Marching As to War: A Post-Apocalyptic Novel

by Justin Watson

  Uncle John said, “You know, back at that camp I didn’t want to send her off with strangers, but she was so determined to go. I want to thank you for taking care of Janie.”

  I thought of Jane running down that slope to the wounded man on the road, bullets kicking up dirt all around her. But I said, “You’re welcome, but for the most part we just try to keep up with her.”

  “Well, Janie was always like that,” Uncle John said, “always in front. Stubborn about it.”

  “You’re her uncle?” Riley said.

  “Her Papa’s older brother. But he won’t talk to me no more.”

  “Because of Jane?” I said.

  “Yeah. He was angry when I believed in Janie. But when I helped her leave home that just tore it. We ain’t spoke since.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” I said.

  “We just had dinner over there,” Riley said. “The whole time, he barely said a word to Jane.”

  Uncle John nodded and said, “Now, I don’t want you boys to think he’s a bad man. He ain’t. He’s not some whiskey drinker with a mean streak. He’s just reached his limit. You saw his arm? Lost that in the militia when he was your age. About five years ago, lost his oldest boy to that winter fever that went through the militia camps.”

  “Jane never mentioned that,” Riley said.

  Uncle John continued, “The youngest boy, Ricky, will have to serve soon. And now with this war. . . .” He shook his head. “Anyway, my brother reckons they’ve given enough. He told her not to go . . .” He shrugged.

  Riley and I exchanged a glance. We both knew what Jane did when she was told not to do something.

  “Believing in Jane is a hard thing,” Uncle John said. “Especially for the folks who knew her before . . . before all this. But that’s to be expected. Matthew 13:57, ‘And they were offended in him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country, and in his own house.’ So it was for our Lord, so it is for Janie.”

  “Yeah, I see what you mean,” I said.

  We just sat there, quiet, letting the fire warm us and dry our clothes. After a while, Riley said he was going to find a spot to bed down for the night. “You coming?” he said to me.

  “Not yet.”

  Riley thanked Uncle John for the hospitality, said goodnight, and went off in the darkness.

  I said, “I reckon you want to talk to Jane. Should I tell her you’re here?”

  “No need,” he said. “She’ll find out and be over directly.”

  We were quiet again for a while.

  “Son,” he said, “can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “Are you a Christian? Saved and all?”

  “I am,” I said, remembering the man was a minister.

  “Do you believe God sent Janie?”

  I paused, considering what to say. “I’m not sure about that, Sir. But I believe she believes it with all her heart. And I believe in her.”

  “I’m sure she can count on you.”

  I felt like crying, but held it back. “I won’t let her down.”

  “Good,” he said. “I worry about Janie. She knew God had called her long before she was able to tell any of us. Looking back, I can she how she kept herself away from what most girls do. Lonely.”

  I said nothing.

  “I wonder if she’ll ever get to have the ordinary joys of life, marriage, raising a family, and all. But Janie has a calling from God, and such folks often don’t have ordinary lives.”

  “You’re right, but maybe when the war is over.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “But I wonder if a calling from God, her kind anyways, is ever over.”

  I said nothing and hoped he couldn’t tell what was on my mind. But he could.

  He put a hand on my shoulder. “It’s hard for a man not to think about what he thinks about. But don’t be worrying on the future. I know what it’s like in the militia. That’s how I got this bad leg. The only future you got is right now. Best keep your mind on that.”

  “Reckon so,” I said. And I knew he was right, but doubted it would make any difference.

  I was thinking about this, staring into the fire when Uncle John stood up. Jane came out of the darkness and walked into his open arms. Neither said a word. They hugged, and he patted her back as if trying to soothe her.

  She said, “I need to visit with Uncle John a while.” Her cheeks were shiny with tears. This surprised me. I had never seen her cry.

  I nodded, thanked Uncle John, and left. When I was sure they couldn’t see me anymore, I stood in the darkness and watched them. They were sitting side by side. She was talking, but I couldn’t make out what she said. He was nodding, listening hard.

