"Mr. Doyle," Eric began.
"Yes, sir?"
"Mr. Doyle," Eric began again. "If we return your medal, will you please leave us alone?"
"Of course!" Doyle exclaimed. "The medal! If it was mine, if it was here, with me, don't you know, sir, if it were, then it would mean something. It would bring all of this into a center. You know what I mean, don't you? The circle. The point from which it all makes sense. The island!" His eyes glittered. "The old girl was right, by god!" Doyle laughed and drew his sleeve over his eyes. Blood smeared across his face.
"If I give you the medal, are you going to leave us alone?" Eric asked again.
"I can talk to you, can't I, Eric?" Doyle took a step toward him. Eric shrunk away without meaning to, but Doyle didn't seem to notice. "You and I know, don't we? You and I see. If there's nothing but this waste." Doyle waved his arm about him. "Nothing but this, then there's nothing at all. I'm talking about order, sir! Order and then civility and then we have something. Otherwise, it's nothing but savages! And we've seen a lot of them, haven't we now?"
"Yes, we have," Eric agreed. He reached into his pocket and took out the medal. He held it toward Carl Doyle between his thumb and finger. "We just found it," Eric said. "I swear if I knew we had it, I'd have given it to you sooner." His hand shook as he held it toward him.
Carl Doyle seemed hypnotized by the medal. He picked up his chin and thrust it forward. Stepping forward, he took it from Eric's hand. Then, letting the medal rest in the palm of his great, meaty hand, Doyle looked down on it. An expression came upon his face that Eric would never forget. It was sadness and pain, mixed with a strange, incessant, depthless greed and hunger. Doyle closed his fist upon the medal. For a moment, he seemed feeble and helpless, ashamed. His hand went to his pocket and then his face was blank once more. He looked at Eric and, clearing his throat, put a hand upon his shoulder and shook him gently. "Good show," he said. He winked at him, and a drop of blood pulsed wetly down his face.
Only moments later, the Land Rover was gone, leaving Eric alone in the field of grass.
_
In the forest, they became lost. Lucia and Sergio were in tears over John Martin and walked in a daze. Stopping sometimes as if aware suddenly of their surroundings, they tried to turn back, to find John Martin. Eric stopped them, arguing that they needed to get away from Carl Doyle. They needed space between them. Eric feared he might snap at any time and kill them, just as he had shot down John Martin.
In grief, they staggered up and down inclines, over downed trees, across dirt roads, deeper into the forest. Eric felt sick when he thought of John Martin back there, motionless upon the road. He tried to tell himself they were doing the right thing, but he was sure that John would not have left any of them. But they had no weapons, and Carl Doyle was crazy. Eric led them on through a maze of woods and thorns, down into the heart of the forest, as far from roads as they could get. By nightfall, they had climbed to a hilltop, overlooking the undulating forest. They threw down their backpacks and collapsed, exhausted. They were too shouldered with grief and guilt to build a fire.
Birdie was the most confused of any of them. "Where's John?" she kept asking. "Where'd he go? Eric? Eric?"
That night, Eric heard Birdie in his sleep. Where's John? Eric?
Eric?
_
They had never journeyed so far into a forest. When they woke up the next morning, they could see nothing but trees. Birds twitted noisily in the forest, and, as they made a fire, a chickadee came down, perched on a branch, and watched them curiously until the fire was sparked. Then it flew away and did not return.
Eric felt he woke into a nightmare. John Martin was truly gone. He hadn't realized how much safer he felt with John near them. Now they were alone and helpless. Anything, anyone, could do what they wanted with them. As he waited for the water to boil, Eric kept his hands in his jacket pockets.
They were shaking.
_
They pushed east through Allegheny, avoiding roads, houses, any sign of other people. Sergio and Lucia, in their sorrow, seemed to have abandoned any thought of going north and leaving them. Eric only wanted to keep moving, and didn't want to ask them about their plans.
