Journal (26 page)

When
they reached the highway, they started walking along its edge until they
spotted a big truck with an attached flatbed trailer.  It was surrounded with
brush and weeds.  The windows of the cab were completely broken out, so they
decided to shelter under the trailer portion.  When they crawled under, through
the weeds, something, an animal of some kind, took off in a rush into the
storm.  They wrapped themselves up in the tarp they carried and waited for the
storm to die out.

In
the morning, with things pretty much settled down, they struck out again in the
direction they hoped to find us.  First, they walked down to the river.  She
said, “We figured that we had to stay within sight of the river if we were
going to find you.  But the river exposed us too much.  So I ended up following
its bank, while Gabriel went up ahead and inland a little bit.  That way, he
would hopefully spot anyone coming our way in time to warn me, and I would be
able to see you on either side of the water.  We did this pretty much the whole
day, except for once when the terrain forced both of us to move inland.”

“When
did that happen?” I asked.  “Morning, afternoon?”

“It
was about mid-morning, I pickup truckwot think.  Why?”

“Well,
that’s probably the point where we crossed paths on opposite sides of the
river.  Petra and I came across the boat about mid-day.  That means about mid-morning
we would have been in the same area of the river you were, only across from
you.”

“Do
you remember where the bank rose almost straight up, about thirty or forty feet
on our side?” she asked.  “The rocks were huge at that point.”

I
thought about it, tried to picture that portion of the area in my head, but
couldn’t.  “Sorry, but that still has to be where we passed one another.  It
only makes sense.”

It
crosses my mind, as I record our conversation in as much detail as I can recall,
how timing can work for you or against you.  If Petra and I had started out a
little earlier, or a little later, or if we’d walked just a bit faster, or a
bit slower, or if they had, we would have seen each other and possibly avoided
the events that followed.  I also think how, as usual, timing seems to always
work against us.

She
told me that as they went further north, they became more and more concerned
about our fate.  When they first started out, they correctly assumed that if we
had survived, and we wouldn’t just wait for them to find us but would
immediately start south.  But as the hours and miles passed and we weren’t found,
they began to talk, hesitantly at first, what they both feared but had kept to
themselves — that we had drowned.

Anna,
at this point, tried to explain her feelings in confronting the probability of
our deaths.  Her words struggled from her in the most painful way; forming,
halting, starting again, pushing her emotions to the very edge before pulling
back just in time to stop them from spilling over.  This continued for some
moments until she finally passed that delicate point of equilibrium and began
to quietly cry.

I
reached out and took one of her hands, and I think I kissed it once, too.  I
felt its warmth, the roughness on its palm side, the softness on its back, and
the hope it offered me.  I held it like the most precious thing, enjoying the
richness of the feeling it gave, while waiting for her to empty out.  In time,
sobs gave way to deep breaths and gradual calm. In the end, with the back of
her other hand, she swept away the last of her tears and began anew.  Rather
than try to put words to feelings, however, she went back to explaining what
happened next.

As
she began speaking, I moved next to her and put my arm around her shoulders.  She
gave a quarter turn away and leaned into me so the back of her head was resting
on my chest near my shoulder, and pulled my arm across the front of her.  I
think in these last few minutes, any walls remaining between us were now just
dust at our feet.

“We
eventually came to a road that crossed over the river to the east bank and
considered taking it, but in the end decided to keep going on our side a little
longer.”

This
must have been the same road Petra and I took to cross the river shortly after
the storm hit.se people want you so bad?”

“We
walked on for another hour, maybe more, until we came upon the place we thought
was where you and Petra went into the water.  There was no sign of you, of
course.  Even if you had left some evidence of your survival, it was surely
washed away by the storm.”

This
was their low point she said, a feeling I could very much appreciate given my
own thoughts when we found the damaged boat.

With
agreement, they turned around and retraced their steps back to the same road
they had passed an hour before and crossed to the other side of the river. 
Just as they were about to turn south again, toward Woburn, they were startled
to hear the sound of an engine off in the distance.  They continued to hear it
for several more minutes but never saw its source.  At this point, Anna and I
speculated on what it could mean.  There’s no use in rehashing that discussion
here, other than to say that we agreed it meant nothing good for us.

Anna
said that she and Gabriel really picked up their pace as they walked back
south, this time on the eastside of the river.  In fact, they walked well past
dark, such was their concern for making up the time and distance they had lost
trying to find us.  Their objective was, once again, to get to Woburn as soon
as possible.

As
if feeling guilty for assuming the worst about our fate, Anna turned her head
up and to the side, and kissed me full on the lips.  It was a long, lingering
kiss that had the reaction you might expect.  Her story, at that moment,
suddenly no longer held my interest, and I began trying to come up with the words
that would best explain the ideas that now occupied my thinking.  But before I
had my suggestion fully plotted, she went back to talking, and I struggled to
refocus.  I guess we are still strangers to each other in many ways.

