Spelville (middle chapters)

CHAPTER THREE

Joseph had grown up. The nineteen-year-old had for three days been putting out food to attract a half-grown Labrador Retriever that had been poking around, curious, and hungry. Nicole’s coaching awakened in him a need to want the dog for a friend. This time, he sat with a chunk of fish in his hand, ready to coax her to come and take it. The pooch arrived soon enough, appearing from the woods that encroached on Spelville from three sides, hoping to be fed. She came slowly forward, ears flattened, tail tucked in behind her, determined to do whatever she had to in order to chomp down on that mouth watering filet. Joseph quickly learned how dangerous a Lab’s teeth could be. She made a frenzied grab that sent fish pieces flying. A tooth grazed the side of his hand, drawing a spot of red. She swept up and swallowed every speck and searched the young man for more. He ran his hands across her shoulders and along a side. This act melted her resistance. She licked at his face and pushed her body against him. There was another slice of fish for her. Then a deep long drink of water.

By the time Joseph came into the house, he had a friend for life, pressing her side against his leg as he walked, sporting what can only be described as a happy grin. Annie, who had been sitting, coloring with pencils, recoiled when she saw this, the biggest animal she had ever seen, with a mouthful of sharp teeth, approaching. “What is it?” she cried “Get it out of here.”

“It’s a dog and it’s friendly,” Joseph said.

“I’m afraid of it,” she protested.

Nicole had taken of late to lying back in her recliner, for ever-extending lengths of time. Her bones always ached these days. Even the missing toe ached. She roused long enough to urge Joseph to keep the pet out of trouble and suggested he give her a name. When the dog took something of Annie’s and began to chew it on the floor, there ensued a commotion that put her on her legs. The Lab had grabbed a long red sock and then made it a tug-of-war game when her son tried to grab it away. Nicole brought down a broomstick across the dog’s shoulders, quickly ending the game. After a surprised whimper, she cowered behind Joseph a few moments and then poked around the floor, more, for other objects of interest.

“These dogs need lots of training,” Nicole said. “It may take more patience than any of us can summon.”

Annie had curled into a defensive ball on the sofa. She only slowly opened up, much like the flower she was. A soul of few words, reclusive as a spider, she left her family and went down to what remained of her favorite pier, to watch the river. She was her mother’s daughter. Nicole had her childhood. Annie had hers. She often thought of floating off, downstream, until the river consumed her.

Joseph, on the other hand, slowly grew to become the backbone of the family. He gardened. He fished. He made it easy for Nicole to ease into the background. He had decided, he told his mother, he would like to see where the dog came from. After a bit of preparation, he led it out, and they went hiking in the woods. He sifted a limited category of names as he went along, hoping to hit on a good dog name. The dog went happily ahead, possibly loving that they were going together to her home territory. He followed her lead through a maze of trees and vines, keeping his directional wits about him. He eventually lost the trail and waited on the spot, to see if his dog would return. After perhaps thirty minutes, he grew discouraged and began the trek home. He thought, perhaps she would come back at feeding time. As he emerged from the woods, the name Eve came to him, from the times Nicole read aloud from the Bible. He would give the dog that name if she returned.

The boy gave the knob a turn and pushed his way into the house. At the same moment, Eve caught up to him and brushed past him, carrying in her mouth the remains of a large brown bird. “What is that?” he said to the room.

Nicole cracked her eyes to look. Suddenly energized, she sat up. “It’s a chicken.”

He gave the bird a closer view. “I saw one of these, last year. It got off in the woods before I could take a good look.”

“If you caught us some chickens, we could have eggs,” Nicole said. “Follow the dog to where she caught it. There has got to be more. You could not chase one down, especially with a dog running them. But, if you go back, alone, at night, they will be asleep, up a tree. If they are not too high to reach, you can grab three or four and shove them in a big sack. And I can build a cage to put them in.”

He gave her an incredulous look. “You? Build a cage? I think it best if I do that.”

She made an annoyed face. “You can be my helper,” she replied.

Together they found some eight-foot rolls of chicken wire and a variety of metal poles and lumber and in a short time, they had a fence and coop. “The way to keep the chickens from flying over the fence Is to keep their wings clipped. Without full feathers they can’t fly,” Nicole explained as they stood back to admire the handiwork. “It’s big enough they will be able to scratch around for bugs and we can scrounge up food for them.”

He was not about to rest from his labors. Right away he began the search for the chickens.

Each morning, for two weeks, Joseph took Eve on an expedition, until finally, he learned where the birds called home. As per his mother’s instructions, he checked around until he found the piles of poop beneath the tree that must be the roosting tree. He went home, then.