Up and down they hiked, through the forests of Pennsylvania. The time for flat lands and fields seemed long ago. Now the hills became steeper and harder to climb. They hiked with a kind of desperation, as if the sweat and exertion could melt away their guilt for leaving John Martin behind.
On the second morning, they woke to find one of their backpacks missing. After finding a trail where it had been dragged, they followed it down to a brook where the backpack and its contents had been shredded by raccoons. It was Sarah's backpack. All of their salt was missing and most of the spices she had scavenged. Standing over the mess, Sarah sobbed great, heaving gasps, such as they had not seen in her before, even when Brad had died. She sat down hard in the water and couldn't be moved.
They waited until she lifted herself from the water and then they quietly helped her salvage what they could, setting it out to dry before they re-packed it in Eric's bag.
"Where are we going?" Sergio asked him later that day.
Eric just pointed east. "That way," he said.
_
Sergio hurt his ankle. They were crossing a stream whose bed was made up of smooth, round stones. He slipped, turned his ankle strangely, and then yelped in pain. The ankle swelled alarmingly quickly. To keep the swelling down, they put him by the stream, with the ankle in the cool running water. They made camp there and boiled water. Lucia stayed by her brother most of the time. She and Sarah wrapped his ankle in gauze, but he could not move that day.
Eric stayed up far into the night, staring at the fire. They had begun to hoist their backpacks up into the trees at night to keep them from raccoons. When the wind blew, the backpacks swung and caused the branches to creak eerily. Birdie sat with her head against him, sleeping.
Lucia emerged from her tent and came to sit at the fire, next to him.
"How is he?" asked Eric.
"The swelling is going down," she said. "I don't think it's serious, he’ll be okay." She threw a twig into the fire. "I wanted to be a lawyer," she continued abruptly. "Imagine that. A lawyer. I thought I would be able to make a difference in the world. Now the world that I wanted to help is gone. Gone. I can't even help my own brother." She gave him a weak smile. "Tell me about your island, Eric."
So Eric told her what he knew, what he remembered. The call of the loons over the calm water. The smell of pine trees. The gentle lapping of the water against the shores of the lake. The hills, the mountains, the lakes between them, and nothing, as far as you could see, but green and blue. He told her about the cabin they would build, maybe two, for the first winter. Then how in the following years, they would build from there, planting fields with corn and squash and beans.
When he was done, Lucia had a calm look on her face. "If it was just us two, Sergio and I," she said. "If it was just us and Sergio broke his foot, what would happen?"
Eric’s face constricted sourly. It was a terrible thought.
"We need each other," Lucia concluded. "You know that, don't you?"
Eric nodded. She got up and went back to her tent without another word, but Eric knew that they were coming with them to Maine.
_
Sergio's ankle was much improved the next day. He argued to let him walk, but they couldn't risk it. So for another day, they rested uncomfortably in their grief and guilt. Eric, Sarah, and Birdie stayed away from the siblings. It was like when Brad died, grief separated them. Lucia and Sergio had been saved by John Martin, they had lived with him for months, and together they had planned on starting a new life. Now he was gone and they had left him. They hardly had words for their guilt. They sat together, talking Spanish in hushed voices.
Sarah and Eric went fishing. Eric was getting better at it. He knew where to drop his line, in the shadows and the dark, swift water, where th
e trout swam. The two of them pulled several fish from the waters, which emerged like wild miracles from the cold water. They strung the trout through the gills with a branch and then carried them back to camp.
On the way, they stopped on the crest of a hill. They sat over the green expanse of the forest. It was easy to think that the world that had been, the world of cities and roads and stores, the world of fast food and blaring music, the world of television and movies, of guns and jets and nuclear missiles, all that world had never been. There were just these forests and the hot sun above them. Eric could sense the whole forest, breathing.
