Another Like Me

by Albert Norton, Jr.

  “No,” Jack said, resignedly. “I mean not after the die-off was finally finished. Just me. I was the king of New York. I ran all around the boroughs, Long Island, the northeast, and then eventually left to head south and then out west. Trying to outrun the snow.”

  “We’ve had snow already.”

  “Yeah, that was about when I got here. I could have stayed at lower elevations, but then I wouldn’t have run into people. Well, far as I know.”

  Scott continued, anticipating what Jack would want to know. “We traveled around here a little bit, over to Santa Fe and Albuquerque. To Phoenix. But some of our friends made it a mission to circle the whole US, or nearly. They went to San Francisco, Seattle, then east, a couple of summers ago. All around New York.”

  “So there are some vehicles that are operational.”

  “Some. Fewer now, but I’ve kept a truck going, and there are a few others around. Anyway, these folks went down to DC, spent a lot of time there, and I think went all the way down the east coast, down into Florida, and then west along the Gulf coast and into Texas. They were a little iffy crossing the Mississippi, not to mention lots more bridges all along the way. But you can’t avoid the Mississippi.”

  Jack thought about how he hadn’t even slowed down when he zipped across the bridge at Greeneville, Mississippi. “And never saw anyone, or any sign of anyone?”

  “That’s what they said.”

  “Well, we could have been in New York at the same time. It’s a big town, but if they were driving around, that increases the odds of meeting up. I drove a good bit there, but I wrecked and spent a lot of time holed up, just getting back to normal.”

  “Let’s talk about the canyon people,” Rupert said.

  “Who are the canyon people? Yet another group?” Jack asked.

  “No, what these guys,” Rupert motioned toward Bonzo, “keep calling the Diné.”

  “The canyon is the canyon up at Chinle. A big Navajo stronghold back in the day, supposedly,” Millie said.

  “Apparently, that’s where they live when they’re not out raiding towns,” Rupert continued.

  “I think they’re just foraging, Dad, like we used to, and like Bonzo does,” Scott offered.

  “Regardless,” Rupert continued, “They’re up there building their little empire, and they’re not trustworthy. They’ll be raiding us next. They can’t help it.”

  “Why do you think that?” Jack asked.

  “They can’t help themselves. They can’t think for themselves. Their collective mind takes over, and whatever we build, they come after.”

  “I hear you. That might be true, but why do you think it’s true?”

  Scott tried to help. “He doesn’t understand the Diné, Dad. This won’t make sense to him till he does.”

  “The canyon people are like robots,” Rupert offered.

  “I’ve heard that before, but why?”

  Rupert was at a loss for words, so Scott tried to take over. “These people don’t have an independent thought. We’ve seen them from time to time. There’s always a group of them together. If you talk to them, it’s like you’re an alien being from another planet.”

  Jack chuckled. “Pretty good analogy for this day and time.”

  “Maybe,” Scott continued. “But you’d think it would be possible to have some interaction with them. Every time I’ve encountered them—and there have been a few—they just say a few words to put you off, and then run off to find their buddies. They have to get their official line on everything. Everyone we know has encountered this. It’s like they have to all be of one mind about everything.”

  “They’re not even human, man,” was Bonzo’s contribution.

  “So you’ve tried to talk to them? They do speak English?” Jack was having a hard time understanding why it wouldn’t be possible to try to draw out some kind of substantive response from these people. “They’re in the same boat we are. It’s not like they’ve been separated from the rest of society for thousands of years.”

  “It’s a commune,” Scott continued. “Plain and simple. Except they take the commune idea and run with it. It’s like they never have a single independent thought. It’s spooky is what it is.”

  “We’re not all in the same boat,” Rupert declared. “Every man must fend for himself. There’s no other way. There’s no ‘boat’ to be in all together. How do you call yourself a human being if you’re like a bee in a hive? Or like those tropical fish that always swim the exact same way. That’s not what people are for. My sheep,” he was pointing out his window, “are more independent. This is the problem we had back before everything went all to hell. People were individuals once upon a time, and then socialism was invented, and everyone came under a hypnotic spell. Gave up their humanity.”

