The road (16 page)

It was a long night anyway. When it was light
enough to see he pulled on his shoes and rose and wrapped one of the blankets
around him and walked out and stood looking at the road below. The bare
ironcolored wood and the fields beyond. The corrugate shapes of old
harrowtroughs still faintly visible. Cotton perhaps. The boy was sleeping and
he went down to the cart and got the map and the bottle of water and a can of
fruit from their small stores and he came back and sat in the blankets and
studied the map.

You always think we've gone further than we have.
He moved his finger. Here then. More.

Here. Okay.

He folded up the limp and rotting pages. Okay, he
said. They sat looking out through the trees at the road.

Do you think that your fathers are watching? That
they weigh you in their ledgerbook? Against what? There is no book and your
fathers are dead in the ground.

The country went from pine to liveoak and pine.
Magnolias. Trees as dead as any. He picked up one of the heavy leaves and
crushed it in his hand to powder and let the powder sift through his fingers.

On the road early the day following. They'd not
gone far when the boy pulled at his sleeve and they stopped and stood. A thin
stem of smoke was rising out of the woods ahead. They stood watching. What
should we do, Papa? Maybe we should take a look. Let's just keep going. What if
they're going the same way we are? So? the boy said. We're going to have them
behind us. I'd like to know who it is. What if it's an army? It's just a small
fire. Why dont we just wait? We cant wait. We're almost out of food. We have to
keep going.

They left the cart in the woods and he checked the
rotation of the rounds in the cylinder. The wooden and the true. They stood
listening. The smoke stood vertically in the still air. No sound of any kind.
The leaves were soft from the recent rains and quiet underfoot. He turned and
looked at the boy. The small dirty face wide with fear. They circled the fire
at a distance, the boy holding on to his hand. He crouched and put his arm
around him and they listened for a long time. I think they've gone, he
whispered. What?

I think they're gone. They probably had a lookout.
It could be a trap, Papa. Okay. Let's wait a while. They waited. They could see
the smoke through the trees. A wind had begun to trouble the top of the spire
and the smoke shifted and they could smell it. They could smell something
cooking. Let's circle around, the man said. Can I hold your hand? Yes. Of
course you can. The woods were just burned trunks. There was nothing to see. I
think they saw us, the man said. I think they saw us and ran away. They saw we
had a gun. They left their food cooking. Yes.

Let's take a look. It's really scary, Papa.
There's no one here. It's okay.

They walked into the little clearing, the boy
clutching his hand. They'd taken everything with them except whatever black
thing was skewered over the coals. He was standing there checking the perimeter
when the boy turned and buried his face against him. He looked quickly to see
what had happened. What is it? he said. What is it? The boy shook his head. Oh
Papa, he said. He turned and looked again. What the boy had seen was a charred
human infant headless and gutted and blackening on the spit. He bent and picked
the boy up and started for the road with him, holding him close. I'm sorry, he
whispered. I'm sorry.

He didnt know if he'd ever speak again. They
camped at a river and he sat by the fire listening to the water running in the
dark. It wasnt a safe place because the sound of the river masked any other but
he thought it would cheer the boy up. They ate the last of their provisions and
he sat studying the map. He measured the road with a piece of string and looked
at it and measured again. Still a long way to the coast. He didnt know what
they'd find when they got there. He shuffled the sections together and put them
back in the plastic bag and sat staring into the coals.

The following day they crossed the river by a
narrow iron bridge and entered an old mill town. They went through the wooden
houses but they found nothing. A man sat on a porch in his coveralls dead for
years. He looked a straw man set out to announce some holiday. They went down
the long dark wall of the mill, the windows bricked up. The fine black soot
raced along the street before them.

Odd things scattered by the side of the road.
Electrical appliances, furniture. Tools. Things abandoned long ago by pilgrims
enroute to their several and collective deaths. Even a year ago the boy might
sometimes pick up something and carry it with him for a while but he didnt do
that any more. They sat and rested and drank the last of their good water and
left the plastic jerry jug standing in the road. The boy said: If we had that
little baby it could go with us. Yes. It could. Where did they find it? He
didnt answer. Could there be another one somewhere? I dont know. It's possible.
I'm sorry about what I said about those people. What people? Those people that
got burned up. That were struck in the road and got burned up. I didnt know
that you said anything bad. It wasnt bad. Can we go now? Okay. Do you want to
ride in the cart? It's okay. Why dont you ride for while? I dont want to. It's
okay.

Slow water in the flat country. The sloughs by the
roadside motionless and gray. The coastal plain rivers in leaden serpentine
across the wasted farmland. They went on. Ahead in the road was a dip and a
stand of cane. I think there's a bridge there, he said. Probably a creek. Can
we drink the water? We dont have a choice. It wont make us sick. I dont think
so. It could be dry. Can I go ahead? Yes. Of course you can. The boy set off
down the road. He'd not seen him run in a long time. Elbows out, flapping along
in his outsized tennis shoes. He stopped and stood watching, biting his lip.

The water was little more than a seep. He could
see it moving slightly where it drew down into a concrete tile under the
roadway and he spat into the water and watched to see if it would move. He got
a cloth from the cart and a plastic jar and came back and wrapped the cloth
over the mouth of the jar and sank it in the water and watched it fill. He
raised it up dripping and held it to the light. It didnt look too bad. He took
the cloth away and handed the jar to the boy. Go ahead, he said. The boy drank
and handed it back. Drink some more. You drink some, Papa. Okay.