It was then that Sarah kissed him, first on the cheek, and then, turning his head, full on his lips. He'd never been kissed before. He imagined it would be a wild, exciting moment, but, instead, it was deeply calming and soothing. He held her when she was done, her yellow hair falling down upon his back.
He was going to tell her something. He felt he should tell her something, but he never got the chance.
Sarah was weeping on his shoulder.
_
Lucia wanted to stay another day, but Sergio was insistent on leaving. The swelling in his ankle was nearly gone, but he limped heavily on his tightly wrapped foot. They fashioned something like a crutch from a tree branch, and Sergio tried to keep up the pace.
In the early afternoon, they emerged from the Alleghany forest. Below them was a town, and, because they needed supplies, they circled it, warily. Using the binoculars, Eric scanned the town. There were several Zombies, but no sign of cracked Zombies or gangs.
Now that they had no weapons, they had to be more careful than ever. Sergio, because he could not run, had to stay behind with Birdie. Sarah, Lucia, and Eric crept down together while they still had light. They just wanted to creep inside a few houses, get what they needed, and then leave.
The name of the town was Kane.
_
Zombies were everywhere. They slumped on lawns, ambled on the roads, stood on the porches of houses. There were men and women, little girls and little boys. There was even a Zombie sitting listlessly in a wheelchair. It was stuck on a stump, and though it kept spinning the wheels, it did not move.
Kane was a small town.
When they came closer to the center, the houses became larger. They stopped in front of a big red and white clapboard house with strange roof peaks. On the eastern side of the house alone, there was a jumble of small windows. The western side was just a clapboard wall. Next to that house was a sprawling white clapboard house with sagging porches, enclosed with aluminum framed mosquito screens. The lawns were all overgrown, grass quickly working to reclaim the varieties of garbage and waste the houses had produced. Everywhere vehicles sat, dejected, already rusting away. As they watched, a few blocks away, several white-tailed deer walked through a yard, stopped to eye them disinterestedly, and then continued onward to graze at the sweet grass of overfed lawns.
Eric found all of the houses threatening. They were too big and sprawling, filled, he imagined, with secret rooms, large closets, labyrinthine passages. Once they may have been the scene of a happy family or several families. No longer. In Eric’s imagination, every room harbored a cracked Zombie, every basement a hoard of them, every turn and twist of a hallway, only further cover for some mentally deranged survivor.
Every foraging expedition was potentially disastrous. Brad was proof of that.
To make matters worse, Lucia, who had taken over command, it seemed, said they should split up, each take one house, and then meet back in the streets.
Why did they split up? Eric wanted to say something to Lucia, but he didn’t want to be in charge either. Let her have that role.
But the thought bothered him. With only two people, when was splitting up ever a good idea?
_
Eric's heart pounded as he opened the squeaking door to the first house.
It was a big, block of a house, dark gray with pea green trim. The porch was on either side of the house, jutting out like an afterthought.
When he walked inside, the musty smell hit him first. This, he thought, must be what a tomb smells like. The inside of the house was in shambles. Whoever had left, had left in a hurry. Clothes were scattered on the floor, along with books, dishes, photos, and papers, as if they didn't know what to take with them when they left.
Eric didn't want to be in there any longer than he must. He walked swiftly to the kitchen and began opening the cupboards, his heart beating. Without hardly looking, he pulled canned food down and stuffed them into his bag, trying to keep an ear out for trouble.
After he was finished with the food, he stopped by the wooden stairway that led up to the bedrooms. He could leave the house. He had what he came for, and the door was directly in front of him. But the bedrooms. That's where people kept their guns.
He walked up the stairs, softly, and put his ear to the nearest door. He strained to hear any movement from within. In his mind, he kept seeing the old woman leap upon Brad, her diseased mouth clamping down upon his neck and shoulder. He took a deep breath and put his hand on the knob.
"What can I do for you?"
Eric stumbled backward in surprise and terror.
She stood in the hallway. She held a shotgun pointed at his chest.