Later, in deepening dusk, and with a round fat moon already overhead, he locked Eve in a building and set out, bearing the sack he and Nicole had fashioned. By now he knew the target section of woods intimately. There were a few traps to avoid, such as patches of thorny vines, around which he expertly navigated. He did not truly grasp the importance of owning the chickens, but it had become for the moment life’s most pressing mission. He could see the dark shadowed forms of the birds on several branches, as he moved in on the roosting tree. He stole up as silently as he could and gently grabbed one. It squawked a bit but went rather easily into the bag. A second and third were as easy. Becoming greedy, the boy grabbed a fourth chicken and was met with resistance. The bird fought with all its might, but finally, he stuffed it into the bag and secured the top before shouldering it. He headed for home, happy enough to sing, with thoughts of inexhaustible supplies of eggs to please his Mom.

He came home and they received him like the conquering hero he felt himself to be. Joseph proudly displayed the bag and then locked the chickens away for the night.

Nicole thanked him for doing such a wonderful job and told him they could work together to clip the chickens’ feathers first thing in the morning. Nobody stayed up late because they could not enjoy themselves much by candlelight. As a result, they had rested and were up and going before the full break out of morning sun. Nicole was suddenly energetic. She explained to Joseph that the exercise gained by putting together the fence had caused much of the pain to go away. She knew by that that she had to exercise and move her body on a regular basis for the rest of her active days.

As a light sliver blinked open on the horizon across the expanse of water, they were pulling the chickens from the bag, one by one and Joseph held them while Nicole cut their wing feathers short.

The birds were weak from breathing all night inside the bag, but were fine otherwise. Each time one’s wing got clipped, he tossed it into the pen. The chickens ran away, until they reached the back of the pen, then stood helplessly, not knowing what else to do. The unruly one from the night before looked different. Nicole explained how the comb, waddle, and spurs that set it apart from the rest meant that it was a rooster and that it would lay no eggs.

“I should let it go?” Joseph said, disappointedly.

She smiled. “No,” she said mysteriously. “He will come in useful, too.”

After the chickens realized they were in no immediate danger, they gradually searched and pecked in the dirt, running after it when a cricket was flushed and trying to elude them. After Joseph understood how much they loved crickets he spent much of his time trapping some and tossing them over the fence.

As he and his mother hung by the pen, admiring the chickens, she spoke of when the eggs would be coming and the need to gather them daily. Then she had a new thought. “Joseph. If there are chickens running around out there, and dogs, there could be goats, or cows, even.”

They began pouring over pictures of domestic animals and she explained why certain ones would be valuable to have around. Then she showed him what she knew of setting traps, which was limited, but she knew him to be intelligent enough to take it from there.

After that, the young man used the mornings to assist at home, but in the afternoons he and Eve went hunting. They had found nothing yet, by the time Eve got herself bitten by a viper.

The poor animal lay in a dark corner, with her face swollen terribly, and Joseph continued his hunting on his own. The only remedies Nicole knew of were products long over the use-by date.

The Lab recovered, in time, and she happily rejoined her friend and companion on the afternoon excursions. But the man finally lost enthusiasm, after finding no animals worth his efforts.

His attention turned next to the remaining houses and outbuildings, everything that survived the fire, explosion and storms he remembered so vividly from childhood. Not much had been done with those unused structures. Nicole had taken away useful things early on, but they were pretty much ignored after that. Joseph needed to know if anything worthwhile had been left behind. Carrying a long tree branch to ward away spider webs, he went first through the houses. They had not even furniture in them, just a few empty boxes and an assortment of picture frames and unopened junk mail. He knew what mail was but felt incurious about the contents. The outbuildings were filled with useless junk, for the most. One was full of auto engine parts. Another held cans of paint. Nicole had long since taken the thinner left in there and used it up. In some were what must have been household garbage. The final building held a trove of books. Joseph liked this discovery. He had long since read everything of interest inside the home. The first tome he scooped from among some loose ones on a table held lots of color pictures. He was shocked by their content.

It was a sex manual for teens. He saw photos and diagrams of bodies and he read about the reproductive process. He felt shocked and repulsed by what he saw. When he had all he could take, he walked to the water’s edge and tossed the book in. When it did not sink right away, he threw random objects at it for as long as he could see it.

When eventually he came timidly in the house, he busied himself with little tasks, such as sweeping and moving chairs, and kept always turning away from his Mom and sister, when they got close to him. He could not help imagining their bodies behind the clothes they wore and was ashamed and fearful. That night, he tossed and turned, until dawn.

He spent as much time as possible outside, working, or walking with Eve in the woods. He wished desperately he could un-see what that book scalded in his brain.

Nicole noticed his behavior but felt it was her son’s business and he would tell her about it if he felt she should know.

During one of his excursions away from home, he came across and captured a piglet. He proudly brought it in to show his family. Annie just wrinkled her nose, but Nicole praised him to the skies. She hoped he would find it a future mate, the next time out.