  Her cheeks were still shiny with tears, but she also looked happy.

  I found Riley and laid out my bedroll. He was still awake, and we talked for a while about Jane’s family, especially the way her father treated her.

  “I just don’t understand that,” I said. “Don’t understand that at all.”

  “There’s no figuring kin,” Riley said. “Hard to understand your own. Damn near impossible to understand anybody else’s.”

  In the middle of the night, I woke up. Someone was standing over us holding a lantern. It was Jane’s father.

  “Mr. Darcy?” I said. “What’s wrong?”

  He did not say anything at first. Then he swallowed hard and said, “Got something to say to you boys.” I woke Riley.

  “I reckon I need to thank you for taking care of my little girl,” Mr. Darcy said.

  Riley and I nodded.

  “I sure would like to see her come home for good. Safe.” He looked close to tears. Then he walked away.

  We were quiet for a while until Riley spoke.

  “Like I said. No figuring kin.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Just as we reached the door, someone on the other side pulled it open. There was just enough light to see a man with a pistol, aimed at us.

  We froze. Riley and I were on either side of Jane, holding her up. Her left shoulder was bleeding.

  The man said nothing, and we didn’t move.

  “Please,” Jane said.

  He motioned us inside and closed the door behind us.

  “Come back here,” he said.

  We carried Jane down a hallway to another room. The man pulled on one side of a tall set of bookshelves. It swung open like a door on hinges to reveal a chamber about three feet deep, four wide, and six high. He motioned for us to go in.

  The man gave us pieces of cloth for bandages and a blanket. He almost had the door closed when he said, “What’s your name girl?”

  “Jane,” she said. “Thank you.”

  “Thank me later, Jane. If this door starts to open, and I haven’t called you by name, it’ll be soldiers. Start shooting.”

  He closed the door. Darkness. The fading sound of his steps.

  We stuck the cloth under Jane’s coat where she was bleeding and draped the blanket over her. I used one hand to put pressure on the wound and held my rifle with the other. I heard the sounds of Riley checking his rifle. Once our breathing slowed down, there was complete silence.

  Standing in the dark, I couldn’t quite believe this was happening. After a week of hard travel, we had reached the edge of Canton at twilight. From a hill, we still could see the whole town and the camp full of soldiers. Jane was all set just to walk straight into town as soon as it got dark. But I balked.

  “This don’t make any sense. What are we doing here?” I said, determined not to go anywhere until she gave me a straight answer.

  “Have faith,” she said.

  “We do,” I said, “but--”

  Riley interrupted. “If you’d tell us what we’re supposed to do, then we can do it.”

  She frowned, seeming to consider this. “I’m looking for someone,” she said.

  “Someone?” I said.

  “Or something.”

  “Something?” Riley s
aid.

  She nodded, and for a moment, I thought it was all she would tell us. But she added, “There’s someone in that town, someone who knows something, something that will make the difference.”

  “You shouldn’t go,” I said. “Tell us what to look for.”

  “I can’t. The Spirit has to lead me.”

  “There’s hundreds of soldiers and only three of us,” I said. “We’re alone. This is too dangerous.”

  She paused a long time before taking a folded piece of paper from inside her coat. Then she held it out to me. “Remember this?”

  I remembered. It was the paper from the mouth of the dead woman. The woman’s dried blood was on it. I didn’t want to touch it, but couldn’t help staring at it. The memory of that day made me feel sick.

  “Take it,” she said. “Take it.” There was a hardness in her voice that surprised me. I obeyed. But I didn’t open it.

  She pointed at the paper and said, “I’ll do whatever it takes to stop the soldiers. Whatever it takes.”

  I looked up from the paper into her eyes.

  “Will you?” she said.

  The question made me angry. After all this time, and all we had been through, how could she ask me that? But I didn’t say anything. I just nodded.

  Then she took the paper from my hand.

