The Last Town on Earth (38 page)

Elsie’s not going to make it.
His head didn’t hurt anymore; it felt like a too-tight helmet had been unscrewed from his skull. This sensation of newness, of space, of freedom, left him feeling almost dizzy, made the air around his eyes feel fuzzy, glowing. Elsie’s sick. He tried to focus on that thought but found it strangely elusive. Elsie. He had seen her in his dreams, visions of her, and although the train he had ridden on had not been real, Elsie was real. She wasn’t a figment of his imagination, a hidden longing that was incompatible with the world around him. She was real, she existed. Elsie. She was sick?

He sat there for a good long while, beginning to understand. The oatmeal felt good in his stomach, strengthening him, but a new nervousness unhinged him, starting in his gut and working its way through his depleted frame. He anxiously started scraping his fingernails—they had become so long while he was in bed—against the wood table. He was getting better, he had survived, he had returned to the world that had continued without him, but where was Elsie?

Then there was a frantic knocking on the door, and a child’s voice, screaming.

VI

T
he first truck was full in less than an hour.

More than a dozen had been arrested so far, Miller noted. At this rate they would need to send the full trucks back to the Timber Falls jail and then return for a second batch, even a third or a fourth.

“I’d like to see how he’s going to run his mill now,” Winslow said to him with a short laugh.

“That has nothing to do with this.” Miller’s face soured as if he’d been offended by a dirty joke. “I told you this isn’t about Worthy’s mill—this is about protecting our country, making sure men are following the law. I don’t give a damn what this means for his mill or yours.”

Winslow’s smile could not be erased. “You have your reasons, Mr. Miller, and I have mine.”

Miller saw the man’s point: if the flu hadn’t already crippled Worthy’s mill, losing eight or twelve truckloads of men surely would. The Winslows would do quite a bit better without Worthy’s mill undercutting their prices and offering higher wages to lure away workers.

And speak of the devil, there he was: Charles Worthy, looking far less commanding and proud than he’d appeared that day by the road into town. He was sweating in the snow, his hair disheveled and his normally pale face gone red with fear or rage or cold.

Charles had driven the old Ford he usually reserved for longer distances; this matter was too urgent for walking. After stopping near the crowded spot where the trucks and autos were blocking the street, he kicked open his door, nearly forgetting to turn off the engine.

He had wanted to bring more men with him, but if this visit was what he thought it was, that wouldn’t have been wise.

Charles should have done more to ensure that everyone had enlisted, he now realized—he should have required every man to prove that he had secured an essential-worker deferment. Instead, he had let his own ambivalence about the war, combined with his wife’s hatred for it, allow him to make a poor decision. And this was the result.

Charles couldn’t believe the sight before him. He knew all the men locked in the trucks. Some of them looked to be in shock, but many of them were clearly scared. Many were still sick, their faces hollowed from the time Charles had last seen them, their coughs polluting the trucks. Some of the men were young, barely older than Philip, but an equal number were in their late twenties or thirties and had wives, families.

And there the families were, at least some of them: a small crowd had gathered around the trucks, women screaming or crying or pleading, some of them with babies in their arms or children at their side. They stood there in the snow, most having rushed out of their houses without wraps, imploring three large men with badges and holstered pistols to let their husbands go. The APL men stood there expressionless as statues, hands at their sides in case they needed to unholster their weapons.

“What in the name of God is going on here?” Worthy yelled.

Miller waited for Worthy to reach him—he wanted to explain the situation, not holler it down the street. Worthy was irate but alone, no armed guards this time, and Miller was comfortable with the fact that he and his colleagues were firmly in charge.

“These men are under arrest for failing to enlist, Mr. Worthy,” Miller said. “We’re knocking on every door in town and will see the papers of every man of draft age. Any man who doesn’t have such papers will be sent to jail in Timber Falls to await trial.”

“These men are essential war workers, you know that!” Miller could tell Worthy was not used to bellowing like this. It made his own calmness feel like a form of power.