Joseph unconsciously reverted to his previous behavior. Despite the occasional flashback, where he was revisited by visions from the sex book, he was again the good son and oblivious brother. On a single occasion, he went back to the house with the books and discovered, deep in the back, a hand crank record player, with a pile of records. Illustrations on booklets and dust jackets were enough to teach him how to bring forth the music of the 1930s through the late 1950s. Annie claimed the machine and discs for her own. She played Perry Como and Eddy Fisher records, from morning to night. Joseph did not mind. The noise became a partial substitute for community, for, somewhere deep in his soul, he felt a connection to and a longing for a society that no longer exists - much of angst hiding below the surface, for he was maturing and had no outlet for expressing his young manhood.

Goaded by frustration, the boy wandered further from home and further again, almost daily. On one such excursion, he came upon a road. Despite the crumbled pavement, and the weeds growing out of the ruptures, he found it an easy trail to follow. Enticed by the though it might lead to important discoveries, he set a pace in hope he would see something worthwhile before time to turn around. He soon spotted the ruins of a house. Just one wall left standing, the rest of the house piles of rubble, with trees and bushes growing through it all. He began to find more houses in similar states of decay and he thought that was all there would be left after all. Ahead, the vegetation appeared to be lush and to follow a line perpendicular to the trail he followed. He suspected and then verified it was a stream that likely emptied into the big river he lived beside.

It turned out there was a house near the bank of the creek, brown and unpainted, but complete and having a look suggesting the possibility of an inhabited domicile. He and Eve stood, transfixed, for a long time. He feared to disturb whoever might be in there, But, he knew he had to, sooner or later. For the present time, he opted to hide in the brush to observe and wait for somebody to come out on the porch.

After about an hour, discouraged with waiting, he roused Eve from her napping and together they approached the entrance. He stepped as quietly as he could up the semi-rotted steps, across the wooden deck, to stand fearfully before the door. It was an agonizing few minutes, before, at last, he summoned the courage and knocked very loudly. There was an immediate crash from inside, as of a chair getting knocked over. With the hair standing up on the back of his neck, Joseph abandoned all caution. He threw open the door and peered inside. The interior was filled with dust and mold. The knocked over chair proved to be a bar stool, and it was near a hole where once a window had been. It seemed to Joseph a rather large animal had escaped out the open wall. He ventured inside far enough to open the door of the first bedroom.

A wave of horror swept over him. In the middle of the bed lay the skeletal remains of a girl, of perhaps fifteen to twenty. Her nightie survived, in tatters. Likewise the bunny house shoes on the feet. The body position was as of one who surrenders to the non-avoidance of destiny. He stared at the scene for a long time. When he returned to the living room, he broke down. Wracked with great sobs and pain of yearning for what once was, but could never be rejuvenated. The tears continued to flow, as he beckoned Eve, who had been lying before him, watching his face. They left the house and wandered back along the remnant of road and then entered the woods on the track to home.

CHAPTER FOUR

It took longer to come home than Joseph anticipated. He thought it odd, when he approached, that no candle glow showed in the windows of the darkened house. Yes, odd, but, even so, he expected to walk in and greet his mother and sister and then sit down to his dinner, once the problem with the candles was resolved. He and Eve pushed into the living room. “Where are you?” he said into the darkness.

Feeling his way to the counter, where a candle usually burned, he felt just a flat surface. His hand slid around in broadening circles. Suddenly a match ignited, about four feet across the room. “Is this what you are looking for?”

Joseph saw an ebony-colored hand pinching the matchstick and the shape of a man behind the fire’s dim glow. He was too amazed to react, at first. The match lit a candle, illuminating enough of the room to reveal four masculine figures. They all looked at the young man, with astonishment in their faces. Speaking in a soft baritone voice, the ebony man asked for his name.

Joseph tried to tell him, but the words caught in his throat.

“What we want to know, most of all,” a man with black hair and a long curly beard leaned forward and said, “is: Where are your women?”

He knew instantly that his mother and sister must have gone into hiding. The boy‘s features drooped. “Dead,” he responded.

The bearded man, whose name was Jerry Peasalt, gave the boy a sharp look. “How long ago?” he demanded to know. “They’ve certainly been sleeping here, as of last night.”

“No sir,” the boy replied, wide-eyed and attempting to project sincerity. “I have brothers living here.”

“How old are you?” asked James Clayborn, the ebony man.

“Nineteen, I think,” he said thoughtfully.

“You should be over thirty. Unless you were born after the Sickness. And you would then be the first such I have seen.”

“Yes, sir,” Joseph said. “But, my Mom and my sister were killed by an explosion at the gas station. I was mostly raised by older brothers.”

“The clothes in the closets are women’s clothes,” Jerry Peasalt countered.

“None of us has seen a woman in three decades,” blurted a third man, Evan Akins. “We are going to stay here until yours comes out of hiding.”

“That’s right,” added the fourth, Edgar Snossile.

James nodded his assent. “You heard these men. Where are they?”

Joseph hung his head. “I don’t know,” he confessed.

“Why don’t you know?” Jerry Peasalt insisted.

The boy lost his fear. He looked the men in the eyes. “Because they hid before I came home.”

