Zack maneuvered the boat back into the channel and cut its prow at an angle toward the bluff they had just negotiated.
We nosed into the lake and around the bluff, turning back to skirt the shoreline. I could see the shacks well before we reached them, and I understood why the making of the lake hadn't inundated them. They had been built right on the bluff that had been one bank of a creek, which had entered the old river at this point. Now the bluff was low, for the water came up its sides, but the houses were high and dry.
The compound was a ratty affair. Some ten houses stood there, every one looking as if a good sneeze might bring it down. We pulled in to a ramp, and Zack lifted me out of the boat and handed me my walker.
As I grasped the walker, something came to my ears. Crying children ... a lot of them. I swung awkwardly and began thumping toward the isolated hut that seemed to be the source of the sound. It was work, hopping and moving the walker and hopping again, but I made it to the small unglazed window in the shanty and looked through. Then I turned and vomited.
There were a dozen in there. A couple of infants lying on ragged quilts that covered the entire floor. Three toddlers under two. Seven more ranging in age from maybe three to four and a half. They were so filthy that the term meant nothing. Excrement was smeared over everything. They were all naked. Their bodies were crusted with sores and feces. When one of them looked up and saw my face at the window, it let out a howl and burrowed under the nearest of its companions. Then they all began to scream.
Leaning on the walker, I felt the weight of years and responsibilities. We were so few! And we were either very young or very old. We literally could not take on a dozen wild beasts to care for and civilize. It would kill Carrie. Grace and Laura were far from stable and perhaps never would be again. We hadn't dared let them too near the scene of the ambush yesterday.
Zack and I were responsible for nine children and ten old people. Bill and Annie had ten children to take care of already. It simply wasn't possible.
Neither was it possible to leave them there to become killers. I groaned aloud. Zack came up behind me and put his arms around me. I leaned my head back against him and thought harder than ever before in my life.
Given the fact of Lisa, I could see hope for them. If they were removed, right now, from this terrible place. If they were shared out among reasonably normal people, to grow up ignorant of their wild dams, they could probably become assets to our depleted world. They were desperately needed lives. We had to try to manage something for them.
"There must be people around the lake," I said to Zack. "Remember .... Mom Allie said everyone who had a lake house had packed up and headed for it. " I felt him nod. "It stands to reason that some of the places around the lake have people in them. If we can just get these children worked down to two or three, we may be able to manage.
Elmond's gruff voice made me open my eyes. "We'll sluice 'em down in the lake, Luce. Nobody could stand to look at 'em the way they are now. You just go and sit down on that choppin ' block. Well douse 'em."
My gorge rose at the thought of their having to handle those horrible little bodies. But I closed my eyes again and waited, while howls and shouts and sounds like hog-killing time rose from the lake's edge. God knows what the creatures were fed, or how often. They seemed all ribs and swollen bellies. I found it in my soul to regret killing the Unger. According to Lisa, it had not been this way when she lived.
We left the children naked. We had no idea where (or if) they had any clothing. And considering the state of their skins, it was better so. We rigged an awning of a blanket we had brought, so they wouldn't blister. Then we set off across the miles of lake with our cargo of shrieking babies. Behind us we left every house ablaze. There would be nothing there for the Ungers any more. Ever.
The boat flew over the water, its engine throbbing to match my leg. The breeze cooled me a bit, but I knew that I had fever ... my bones felt light, and I was dizzy. But at last the dust of white specks we had headed toward became a house with a pier, outbuildings, and a white painted fence. It looked too well kept to have been empty for months.
As we slowed to approach the pier, a middle-aged man waved a shotgun at us from the porch of the house.
"Don't ask," I told Zack. "Leave him two!"
Zack clambered up the short ladder onto the pier, and Elmond handed him a toddler and a three-year-old. He went firmly to the gate that closed off the lawn from the pier and set the children on the overgrown grass. Then he came back and got into the boat. As we sped away, I could see clearly the dumbfounded expression on the man's face. I hoped that he had a wife or a grown daughter.
We found four more occupied houses. One housed an old couple, so we left them only one. A family whose backyard clothesline held many sizes of shirts and pants received three. Anybody with that many children wouldn't have much problem assimilating three more. When we were done, we went home with the two infants.
We came up the river at dusk. The frogs were in full cry. The screech owls were mourning in the bottom lands, and bobcats were quarreling in the hickory flats. The willows hung straight and still, and we moved under them, over the bright ripples in which the sunset flared up at us in dying colors.
The babies were quiet, cried out and asleep. Thank God for the goats! We must try to scrounge up several more–they were easy enough for the smaller children to milk, and unlike a cow they wouldn't injure anybody. If we were to keep collecting children it would be necessary. The gentle Nubians were more like pets than livestock.
It was almost dark now. We reached the old river crossing where we were to pull out the boat. There stood Suzi, with all the children except Joseph. One of the babies woke and squealed, and the entire bunch helped to haul out the boat so they could see the new arrivals.
I thought there would be a fight, then and there, to see who got to carry a baby. I sighed. Then Zack picked me up and carried me to the house. I was so utterly exhausted that I forgot to object.
AFTERWORD
So that is the end of the beginning of the story. Now that my leg has healed there is no time to write anymore, though I plan to keep a journal so that I will be able, someday, to give an accurate account of out tribe. When I get too old to stir one foot before the other, maybe I'll have the time to put it into coherent form.
So far we have heard no more from the Ungers, though we know that there are several left in the area. Cheri is alive, we assume, for she was not among those whom Zack helped to bury. As long as she is there, and Ungers are in the woods, they pose some danger, but I think they have been taught a stern lesson and will leave us be, at least for a while. But the time will come when we'll have to take the time to warn those around the lake. There were a lot of boats on the river.
Harley Schmidt came back once. He was much subdued, apologetic, and shocked. He asked us to take in a young man who had managed to make it all the way from Oklahoma City, afoot. He had avoided highways and towns and was all in, needing rest and food. But now he seems to be shaping up very well and I have my eye on him for Suzi.
Carrie Jessup died in her sleep a week ago. Horace, though grief-stricken, is working like six men. He and Grace and Laura have asked La-Tonsha and Lillian to stay with them, and I think the youngsters will go. Little as they are, they feel the need that inspired the invitation.
Sim and Elmond are teaching Jim blacksmithing. They've jury-rigged an anvil, forge, and bellows. As long as we can scrounge iron, we'll be able to work it into useful items. And in my grandmother's girlhood there were iron mines in the northern part of this county. I've marked on a map, as nearly as I can determine, the places she named.
Lucas and Mom Allie have set up housekeeping together. At least as much as can be done now. And Lantana spent so much time nursing Skinny that they decided to comfort each other's old bones. At least, that's what they say. I catch them holding hands when nobody's looking.
Up and down the river we have our crops in, and our fuel and feed stor
ed. Our hatches are battened down, once again, for November is upon us. One short year ago we lived in a world of politics and TV and instant communication. Now we live in a world bounded by the forest and the lake and the river.
We never knew – and likely never will – exactly what triggered the end of things. Neville, our new hand, says that there was no warning of any kind before and no explanation after the blowup. The country he came through was much like this, scantily populated by people who knew nothing. It may be just as well.
Sim is teaching me what he knows of wounds and injuries. With my scrounged medical books and my steady fingers, I just may be able to cope with that hot appendix, if and when. Meanwhile, all work, visit back and forth when we can manage it, and read and read and read.
The world has ended, but we are just beginning.
THE END
The World Ends In Hickory Hollow Page 17