  “Well, if we’re not in the same boat, then we need to put all our little boats together if we’re going to fend them off,” Scott said. “Like the Civil War, or the War Between the States, if you like. The Southern states said they were independent, that was their whole point, but yet they had to confederate in order to go against the Union.”

  “And then they got their a . . . eh, butts kicked,” Bonzo observed.

  “And Daddy, there’re no socialists or individualists anymore. They’re all gone,” Millie said in a voice that made you imagine her clinging to his arm to calm him, but she wasn’t sitting next to him.

  “Darling, that’s the whole problem. They’re not all gone. There are people who want to be independent, and there are people who only want to be a little piece of a bigger society. It’s always that way. And the problem is that the communal-oriented people always want to take from the people who fend for themselves. It’s just a matter of time. The US started out as a country of independent, free men and ended up with freedom compromised at every turn. The country was founded on liberty. And before you start looking at me funny, I’ll just tell you, I know all too well that things are different, but look around us—we have our liberty back. Why give it up because some people think we’re social animals and nothing else?”

  “To liberty,” Bonzo said, holding up his glass of water as though to toast. He’d clearly have preferred the glass be full of something else.

  “But how are they a threat?” Jack asked. “What do they want from you?”

  Scott said, “I think they think we’re the threat. I think the best thing you can say for ’em is that they don’t think their program will work as long as they’re surrounded by people who insist on being free.”

  “Always the way,” Rupert muttered, looking down at his plate and shaking his head. “It’s evil is what it is. They’ll come after us like Hitler took Poland. They can’t help themselves.”

  Peter asked of the whole group, “They’ve got all the territory they need, and practically the whole world to expand in. Why would they feel like they have to fight you? And how many of you are there anyway?”

  “Sixty. I have it on good authority,” Bonzo said.

  “More than sixty, but probably not more than a hundred,” Scott answered.

  “And them?”

  Scott shook his head to say he didn’t know.

  “It ain’t about territory, to answer your first question,” Rupert said. “It’s about defining what human beings are.”

  Jack looked over at Rupert. He seemed to swing from crusty frontier homesteader to erudite philosopher, all within the same conversation. One thing for sure, Jack would have to get some understanding of these Diné or canyon people, and he resolved to do so.

  Chapter 11

  Theoretically, they had the whole winter to get the fence in. Jack and Peter had done a deep turn on the earth early on in the project and were, for the most part, finished with the soil until early spring, when they would till once more. There was no need for the fencing until they got to the point of putting in seed. No point making the work harder than necessary, however, so they set out promptly to dig the fence holes before extended cold would make the digging
harder. They had a discussion about which way to go—use a hand augur and get to it manually or detour to getting a tractor operational. The first option had the advantage of certainty—with hard work, they would most likely complete the task handily before the ground became much harder to work. The second had the advantage of yielding a tractor available for other work. They opted to go forward with manual work because they’d already plowed by horse labor, including the track in which the posts would be dug. Besides, there was an extra measure of satisfaction to doing the task manually. It arose from the extra measure of independence that came with not having to rely on complex machinery or gasoline.

  After the first couple of holes, Jack and Peter got into a routine, pressing in tandem against the opposing crossbars of the augur, straining into and through the turned earth.

  “Here’s what I mean,” Jack said, continuing without preface a conversation that they’d left off ten minutes before. “The canyon Diné sound horrendous, but everything we know about them,” he paused to regain his footing, “comes from the Apache.”

  “Who aren’t Apache at all.”

  “And the real Apache, you and Robin, are ‘outsiders.’”

  “What’s in a name?” Peter asked.

  “Good for you, Peter. Quoting Shakespeare. And you didn’t finish high school. You okay?”