“Describe them to me,” Edgar Snossile said, eagerly, almost leaning out of his chair.

“No.” Joseph absolutely would not approach the physical in any sense where “his women” were concerned.

“Sorry, kid -” Edgar Snossile began.

“Joseph.”

“Don’t blame us Joseph,” Snossile resumed. “You’ve spent your whole life with females. Imagine how we feel, over thirty years later, after thinking we would likely not see one again, forever.”

“I won’t talk that way about them.”

“Just tell us how old they are,” the man persisted.

Joseph shut down again, refusing to respond further.

“It’s okay,” James Clayborn cautioned the others. “They have to come out, sooner or later. Then we will get to look at them. It’s okay, kid. We ate your dinner that was laid out on the table.”

Joseph sat down, taking Eve’s head in his hands as she pushed at him, wanting his attention for only herself.

“That’s a beautiful dog,” James observed. “My daughter owned one just like her.”

Joseph thought to look for something his dog could have for dinner. He found dried fish in a cabinet. She caught the pieces, one at a time. He made certain she had clean water to drink. The men watched in silence. She was their first dog sighting since the Sickness.

Jerry snapped his fingers and tried coaxing Eve to come over, but she only hunkered down with Joseph.

“Where did you get those chickens, kid? That’s another something we don’t have any of,” Evan Akins inquired. “I would love to have me some eggs of a morning and some roasted bird, now and again.”

“I can take you where I caught those,” Joseph said, wanting to placate the men and gain their gratitude by helping them out.

The men nodded.

“You are coming with us when we leave, aren’t you, son?” James asked. “We have a town of forty-five citizens. It has electricity, automobiles - Lots of the good stuff people used before the Sickness. Tomorrow I want to show you the boat we came on. There are eight more men on board, to make sure nobody can steal it while the rest of us explore the shore.”

“Not if my Mom does not want to leave here,” the boy said.

“The women go, no matter what.” There was finality in James’ voice. “And the dog, chickens and pig.”

Joseph rose from the seat. He drew himself a glass of water and slowly drifted toward his chair. He drank from the glass, then pitched it to the floor and made a sudden dash to the door. He escaped with Eve into the darkness.

At first, he sought to hide out, but it quickly became apparent he was not being sought at all. The intruders apparently figured Joseph and “his women” would return, driven by hunger and a lack of adequate shelter. But, the quick-minded young man had an alternative scenario in contemplation. First, he must locate his family.

He visited the intact structures of Spelville, calling out to his family, then went among the debris of the exploded house and gas station. He paused once to study the strangers’ boat that was tied up on the water, sitting flat like a barge, with a superstructure on top, replete with windows and doors. The windows glowed, bright as day, almost. As he passed the fence he and Nicole had built, there issued a loud hiss from within the chicken coop.

Easing slowly, so as not to alarm the chickens, Nicole and Annie made their way out and through the gate. Mother and son hugged.

“What are we going to do?” she whispered.

“There is a place we can hide, for as long as necessary,” Joseph replied. “We have to go through the woods, to a house I found today and stay there. After they get tired of waiting and leave, we can come home.”

Nicole threw up her hands. “In the dark?”

“What other choice is there? Twelve men came in that boat. It will be rough for you in the woods, but it will be far worse if these men catch us.”

Annie marched like a good soldier toward the trees. Nicole decided to follow and Joseph caught up to take the lead. He tested every step of the way before allowing the women to proceed. He went so overboard with the protective measures he stepped into patches of thorns, a few of which embedded and then broke off.

It was a relief to find the old road, but not so wonderful to come in the darkest night to the house in which they hoped to shelter. At the last minute, Joseph blocked the entrance. “No. We will pass the night here on the porch. There is so much that needs correcting in there.”

He did not mention the wild animal that could be holed up and sleeping inside, or the skeleton in the middle of a bed. Now he thought of it, he had not examined the rest of the rooms at all. Morning could not arrive quickly enough. He joined Nicole and Annie on the porch swing, where they attempted to sleep and in fact, managed to doze off by daylight.

Soon enough, Joseph peeked through his eyelids, not ready to get up, but curious about the surroundings. He noted the front door hanging slightly open, thinking it out of character for him to leave any door like that. Getting up to check it out was the thing to do. Pulling the door wide, he saw his mother, hard at work, cleaning at the years of dust and mold. “Hey,” he said, amazed.

“Hey,” she replied. “There’s a skeleton in the first bedroom. Get it out, please.”

“Have you looked in the other rooms, Mom? How are they?”

“Bad enough. Get the skeleton out and we will take it from there.”

Joseph created neat piles of bones from the skeleton to make them easy to carry. He went out with the first and biggest assortment, thinking that an easy place to bury them would be near the creek bank, where the trees were widely spaced and the soil slightly damp. Annie had not budged from her spot on the bench. He hoped to divest himself of all bones before she awakened.

Eve dashed ahead of him. She paused in her tracks, then turned to look at Joseph. She whined, looking upstream.

