The first floor is quiet, unexpectedly so, although I swear I can hear the faint echoes of family conversation and smell the distinctive aroma of the meatloaf and mashed potatoes of my childhood. Probably just my delirium.
A light breeze slips in through the open screen door, carrying with it the soft clinking of wind chimes from the front porch. Buck leads me through the living room, past walls decorated with children’s drawings of Mr. Sun and Mrs. Moon. Priceless artwork, indeed.
“Through there is my office,” Buck says, pointing down a short hallway to the left. “We’ll get to that in a minute. But first…” He opens the door at the back of the room and ushers me inside.
“—kinds of nastiness coming through.” A young man with sandy brown hair waves at Buck and me before turning back to his conversation. “You guys are okay, though. Right?”
“Yeah, we’re fine,” comes a disembodied voice from the metal box in front of the man. “A little more on guard these days, but fine.”
The man presses down on a large button at the front of the microphone on the desk. “Well, you guys be careful.”
“Will do. Say hi to Buck and everyone for us. Oh, and would you ask Franny if maybe she could whip up some of them oatmeal raisin cookies of hers?”
“You got it. Talk to you tomorrow. Burninghead Farm out.”
“Milton Station out.”
With the conversation apparently over, the sandy haired man turns his full attention toward Buck and me.
“They having trouble?” Buck asks.
“Not them. Over in Templeton. Walt heard reports from Midland about some marauders coming through Templeton and causing trouble,” he says, frowning.
Buck nods thoughtfully. His concern is palpable.
The sandy haired man looks at me with interest.
“You must be Taylor. I’ve heard so…well…I’ve heard about you, anyway.”
I bristle. I assume an accusation in his words, but his earnest eyes belay my paranoia. At least for the moment.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Yeah, Emmett, this is Taylor. Taylor, Emmett.”
“Pleased to meet you,” he says with a friendly nod. He seems sincere enough. I nod back.
“He asking for cookies again?” Buck asks, chuckling.
“Yeah,” Emmett says, shaking his head with a laugh. He explains. “Franny’s oatmeal cookies are kind of famous around these parts, although Walt’s never had ’em. Annie, Walt’s wife, can’t cook worth a spit, God bless her. But he’d never tell Annie that, no ma’am. I think asking for cookies is Walt’s way of letting us know he’s had tuna casserole one too many times lately.”
Buck chuckles a bit harder, and I can’t help but smile.
“We good for the day?”
“Yep. Spoke to Milo at Ferrybrook this morning. All’s quiet there.”
“Okay, shut her down for the night.”
“You got it, boss.”
I mutter a quick good-bye to Emmett before following Buck out of the radio room and down the hallway into his office. He ushers me in, pointing me to one of the worn but deliciously comfortable-looking leather chairs near the window. I sink down gratefully into the soft, scarred leather, my limbs groaning their approval. I feel like I’ve just finished running a marathon only to be dipped in oil and torched by an angry mob.
I think I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I know I am startled by a strong smell emanating from a short glass of amber liquid Buck is holding under my nose.
“Bourbon?” I ask, taking the glass and tentatively sniffing the contents. I may not be sure what it is, but I know damn well it is going to burn on the way down.
“Close. Irish whiskey. Smarter than bourbon, less pretentious than Scotch.”
I down half the glass with an ungraceful gulp. The alcohol splashing the back of my throat makes me wince. I was right. It burns. Soon, though, the sting settles into more of a warm tingle, soothing and not entirely uncomfortable. Still, I decide to sip the rest of my drink.
“Better?”
Buck is watching me. Waiting. He always seems to be waiting for something, especially from me.
I nod. He takes a slow sip of his own drink, holding the liquid in his mouth for a moment before letting it roll down his throat. He settles back into his chair.
We sit that way for a while, sipping in silence. I am wiped out, my body aches, and sitting here snuggled into this leather chair with a half-full glass of whiskey feels like a little piece of heaven.
I glance around the room, taking note of the grandfather clock in the corner, its soft ticking filling the quiet. I see a worn guitar on a stand at the opposite corner of the room. I recognize it immediately, and despite having thought I was beyond such things, my heart speeds up.
“You play?”
“What?” I say, my attention still on the old Martin in the corner. “Oh, I used to. Is that a D-18?”
“Good eye,” Buck says approvingly. “You want—”
“No,” I say, firmly shaking my head. Just the thought of holding it in my hands is too much. “No.”
“It was my father’s. He bought it in a little pawn shop after the war. Used to play for my sisters and me every night after supper. He gave it to me on my sixteenth birthday. They made that guitar in 1937, and it still sounds as clear and true as I remember it sounding as a kid.”
I am in awe. I have never actually seen a pre-war Martin in person. The wood is dark, the grain deep and rich. The varnish is worn off in broad swaths, and the face is nicked and chipped in a number of places. It reminds me of an old, wild palomino. It is truly a thing of beauty.
“Someone offered to buy it once. Would have given me more money than I knew what to do with. But even in the worst of times, I couldn’t bear to part with it.”
“Of course,” I say knowingly.
“Are you sure?” he says, gesturing toward the guitar.
