Marching As to War: A Post-Apocalyptic Novel (21 page)

Around
noon
, I
realized no one was looking for me.

I crawled, then stumbled, then ran up into the hills, always
looking over my shoulder for the soldiers. At dawn, I hid in a big thicket. I
would wait until dark before moving west again. I was hungry and thirsty, but
as the sun rose, the cold in my bones went away.

Although I wanted to sleep, I stayed awake. I dried and
cleaned my pistol as best I could, and hoped it would still work. But the hours
passed, and I saw no sign of soldiers searching for me. No airplanes circled
overhead.
Nothing.

I wondered if the soldiers knew there had been three of us.
Riley and Biltmore could have killed the guard. After Riley died, Biltmore
could have done all the rest. The men who shot Biltmore had not seen me in the
river.

Either they didn’t know about me, or they were looking
elsewhere. Riley and Biltmore had died. Jane was still in prison. But I was
safe. I wanted to weep again.
Not now
,
I thought.
Save all that for later
.

I put my wet boots and Mary’s book in the sun to dry. Then I
stretched out on the ground, pistol in hand, and slept.

I woke just before sunset and headed west again. I found a
stream and drank my fill. Before long, I crossed a big road. On the other side,
there were many houses along the smaller roads. I avoided the houses as best I
could. In my filthy uniform, I looked like a deserter from the army. Someone
might report me for a reward.

I would be safer if I could get ordinary clothes. But I
didn’t want to use the pistol to take them. I would have to kill anyone who saw
me. I wasn’t that desperate. Not yet.

So I moved west through the night. An hour or
two past midnight
, I could see the dim outline
of a big ridge to my southwest. I could follow it to get up into real
mountains. I might find folks who didn’t give a damn for the Government and
might help me get back home. But I might not.

I turned north. There would be roads, many houses, and
soldiers patrolling the
big
 
road
, I-40. Going north could get me captured or killed. But John
and Mary would help me if I could reach them.

Just before dawn, I crossed I-40. When the sun started
coming up, I hid in an abandoned building. It still had some sagging and rusted
metal shelves, which once had been piled with food, medicine, or things people
just wanted to have. Now the floor was covered with mud, broken glass, and dead
leaves blown in through missing windows and holes in the roof. It smelled of
old shit and dead animals. I huddled in a corner and tried to sleep with the
pistol in my hand.

I would nod off and then jerk awake, certain I wasn’t alone and
that something had moved. But I went to sleep and dreamt again of sailing in
the old man’s boat across the ocean of trees. Unlike the last time, no one was
with me, and I didn’t sail here and there, confused about where to go. I sailed
in just one direction, knowing the sharks were all around, knowing I was going
nowhere.

When I woke, a large rat was chewing through my britches
above the knee. In disgust and panic, I hit at it with the pistol. And I almost
shot at the fleeing rat before I got a hold of myself.

It was already after dark, and I had no idea of the time. I
was hungry, but it was my thirst that frightened me. How long had it been since
my last water?
A whole day?
Had it been two? My
thinking wasn’t clear enough to figure it out.

Putting my pistol away, I took a few steps and felt
unsteady, as though I was full of whiskey. I wanted to sit down again, but the
thought of the rat drove me on.

Outside, I felt better. Thinking about where to go next took
my mind off my thirst and hunger. I had to find my way by the shape of hills I
could barely see in the dark. Sometimes roads went where I wanted to go, and
sometimes I had to cut cross-country.
Slow going.

Just before dawn, I saw some clothes hanging on a line
behind a house. Someone had been too lazy to take them down last night. I
grabbed a pair of britches and a shirt and ran until I found a patch of trees
and brush. I changed into the damp clothes, buried the uniform in a shallow
hole, and headed out again. Now I could risk daylight travel.

It was sunset when I found John and Mary’s house. I knew I
had to wait until after dark. So I worked my way over to the thicket in which I
had hidden with Riley. In the fading light, I could still see his boot prints
in the dirt. It had been just a few days, but it was all as far away and as
innocent as my childhood on the farm.