He wondered what the dog could be looking at, but he dropped the bones and went back for the rest. Eve barked a few times, before giving it up to trot along beside him.

The one shovel on the property had lost its handle but had enough blade to dig in, once he whittled a tree branch and shoved it in where the handle had been. He dug only enough to hide the skeleton under a few inches of dirt. Then, he was done. He knew nothing of burial ceremonies or grave markers. After leaning the shovel against the wall by the front door, he looked in on his mother.

“Do you have a way to fix that window?” she wondered?

“I’m not sure,” he replied. He wished he could have brought along his tools. “I have to look around.”

He discovered that one pane of glass, out of all the parts of the window unit, had remained intact. The wood framing the glass had fed termites. After leaning the glass against the wall, he thought about cannibalizing one room for repair materials. He could, in fact, remove a window from a back room and then cover the hole that would be left with just about anything, as the room could

ultimately be closed off from the rest of the house. He began to scour the property for hammers, nails, screwdrivers.

Annie, finally up and moving, helped their mother by carrying out and dumping, repeatedly, dustpan loads of trash. Joseph asked if she had seen any of the tools he desperately needed. “The room at the end of the hall, I think,” she said. “There is what looks like a saw in a pile of trash.”

There was a saw, and, when he lifted it up, there was also a ball-peen hammer and a small crowbar. He was in business. But, first, before anything else, it seemed he ought to see if the fish were biting. The women ought to be getting hungry, by this time. There had as yet been no fishing equipment in evidence, but he could improvise something.

It was the first time he had approached the water. To his amazement, he came on a recently fished from spot, evidenced by a circular net that was still damp from use and evidenced further by recently discarded fish parts. They could not be alone.

The young man knew right away how such a net is used. He spread it out and heaved it in the water. As it settled on the bottom, he drew it up and the weights made it close around what potentially became trapped under it. There was a minnow, only, on the first effort. He tossed out the net repeatedly, moving around the bank to access different throw spots. In the end, he had in his possession four rather large fish.

What had been in the old days an expensive pocket knife always rode in Joseph’s pocket. He would have no problems preparing the catch for their meal. When he mentioned heat to his mother, she smiled. “I found this,” she said. She produced a magnifying glass. Fire then was provided for.

In a short time, there was a nice blaze near the house. The boy was able to contrive a spit above the flames to hold the fish. They all, including Eve, feasted on as fine a meal as anybody ever had.

After disposing of the leftovers, Joseph went to look along the stream for clues. He did not have far to look.

There were footprints, not his, near the water’s edge. A beaten path went from this place, along the bank and then forked, one side keeping to the stream edge, the other meandering into the woods. He chose the woods.

It was a fine trail, well worn and wide. He was fairly trotting along, more than a bit anxious concerning what lay at the end. There abruptly opened up a great meadow. He instinctively halted to study the terrain. The meadow was rife with clover and tall yellow flowers. Nothing else. He moved along. The trail skirted one side of the meadow and continued back into the woods. Eve had romped ahead until her sounds were lost to his ears. Finally, a small puff of white smoke caught his attention, just above the limb of a dying tree. But for the sparsity of leaves on those drying up branches, it would not have shown at this distance. He had known of a certainty there was somebody here. Now he seemed to be closing in. He paused, alerted by sounds from Eve, of fear and pain, reaching his ears.

Never had Joseph run so fast. He stumbled over a small hole, caught himself, and in a short order burst upon a scene, of the nicest looking house he had ever seen, with a smoking chimney and a green garden beside a metal shed. Twenty feet from where he came to a hasty halt, Eve, in a snare trap, cowered before a tall wiry person, wielding a machete. The great blade poised as though to strike the dog in the neck.

“Don’t hurt my dog,” he shouted.

The stranger whirled, now waving the great knife as a weapon. “A-er-r,” she growled.

“Let her go,” he pleaded.

The wiry person appeared to be contemplating courses of action. Joseph fervently hoped the decision would not be one of attack. He let himself down on the trail, sitting, cross-legged, to show he meant no aggression.

Still, the girl hesitated.

The standoff ended with her whacking off the rope next to the dog. As Eve ran to her human, the woman stalked off to her house, with hurried, fearful, steps, the machete hand, raised, in case she needed to use it.

The boy hugged his friend, enjoying licks and kisses, but at the same time felt remorse as the girl entered her home and firmly shut the door. It could not end like that. It simply could not.

Presently, Joseph went to her door and knocked upon it. After a moment, he laid his prized pocket knife where it would be visible to her, were she to peek out. Then he retreated, to wait in the distance.

It took precisely ten minutes before she stepped out and grabbed up the knife, then shut herself in, again. The young man made himself comfortable, stretched out on the ground, with Eve lying beside him. He even slept a bit. When he awakened, the girl was standing nearby, studying his face. In her hand was the pocket knife. Despite naiveté, he could not resist the feeling she appeared to be smitten with him.

