"Arlene?" he began, not quite sure how to proceed with what he had been thinking. "Do you want to go? I mean, do you want to go all the way across this country to find Frank? It's just that, well, I'm not as positive as I was that it has to be done, or that we should."
She thought for only a brief second before she answered him.
"I think that we have to, Joe. It's not a question of whether we should. We have to," she paused. "I knew we had to when you told me. Do you know that I've wanted to meet someone like you forever? I mean that, at least it seems like forever. I think you feel the same way, Joe, and I don't want to lose us any more than you do, but if you think about it, who put us together? Who sent you to me? You see?" she reached out and took his hand as she spoke. "If we don't go, it might be the worst thing we could have ever done. Not just to us, but to whoever else needs us to come. It may only be Frank, but I don't think so, I think you know that too. It's more than that even. Joe, if God hadn't sent you, we wouldn't even be here discussing this right now. I know it may be dangerous, and I suppose it could mean that we may even die, but to me it would be worthwhile. To me it would be, because if He hadn't sent you there would be nothing to discuss at all." Arlene locked her eyes on Joe's as she finished speaking, waiting for him to respond.
Joe thought over what she had said. It was not really a decisive thinking though, as he knew she was right. It was more of an acceptance of a decision he had already made, and not really wavered from. Now that she had spoken the words out loud, he felt them in his own heart the same way that she did. They had to go, not a forced going, but they just had to. If they didn't, he felt that he would be turning his face against God, and now that she had made him look at it, he realized that he couldn't do that. She was right.
His thoughts were suddenly interrupted when Arlene shouted excitedly beside him.
"Joe! Joe!"
He looked towards her, and then shifted his eyes to follow her gaze. It was full dark now, and he could just barely make out an approaching figure through the trees. He quickly looked back at Arlene. He thought that she might be frightened, even though he realized that he himself was not. Instead, although tears were spilling down her cheeks, he realized that she was happy, that they both were. He turned back and watched as the figure moved into the shadowy light the still burning fire provided.
"Lord?" Arlene said, asked. To her he seemed much as he did to Joe, although he did not appear in long flowing robes as he did to Joe. He was a kindly older man, and reminded her of the minister in the small Baptist church, back in Killeen where she had grown up as a little girl. He approached and gently took her hand in his.
"Are you afraid?" he asked. She tried to stop the tears before she answered but could not. Instead she shook her head, and said that she was not.
"Good," the man said. "Joe, are you holding up too?" he directed his kindly gaze towards Joe as he spoke. To Joe he was still the pope and probably always would be.
"I'm fine, and I'm glad to see you again," Joe managed. His own eyes were filled with tears.
"Okay then, let's begin," the man said as he stepped back.
To Joe it was, "Let us proceed then." Joe looked up puzzled as he spoke the words, and as he looked over at Arlene he saw the same puzzlement in her eyes.
"Becky?" the man asked, looking into Arlene's eyes, "do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband? To have and to hold? As long as you both shall live?"
She was too shocked at first to even think about answering. No one had called her Becky in years, and fresh tears spilled down her cheeks as she answered, "I Do, or will, which is it?"
"Doesn't matter in the slightest, Becky," he said, "only that you want to. That's the only real important thing," he smiled at her as he spoke, and then shifted his gaze to Joe.
Arlene listened as he asked the same question of Joe.
To Joe it was. "Joseph, do you take this woman to be your wife, in my eyes? To cleave only unto her for as long as you both shall live?" Joe was openly weeping himself, but managed a short, "I do."
"Becky," the man said. "You will no longer be Arlene. That part of you is dead to me. It's gone forever. Do you understand?"
She nodded her head. It was all she could manage.
"Then by my word, I now pronounce you man and wife," the man said. "Joseph, you may now kiss the bride."
Joe reached across the short space and took Becky in his arms. Her arms found their way around his shoulders, and she kissed him back as they both wept. They pulled apart, and Joe turned back to the man who still stood before them.
"You don't have to go," the man said. He looked down at them as he spoke, and although his face bore a smile, his own tears cut tracks across his cheeks. "You have the choice. I want you to know that I did not give you to one another simply so that you would do as I asked."
Becky had regained her composure, and now replied in a calm, but firm, voice. "I know that. I knew that there would be no strings attached. I want to go. I need to."
"Me as well," Joe replied. "I guess I may have tried to fool myself, but I knew that I needed to go."
The man nodded his head as he listened, and then spoke. "I will walk with you. Keep me always in your heart, and I will always walk with you. I love you both, you know." He paused for a second and just looked at them, then turned and walked back into the dark forest of trees that surrounded them.
Joe held Becky. They did not speak, but instead stared into the leaping flames lost in thought. After a few minutes Becky rose and added more fuel to the fire.
"How about some tea?" she asked.
"Tea?" he looked puzzled. "Where did you get tea from?"
She held up a small package, and said, "It was in the camping gear, a free sample package. Want some?"
"Sure," he said, as he smiled at her, "it sounds good, actually."
