Yet these remnants of an army must return—or at least try. Their exodus was just beginning. Somehow he had managed to hold together the few men left from his force. He had always nourished the hope that she might still be alive. And now that the war was over he had to return—had to know whether she was still waiting for him.
They had started the long trek. Throughout Europe anarchy reigned. He and his men were alone. All they could do now was fight. Finally they reached the seaport city of Calais. With what few men he had left, he had commandeered a small yacht, and they had taken to the sea.
After months of storms and bad luck, they had been shipwrecked somewhere off the coast of Mexico. He had managed to swim ashore, and had been found by a fisherman's family. Many months he had spent swimming and fishing, recovering his strength, inquiring about the United States. The Mexicans had spoken with fear of the land across the Rio Grande. All its great cities had been destroyed, and those that had been only partially destroyed were devoid of people. The land across the Rio Grande had become a land of shadows. The winds were poisoned, and the few people who might have survived, were crazed and maimed by the blasts. Few men had dared cross the Rio Grande into "El Mundo gris de Noviembre"—the November world. Those who had, had never returned.
In time he had traveled north until he reached the Rio Grande. He had waded into the muddy waters and somehow landed on the American side. In the November world.
It was rightly called. The deserts were long. All plant life had died, leaving to those once great fertile stretches, nothing but the sad, temporal beauty that comes with death. No people had he seen. Only the ruins of what had once been their cities. He had walked through them, and all that he had seen were the small mutant rodents, and all that he had heard was the occasional swish of the wind as it whisked along what might have been dead leaves, but wasn't.
He had been on the trail for a long time. His food was nearly exhausted. The mountains were just beginning, and he hoped to find food there. He had not found food, but his luck had been with him. He had found a horse. Not a normal horse, but a mutation. It was almost twice as large as a regular horse. Its skin seemed to shimmer and was like glassy steel to the touch. From the center of its forehead grew a horn, straight out, as the horn of a unicorn. But most startling of all were the animal's eyes which seemed to speak—a silent mental speech, which he could understand. The horse had looked up as he approached it and seemed to say: "Follow me."
And he had followed. Over a mountain, until they came to a pass, and finally to a narrow path which led to an old cabin. He had found it empty, but there were cans of food and a rifle and many shells. He had remained there a long time—how long he could not tell, for he could only measure time by the cycles of the sun and the moon. Finally he had taken the horse, the rifle and what food was left, and once again started the long journey home.
The farther north he went, the more life seemed to have survived. He had seen great herds of horses like his own, stampeding across the plains, and strange birds which he could not identify. Yet he had seen no human beings.
But he knew he was closer now. Closer to home. He recognized the land. How, he did not know, for it was much changed. A sensing, perhaps, of what it had once been. He could not be more than two days' ride away. Once he was through this desert, he would find her, he would be with her once again; all would be well, and his long journey would be over.