“Yeah. But thanks.”
We lapse back into comfortable silence for a while, each lost in our own thoughts. Eventually, I notice Buck staring out the window to his left.
“Sometimes I watch them play,” Buck says, his words slow, deliberate. “I watch them play, so free and easy, and I marvel at their innocence.”
“Children are resilient,” I say, following his line of sight to the kids playing outside and thinking I understand Buck’s point.
“Yes, they are,” he responds with a weak smile. “But at some point, don’t they get pushed too far? Can’t they lose so much they lose that innocence as well?”
The despondency in his words nearly rips the glass from my hand. It seems unnatural, nearly inhuman, coming from him.
“We’ve all lost too much,” I say. He keeps looking out the window, and I keep talking. “But kids…kids always have this way of bouncing back. They always bounce back. Always.”
There is a desperation in my voice, and I’m not sure if it is caused by a need to convince Buck that what I am saying is true or to convince myself. I find myself leaning forward in my chair, despite my exhaustion, willing Buck to look at me. If he would only look at me, it would all be okay.
Seconds tick by like eons as I wait. And wait. And wait.
“Always?” he says, almost childlike in his insecurity.
“Always.” I am firm in my conviction.
He smiles again, but this time it reaches high enough I am able to relax back into my chair. Later, I will spend hours contemplating Buck’s seemingly sudden lack of faith in all that he has built, as well as my own need to restore it. But in this moment, I am content to simply take another sip of my drink.
“Emmett mans the ham radio twice a day, two hours at a time,” Buck says after a while. The change in topic has my head spinning again.
“We’ve got a little network of communities out there, up in Michigan, over in Illinois and Iowa and farther. Each station talks to two others every day at set times. It keeps things organized. Keeps information flowing.”
The word Illinois echoe
s in my head. I wonder if Buck knows anything about Asheville, but I decide not to ask. There is nothing they could tell me that I do not already know, even if I pretend not to know it.
“It’s been a pretty good system for us. All of us, I think. We can help each other out with supplies and food and such, and warn each other if something bad is coming. That system is the reason we’re putting in the wall.”
I wonder why Buck is telling me all this, and reject the idea that he is simply making conversation. Buck isn’t one to waste words on idle chitchat. With Buck, it is often the unspoken words in between the ones he actually says out loud that make the difference.
“Something bad is coming?” I supply.
“Could be,” he says. He looks down into his whiskey like he’s reading tea leaves. “My dad fought in World War II. Helped liberate Buchenwald in ’45. When I was older, I finally asked him about it. He told me about the camp, about all the people that had been murdered by the Nazis, and about the people his guys saved. Then he said, ‘The world is what we make of it, son. It either reflects the worst of us, or the best of us. But we do have some say in the matter.’”
“So is that what you’re trying to do? Make the world reflect the best of us?” I ask. I can’t help the bit of sarcasm that slips into my question.
“Maybe not the best. But we can make it a bit better.”
“The world is full of bastards who get off on inflicting pain. Always has been, always will be.”
“Everyone is capable of doing bad things, Taylor. But if we give them the chance to do good, then maybe they’ll take it.”
“And if they don’t take that chance? If they choose instead to try and take what they want by force?”
“Then we fight,” Buck says simply. “And we build walls to protect the kind of life we’ve chosen to make for ourselves.”
“And what kind of life is that?”
“Hopefully, a happy one.”
“That’s a bit hokey,” I say, willing my cynicism away. Buck doesn’t deserve it. “But I can respect that.”
He smiles.
“Still,” I continue, unable to help myself, “I don’t know if that kind of life is possible anymore.”
“I have to believe it’s possible.”
“Why?”
“Because a world without hope isn’t a world I want to live in.”
I find myself wanting to believe him. I want to believe his version of the future is possible, that the world can be the way he sees it. But the past and present both scream their warnings at me. Danger is everywhere, from Zeke and the countless others I’ve met who act just like him, who think they own the whole damned world and everybody left in it. Those men are the reason Buck’s future isn’t possible. Those men, who plunder and pillage their way across the wasteland of America, who can kill without remorse and who take what they want and leave you broken and bloody on a cold, dirt floor. I find myself growing angry, because of his naïveté or my own hopelessness, I’m not sure.
“Hope is a lie. It’s a lie that only causes pain.”
I see the disappointment. It is a look I am coming to know well. I polish off my drink.
“What happened to make you so cynical?” he asks, and I can tell he thinks there is a chance I will tell him. He is wrong.
“Life. Death. People like Zeke. Take your pick.”
Later, after Buck helps me back upstairs into bed and Margie checks on me to make sure I am comfortable, sleep doesn’t come easily. I go back over my conversation with Buck, trying to understand it all. Since arriving on the farm, I have been a mess of contradictions. I know I care too much, know it is only going to bring me pain, and yet I can’t help myself. I have found something good, something worth believing in. But I can’t allow myself to believe.
I glance over at the pile of clothes stacked on top of the dresser in the corner of the room. They aren’t mine, but they have been left for me. Kate brought them over at some point, or so I was told. She didn’t come up to the room. She had “other things to attend to,” according to Margie. Margie has become my new nursemaid, and I curse myself for noticing the difference. I hadn’t even been awake while Kate had taken care of me, but still…I miss her.