“And you know that all men of age, regardless of their occupation, are required to enlist.
Then,
and only then, the enlistment boards decide who is and is not an essential worker. If your men assumed they would be protected, that assumption wasn’t theirs to make.”

“This is ridiculous! Why arrest men you know would be declared exempt if they had—”

“Because they’re breaking the law,” Miller interrupted, raising his voice. “Because other men all over the country have enlisted and been sent to France and are doing their duty, and no one here has any right to shirk those obligations.”

Beside Miller, Winslow broke into a smile at seeing the pompous Worthy in such a state. Worthy saw the smile, which seemed to increase the fire in him.

“How much are the Winslows paying you for this?” Worthy asked Miller. “How much are they paying you to cart off my—”

“I am no one’s lackey!” Miller stuck a finger in Worthy’s face, finally shaken from his calm. “I am doing this for our country, Mr. Worthy, for our
country.
I’m in debt to no one and nothing but that. I don’t know how these men of yours can look themselves in the face while other boys are out there risking their lives, but they’ll have plenty of time to ask that question of themselves from behind bars. Do not get in our way.”

With that, Miller turned around and strode toward one of the trucks, as if to assist the three armed men in keeping back the shrieking families. Really, all Miller wanted to do was put his back to Worthy, to show that their debate was over and that Worthy’s presence here was useless.

Charles looked at Winslow, who was certainly of draft age but likely had received his exemption already. Men like him didn’t fight in wars.

“You can blame me and my family all you want, Worthy,” Winslow said, still unable to control his glee. “You’re the one who chose to hire rapscallions and reds. This is what happens.”

He too left Worthy to stand there, impotent in the swirl of events larger than himself, larger than his love for the mill, larger than this town and its dreams.

Rankle resisted.

He had been sick for six days but had been recovering, slowly, for the past forty-eight hours. His neighbor, a man named Hunt with whom he had chatted amiably on many occasions but never known well, had died early on in the epidemic, and Hunt’s wife, Corinne, rather than subsuming herself in grief, had dedicated herself to keeping Rankle alive.

Corinne had hung crape in her windows the morning after the undertaker had retrieved her husband’s body. There could be no funeral, the doctor had informed her, because there could be no public gatherings—a service would have to wait until the flu had passed. That evening Corinne had seen the doctor leaving the house of Jarred Rankle. So the next morning, her husband barely twenty-four hours dead, she had knocked on Rankle’s door and, hearing no reply, had opened it herself and brought him hot tea and put extra blankets on his bed; she spoke to him while he lay there, flayed by the fever’s lash. She did all the things she had been unable to do for her husband, who had died after only one day of sickness—one day! She had barely had time to put a cool towel on her husband’s forehead, to put her lips there and marvel at the heat. By the time she had told him how much she loved him, her husband had already been shaking uncontrollably, already halfway to a place where he could no longer hear her. And then he was gone.

But Rankle’s flu was slower, and this time the Lord had given Corinne a chance to help. Rankle spoke little that first day, but he seemed unsurprised to see her there, as if this were the fulfillment of some predetermined arrangement. Hardly anyone in town was helping their neighbors this way, too terrified of bringing infection into their own homes. But with Corinne’s husband gone, she was unafraid of death. She slept on the floor of Rankle’s bedroom, caring for him when he woke with coughing fits. At night she looked through the windows and saw her own house, empty, desolate.

The day it first snowed—the day of the raid—Rankle had recovered to the point where Corinne’s presence was no longer needed. He had slept soundly that night, never stirred by a cough or by nausea, and had woken up with a full appetite. As Corinne cooked for them, she knew it was time for her to return to her house, to the emptiness she did not want to confront. She had offered herself to God, helping this man who she thought would eventually spread the disease to her, but they were both healthy now, and her husband was still dead.

She was giving the kitchen a final cleaning when they heard the knock on the door. Rankle had been in the parlor, finally able to stand without dizziness, to inhale deeply without choking, so he went to the door and opened it. Unlike Charles, who had been hoping this day could be avoided, and unlike Gerry Timlin, who had been stunned when the men showed up, Rankle knew who they were and why they were there the moment he saw the sheriff’s face.

