Neal Barrett - Through Darkest America

A broad river snaked through the far side of the valley, brown and lazy. And that was right enough, he figured— Papa had talked about how towns needed rivers for trade, if they expected to grow and amount to anything. Old Cities were probably no different.

Howie didn’t know much about Cities, or what they were supposed to look like. It wasn’t something folks talked about. Mostly people just said they’d been bigger than anything ought to be. That there’d been plenty of open country to live in, but that everyone wanted to be close up together. It was a hard thing to understand. Bluevale and Cotter were fun to go to, but Howie couldn’t imagine staying there, with that many people about. And those were just towns—not anything like what a City must have been.

Something bad had happened to Cities in the War. Something terrible. Only nobody could say just what. Even the Scriptures didn’t go into much detail about that. God had found Men eating the flesh of unclean animals and He had washed the Earth of corruption. Only that didn’t tell you a lot. Looking down on the ruins of the City you knew there was more than that. Not something you could see, exactly. More like what you could feel , inside.

By noon he was down the side of the mountain and near the edge of the City’s beginnings. He hadn’t thought much about not going, or what dangers he might find there. All the old stories about ghosts and devils and other awful things didn’t seem too scary anymore. There couldn’t be anything lurking in the City much worse than what was after him already. Still, he kept his mind on the trail ahead and didn’t peer too close at the blunt knobs of dead stone all about him. And he was glad enough he hadn’t come upon this place in the dark.

The idea had started forming in his head while he was still on the mountain. And the longer he thought about it, the better he liked it. It was one of those ideas you knew was right from the beginning.

He’d been lucky so far, but luck didn’t last forever. It had started running out when he’d lost the horse. A man on foot didn’t stand a chance, and he knew it. They’d get him sooner or later. Today, maybe. Or next week. But they’d get him. As long as a man left a trail, there was another who could follow it. But the river, now, that was something else! As soon as he’d seen it shining in the distance, he’d known that was the way. Get to the river—find something that’d float. Anything. Drift down the current at night, hole up during the day. It didn’t matter much where the river took him. It flowed west, away from home where people knew him. Right now, that was all Howie needed to know.

He took a careful, twisting path through the City, watching his tracks and staying to the cracked stone roadways when he could. He watched the sun and knew he was edging toward the river. In midafternoon he holed up in the shell of a building and finished his mushrooms. There was nothing else around to eat. But he could do without, for now. And it was good just stopping a minute and not running. Maybe the City had been a good idea, he decided. Most people stayed away from the old places. It wouldn’t stop the soldiers, if they figured he was in there. But he’d gained some time and they weren’t around now. The birds told him that. He could rest awhile. Then get to the river, and wait for night to set in. They’d never take him then nobody’d ever hear about him after that.

Jacob’s soldiers had kept him on the run, giving him precious little time to more than catch his breath. Still, any chance he’d had Howie studied the guns he’d taken from the trooper. He figured he knew how cartridges fit in the smaller weapon, the one you held in your fist, and what you did to make it go off. That was clear enough from the way it fit your hand. He wasn’t too sure yet of the longer one. If he had to, he decided, he could point the handgun in the right direction and fire it.

It was about the last thing in the world he wanted to do— and likely would be, if it came to that. That was the thing about guns; you could hit a man further away than a bow’d ever think of reaching. But everyone for miles around sure knew what you were up to.

He didn’t mind admitting he was scared to death of the things. How did a man use one without going deaf? Did you ever get used to that? Still, he’d never figured on riding a horse, either. And he’d done that, hadn’t he? Though his tailbone’d near torn in two the first couple of days. Horses and guns were fearsome things—but they were precious goods to have. Howie had learned that well enough. They made a man faster and stronger than other men. A man with one had terrible power—a man with both could do pretty well what he pleased. Papa and his mother and a lot of other people were dead because they hadn’t had either. Well, it wouldn’t happen to him. Not ever. He’d get away from Jacob’s troopers, and he would never let another man get the best of him.

The river ran slow and easy near the shore, swift and certain in midstream. He sat quietly and watched a long branch float by; it bobbed quickly out of sight around the bend and Howie grinned to himself. He’d be long gone when the sun found him in the morning!

It was a safe enough place to wait out the day. The small backwater was studded with high brush and willows, masking him from the river. The log he’d picked was well hidden, but ready to go—the long gun strapped to its side. The handgun was tight against his belt. Howie near itched for sundown. Now that he’d set himself to go, the hours seemed to be creeping by.

He lay on his back in the brush and watched a jay squawk overhead. During the last few days he’d thought about killing one, but something had stopped him. Birds weren’t exactly unclean, but you weren’t really supposed to eat them, and he never had. He could try for a fish, but that would mean getting too close to the water and he knew he couldn’t risk being seen.

He started remembering the canal trip to Bluevale, and Papa and mother and Carolee, and the big turtle on the log, and how Papa had let him handle stock for the first time. He swept the thoughts aside. Those were years gone and over. In a world that wasn’t his anymore.

At least, he thought, Carolee was all right. Safe on Silver Island. That was something. He didn’t have to worry about what was happening to her. There wasn’t anybody left to worry about now. Just him.

The jay hopped to a stone wall and looked at him. Dark brown stained the wall where metal had been. There was probably a lot of iron left in the City, though people had pretty well stripped what they could find years before. Nobody liked the Cities, but metal was worth going after. Sometimes a bargeman or someone else who traveled a lot would show something he said came from the Cities—a coin, maybe, or-something out of glass. He’d try to sell it if he could, but no one much wanted things like that. They weren’t supposed to bring good luck.

Something stirred in the brush nearby and Howie sat up straight. It moved again, and he searched the foliage without turning his head one way or the other. It was close. Not more than five yards away. He reached for his bow, then turned around slowly—and almost laughed to himself. There it was, green on green and nearly invisible, but plain as day if you knew what to look for. A big bullfrog, fresh from the river and just sitting there, fat as could be, waiting for a fine blue fly.

Hunger came back and set juices moving in his belly. He thought how the frog would keep just fine in the water—and by morning, he’d be far enough downriver for a fire. Bringing up the bow on his far side, he carefully nocked an arrow. There was one thing about frogs—you had to hit ’em square, right in the head, or they’d hop out of sight and die in deep water. Only he was sure his stomach wouldn’t let him do a fool thing like that.