  Once it got good and dark, we worked our way into town along overgrown back streets, past abandoned houses collapsing with neglect. Here and there, you could see a house still in use, a lamp glowing in the window. Jane didn’t go toward the center of town—where the most soldiers were bound to be. I was beginning to hope we wouldn’t run into any trouble, when we turned a corner and saw two soldiers walking toward us. For a second, they were surprised and stopped. Then one shouted, “Hey!”

  We turned and ran back the way we had come. Just before we got around the corner, one of the soldiers fired a burst at us. Jane screamed. But she managed to stagger around the corner before going down.

  Riley went to Jane, and I took cover at the corner of the building. I fired a few wild shots at the soldiers, trying to keep them back. Then I heard Riley shout, “Let’s go!” I turned, expecting to see Jane dead, expecting it all to be over, expecting the world to slam to a halt. But she was moving, grimacing. She had one hand on a shoulder, blood showing between her fingers. In the other hand, she still held her rifle.

  The world kept turning.

  There was no time for anything but getting away. Riley grabbed Jane, got her on her feet, and dragged her toward an alley between two buildings to our left. I followed, looking behind us for the soldiers.

  We reached the end of the alley, turned a corner, crossed a street, and went down another alley. As we got to another street, we heard the sound of a government truck, tires squealing to a stop. Then the shouts of many soldiers. Close.

  Riley whispered, “We gotta hide.”

  We headed for some houses. Riley led her toward the nearest one, but Jane said, “No. There.” She pointed to the next. I couldn’t see why, but there was no time to argue.

  Now we were hiding inside that house, in the dark, listening. After a few minutes, we heard heavy footsteps. Soldiers. I took my hand off Jane’s shoulder to have two for my rifle. I felt her move. Her rifle had come up toward the door.

  The footsteps were almost right in front of us. The floorboards creaked. A short murmur of voices, and then the footsteps went away.

  We waited in the dark silence. I put one hand back on Jane’s bandage. Then we heard footsteps again. One set. Moving slow.

  “Jane?” a voice said. “Jane, it’s safe. Do you hear me? Jane?”

  “Yes, I hear you,” she said. “It’s safe.”

  “I’m going to open the door now.”

  I felt the door move, saw dim lamp light, and felt the fresher air.

  Riley went out first, weapon ready. After a moment, he said, “Come on out.”

  We got Jane into a chair. She looked pale and sweaty, but she smiled at us. Her eyes smiled too.

  The man turned up the lamp. He looked old and tired.

  “Welcome to my home,” he said.

  When I woke up the next morning, light showed around a heavy covering on the windows. I guessed Riley was out in the front room, still on watch. I was propped up against the wall. Jane lay on a pallet. She was looking at me.

  “Hey,” I said, “How are you?”

  “Good,” she said. “You?” Her voice sounded weak.

  “Better than last night. We should change that dressing.”

  She had been lucky with the wound. The bullet had passed straight through, missing bone. With rest, food, and clean bandages, I hoped she would be fine.

  She seemed to be waiting for something.

  So I went ahead and said, “I told you this was too dangerous.”

  She just looked at me in that way of hers.

  “Don’t give me that look, Jane,” I said. “You were almost killed last night, killed for nothing. You shouldn’t take risks like this.”

  “You need to understand, my life is in God’s hands,” she said. “If He wants my life, He will take it. If He has work for me, He will protect me. He did last night.”

  “Just barely. Doesn’t the Bible say, ‘Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God?’ I thought that meant ‘Don’t take stupid chances and expect God to save you.’”

  “Why shouldn’t I risk my life? You risk yours. So does Riley. Every man in our militia risks his life.”

  “It’s different.”

  “Why? Cause I’m a girl?”

  “No, because you’re important. I’m not. I’m just one more rifle. But if we lose you . . .”

  It was a good argument, but it wasn’t my real reason. I wanted to protect her.

  “I understand,” she said, “but God has a plan.”

  Just then, the man walked in with plates of food.

  “I thought you’d be hungry,” he said.