“I have no papers,” Rankle replied to Bartrum’s question. “And I will not fight in Wilson’s crooked war.”

The two larger men, one of whom was Hightower, stepped into the doorway, flanking Rankle.

“Then you’re going to jail, son.”

“Don’t act like you don’t know who I am,” Rankle said, staring evenly at Bartrum. “I sure as hell remember you.”

“All you slackers look alike to me.”

“You used to live in Everett. You ran with McRae’s boys.” Rankle stepped up a bit, as if to accentuate the fact that he was a few inches taller than Bartrum. “You’re awfully big when you’ve got a pack of men, and you’re awfully tall when you’re kicking men who are lying on the ground.”

Bartrum’s face grew even redder, as if Rankle had clamped his fingers across the lawman’s neck. “You keep your trap shut and this’ll go a lot easier for you.”

Rankle shifted his gaze from Bartrum to Hightower and the other man. Both were too old for the draft, but they were strong and lean enough to be fighting in France if they so desired. Rankle thought about commenting on this but chose to say something else.

“I suppose you boys think this is real big of you. You’re all a bunch of fools if you think this war’s doing anything but—”

Bartrum shut him up by socking him in the gut. Rankle had been bracing himself for something, so even though he doubled over and felt his breath escape him, he was already choosing his spots. Hightower and the other men pulled him upright, ready to drag him to the trucks, but Rankle stepped forward and broke two of his fingers on Bartrum’s face, throwing the sheriff back so hard he would have fallen through the doorway had there not been three other men standing behind him.

Rankle didn’t know who hit him next, but soon he was on the floor. His face had been struck and likewise his neck and then his ribs. Rather than rolling himself into a ball, he tried to get back to his feet, but someone’s boots prevented him. The blows kept coming, and they were so loud he couldn’t hear Corinne screaming.

“I
am
tall when I’m kicking men on the ground.” Bartrum gritted his teeth as he kicked Rankle a second time. He was gearing up for a third when one of the men behind him put a hand on his shoulder.

“Skip,” the man said. “Let’s just carry him in.”

Corinne ran to the bloody heap on the floor but Hightower grabbed her arms. She thrashed and wailed and to all these men it was obvious that she was the man’s wife.

Hightower not only heard her screams but felt them, felt them reverberating through his hands gripping her; the screams shook his shoulders and ran down his legs back into the earth beneath them.

After Bartrum had put a handkerchief to his bloodied nose and spat on the floor, and after the other men had half carried and half dragged the broken and unconscious Rankle out of his house, Hightower released Corinne’s arms and she dropped to the ground as if she had been dead all along.

Philip sat on his bed, staring out the window. Ever since the accident, he had hated snow, hated how the world grew quiet as the snow fell around him.

He could still see Elsie’s words written in the fog on the window, dim and faded but legible if one knew where to look.
YOU OK?
and
GET WELL
with the backward
E,
and in between them, in taller and bolder letters,
LOVE YOU.
Still he felt unwell. His throat did not burn, but he felt cold inside his head, as if something were missing in there, as if it were all air and the winter chill were freezing his skull from the inside. He found it difficult even to think about Elsie, difficult to fully grasp love and its meaning, impossible to grapple with the concept of loss or death. He just sat there dazed, the world before him shimmering.

Time passed. He heard Rebecca angrily muttering to herself, so he rose and walked into the kitchen, which she was furiously cleaning, as she was wont to do when she needed to distract herself.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

She looked up at him, strands of gray hair cascading across her face. Her cheeks were red, and sweat streaked her forehead.

“They’re arresting men who didn’t enlist. Right now. Just carting them off.”

Philip sat down. Donny Timlin’s panicked visit had seemed to pass like a dream. The moment Charles and Donny had left earlier, it had been like they never existed.

Rebecca slammed her hand against the counter, but the sound didn’t hit Philip for a couple of seconds. Then she hugged herself and let out a sound that Philip couldn’t quite discern, either a shortened cry or a bereaved sigh or a minor scream, the sound of a fist tightening around someone’s heart.