  “A little mucky.” Peter struggled to his feet in the mud. “I think it’s okay not to finish high school if the world ends before you get to it.”

  Jack leaned his weight into the crossbar, timing his pushes against it to match Peter’s. “I guess that’s a. Fair excuse but it’s about. Education not a. Diploma. It’s commendable that. You both stay at the. Education.” Jack stood up, breathing hard, getting his own footing and preparing again to put his weight to the augur.

  “Let’s take a break after this one.”

  “Yeah,” Jack grunted. He wasn’t in the shape Peter was in, and the effort was showing a little more than he’d have liked. “Let’s knock this one out,” he said, and turning it with Peter said, “Commendable that you have the. Discipline when you’re. Trying to subsist like. This and dealing with the. Loneliness, too.”

  They backed the augur out a bit and then heaved it out of the hole the rest of the way to carry as much dirt with it as they could. Then they picked up a shovel and post-hole digger to pull up loose dirt and clean up around the hole.

  “You keep saying that about loneliness,” Peter said.

  Jack paused and looked at him. “Not loneliness exactly. Or not just loneliness. I felt almost like there was a light on inside me that was getting dimmer and dimmer. Like I was becoming less and less aware of myself as a person. Not something you experienced, I don’t suppose.”

  “No.” Peter paused intentionally, uncharacteristically. “I wasn’t totally alone, but maybe our experience would be different anyway.” Peter had an expression that indicated his next words came with some diffidence in the face of Jack’s prejudices. He said, “I don’t want you to feel like I’m challenging you in some way, but I wonder what you mean by saying you’re not religious?”

  “Just that I don’t really give it much thought.”

  “All of this we’ve been through, doesn’t it make you think about the big questions?”

  Jack didn’t respond right away, but he was thoughtful. Peter and Robin certainly took their beliefs seriously. He’d gone to church, off and on, when he was growing up. Not a subject of discussion at home, anyway, and he was ambivalent about what he knew of the effects of religion in history. The world’s debate about whether religion was the cure or the disease had largely swept by him.

  Peter dived in, not wanting to lose the momentum but also not wanting to alienate his friend. “I know I had Robin, plus I was responsible for her, so my experience of loneliness is different just from that. But what you say about a dimming light, and what you’ve said before about being aware of yourself by seeing yourself through my eyes. Pretty philosophical. But I think we’re supposed to be aware of ourselves by seeing ourselves through God’s eyes. The light doesn’t get dim. I might not like what I see sometimes, but it doesn’t dim. Am I getting the comparison right?”

  “Wow, Peter, you do listen.”

  Peter quietly looked on, leaning on his shovel to signal patience for Jack’s response. Jack had presumed a state of loneliness on the part of Robin and Peter that was akin to his own. But maybe not, he thought. He did have an inkling that their aloneness was different in kind, and not just because they had each other.

  “What about these bogus Apaches?” Jack asked. “How do you think they see themselves in this empty world?”

  “Couldn’t say.”

  “Well, I’ve been thinking about it,” Jack resumed. “I don’t think their sense of themselves gets darker. They’re self-illuminated. I think they’re all too aware of themselves. It seems like each of them thinks he’s a law unto himself. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think the zombies and the hardscrabble independent types like Rupert are more alike than different. The zombies do what they want at the moment—without thinking about tomorrow or what they’re doing to themselves. They want maximum personal liberty so they can indulge themselves. The Ruperts out there want maximum liberty for a variety of reasons, philosophical or practical, and for probably as many reasons as there are Apaches. The common thread is maximum personal liberty.”

  “Kind of deep for me,” Peter responded, smiling.

  “Maybe I overthink it.”

  They’d both seen Robin go inside a few minutes before, and that was a sign that a hardy lunch would be ready directly. Peter and Jack laid down their tools and turned toward the house without having to discuss it first. “I desire a parlay with Robin about lunch,” Peter said, Jack chuckling behind him.