While Becky made the tea, Joe took the small tin cups, along with the plastic bowls that had also been in the camping kit, and walked down to the water to wash them. The moon had begun to rise and a silver trail spread across the lake, seemingly alive as it rode the small ripples of the water. When he finished, he stared off across the shimmering surface. It was calm and peaceful, and he listened as somewhere in the distance an owl hooted its greeting into the night. He was just about to return to the fire when he felt Becky's arm encircle his waist.
"Do you want to go for another swim while the tea's brewing?" she whispered in his ear. He could feel the soft press of her body against him and he turned, his arms finding their way around her, and pulled her to him. She kissed him, pulled away and quickly slipped out of her clothes. His eyes were filled with the beauty they beheld, and she could see the longing in his eyes, as he also slipped out of his clothes and followed her into the water. Joe hardly noticed the cold lake water as he reached out with strong strokes towards the raft. She reached it first, pulled herself out of the water, and watched as he swam the last few feet and joined her on the raft. He took her in his arms and kissed her, and she responded passionately. They made love slowly, with feeling, and to both of them, in a way, it seemed as though it was their first time. Nothing else either of them had ever experienced compared.
When they had finished they held each other closely, staring out across the water to the dark woods that surrounded the lake. She spoke. "Joe, where do you want to be when this is over? I mean to live?" Joe thought for a second and considered before he responded.
"I guess it would depend upon you," he said. "It would depend upon where you wanted to live, not just me. I don't think I would want to live in a city though. I like it here...It's peaceful. Really nice, and it's also special to me. I mean, I've been with women before, well, girls I guess, at least mentally, but at the time that was my mind set too so I guess I was the same. But I've never made love to anyone, and I was almost to the point where I thought I never would... I really do love you. I guess if anyone asked me if something like this could happen I would have had to have said no, but not now
. Now I know better. I love you, and that's the difference between just sex, and making love. Sounds corny, right? But, it's true. Would you want to live here? Or someplace like here?"
Becky lay on her back, staring up into the diamond studded sky. She rolled over and propped herself up on one elbow next to him as she spoke.
"Not like this place," she said, "this place. It used to be a state park, but now it's just a nice lake. Nobody owns it anymore. Joe, I would like to come back, if you want to. I'd like to live here; you know, build a house and live here. You could do it, and you could teach me how so I could help you build it. This place is special to me too. Joe, I've never made love to a man in my life. That other stuff, what I was, was nothing. It wasn't anything that ever held any sort of feeling for me at all. Do you understand?" Joe turned his eyes towards her and saw that she was once again close to tears. He sat up and gently pushed her back down onto the raft.
"If this is the place you want to be, then it's the place I want to be, Becky. I want to be here too." He bent and kissed her softly, and as he did she drew him down towards her, returning his kiss. His hands slipped across her body, and she could feel his need pressing against her.
"Water's gonna boil away," she whispered through a kiss.
"Too late for tea anyhow, it'll keep us up all night," he whispered back. They made love once more as the gentle swell of the lake rocked the raft, and when they had finished they swam slowly back to the shore. Becky removed the pot from the fire, and refilled it, this time setting it to one side so it would be there in the morning when they awoke. They crawled into the tent and were asleep in each other's arms within minutes.
The silvery moonlight shown down as they slept, the nearly full circle slowly traveling across the darkened sky.
~
They awoke early to the chatter of squirrel-talk in the trees. Gray squirrels playfully leaping through the pine branches and running up and down the thick trunks, scolding as they went.
Becky set the water to boil, once she had rekindled the fire from the still glowing coals, as Joe broke camp and quickly loaded the truck. They ate a small breakfast of the leftovers of the meal from the night before, and sipped the hot tea as the sun began to slowly peek over the tops of the trees across the lake. After they rinsed the utensils in the lake, and after dousing the fire, they climbed into the truck and drove slowly back to the main road. They both felt an urgency to be under way, and once they regained the main road Joe pointed the truck north.
The going was slow, but the farther they traveled from Seattle, the less traffic there seemed to be, and, Joe discovered, if they stayed on the shoulder they could make pretty good time.
Towards mid-morning they turned off onto state Route 82, and began to angle towards the Oregon border. The going was much easier and they found that they could keep to the pavement, most of the time, which allowed them to make even better time.
Late afternoon found them in the small city of Hermiston just inside the Oregon border, and Joe drove the truck into the parking lot of a large shopping mall on the outskirts.
The mall served as an anchor for several large department stores, and a large grocery chain. There were several other specialty shops scattered throughout the mall. They stocked up on canned goods, as well as several packages of freeze dried meats from a sporting goods store in the mall. Becky wandered across the empty mall to a clothing store, and Joe walked off towards a small shop he had spotted as she picked out some clothing for both of them. By the time they had finished it was late in the afternoon. They left the small city behind, and continued into Oregon until they picked up Route 84. Just before nightfall they reached the Wallowa National Forest and Joe pulled the truck off onto one of the dirt roads of the park and found a place to park among the trees. He unloaded the truck and set up camp, as Becky made dinner. She experimented with canned meat along with some of the freeze dried food, and the result was a tasty stew-like dish.