They sat filtering the ash from the water and
drinking until they could hold no more. The boy lay back in the grass. We need
to go. I'm really tired. I know. He sat watching him. They'd not eaten in two
days. In two more they would begin to get weak. He climbed the bank through the
cane to check the road. Dark and black and trackless where it crossed the open
country. The winds had swept the ash and dust from the surface. Rich lands at
one time. No sign of life anywhere. It was no country that he knew. The names
of the towns or the rivers. Come on, he said. We have to go.

They slept more and more. More than once they woke
sprawled in the road like traffic victims. The sleep of death. He sat up
reaching about for the pistol. In the leaden evening he stood leaning with his
elbows on the cart handle and looking across the fields at a house perhaps a
mile away. It was the boy who had seen it. Shifting in and out of the curtain
of soot like a house in some uncertain dream. He leaned on the cart and looked
at him. It would cost them some effort to get there. Take their blankets. Hide
the cart someplace along the road. They could reach it before dark but they
couldnt get back. We have to take a look. We have no choice. I dont want to. We
havent eaten in days. I'm not hungry. No, you're starving. I dont want to go
there Papa. There's no one there. I promise. How do you know? I just know. They
could be there. No they're not. It will be okay.

They set out across the fields wrapped in their
blankets, carrying only the pistol and a bottle of water. The field had been
turned a last time and there were stalks of stubble sticking out of the ground
and the faint trace of the disc was still visible from east to west. It had
rained recently and the earth was soft underfoot and he kept his eye on the
ground and before long he stopped and picked up an arrowhead. He spat on it and
wiped away the dirt on the seam of his trousers and gave it to the boy. It was
white quartz, perfect as the day it was made. There are more, he said. Watch
the ground, you'll see. He found two more. Gray flint. Then he found a coin. Or
a button. Deep crust of verdigris. He chipped at it with the nail of his thumb.
It was a coin. He took out his knife and chiseled at it with care. The lettering
was in Spanish. He started to call to the boy where he trudged ahead and then
he looked about at the gray country and the gray sky and he dropped the coin
and hurried on to catch up.

They stood in front of the house looking at it.
There was a gravel drive that curved away to the south. A brick loggia. Double
stairs that swept up to the columned portico. At the rear of the house a brick
dependency that may once have been a kitchen. Beyond that a log cabin. He
started up the stairs but the boy pulled at his sleeve. Can we wait a while?
Okay. But it's getting dark. I know. Okay.

They sat on the steps and looked out over the
country. There's no one here, the man said. Okay.

Are you still scared? Yes.

We're okay. Okay.

They went up the stairs to the broad brickfloored
porch. The door was painted black and it was propped open with a cinderblock.
Dried leaves and weeds blown behind it. The boy clutched his hand. Why is the
door open, Papa? It just is. It's probably been open for years. Maybe the last
people propped it open to carry their things out. Maybe we should wait till
tomorrow. Come on. We'll take a quick look. Before it gets too dark. If we
secure the area then maybe we can have a fire. But we wont stay in the house
will we? We dont have to stay in the house. Okay.

Let's have a drink of water. Okay.

He took the bottle from the side pocket of his
parka and screwed off the top and watched the boy drink. Then he took a drink
himself and put the lid back on and took the boy's hand and they entered the
darkened hall. High ceiling. An imported chandelier. At the landing on the
stairs was a tall palladian window and the faintest shape of it headlong on the
stairwell wall in the day's last light. We dont have to go upstairs, do we? the
boy whispered. No. Maybe tomorrow. After we've secured the area. Yes.

Okay.

They entered the drawingroom. The shape of a
carpet beneath the silty ash. Furniture shrouded in sheeting. Pale squares on
the walls where paintings once had hung. In the room on the other side of the
foyer stood a grand piano. Their own shapes sectioned in the thin and watery
glass of the window there. They entered and stood listening. They wandered
through the rooms like skeptical housebuyers. They stood looking out through
the tall windows at the darkening land.

In the kitchen there was cutlery and cooking pans
and english china. A butler's pantry where the door closed softly behind them.
Tile floor and rows of shelves and on the shelves several dozen quart jars. He
crossed the room and picked one up and blew the dust from it. Green beans.
Slices of red pepper standing among the ordered rows. Tomatoes. Corn. New
potatoes. Okra. The boy watched him. The man wiped the dust from the caps of
the jars and pushed on the lids with his thumb. It was getting dark fast. He
carried a pair of the jars to the window and held them up and turned them. He
looked at the boy. These may be poison, he said. We'll have to cook everything
really well. Is that okay? I dont know. What do you want to do? You have to
say. We both have to say. Do you think they're okay? I think if we cook them
really good they'll be all right. Okay. Why do you think nobody has eaten them?
I think nobody found them. You cant see the house from the road. We saw it. You
saw it. The boy studied the jars. What do you think? the man said. I think
we've got no choice. I think you're right. Let's get some wood before it gets
any darker.

They carried armloads of dead limbs up the back
stairs through the kitchen and into the diningroom and broke them to length and
stuffed the fireplace full. He lit the fire and smoke curled up over the
painted wooden lintel and rose to the ceiling and curled down again. He fanned
the blaze with a magazine and soon the flue began to draw and the fire roared
in the room lighting up the walls and the ceiling and the glass chandelier in
its myriad facets. The flames lit the darkening glass of the window where the
boy stood in hooded silhouette like a troll come in from the night. He seemed
stunned by the heat. The man pulled the sheets off the long Empire table in the
center of the room and shook them out and made a nest of them in front of the
hearth. He sat the boy down and pulled off his shoes and pulled off the dirty
rags with which his feet were wrapped. Everything's okay, he whispered.
Everything's okay.