually my dog; she just started traveling with me on my journey. She may have saved my life actually”

  Aria stopped and gently placed her hand on Coopers. Looking him in the eyes she said “Well, isn’t every dog just traveling with us on our journey? My husband used to say that was the whole point of dogs…”

  This was profound to Cooper. Having only met dogs a few times growing up, he had never thought about it really. He worried about her when she was gone and Lupe obviously worried about him when he was stuck on that mudflat. They provide food for each other as well as company. Neither one belonged to each other; they were just on a journey together. He liked thinking about it like that.

  “Is your husband Tom the fisherman?” Cooper asked this but immediately regretted it. It wasn’t his place to ask questions like this. How many more things would he say that he would regret? This whole experience was so foreign to him.

  Aria didn’t seem to mind the question much though; she merely chuckled, smiled and stared off into the trees. “No, Tom is a cherished friend, probably my oldest friend here. No, my husband…”

  But just then Lupe and the other dog, Rufus, came bounding up, biting at each others necks and playfully hopping around. Cooper could hardly recognize her because she was covered in nearly black mud. As the pair bounded over to him, he could tell instantly that they smelled incredibly foul. It was the smell of week old carp left out on top of one of the boxes in the sun. It wrinkled his nose and nearly caused him to gag.

  The pair of furry beasts seemed overly pleased with themselves; tongues lolling to the side of their mouths as they looked around at all the people.