Z for Zachariah (17 page)

Suddenly I had a feeling he knew I was watching. Or worse, that he hoped I was. Along with it came another feeling which made me feel slightly sick again: that I was in a game of move-counter-move, like a chess game, a game I

did not want to be in at all. Only Mr Loomis wanted to be in it, and only he could win it.

After he had tied the dog up and fed him, Mr Loomis walked back to the road and stood looking, first in the direction they had walked, towards the store: having seen nothing there, he turned slowly in a full circle, inspecting all of the valley that he could see. At one point he stared straight at me, and I had a fearful impulse to put down the binoculars and duck into the cave. But he could not see me, I knew; in a moment his gaze went on past, he completed his circle, and went into the house.

I took stock of what I had in the cave: a few pounds of cornmeal in a paper bag, some salt, three tins of meat, three of beans, one of peas, two of corn. That was all the food—not very much. I had the two guns and a box of shells for each. A sleeping bag, a pillow and two blankets—but no change of clothes except for the extra shirt I had brought from the store: the rest I had taken back to the house. A pot, a frying pan, a plate, a cup, a knife, fork and spoon. Two candles, a lamp and a gallon of kerosene. One book:
Famous Short Stories of England and America
, which we had used as a text book in high school English. And three bottles of water—former cider jugs, holding one gallon each. However, the water had been in the cave for weeks, and might be stale. After dark I would pour it out and refill the bottles at the brook.

The sun was going down, and I decided before it was fully dark I would see about making the fire. What I had in mind was to build, if I could, a wall of some kind near the cave, not very big, but enough to hide the glow of a small fire from the direction of die house.

It turned out to be quite easy. I found a more or less flat place, a shelf, on the hillside a few yards up. I dug into it with a stick, raking the loosened earth with my hands into a low pile on the downhill side. The resulting hole was about six inches deep, about the size of a wash basin, big enough for a cooking fire. The pile of earth was too low to hide it, so until dark I collected rocks, about brick-sized, to pile on top of it. When I had enough, or nearly, I could no longer see to fit them properly; I left it to finish the next day, by daylight, and ate cold beans for supper. I remember thinking, tomorrow night I can cook some cornmeal. I hoped also to have some milk.

After I had eaten I carried two of my bottles to the brook and refilled them with fresh water. I also rinsed my spoon and washed my hands and face. I felt very tired; I was yawning continuously and realized there would be no staying awake that night. That alarmed me somewhat because sound asleep at night I was vulnerable, as I had learned. I decided as a precaution at least not to sleep in the cave—with only one entrance, and a small one, it would be like a trap.

I took my sleeping bag and a blanket up to the small shelf where I had been building the fire-wall. There was just room there on the other side of the hole to spread it out. The ground was lumpy but it made no difference. I fell asleep instantly and did not wake up until the sunlight reached my eyes this morning.

I got up, washed, ate (the rest of last night's beans), took my bedding back to the cave, and set out for the house. I went the long way round, of course, by the pond and the store so that I could approach along the road as I had left. I did not want him to have any idea as to which direction I was really coming from.

Approaching the house I saw no sign of life or motion. The tent stood in the garden, and the wagon beside it sealed in its green cover. Where was Faro? I thought he would be tied outside but he was not. When I came up to the front garden I stopped, staying in the road, and waited. I planned to go no closer than that.

I did not have long to wait. In only a minute the door opened and Mr Loomis stepped out on to the porch. He had seen me from inside. He came down the steps, limping, holding the rail, and stopped at the bottom.

"I thought you would come back," he said. Then he added, "I hoped you would."

For a moment I was stunned, and could not think what to say. He was sorry and wanted to be friends again. Yet I could not forget die horror of that night, and I knew that I would never trust him again.

"No," I said, "I am not coming back. Not any more. But I thought we should talk."

"Not come back?" he said. "But why not? Where will you stay?"