CHAPTER FIVE

He doubted his own ability to converse but felt he must try. “Who are you?” After a pause, he added, “My name is Joseph.”

“Ah -” Her attempts at speech seemed to catch in her throat.

“Maybe you can’t speak; you have been alone so long you forgot how.”

Her head shook ‘no,’ furiously. “I -” she said.

Coming to his feet, with the fluid motions of the young, he said, “I think I understand. Just wait and, when you are ready, it will come.”

“I - I-” she said again, then, waving her hand to indicate this home and land are hers, she said, “My. Mine.”

“It’s the nicest home I ever have seen,” he said admiringly.

“You. The house by the big water.”

It was a jolt to his system to realize this woman knew about his presence in Spelville. “You knew and stayed away?”

Again she waved her hand. “This is mine. No one can take it. Away.”

He gave her his most sensitive, sincere, look. “Okay. I don’t want your property. What is your name?”

“Dylan. I had a last name. I don’t recall what it was.”

“How old are you? I’m nineteen, nearly twenty, now.”

When Dylan showed no inclination to answer, he went on. “It was you I frightened off, from inside that empty house.”

“She’s my sister. The one in the bed.”

“So, you come to remember?”

“And love.”

Joseph avoided telling Dylan that he had buried her sister’s bones, but he explained in detail how the men arrived on a boat to take over his home and that he and his family were forced to hide inside her sister’s house.

They spoke, awkwardly, for a bit.

“Well. I have to go home, now. My Mom and my sister need me,” he said at last. “May I have your permission to visit you sometimes?”

Dylan blushed a bit. “Yes, thank you,” she stammered.

“I promise, you will not be sorry you made me your friend.”

“I like you,” she said shyly.

All the way back, Joseph’s heart was singing. He swaggered into the house, saying, “Mom? Guess what?”

The house was empty. Those men.

With a sick feeling deep inside and blind fury to propel him, Joseph raced for home. He was realist enough to know he might be too late to keep the boat from departing. One certainty: It would head upstream because the captors would be eager to show off their prize. He gambled on the boat’s uphill progress to be slow because the river held a strong current.

A breakneck pace through the wood brought him quickly home. He stormed into the house, finding it as he had been expecting. No one was there. The boat had gone. He would follow it, of course. Joseph packed the full store of dried fish but nothing else. Traveling light enough to maintain a fast pace was the only consideration he could countenance. He ate a few fortifying bites and gave some chunks to Eve.

Minutes after setting out, he heard noises, as of someone following. He ducked into a stand of high brush and waited, holding Eve still by petting her head and neck. When nobody appeared, he began to doubt there was anybody there. Suddenly, somebody spoke from behind him.

“Thanks for waiting for me.”

Mortified to be caught out so easily, Joseph regarded the broadly grinning Dylan and realized she had likely been behind him the whole way from her house.

The grin faltered. “I want to see you. Be with you,” she said, uncertainly.

“It could be dangerous, to be with me. You understand what is happening here? I have lost my mother and sister. I am chasing the boat, to get them back. There could be danger, for both of us.”

“I want to be with you.”

Joseph did not have time to discuss the matter. “Suit yourself,” he declared, as he set out again to chase the men on the boat.

Dylan trotted easily beside him. She said, “I brought walnuts for us to eat.”

“What? When did you get time to gather up food?”

She simply smiled and touched his hand. Against his will, almost, Joseph’s mind revisited the sex manual he had sunk in the river. He began to see how the information it contained could be useful, and pleasant, even, when applied to a woman such as she. He wondered how much she knew of those things.

#

By late afternoon, they could see the boat ahead, valiantly treading against the strong river flow. They discussed the two options of (1) following until the crew landed, or, (2) moving ahead in an attempt to anticipate the final destination. “By a conversation I had with these men, I fear they could live a thousand miles from here,” Joseph lamented. “Our best course, I think, is to keep pace with the boat and hope they stop somewhere along the way.”

Dylan suggested the boat would stop for the night some place.

He loved Dylan by now and he felt grateful for her levelness of reasoning. They trailed behind the barge shaped vessel, waiting for it to land. They could not know that the calm backwater the boat settled in had once been the place from which Nicole drew her water and where she first sighted Brady. Four men waded ashore. Joseph identified Jerry Peasalt, James Clayton, and there were another two unidentified with them. They went down a long slope in the direction of a cluster of crumbling rooftops.

Joseph and Dylan hunkered down, hoping the other eight would follow. When none came ashore, he lay back to rest, using the bag of dried fish as a pillow. Eve curled up to sleep. Dylan snuggled against Joseph and the trio slumbered until morning. When they arose, the sky was still dark. They saw the lights on the boat receding upstream, it already valiantly struggling against the swift water.

They breakfasted on walnuts, dried fish, and drinks from the river.