  Jane thanked him and said that she was very hungry. The man and I helped her sit up so she could eat. As we ate, she asked about him.

  He sat in a chair. His name was Carl Degler. Just before the Plague, he, his wife, and daughter had moved to Canton and rented this house.

  “Good deal,” Carl said, “only paid one month of rent for 26 years.” They had come through the Plague and the bad times that followed. But both his wife and his daughter were now dead. Sickness. Carl was alone.

  “How did you survive all these years?” Jane said.

  “I have tools. I can fix or build most anything. I dug wells. Repaired roofs. Sharpened knives. Traded work for food. That and our vegetable garden got us through. Just barely sometimes, but with God’s help, we always did.”

  “But what did you do before the Plague?”

  “I was in construction. Roads mostly. My specialty was using explosives.”

  “Explosives?” Jane said, leaning forward.

  “Take it easy there,” said Carl. “You don’t want to open that wound again. Now that I think of it, we should change that bandage.” He started out to fetch a clean cloth.

  “No!” Jane said. “Tell me about what you did with explosives.”

  Carl hesitated, puzzled by Jane’s excitement. “Well, to build a road you sometimes have to move a lot of rock and earth. So you set off a small charge and then it’s easier to--”

  “Could you destroy a road or bridge?”

  Carl still did not see what she was thinking, but I did.

  “Yeah,” said Carl. “When I was young, I learned how to do that in the Army.”

  “Could you still do that?”

  “Well, I suppose. But those explosives don’t exist anymore.”

  “How about what’s in the Government’s bombs?”

  He was quiet for a moment.

  “We’d best change that bandage,” he said and left the room.

  We waited in silence for him to come back.

  He knelt next to Jane and began to remove the old dressing.
r />   “Last night,” he said, “I was going to turn you away. I didn’t want trouble.”

  “Why’d you help us?” Jane said.

  “Because my wife would’ve helped you. Because you said please. Maybe I was just tired of being alone and afraid.”

  “God brought me to your door, Carl. I was sent here to find someone. You.”

  He was still for a long moment, looking at her. I couldn’t tell if he believed her or not. Then he nodded and started in on the dressing again.

  When we were done, he stood up slowly.

  “I’m too old to fight,” he said, “but I can teach someone smart, someone who has steady nerves. Do you have someone like that?”

  “We do,” Jane said. “We have many.”

  “Can you get the things I need? They’ll be difficult to find. Maybe impossible.”

  “We will. We’ll find a way.”

  “All right then,” he said as though he had just agreed to fix a roof or dig a well. “I’d better get some food for your other man.” He went out.

  Jane looked at me, waiting for me to say something. But I said nothing. I got up and went to the front room. It was my turn to be on watch.

  She wanted to leave that night. Riley and I refused. She needed to heal up before traveling. But she wouldn’t listen.

  “Go on then,” Riley said. “Stand up.”

  Grimacing with the effort, she got to her feet. Putting one hand against the wall, she said, “Don’t worry about me. We should leave at dark. Carl’s the key. We need to get him to Winslow.”

  Riley and I exchanged a look.

  “Then take your hand off the wall,” he said.

  She glared at him and took her hand down. For a moment, she managed to stand. Then her knees buckled, and she sat down, her back against the wall.

  Standing up had taken a lot out of her. Her voice wasn’t much more than a whisper. “Get Carl to Winslow. Don’t waste time.”

  “And we just leave you here?” I said.

  “Yes,” she said, her voice louder.

  “Don’t talk nonsense,” Riley said. “We ain’t leaving you.”

  The next few days were strange. It was dangerous to be in that house. Dangerous for us. Dangerous for Carl. Several times we had to hide behind the bookcase because soldiers were nearby. They didn’t come into the house, but Carl said you could never tell when they might. Other than that, it was quiet--the quietest time we had had since the war had begun. Riley and I took turns keeping watch and sitting with Jane. And Carl fed us real well, emptying his pantry.