  “Tomorrow’s Saturday,” Peter said, after sitting down to lunch and praying at the little kitchen table with Robin. Robin had made a venison and gravy stew and had rolled it inside a thick potato pancake. They had turnip greens, a few of which had refused to give up despite the cold days. The turnips themselves were in the tiny cellar off the kitchen.

  “You want to switch over to the wood-cutting, take a break from the mud for a couple of days?” Jack asked.

  “I think we have enough wood for now. And anyway I like doing that when it’s nice and cold outside. Actually, I was thinking of taking the day off.”

  “Sure, maybe we could take a little . . . what?” This last directed at Robin.

  “He wants to go by himself,” Robin said.

  “Oh, sure,” Jack said blankly.

  “No, I don’t. You’re reading my mind now?” Peter asked Robin.

  “Too bad you can’t just call her on the phone and invite yourself over.”

  Peter was blushing, looking down at his plate.

  “Oh, I see how it is,” Jack said. “Sneaky sneaky, Pete. How’d you know, Robin?”

  “Men are so stupid.”

  “Well, that’s true. So Peter, you want to call on what’s-her-name? What is her name anyway? Molly? Madelyn? Margaret?”

  “I wish I had some privacy,” Peter said, inviting them with his eyes to appreciate the irony. “Millie. As I’m sure you both remember.”

  “Ah, Millicent, yes,” Jack began, glad of the opportunity to needle Peter. “She of the flaming red hair and spirited demeanor. Go Round Valley High. Robin, what’s the mascot of Round Valley High?

  “Elks.”

  “Oh my goodness, of course it is. What do you call a female elk? Elkette?”

  “Cow,” Robin said, enjoying her role in roasting Peter, and getting the anticipated look of pained exasperation, mixed with an embarrassed smile, from Peter.

  Peter parried, “Et tu, Robin?”

  “Shakespeare, twice in one day,” Jack crowed.

  “He’s sharpening his conversational skills,” Robin pretended to observe.

  “But ‘cow’ won’t do,” Jack said. “Can’t go around calling Peter’s
girlfriend a cow. So Peter, is your elkette expecting you tomorrow? We were just there a week ago, don’t want to rush her.”

  “Seriously, Peter, what if she’s got a boyfriend,” Robin asked. “There are other Apache besides the zombies.”

  “She doesn’t.”

  “Peter! You sneak. She told you that?”

  “Her dad did. Rupert.”

  “Whoa, Peter,” Jack chimed in. “You work fast. I admire you for a whole new reason. I didn’t know you had it in you. So what did you do? Pigeonhole old Rupert while no one was watching?”

  Peter shrugged, his smirk saying go ahead and have your fun.

  “Robin, Peter needs to be the ace spy in this big Navajo confrontation Rupert and those are so paranoid about.”

  “It’s been a hidden skill, until now,” she said.

  “Just needed the right motivation,” Jack confirmed. “Peter, you can just sneak over and convince the Diné to raid themselves. Save Rupert’s friends from having to do it.”

  “You people are ruthless,” Peter said. “I just asked him if I could visit her.”

  Jack left off his teasing for a moment. “But what did she say?”

  “I haven’t spoken to her, except while we were at the table with everybody.”

  Jack looked surprised. “Really? So you asked her old man if you could see her, but you didn’t ask her?”

  “Right.”

  “What if she says ‘get lost’?”

  “Then I’ll get lost.”

  “So you asked Pa first. What is this? A western thing? An end of the world thing? No, I get it, a Christian thing, right?”

  “It just seemed right,” Peter said.

  “What about you, Robin, you don’t think that’s paternalistic? A little too old-school?”

  “Not at all,” she said and patted Peter on the shoulder.

  “I was thinking about talking to Rupert anyway,” Peter said, turning more serious. We could reclaim some of the pasture before it gets away from us and use it to pen sheep.”

  “Okay, sport, we’ll change the subject. What would we trade for sheep? Rupert won’t give them away. It would violate his principles.”