We had hoped we could save Jane. I remember thinking I would
save her, or die trying. Well, I had tried, and Riley was dead, not me. He was
beyond help. And so was Jane. I knew, finally and completely, what everyone
else had known all along. It was impossible. Rank foolishness.

“If it’s God’s will,” Jane used to say, “He’ll make a way.”

Well, this time God had not made a way, and two good men had
died. Jane would die too. I was still alive. I just could not understand why.

Sitting in the thicket, I fell asleep. When I woke up, it
was dark. A lamp glowed inside the house.

I tried to stand, but the ground seemed to tilt. I shouldn’t
have let myself rest. My body wanted to stay where it was.
To
sleep.
I took a step, then lost my balance and sat down on a log.

When I woke up, I was next to the log, my face in the dirt.
It was still dark, and the lamp still glowed. Mary was playing her violin.

I crawled to the edge of the thicket and, using a tree, got
to my feet. Again, I wanted to lie down, to sleep, but the music reminded me of
what I had to do. Once I was moving, it wasn’t so bad. I didn’t have any
problems until I reached the steps. I tripped and fell.

While trying to stand, I realized I had forgotten the code.
Was I Watson looking for Holmes, or Holmes looking for Watson?
Riley would remember
, I thought.
Go back and ask Riley
. Then I remembered
Riley was gone. I began to cry.

Mary told me later that was how she found me. Kneeling on
the porch, weeping.

I only remember waking up on a pallet in the basement,
feeling cleaner, but still weak. I just stared at the dark ceiling until the
door opened. It was Mary, carrying a lamp and a bowl of soup.

“Hungry?” She put the lamp down next to me.

“Yeah,” I said, smelling soup.

“When was the last time you ate?”

I couldn’t work through how many days it had been. Going to
rescue Jane, getting away, and coming here all felt like one long day.

“I don’t know,” I said. “It was the day after I left here.”

“I would’ve fed you last night,” she said. “But you were too
upset. It was all I could do to get you to drink some water.” She told me about
how she had found me on the porch.

I said nothing. I was ashamed anyone had seen me that way.

She helped me sit up, and I ate.

John came in and sat on a crate. He said, “We need to know
what happened.”

“Tell us everything, so we needn’t speak of it again,” Mary
said.

I told them about the man with the pipe and Biltmore.
About getting into the big house.
The
guard and the empty cells.
Riley’s death. What the officer had said
about Jane not being there. How Biltmore had died and how I had made my way to
their house.

I told them what I reckoned they needed to know. It wasn’t
everything. It would be a long time before I could do that.

“No one followed you?” John said.

“No one,” I said.

“If they had followed him,” Mary said, “we’d be dead or in an
interrogation cell by now.”

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” John said and went out.

“What about Jane?” I said.

Mary said, “Nothing has changed.”

It was another measure of how I had failed. I felt foolish
and hollow.

Mary stood up, and started to pick up the tray. Something
caught her eye and she smiled. She reached over and picked up the book. “I see
you managed to keep this.”

“It got wet in the river. I’m sorry I ruined it.”

“Oh, it’s not ruined. I know how to fix it.”

She took the book and the empty bowl and went to the door.
“Rest a while. After you eat again, I’ll play the violin. Would you like that?”

“Yes. Yes, I would.”

“Sleep now.” She went out, closing the door.

I slept without dreaming until Mary woke me, one hand on my
shoulder. The lamp glowed, illuminating her face. I could smell the rich stew
and bread she had brought me on a tray. Outside, rain was coming down hard,
pounding on the roof, slashing at the walls of the house.

Sitting up, I ate and felt almost well again. I asked Mary
how she had learned to play the violin.

“It’s a long story,” she said. “But we have time now, don’t
we?”

She told me the Plague came when she was seven years old.
Her family had been wealthy and owned several houses. One of these had been in
the country, far from any city. They hid from the Plague there.