It was as before, the time he had held my hand and I had struck him. He acted as if nothing had happened, or as if he had forgotten it. For a moment I thought, maybe, somehow, he does forget the things he has done. But I knew it was not true; he had not forgotten. He was, rather, pretending, like a child who has done something terrible, that it had not happened. Yet there was nothing childlike about him.

I said; "I will find somewhere to stay."

"But where? This is your house."

"I would rather not discuss it."

He shrugged, very unconcerned. "All right. Then why did you come?"

"Because although I can't stay here any more, I need to stay alive, and so do you."

"True," he said. "I intend to stay alive." He was looking at me curiously, thinking as he talked and not necessarily saying what he was thinking.

"If we are to stay alive," I said, "there is work that has to be done. There are the crops and the seeds, the garden, the animals."

He said: "Of course, that's why I thought you would come back."

"I'm willing to do those things if I am left alone. I will also bring food and water as you need them. You will have to cook for yourself. There is a cookbook on the kitchen shelf."

"And you will go away at night. Where?"

"To another part of the valley."

He was thinking all the time. He glanced down the road in the direction I had come from. Finally he said:

"I have no choice. I can only hope you will change your mind." He paused. "And act more like an adult and less like a schoolgirl."

"I will not change my mind."

He said no more, but turned and went back into the house, closing the door behind him. I went to the barn, trying as I went to guess what he was thinking. He would be making plans, and from our conversation he had learned some things he had not known and needed to know. That I was not going to move back to the house. That I was going to do the work. That I was going to bring him food and water. So he would plan on that basis. But plan what? It is possible that he will just accept what I have offered, stay in the house and leave me alone. Eventually go ahead and build the generator.

But I do not believe that. He was very curious about where I was staying. He asked that repeatedly, though unobtrusively. And he has tied up Faro.

Where had Faro been when we talked? There had been no sight nor sound of him. He must have had him tied up inside the house. Did he think, then, that I might try to untie him—to steal him? (As Edward had stolen the suit.) I remember I did, in fact, think of doing that. Then I had a really sickening thought.

It was that whatever Mr Loomis was planning, at the end of the plan was a picture, and it was of me, tied up like Faro in the house.

I put it out of my mind and milked the cow. She was going dry; there was no doubting that. The calf was almost fully weaned, and I had missed several milkings in a row, which had helped to speed the process up. Though I was careful to get the last drop she gave only about half a gallon. There were assorted milk pails hanging on the barn wall; I poured the milk into two of these, dividing it evenly, and put one of them on the back porch for Mr Loomis. I fed the chickens, gathered the eggs, and divided them, too, four apiece. From the garden I got peas, lettuce, and spinach, and took half and set the rest on the porch. Finally I had to get a burlap feed sack from the barn to put my stuff in, though it barely filled one corner.

In short, I did my morning outdoor work about as usual, and he left me alone, not even coming out on to the back porch. I did have a feeling he was watching me through the kitchen window, though I caught no glimpse of his face.

About noon I went to the store and got him a load of groceries. I ate there, from a tin on the shelf, opening it with one of the tin-openers Mr Klein sold for forty-nine cents. When I carried the groceries back and left them on the porch, there was smoke coming out from the chimney and the milk, and the eggs and vegetables were gone. He was cooking lunch. I made a mental note of two things: if I was going to continue to bring groceries he would have to let me know what he needed; if I was going to bring water he would have to set one of the water cans out when it got empty.

At four o'clock, having run the cultivator between the rows of corn and beans, I stopped work and walked back to the store, on my way to the cave, thinking as I went that for one day, at least, the system had worked. It was unnatural and uneasy, but if it worked again tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that, perhaps I would become less afraid, the tension would ease, and we could work out a way of sharing the valley, if not amicably, at least bearably. So my hopes were lifted a little. I also thought that if I could get the wall finished I could build a fire after dark and cook a hot meal. I was quite happy.