"Where did you learn to cook, Becky?" he asked, "this is really good."
"Oh it's just a little something I threw together," she joked, as she blew lightly on her finger-tips.
"All I ever ate when I was by myself was fast food," Joe said, "and it all sort of tasted like cardboard after a while. I can't believe you made this out of that stuff we picked up today."
"Well," she said, "I did throw in some canned meat. If you think this is good, just wait until I have some decent stuff to cook with." Joe bugged his eyes out comically at her, and said, "You mean this isn't the good stuff?"
"Not even," she joked back. They sipped at cups of hot tea as the fire crackled invitingly in front of them.
"Um, Becky?" Joe asked. She turned to look at him. He reached into his front pocket and pulled out two plain gold bands. They glowed softly in the firelight, sparkling as they caught and reflected the flames. He took her hand. "I hope this fits," he said huskily. "I wasn't sure about the size, so I kind of guessed." He shrugged his shoulders looking embarrassed as he slipped one of the golden bands on her finger. It was a little loose, he noticed, as he slipped it over the knuckle of her ring finger. He looked up into her eyes and saw tears that matched his own. She reached out, taking the other band from his fingers, and slipped it onto his finger. The fit was better this time, but he had tried several sizes in the small shop, and had picked the one that fit him best.
"I can't believe you thought of this," she said softly. "It's beautiful."
"Don't go getting all sappy on me, Becky," he said, although in truth he had more tears leaking from his eyes than she did. "I just, well... I guess I just wanted you to have something there to remind you. Not even that really, it's just sort of tradition," he finished lamely.
"You're the one who's getting all sappy," she replied, "are you still going to be this romantic in ten years?"
"Yes, I guess, I... yes. I love you, and so, yes I will. I've never been the sort of guy you could consider romantic. I used to hate reading sappy books even, you know, like romance novels? But I guess love can change that, Becky, for me at least."
They held each other without speaking, and after a while they crawled into the tent and went to sleep. Joe had zippered the two sleeping bags together, and they cuddled close together as they slept. Not so much for warmth as for the closeness.
They were at the edge of the Bitterroot Mountain range, and it was somewhat cooler at the higher elevation. They had both remarked though, on how much warmer it was than it should have been. Becky more so than Joe.
"Usually," she had told him, "at this time of year," although it was still only June, "the nights were colder. Sometimes the temperatures would dip down to the forties, especially at higher elevations."
Joe had done his best to explain the why of the warmer weather to her, and had managed to make her partially understand.
"Does that mean the polar ice caps will melt?" she had asked.
"They already are," he had replied, "but, they'll re-form. Just in a different place, I guess."
In the morning they broke camp before the sun was even up and headed out into the warm pre-morning air.
They both enjoyed the scenery as they drove along, and verbally promised that they would take their time when they returned, and stop as often as they wanted to, to look at the scenic mountains.
They both knew it was possible that they might never return. That they could die in the north when they reached whatever destiny awaited them there, but they chose not to dwell on it, as they found it only saddened them.
As they traveled, they encountered less and less stalled traffic, until the road before them opened up, totally deserted for miles at a stretch. Mid-morning brought them to the Idaho border, and if they had not had to slow down and find an alternate route around the City of Boise, they probably would have traversed the state and entered Utah by nightfall.
The stalled traffic had returned several miles outside the city, but once they were within two miles of the city limits, it had become impassable. Even t
he breakdown lanes were packed full, and the traffic had forced them into the fields that flanked the highway to find a way around. Once past Boise however, the stalled traffic had once again given way and they spent the night camped beside the highway less than twenty miles from the Utah border.
Noon of the following day brought them to the outskirts of Salt Lake City and more stalled traffic. After taking several shortcuts across open fields, they eventually came upon route 80, which, Joe found by checking the map; they could follow most of the way across the country. Joe knew, although he had not seen it with his own eyes, that their trip would become complicated somewhere just inside what was left of the state of Iowa. From there they would have to find some sort of boat if they intended to finish the rest of their trip. There would still be a long distance to travel once they reached the other side of the great river that, Joe knew, now flowed across the country effectively cutting it in two.
They spent that night by a quiet lake that reminded them of the one back in Washington. They were now in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, just outside the small town of Wamsutter. They were both becoming used to the traveling, and had each developed a routine they followed every night when they stopped. They had twice seen smoke off in the distance that day, as if to the east of them some great fire were burning. They had correctly guessed the reason long before they reached the fire. Someone, or something, had set the entire city to flame.
For several miles before they reached and successfully passed around and beyond the city of Rock Springs, black oily smoke had hung over them in the sky. They had been forced to detour more than twenty miles to the south to get around the still burning city. Even from that distance they could feel the heat, and occasionally see the flames leaping into the sky.
When they stopped that evening the glow of the fire was still visible in the distance behind them. They were both tired and dropped off to sleep before the last vibrant colors of dusk had fully faded from the sky.
Earth's Survivors: box set Page 185