They had jewelry, and other things made of gold and silver,
to trade for food. That kept them eating for a while, but soon they were like
everyone else, getting by on what they could grow and gather.

Mary’s mother taught her to read and write using the books
in their house. When Mary was a little older, a man who lived nearby taught her
how to play the violin.

“His name was Jacob
Needlebaum
,”
Mary said. “I called him Mr. Jacob. Before the Plague, he taught music for a
living. We paid him a potato or carrot for every lesson.” She smiled. “I think
we kept him alive with those lessons. Not just the food. Teaching gave him a
reason to live. Anyway, before he died, he gave me his violin. That’s the
violin I play.”

“You gave up food for music? Not many folks would’ve done
that.
Especially in those days.”

“Well, Father didn’t like it. He used to have arguments with
Mother about it.”

“So why did she do it?”

“She said the beautiful things we’ve created--art,
literature, poetry, music--are like a flame we pass from generation to generation.
If the flame goes out for even a single generation, it might never be
rekindled. The world could go dark forever. It could happen.
So
easily.”

I guess she could tell I didn’t understand. “There are the
things we do to survive,” she said. “And there are the things we do to live.”

I guess I still looked puzzled.

“Never mind,” she said. “I’ll play something for you.”

It was strange and wonderful, something from that old world
I would never know. As she played, I thought about what she had said. A flame we
pass from generation to generation. What about her son? Had she taught him to
play? She wouldn’t talk about him. I wanted to ask, but I didn’t want to cause
her pain.
Maybe later
, I thought.

She finished. I thanked her, and we said good night. When
she left, she took the lamp with her, and the room fell dark. I could hear the
rain and booms of thunder.

I dreamt of the old man and his small boat again. He saw a
storm gathering, moving toward him. The storm hit, and now I was in the boat,
not the old man. I didn’t know what to do against the wind and the rain and the
waves. The weight of the great fish was pulling the boat down into the deep
dark water. Lightning showed me the eye of the fish, staring at me, accusing
me.

I woke up, breathing hard. It took me a moment to remember
where I was, in a house, not in a dugout cave, a thicket, or an abandoned
building. There were no rats. I wasn’t in the old man’s boat. It took a while,
but I fell asleep again.

John shook me. “Wake up. It’s morning. Come upstairs.”

I said I would come. He nodded and went out. I dressed and
put my pistol in a pocket of the britches.

Upstairs, John and Mary sat at the kitchen table. When I
came in John looked at me without expression. Mary smiled, but I saw trouble in
her eyes.

She gave me some tea and bread and asked me how I was. I
said I was better. I ate the bread and waited. They were the ones with
something to say. They would have to say it. Finally, John did.

“Jane’s going to be executed.
Hanged.
Today at
noon
.
In
Asheville
.
”

Jane’s death.
It had a time and a
place.

“How do you know?” I said.

“The Government has been announcing it on the radio,” John
said, “They want a big crowd.
At the old city hall in the
center of town.

I stared at them and tried to control myself.

“There’s something else you ought to know,” Mary said.

Again, I waited for it.

“They say she signed a confession. They say she’s terrified
of dying,” Mary said.

“I’ll believe that when I see it with my own eyes,” I said.

There it was. I had to see Jane die.

I looked at Mary and felt she already knew. But I said it
anyway. “I’m going.” I had to make it real by saying it.

“What good will
that do
?” John
said.

“Maybe if she sees me, it’ll be easier for her. I don’t
know. But I have to do this.”

“We can’t let you,” John said, “If you get caught, they’ll
make you talk. You’ll bring them here.”

He was right, of course, but I had to go. I glanced out the
back window and saw John’s horse was already saddled, tied to a post outside
the shed. So I stood up pulled out my pistol. “I’ll need that horse.”

“
Goddamnit
,” he said. “You’ll get
us killed.”

“I have to do this. I’m sorry.”