I stopped at the store to replenish my food supply. Since I had my burlap feed sack already with me I used it as a container, removing the four eggs first. I gathered a dozen tins of assorted meat, vegetables and soup and a bag of flour. I put the eggs in a brown paper bag and added them on top. With the garden stuff I already had that was about all I could carry, since I had to keep one hand free for the milk can. I decided to take a few more items each day, gradually building up my supply.

I deposited these at the cave and hurried on, while it was still light, to finish my fire-wall. The more I looked at the site I had chosen, the better I liked it. For one thing there was plenty of bushes and quite a few trees between it and the house; in fact, I could not see the house at all from there, so I was quite sure that with a little care I could keep the fire quite invisible. I added more rocks, chinking them with dirt and moss. In about half an hour I had a respectable looking small fireplace, its back on the downhill side, about eighteen inches high. Adding the depth of the hole I had dug, that meant that if the flames were smaller than two feet they would not show. I gathered some dry sticks for firewood.

While I waited for darkness I looked down on the house. Mr Loomis had come out again with Faro on the leash and was walking with him, this time not down the road as before but out behind the house. At first I did not understand just what his object was but as I watched it slowly became clear.

When they had walked before on the road, Faro obviously tracking, Mr Loomis had guessed he was following me. Now he was making sure.

I got out the binoculars to see better. As soon as they got behind the house, Faro put his nose to the ground and led the way to the garden—where I had been. Then to the barn—where I had also been. Faro, in other words, has caught on to the game, and Mr Loomis, having watched from the window all day, knows that he has.

Finally Faro led him to the last place I had been before leaving, the barn door where I had put the tractor away after cultivating. Here Mr Loomis stopped. He opened the door, looked in, and then, seemingly as an afterthought, looped Faro's leash around the door handle. He disappeared into the barn.

He was out of my sight, but it quickly became apparent what he was doing. After perhaps five minutes, I heard the churning metallic sound of the starter, and the sputtering of the engine, muffled because it was inside the barn. A minute later it grew louder, and the rear wheels of the tractor appeared, moving cautiously as he backed it out.

He had, as far as I know, never driven a tractor before—hence the five minutes, which is what it would take to work it out for anyone who knew how to drive a car. The clutch, accelerator, and brake pedals were the same; the gear lever similar, two speeds forward and one reverse, plainly marked "1", "2", and "R". Even the ignition key and steering wheel were the same.

Mr Loomis backed it all the way out of the barn, shifted into forward and drove it in a small circle in the barn yard. He shifted into neutral and raced the motor a little as if to hear how it sounded. In forward again, he drove it back into the barn and turned it off.

He untied Faro from the door; the dog picked up my track again and started to lead the way towards the store. But Mr Loomis, already knowing I had gone that way, led him back to the house. It was growing dark. A few minutes later I saw a light come on in the kitchen window. If he was cooking there must be smoke coming from the chimney. In the dusk it did not show, and I thought, if I could not see his, he could not see mine. I had laid my fire; now I lit it, got it going—small but enough to cook over—and crept carefully through the bushes halfway down the hill towards the house.

There I waited until the dusk had turned to full darkness, looking alternately at the house (to see if he came out to look) and up the hill towards my fire. The wall was successful; there was no trace at all of flame or glow. The only danger might be an occasional spark; I would have to be careful about that. I went back up the hill and in a few minutes was cooking myself a dinner of tinned ham, corn meal cakes, peas, and scrambled eggs. I was extremely hungry.

After I had eaten I felt tired and, though I should have gone to the stream to wash my dishes, I began to write in this diary.

I wish now Mr Loomis had never come to the valley at all. It was lonely with no one here, but it was better than this. I do not wish him dead, but I wish that by luck, by chance, he might have taken some other road and found some other valley than this. And I wonder: could there be others? Walking here from his laboratory he came south, and this was the farthest south he had come. Could it be that further south there are more valleys like this, other places that have been spared? Perhaps bigger than this, with two or three or half a dozen people still alive? Or maybe no people at all. If Mr Loomis had taken another road he might have found one of them.