The would-be rescuers had no trouble pacing the boat. They just had no strategy for how to effect a rescue. Only a lucky break could make it a possibility. Then there occurred this thought: The noisy things on the back make the boat go. If they could knock them off or make them stop functioning -

After that, they paid close attention to four motors that were mounted on the rear of the boat. Joseph entertained a notion that they could be remove and sunk. If he were successful, the men would have to abandon the waterway and walk. Having the women off the boat could present rescue opportunities afresh.

The next time the boat paused for a sleepover, they paid close attention to which lights burned all night and whether anybody came out for on watch duty. They determined that room lights always went off at bedtime and that the entire crew complacently slept the night through. As he prepared to tread the water and get close to the motors, Dylan advised him, “Did you notice they drain some fuel from the big tanks secured against the wall and then pour it into the motors? They can’t work without the fuel. If you could drain those tanks it would be much easier than moving four heavy machines.”

Joseph beamed. “You are so smart,” he gushed. “I saw the same thing but failed to grasp it.”

“You recognize a good idea, which makes you equally smart,” she said, taking his hand. She said, solemnly, “Be careful. I don’t want to lose you.”

Joseph felt overwhelmed by the emotion of the moment. But he had to shake it off to be effective in his mission. He took leave of her and eased into waist-deep water. By the time he reached the hull he found himself swimming. The clever boat builders had devised a ramp that allowed one to simply grab a side rail and pull one’s self up and walk up to the deck. He tried to move gently, to avoid the sort of noises or vibrations that alert of an intrusion. He came to the tanks, which were fifty-five-gallon drums full of fuel. After a moment’s experimentation, he discovered how to open the cocks to allow the liquid to pour out at a wide-open capacity. Afterward, he heaved himself overboard, in a race to avoid being engulfed in the vile-smelling flood that already sent rivulets into the water. He escaped to the shore, with Eve jumping happily to be reunited with her pal and Dylan hugging him with all her might. “You did it,” she exulted.

“But, we have to get away from here,” he said, pointing out that there soon would be twelve very angry men after them, with mayhem in mind.

They took up their dwindling bags of food and backtracked, hoping their pursuers would give up the chase rather quickly, once they considered the extra walk being added to the journey home. They went off the original trail and into a rocky ravine, hoping to come up in hard to track terrain. At one point, Joseph carried Eve on his shoulders, because she found navigating such big stones impossible. On the other side of the ravine, they made a series of turns and soon were once again traveling upstream. The going would be extra difficult, because they could not go the exact route the kidnappers would take.

As it turned out, they made the better progress. Of an early morning, they burst onto a scene, of a bus and a barn-like building, all on a rather good road. As they came close, Dylan said, sounding wistful and hopeful, “If we could learn how to drive it.”

“We can certainly try,” Joseph declared, striding with long and fast steps right up to the door.

There was a key lodged in the door keyhole. They had no difficulty getting inside. He eased onto the big driver’s seat and grasped the key that rested in the ignition switch. “When I was a boy,” he explained, “I used to play in the cars in front of my home, that are rusted shut, now. Mom showed me how they were started and how one worked automatically and how you had to shift some gears to drive the other one. I think this one may be an automatic. If so, that is some good luck.”

Dylan looked on, eagerly. “Well? So try and start it.”

“We had best coax Eve in here, first. If she hears it doing anything at all, she will run away.”

Dylan enticed with the last crumbs of dried fish until Eve came up the steps and reached out to snap them up. They cajoled and treated her gently, and finally, she moved into the aisle and settled on the floor. Joseph shut the door and focused on the operation of the vehicle. He was turning the key, the bus rumbling to life when Dylan shouted at him. “They’re coming. I see three of them, running and closing in.”

Joseph made some right choices and the great wheels turned, in the very instant a burly hand grabbed at the door. They were underway. But the bus jumped into a thick growth of young trees and tall brush, a cushiony barrier, and the quick stop stalled out the engine. The man came through the door and lunged past Dylan, roughly grabbing Joseph, fighting to wrestle him away from the steering wheel. He fought back from an awkward position, as Dylan crooked an arm about the man’s throat and did her best to choke all consciousness out of him. Eve barked, but could not commit to attack the intruder.

Their struggle went for naught, as the other two men now filled the door, with pistols drawn. The fight was over, the first man stepping away and Dylan and Joseph accepting their defeat. Eve pushed her head against Joseph, seeking reassurance.

“All right, you two. Get out of the bus.” The first man with a gun had a black beard and cruel green eyes. He was Styxx Malone and the one truly vicious member among the kidnappers.

The other man with a gun was known as Carl Pring. He stood back, waving his weapon, to urge the couple to move.

The first man, Jorge Cruz, pulled his clothes straight and followed the two onto the dirt. He stood back a bit to look them over. “Ain’t you two a pair?” he remarked, angry, but showing grudging respect. “Who could have thought you would empty out the fuel like that? You made it hard to get here.”

He gave Dylan an appraising stare. “But I am glad it happened this way. ‘Cause, now, we got us three women.”