I have spent months not letting anyone in. I am damn good at it. And before Burninghead Farm, I hadn’t hurt anyone in the course of doing it. I had worn a big Do Not Disturb sign around my neck, and everyone had gotten the message. I came, took what I needed—what was offered—and left. No strings, no regrets, and no pain. I knew where I was headed, knew that was what mattered, and knew it was enough.
And I can tell myself that is still the case, except it isn’t.
Not anymore.
I want more. Damn it all to hell, but I need more. And it is going to kill me.
I feel like pacing but know my legs won’t carry me. Instead, I just stare at the ceiling, balling the sheets in my fists, praying that sleep will come so I won’t have to think about how the defenses I have built inside are crumbling all around me.
Chapter Fourteen
Morning came early on Burninghead Farm, well before the sun rose over the eastern slope. There was simply too much to do for it to be any different. Duncan supposed it had always been that way here, even before the plague and all the extra mouths to feed. And now…well, now there was just always more work to be done.
Except this morning, it seemed. His crew had finished planting the posts for the wall early the day before and had spent the rest of the day shoring up all the posts with an extra layer of cement, which they needed to let set at least another twelve hours before beginning on the crossbeams. They would have to wait until tomorrow, which left Duncan with only the list of daily jobs to sign up for. It was not that he minded the little jobs. Duncan knew mucking out the stalls or milking the cows or, Lord help him, even cleaning the chicken coop could make him just as sweaty and satisfied as working with a crew on one of the bigger jobs. Still, he would much rather have been working on that wall.
Like most days when Duncan only had smaller chores to keep him occupied, he found himself with more free time than he knew what to do with. Duncan rose early, earlier than the roosters and the sunshine, even earlier than Franny and her breakfast crew. This morning had been no different, and consequently, he had already finished half the horse stalls before Kate had arrived just before dawn. Kate worked the stalls each morning before school started. She did not have to since she had a full time job on the farm, but she did it anyway. She loved horses, had loved them since her momma had read her Black Beauty when she was four, or so she had said. Kate went riding as often as she could, usually after school but before dinner, or for longer rides on the weekend. Duncan had been out with her a few times, though he did not have the same passion for it as Kate. He had grown up around horses, but the truth was he was a bit scared of them, with their enormous heads and giant teeth and their tendency to have minds of their own. Of course, Duncan would never admit he was scared. Men were not afraid of such things. They were strong and worked hard and did what was asked of them and defended the people they loved. They were certainly not afraid of horses.
Duncan heard Kate’s arrival, heard the soft hello as she settled into an easy rhythm beside him. Duncan frowned. Kate had been unusually quiet at dinner the night before, brushing off Duncan’s attempts first at conversation, then at discovery. This morning she seemed even more in her head, lost somewhere she apparently did not want to be found. Duncan thought about trying again, but then thought better of it. He figured he knew the cause anyway, and talking to Kate about it was not going to solve anything.
Which was how he found himself leaning back against the steps of Buck’s farmhouse later, watching the sun spread its golden glow across the farm. If he was going to find out what was going on with Kate, he needed to seek out what he assumed was the source of her silence.
“Well, good morning.”
Duncan turned. Margie stood just inside the screen door, steam rising from t
he coffee cup clenched in her hand. She blew across the cup’s surface before taking a sip.
“Morning, ma’am.”
“Don’t you ma’am me, Duncan,” Margie said, frowning. “I’m not that old yet.”
“No, ma’—I mean, no Margie,” Duncan replied, shaking his head.
“That’s better,” she said, giving Duncan a bright smile. “What brings you up here this fine morning? You planning to join the music class later?”
Duncan brightened. He had nearly forgotten it was Wednesday. He usually missed music class because he was out working, but every now and again he found himself with no big job to do, like today.
“If that would be all right?” he asked hopefully.
Margie dismissed Duncan’s insecurity with a wave of her hand. “Pfft. You know you’re always welcome. You’re one of Dad’s favorite students.”
Duncan beamed, both pride and joy settling into his cheeks in equal measure.
“Taylor’s awake, if you wanna go up and see her.”
Duncan nodded. It wasn’t the first time he had visited since Taylor’s collapse, but it would be the first time she was awake for it. It was the whole reason he was there.
Margie held open the screen door for Duncan as he slipped past her and made his way up the stairs. He knocked lightly on the door, just in case she was not as awake as Margie had said. A muffled response from inside the room indicated she was.
Duncan eased himself into the room. Taylor was propped up in the bed, watching him. He noticed the flicker of disappointment, which was quickly replaced by a slight smile.
“Hey, Dunk.”
“Hey,” he responded, stopping near the edge of the bed. “How are you feeling?”
“Okay,” Taylor said quickly. “Better than yesterday.”
Duncan sensed a restlessness in Taylor, not that it was anything new. She had seemed restless since she had first arrived. But this seemed different somehow, deeper and more consuming. He wondered how much was caused by her current condition, and how much stemmed from something—or someone—else.
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