Read Online The Stone War by Madeleine E. Robins - Free Book Online Page A

another cough. “No body . New York dead. You don’ go in’ere nomore.”
    “I do,” Tietjen said.
    “Hear ‘em up there? Think ’ey leave, was somethin’ lef’ inna city?”
    “They maybe don’t want what I want.” The boy thought about that for a while, his lips tight-pressed. Tietjen asked him, “You cold?”
    “Shit, yeah, col. Wha’ you think?” He seemed to have made up his mind that Tietjen was crazy or stupid or both. Turning himself with painful slowness, the boy stared out at the shadows of the crowd. Over his shoulder Tietjen watched the day grow colder and later.
    Even when, hours past, the last wave of people had vanished, the air seemed haunted by an echo of voices. At last Tietjen tried to move the boy.
    “Ey, where you goin’? You can’ lea’me ’ere.”
    “I have to get to the city. Do you think you can make it on your own?”
    The boy’s glance was fretful and feverish. “I tol’ you, assho’. Can’ go dere no more. You can’ lea’ me ’ere neither.” He paused, pulling his strength together. “You lea’ me down’ere, I die sure.” The boy’s cockiness faded for a moment. “Jesus, ma’, don’ lea’ me down’ere.” His eyes, huge and dark in a dark face, searched Tietjen’s without bravado. “Leas’ you help me up dere, ma’. I be okay onna road.”
    Tietjen nodded. They began, haltingly, to reverse the process that had secured them in their hiding place hours before. The boy squirmed and Tietjen pushed, edging out behind him. When he shoved at the boy’s shoulders he thought that the body, even through the leather jacket, seemed too tough and wiry for death. Still, Tietjen recoiled from the thought of the boy lying alone under the bridge in the cold of the night. Would he be any better alone on the road? Perhaps he should try to bring the boy with him, back to the city.
    The choice was not his. When they reached the roadside the boy stood drunkenly away from him. “Gonna be okay, now, ma’. I make it all right.” He gave no salutation, no backward look. He began walking, limping after the crowd long past.
    Tietjen did not waste time watching the boy disappear. It was almost twilight, the light was nearly gone, and he had a long way to go yet.
    It took him eight hours to walk twelve miles, through dusk and darkness. Through Mount Vernon, west toward the Hudson, trying to make out the faces of disfigured signs. Perhaps the boy had been right and that last, frightening parade had been the end, the last of the people of New York. Down the Saw Mill Parkway, past the empty tollbooths with signs hanging askew, dangling and rattling in ghost-town winds, and into the Bronx. New Jersey, when he caught glimpses of the river and the land across in the dark, glittered serenely, safely distant across the water.
    It was a long, cold walk, and Tietjen was more aware of being alone than he had ever been in all his life. When he reached the bridge that spanned the Harlem River and was the last barrier to Manhattan he had no idea what time it was, only that it was dark and had been dark for hours; that he was hungry and had not eaten for almost two days; and that he was very nearly home. He saw stars overhead, the first stars he had seen over his city in years. By their light he could see shadowy obstacles on the bridge that stretched its crippled arms across the river. In the distance there was the uneven moving glow of fires, great Beltane blazes in the darkness.
    I am home, he thought. I am home. For the first time in two days the voice that had driven him was quiet. Another hundred yards and he would be on his own ground again. He took the first step, but it was difficult to negotiate in the dark: the wind was strong on the bridge, and he could only see shadows and the moonlit glitter of twisted steel, things to terrify. So close to home he found himself wanting to wait until morning, when the shadows would be gone. Then he could see the city as it was. Make plans. Learn