_
"Calm down," the woman said. "I'm not going to hurt you."
Eric stepped back and stumbled against a wall. Then, losing his balance, he slid against the wall and fell back.
The woman repeated, "I'm not going to hurt you."
Eric sat up. The woman had dark, long hair that she had tied behind her. Her skin was brown, and her cheekbones pronounced and high.
"You're an Indian," he said out loud, without meaning to.
"I'm Seneca," she said. She held out her hand to him. "My name is Kaye Cornplanter." Eric took her hand and she pulled him to his feet. She searched him with her eyes, and Eric told her his name. "Come," she said. Eric went first back down the stairs to the living room where Kaye sat down, resting her gun across her legs. "Sit," she said.
"I'm just here for food," said Eric.
"There's no food in the bedrooms," Kaye answered.
Eric didn't say anything. Kaye waited. The silence weighed on Eric. Finally, he admitted to looking for a gun. "I need it," he said. "It's dangerous out there."
"Yes it is," Kaye agreed. "Sit," she said again. Eric glanced at the door and considered running, but, instead, he did as he was told. He couldn’t outrun a shotgun blast. Kaye studied him. "Where're you going?"
"East," Eric said.
"Good," she answered. She reached into her pocket and took out a can of sardines. She snapped off the key and unrolled the lid. She offered it to Eric who carefully lifted out some of the oily fish with his fingers.
"Thank you," he said.
"You're welcome," she answered. "It's not safe to the north," she said. "You shouldn't go that way."
"Gangs?"
Kaye laughed, a tiny, barking sound. "You could call us a gang, I suppose." When Eric looked puzzled, Kaye continued. "When the Vaca B came, all the Senecas came home. Many died, but some did not. Those of us who are left are taking back our land." Kaye leaned back in the chair and studied him. "For many years the Americans had our land. But they abused it and now they're gone. There were always some of us who thought it would happen." She smiled, not altogether friendly but not hostile either.
Eric looked at her gun. "What're you going to do with me?"
Kaye shrugged. "Nothing," she said. "As long as you continue east, you are no enemy of mine."
"I am going east," Eric stressed. They studied each other. "Is there war north?"
"No," Kaye said. "There is liberation north. This time there will be no treaties, no deals, no talk. We will take our land and we will keep it forever."
Eric felt a morbid curiosity about the struggle. "What's it like?"
"Buffalo is burning," she said. "We are burning it, block by block. In the end, there will be no c
ity by the lake. Just a ruin for birds to nest upon."
"The whole city?"
"The city began as a military camp. It will not be one again. In time, it will be swamp as it once was, a feeding place for birds. The time of the Americans is over. Look at what happened to your people when it mattered. They became nothing but gangs, fighting each other. Or they died wandering in the streets or starved in the forests. There is nothing in you that holds you together. You have no connections to each other, no connections to the lands you steal. The land belongs to those who are a part of it, who understand it. It was always our land here and now it is our time again. The time of the Haudenosaunee."
Eric did not know what to say or do. He felt awkward and uncertain. "Can I go?" he asked finally, glancing at the door.
"You can go," she said. He started to move, but Kaye continued, her words stopping him as he lifted himself from the chair. "But don't go north. If I see you north, our meeting will not be so peaceful."
Eric had no doubt she would shoot him. He nodded deeply, almost a bow, and then, faster than he wanted, he sped out the door, and down the steps of the porch. He felt Kaye Cornplanter's eyes upon him as he joined Lucia and Sarah in the street.
"What is it?" Sarah asked.
"Let's go," he hissed. "We have to go now!"
Without another word, they slipped away from Kane, and vanished back into the protective shadows of the trees. They didn't question him until much later. Eric told them about the Seneca woman and the war for Buffalo. Lucia and Sergio were quiet and solemn. If there had been any lingering doubts about their path, the story extinguished them.
The World Without Crows Page 12