“She belongs with me,” Joseph cried, angrily.

Jorge regarded Joseph with steely eyes. “We are civilized men. Ain’t nobody going to get hurt, here. Not unless somebody tries it on us first. But we got to be realists here. We got forty-five men and only three women. We got to work something out and according to law. Law as enacted in New America. That’s our town, New America. Now, you can go along with us, if you swear allegiance to our rules. If not, you are on your own.”

Joseph made no reply, bristling, still, for Dylan. He held onto her, tightly, making it plain she would have to be ripped from his grip if they would take her.

The men were in no hurry to make their move. “We will have perhaps a day’s wait, for the others,” Jorge said, conversationally. “After we lost your track, we three raced ahead, knowing you might find the bus. It was a lucky guess.”

“Come with us and get some food,” Carl Pring offered. He had long since put away the gun.

The men could not help staring at Dylan. She stoically endured the attention, but Joseph was certain she had no interest in these men. They entered the barn-like building, where there were abundant stores and equipment brought in from New America, even a banquet table. Much of the food had been cooked and preserved in canning jars. In addition, there were nuts and dried berries and dried fish.

Styxx sat across from them at the table, while Jorge Cruz and Carl Pring readied the meal. Carl let them see a canister that, when opened, produced enough heat to warm some canned beans. Another canister heated water for the instant coffee.

All relished the ample portions of pinto beans. Joseph took a sip of the bitter coffee and pushed his cup away. Dylan sniffed her coffee and also rejected it.

Styxx knocked Eve away with his foot when she came close, hoping to also be fed. Angered, Joseph went over to the food stores and sought out something for a dog. He found some dried fish and took out a hefty portion. The dog would have snapped it up, but Styxx lumbered forward and snatched it from the hand of the younger man. “That dog provides its own food,” he proclaimed.

Carl, who had never been fond of Styxx, intervened. “The dog is too busy traveling to be hunting,” he asserted, at the same time grabbing a pack of dried fish and pulling out multiple chunks, that fell on the floor.

Styxx did not press the issue. He growled a bit as he turned and resumed sitting at the table. He glowered at Carl until his attention moved to Dylan’s cooling coffee. He drained the cup and wiped his mouth with a forearm. After watching Jorge do cleanup a few minutes, he rose and went outside.

Carl took Styxx’s place. “He’s not so bad,” he confided. Then, reflecting, added. “Maybe he is. But he obeys the rules, just like the rest of us.”

He nodded to Dylan, then said to Joseph, “You are not a prisoner, you know. All you have to do is tell us you are leaving and you can walk away. Alone, of course. Let me tell you how it would benefit you to join in, instead. New America is a democracy, with strict laws. As a citizen, you would need to learn our laws and obey them. As you were informed, we are civilized people. But, women are included in our constitution in a separate category, not intended to enslave anyone but to ensure the survival of the human race. “And,” he added, “to be truthful, to keep the men from mobbing the women.

“A woman will be provided a secure habitat. Among her duties to the community is to play host to a revolving succession of the men, who each in his turn will live with the woman. At the end of his three weeks, he will leave the woman’s residence and she will refrain from keeping company with him or any other man until it is determined whether or not she has been made pregnant with child.

“Don’t interrupt me until I am finished.

“The woman has certain inalienable rights. Rape, cruelty, or use of force against her, is strictly forbidden. If during his stay, the woman rejects any physical overtures, the relation will stay platonic. In which case, there is no need to delay the next man’s stay, since there is no way for her to be pregnant.

“Here is where the scenario affects you, personally, young man. The rounds begin with the youngest men and the old ones get to go last. That’s because the young’s loving is more likely to end in pregnancy. You are the youngest of us all. You and your lady will live together for the first three weeks. But if you leave, you and she will never lay eyes on each other again.”

Joseph was a quick study. “Is it good for everybody to be mixing up like that? I mean, pretty soon, you all would be each other’s relatives.”

“There is truth in what you are saying. There will be a record made of who fathered whom and we will try to keep the offspring as distant that way as possible. Hangry Jones is one feller you have got to meet. He is building us a airplane and a fleet of drones. One day he will fly to New York City and other places to look for us enough women. He better hurry. Ain’t none of us getting any younger.”

Joseph sat in deep contemplation. He knew he would stay on, just to be near Dylan and his family. He also knew he would seek a way to rescue them. To that end, signing pledges, and not intending to honor them, figured with his plans, for he considered it duress and duress negated any contract.

Carl stood up and looked around for his companions. He saw Styxx had returned and they all were in the back, resting on bunks. One of them had already padlocked the entry door. “We had best get some rest,” he observed. “When the others catch up, we are planning on driving straight through.”

He went to a bunk that had not even a sheet and took to his bed, shoes and all.

Joseph and Dylan continued sitting at the table, spending as much time alone as they could. Their hands touching, their eyes seeing deeply into each other’s, they made plans for how to spend the time in New America.