Robert Wilson - Julian Comstock - A Story of 22-nd Century America

But that was all Philosophy, and not much use; and I kept quiet about it as we spurred our horses toward the railroad, the distant East, and the whole onrushing future.

By leaving Williams Ford in search of the safety and anonymity of a distant city, I began to learn something of the imponderable vastness of the Nation in which I lived, and the surprising variety of its people. That useful knowledge was obtained at considerable risk, however, since we were still pursued by the horsemen of the Reserve, who considered us less Tourists than Fugitives.

After we left the digs at Lundsford we found ourselves once more in open country, a drear treeless fiefdom unrelieved by the vertical works of man or nature. Clouds gathered and darkened the wintry sky, and by the afternoon we were riding through curtains of squalling snow. Our horses, already tired, quickly became exhausted—my own mount Rapture perhaps more than the other two animals, for both Sam and Julian had taken young geldings from the Estate’s stables, while Rapture was just a working horse, thin at the shanks and of an appreciable age. Indifferent as I generally was to the wants of animals—not a few of the Estate’s horses and mules had attempted to plant their heels on my skull as I shoveled out their stalls, thus alienating my natural sympathy—I did begin to feel sorry for Rapture, and for myself as well, as the discomfort of the journey settled into my legs, thighs, and spine. I was relieved when darkness began to gather, since it meant we would be obliged to stop and rest.

But that wasn’t a simple matter in the snowy wastes of Athabaska. There was no natural shelter at hand, only a landscape so nearly flat that I could credit Julian’s assertion that it had once seen service as the bottom of a primordial ocean. Sam halted, and stared into the gloomy and snow-shrouded distance as if listening for pursuers. Then he beckoned us off the road a ways. This seemed to me a dubious choice, since the true path of even the main road was increasingly obscured by blowing snow. But Sam had long anticipated the need for an eventual escape from Williams Ford, and he had scouted this route in advance. We followed the remains of a rail fence, the posts of which were blunted protuberances from the whitened prairie, until we reached the ruin of a fieldstone farmhouse, degraded by time and weather but stout enough to provide shelter and a place for a modest fire.

Thus the snow became an ally, concealing any trail we might have left. Sam had laid in a cord of wood (chopped from the spindly willows that grew along a nearby creek) and had even provided fodder for the horses. Sam and Julian set about preparing a meal while I dried and curried the horses, and I made sure Rapture got his ration of hay without interference from the high-born animals.

I was wet and cold myself, and the farmhouse was gloomy and admitted the wind through every hollow window and dropped board; and I didn’t like the dangerously fractured and weakened plank floors, or the walls and rafters that seemed made more of mildew than of anything substantial enough to support a roof. But Sam selected the most sheltered corner of the building, and reinforced its gaps with a tarpaulin from his kit; and he built the fire in a galvanized washtub suspended on massive rocks, so we could stoke its heat without fear of setting the entire house aflame. And because Sam had equipped himself like a soldier embarking on a long march, we enjoyed cornmeal and bacon and coffee, in addition to the salt pork and stale bread I had hastily packed.

We talked among ourselves while the fire crackled and the night wind stabbed its knives about. I was uneasy with Sam, whose unusual religious inclinations I had so recently discovered. And perhaps he was as uneasy with me, for he turned to me as we finished our corn-cakes and said, “I never meant for you to come with us, Adam. You would have been safer in Williams Ford, despite the conscription.”

I told him I knew the choice I had made, and what it meant; and I thanked him for his help, and promised to make myself as useful as possible on the journey.

“Since you’ve cast your lot with us I’ll do my best to protect you from any risk—I promise you that, Adam. But my first obligation is to Julian’s safety, only secondarily to yours. Do you understand?”

It wasn’t a reassuring statement, but it was honest and, within its scope, generous. I acknowledged it with a nod. Then I took a breath and apologized for my shock at the discovery that he was a Jew.

“It’s a matter best left undiscussed,” he said, “especially in public.”

No doubt that was true; but my curiosity had gotten the better of me, and since the present situation was very far from “public” I ventured to ask how long he had been a Jew, and what had led him to choose that venerable if problematic faith out of the many possibilities at hand.

Sam frowned, in so far as I could detect any expression beneath his beard. “Adam… those are personal questions.…”

“Yes, and I’m sorry, please excuse me, I only wondered—”

“No—stop. If we’re going to be traveling together I suppose you’re entitled to ask. What embarrasses me is that I can’t supply a whole answer.” He stirred the fire contemplatively while the wind howled in the crevices of the darkened ruin. “My parents were Jews, though they kept their practices clandestine. They died when I was very young. I was raised by a charitable Christian family until I was old enough to enter the military.”

I guessed that was how he had acquired the skills necessary for passing undetected in a Christian majority. “But the rituals you were enacting—”

“That’s all I have of Judaism, Adam. A few prayers for special occasions, poorly remembered. I’ve met a number of Jews in my career and to some degree refreshed my understanding of the religion’s rites and doctrines. But I can’t claim to be either knowledgeable or observant.”

“Then why do you light the candles and say the prayers?”

“It honors my parents, and their parents before them, and so on.”

“Is that enough to make a man a Jew?”

“In my case it is. I’m sure the Dominion would say so.”

“But you disguise yourself very successfully,” I said, meaning to compliment him.

“Thank you,” he said, somewhat acidly, adding, “We’ll all three have to disguise ourselves very soon. Ultimately I mean to get us aboard a train bound for the east. But we can’t travel among respectable people—the news of Julian’s disappearance will have been disseminated among that class. We’ll have to present ourselves as landless. You in particular, Julian, will have to suppress your manners and vocabulary, and you, Adam,” and here he cocked his eye at me with an earnestness I found disquieting, “you’ll have to forgo some of the gentility of the leasing class, if we’re not to be discovered.”

I told him I had met many examples of indentured or transient laborers through my father’s activities in the Church of Signs. I knew how to say “don’t” for “doesn’t,” and how to spit, should the necessity arise, and how to swear, though I didn’t like to.

“Even so,” Sam instructed me, “the men and women who follow your father’s faith have already distinguished themselves from the lowest types by their urge to attend a church. In a few days we’ll be surrounded by thieves, fugitives, adulterers, and worse, and not one of them interested in repentance. I can make you look low-born easily enough, but it will take some study before you can act and speak the part. Until then my urgent advice is to keep your mouths shut whenever possible—both of you.”

As if to set a tutelary example, he lapsed into a brooding silence.