The road Read Online Free PDF

the water but it vanished as suddenly as if it had been eaten.
He'd stood at such a river once and watched the flash of trout deep in a pool,
invisible to see in the teacolored water except as they turned on their sides
to feed. Reflecting back the sun deep in the darkness like a flash of knives in
a cave.
     
    We cant stay, he said. It's getting colder every
day. And the waterfall is an attraction. It was for us and it will be for
others and we dont know who they will be and we cant hear them coming. It's not
safe. We could stay one more day. It's not safe. Well maybe we could find some
other place on the river. We have to keep moving. We have to keep heading
south. Doesnt the river go south? No. It doesnt. Can I see it on the map? Yes.
Let me get it. The tattered oilcompany roadmap had once been taped together but
now it was just sorted into leaves and numbered with crayon in the corners for
their assembly. He sorted through the limp pages and spread out those that
answered to their location. We cross a bridge here. It looks to be about eight
miles or so. This is the river. Going east. We follow the road here along the
eastern slope of the mountains. These are our roads, the black lines on the
map. The state roads. Why are they the state roads? Because they used to belong
to the states. What used to be called the states. But there's not any more
states? No.
    What happened to them? I dont know exactly. That's
a good question. But the roads are still there. Yes. For a while. How long a
while? I dont know. Maybe quite a while. There's nothing to uproot them so they
should be okay for a while. But there wont be any cars or trucks on them. No.
    Okay. Are you ready? The boy nodded. He wiped his
nose on his sleeve and shouldered up his small pack and the man folded away the
map sections and rose and the boy followed him out through the gray palings of
the trees to the road.
     
    When the bridge came in sight below them there was
a tractor-trailer jackknifed sideways across it and wedged into the buckled
iron railings. It was raining again and they stood there with the rain
pattering softly on the tarp. Peering out from under the blue gloom beneath the
plastic. Can we get around it? the boy said. I dont think so. We can probably
get under it. We may have to unload the cart.
     
    The bridge spanned the river above a rapids. They
could hear the noise of it as they came around the curve in the road. A wind
was coming down the gorge and they pulled the corners of the tarp about them
and pushed the cart out onto the bridge. They could see the river through the
ironwork. Below the rapids was a railroad bridge laid on limestone piers. The
stones of the piers were stained well above the river from the high water and
the bend of the river was choked with great windrows of black limbs and brush
and the trunks of trees.
     
    The truck had been there for years, the tires flat
and crumpled under the rims. The front of the tractor was jammed against the
railing of the bridge and the trailer had sheared forward off the top plate and
jammed up against the back of the cab. The rear of the trailer had swung out
and buckled the rail on the other side of the bridge and it hung several feet
out over the river gorge. He pushed the cart up under the trailer but the
handle wouldnt clear. They'd have to slide it under sideways. He left it
sitting in the rain with the tarp over it and they duckwalked under the trailer
and he left the boy crouched there in the dry while he climbed up on the
gastank step and wiped the water from the glass and peered inside the cab. He
stepped back down and reached up and opened the door and then climbed in and
pulled the door shut behind him. He sat looking around. An old doghouse sleeper
behind the seats. Papers in the floor. The glovebox was open but it was empty.
He climbed back between the seats. There was a raw damp mattress on the bunk
and a small refrigerator with the