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Walker and Alvin sat outside the shack with only their blankets and the glow of a campfire to stave off the biting cold of the desert night. The two men remained there in silence for some time, both of them happy just to fire gaze. Alvin eventually tottered to his feet and opened a couple of cans of beans and dropped them into the flames to heat through. Walker continued to stare into the fire, as a chorus of cicada song bled through from the surrounding darkness. For some reason Walker felt safer out here, away from Folly. From what he’d been told, the Machine could be anywhere at any time. Apparently it was prone to patrolling all of its large territory, and so it could easily be hiding anywhere in the surrounding blackness, watching. Yet he’d still rather be here with the warmth of the fire and Alvin and Johnny, than in town with the others. Too many bad things had happened in Folly. The air there was ripe with despair and desperation. He took out his rolling kit and grass and held it up for Alvin to see.
“Do you mind?” he asked.
“Help yourself,” said Alvin.
“I wasn’t sure, you being an army man and all. They’re not too keen on drugs in the armed forces back home, even though everyone smokes a bit of weed.”
“Ex-army, son,” said Alvin, smirking. “And I’m quite partial to smoking a joint myself.”
“Well alright then, old man,” said Walker. “One joint coming right up.”
Walker flashed a smile and began to sprinkle and roll his open cigarette paper with a craftsman’s care. He popped the finished spliff into his mouth and paused, listening to the crackle of flames from the fire and the call of desert insects. He suddenly felt a rush of nostalgia, as if he had somehow fallen into a scene from one of the westerns he used to enjoy so much as a child. His eyes wandered over to Tyson’s dark and imposing figure. The redundant robot was inert, facing out into the desert like some enormous sleeping sentinel. The thought of all this baffling technology colliding with such a rustic old west setting still struck him as too surreal to wrap his mind around. No wonder Johnny was having so much trouble believing them. You really did have to see it to believe it.
Walker lit up and took a long drag. He waited for the joint’s effects to slide over him like mercury and melt any lingering anxieties.
The long and whining howl of a coyote rose out of the darkness; interrupting Walker’s buzz and making him stiffen with fear. He stared across the flames to where Alvin was sipping a can of cola. The older man smiled and made a slight brushing gesture with his hand as if to wave away his concern.
“Don’t worry, they won’t come around here,” said Alvin. “Besides, there’s much worse things out there in the dark tonight.”
“Thanks,” said Walker, nervously sucking on the roach. “You’re very reassuring.”
Alvin smiled again, he enjoyed that.
“Do you think Marlowe’s OK?”
Alvin shrugged.
“About as OK as the rest of us I guess,”
Yeah, you’re the definition of reassurance, thought Walker.
“I’ve done you a map for tomorrow,” said Alvin. “It’s pretty simple.”
“Thanks. The last thing I want is to get lost out there with your faceless friend running around.” Walker held up the joint. “Here.”
Alvin put down the curling, mahogany pipe that he’d been steadily packing with tobacco and took the joint.
“You must be cut up about your caravan, I mean trailer,” said Walker, correcting himself.
“Damn right I am,” said Alvin, taking a hit. “It was my home for a long time. That Machine destroyed pretty much everything I had when it took it apart.”
“That’s rough. Haven’t you got a house somewhere?”
“Nah. I tried to settle when I got back from Vietnam, but it just didn’t take.”
“You didn’t want to stay in the army”?
“No way,” said Alvin. “Not after the things I’d seen. They were terrible times and not easy to forget, but the open road helped. Helps.”
“It is a beautiful country,” said Walker.
“Yeah, it sure is. Driving through some of these places, it can heal you, push the bad memories way back to the back of your mind and allow you to get on with the business of living.”
Alvin tapped his forehead.
“You’ve got to leave plenty space in here for those killer sunsets and the open road.”
Walker smiled.
“Have you got a family?”
“Nah. I had a wife, but we never had kids. We didn’t get around to it before I shipped out and...well; let’s just say things weren’t the same between us when I got back.”
“You talk about the war as if it were yesterday,” said Walker. “It’s been a long time. What have you been doing since then?”
“I travel, I meet people. I do odd jobs here and there. I’ve learned a lot of trades over the years. Plus I’ve got a good pension and there were decent payouts from a few injuries I sustained in battle. I do alright.”
“So you just float around from place to place, drinking it all in.”
“I guess so. I love to paint. I started doing it as a kind of therapy after the war. It helped me over the worst of the memories. It was like being on the road, the painting just seemed to get it out of my head. Then a few people started saying I had a flair for it. So I started doing landscapes of the places I was going, portraits of the folks I met, then I managed to sell a few. I’ve got a nice little sideline out of it now, though I wouldn’t call myself an artist.”
“You are the American dream, Alvin,” said Walker, grinding out his roach and tossing it into the fire. “You come back from Nam as a war hero, then hit the road as a drifter and become a successful painter. You’re the blueprint for a successful mid-life crisis.”
“I certainly wasn’t a hero son,” said Alvin, his face darkening against the dancing shadows of the campfire’s flames. “I was in charge of a lot of good men that did a lot of bad things. And I did bad things too. None of us deserved medals for anything that took place over there, and I’ll never wear gold on my chest to celebrate it.”
“I didn’t mean that the wrong way,” said Walker. “It’s just you did something important with your life, and when you didn’t like it anymore, you went ahead and changed it. I think that’s impressive.”
“It’s just what people do,” said Alvin, relaxing again. “You don’t like your life?”
“Well to be honest, I don’t really think I have one, and if it turns out I do, then no, I don’t like it.”
“Is that what you’re doing out here in the middle of nowhere?” said Alvin. “Running away from yourself?”
“Not running,” said Walker. “Well maybe. At least I didn’t think I was running away. More like getting lost, so I can see what else I’ve got left inside me. You know, see what I’m made of.”
“Oh, you’re looking for inspiration.”
“Yeah. Drifting through a godforsaken landscape like this in the middle of nowhere beats being walled up in an office, running on the spot as everything around you catches up and overtakes you, waiting around to become obsolete. At least out here if I keep moving, I’ve got the chance of tripping over something, or making something happen.”
“Well I’d say you definitely tripped over something this time, Walker.”
“Yeah. Careful what you wish for eh?”
“It’s OK,” said Alvin. “I think what you’re doing is...impressive. There’s a lot to be said for a man out on the road trying to find his own way forwards.”
Walker watched the older man trail off, pipe in hand, scratching his beard.
“Don’t worry, old-timer” said Walker, smiling with genuine affection for this man that had plucked him from the desert. “With a bit of luck I’ll be back with the cavalry tomorrow, and we’ll both be on the road again in no time.”
“Sure,” said Alvin, with a sincerity that again didn’t sound as reassuring as Walker would have liked. “Tomorrow.”