She
said that they eventually stopped for the night in a small grove of trees not a
hundred yards from the road that traced the eastside of the river.  No sooner
had they settled themselves down then they heard gun fire somewhere up ahead of
them but not too close.  My assumption is that these are the same gunshots that
awoke Petra and me, and eventually led to the discovery of the two men, one
dead and one dying, I wrote about earlier.  I also now reflect on how close we
must have been to one another at that point and wonder how many others, of both
good and bad character, are nearby right now.

In
the morning, they moved on.  She said, “After a couple of hours of walking,
Gabriel swore he heard someone shouting.  I didn’t, but we still got off the
road and stood quietly for several minutes.  Neither of us heard anything
further, so we continued on our way again.  You know how it is, though, we kept
thinking about it, wondering if someone was nearby and we were going to walk
into trouble.  So periodically we stopped to listen and watch, both behind and
in front of us.  Sure enough, we spotted them, Nora and that man.  They were
behind us.  I’d know her anywhere.”

Gabriel
and Anna hurried on at that point, looking for a place to ambush them.

I’ll
stop Anna’s narrative at this time.  I’ve already essentially recorded the rest
of;
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4tif their story some pages back.  There’s certainly no point of repeating it
here, even from Anna’s perspective instead of mine.  But I must add that as she
said her last few words to me, she laced her fingers into mine and squeezed my
hand.  Her arm rested on the outside of my own, for the most part, and I could
feel the rise and fall of her breathing through the softness of her breast.  I
kissed her ear and nestled my cheek into her hair.

In
the silence, I felt her body sink back into mine.  I kissed her neck and
wrapped both my arms around her.  We sat there in this way for several minutes
before she finally leaned forward, stood up, took my hand, and led me to the
unoccupied bedroom.

There,
on a dusty mattress, covered with a dusty blanket, washed over in the faintest
of light, we made love — slowly at first, almost awkwardly, and then with the unrestrained
passion of lovers held off too long.  After, sleep came so fast that I have no
recollection of anything said between us or of any caresses taken or given.  Just
sleep.  And in the early hours of the morning, before even first light, we woke
almost as if on mutual arrangement and made love again.  This time, commitments,
promises, and words given to feelings long held secret were exchanged.  Everything
was different, or at least seemed so.

As
I think once more about these incredibly deep feelings I hold for Anna, I find myself
trying to make sense of them instead of just surrendering to their truth.  I
always do this.  I know it, and I can’t help it.  It’s my way I think of taking
control of my life, of denying the inexplicable randomness of things, such as finding
love amidst the wreck of civilization, because to surrender myself to fate or
chance or whatever you want to call it, makes me seem powerless over the course
of my life.

I
guess the thing is, I just want to know that what I do today changes what
happens tomorrow.  I want to feel that I matter; that my life is not just a
series of reactions on my part to accommodate events orchestrated by some being,
or worse, by chance.

I
love her.  It’s genuine.  I know this because I can feel it.  I think she loves
me, too.  Would it be the case under other circumstances, though?  Does it
really matter if it wouldn’t?  Love is love, is love, regardless of what
unlikely occurrences, random, intended, or divine, brought us together.

I
remembered something Claire Huston wrote and have found it again in the pages
of one of the surviving volumes I’ve carried all these miles.

“Love
always makes a difference.  Great things come from it. People are changed and
good is done….”  Claire Huston, September 2050.

Another
thought: is that what we’re doing?  Are we subconsciously trying to make a
difference with our feelings?  Love by definition is the antithesis of hate. 
Where love exists, hate is displaced.  Is this union, she and I, a decided part
of the struggle for survival against Ponytail and all other haters?  It’s
something he can’t destroy.  It will sister in San Antonioged and stand in spite of him.  It can’t be
captured or stolen or shot or torn apart.  It can’t be buried either.  It
claims its space and changes the world because of its mere existence.  Is it
our win?

___________

As
I lay there in the early morning hours of April 15
^th
holding her,
hoping for the time to prove the promises I’ve given, the floor gave notice of
Gabriel rising and prompted my wondering of his take on these new things.  He
and Petra are certainly a part of it …If they accept me.

After
a few seconds, I heard him leave his room, walk past our door, and eventually go
outside.  I followed soon after and went into the kitchen, cracked a window,
and saw him settle against a tree looking west toward the river with my rifle
resting across his knees.  I turned away and began a search of the cabinets for
anything of use.  The day had started.

Anna
and Petra continued to sleep, which allowed me a start at forming these last
several paragraphs.  I enjoy writing.  It helps me sort some of the confusion
out.  I’m determined to continue on with it for as long as I can.

Eventually,
Anna woke and, in turn, woke Petra.  I heated tea over an old coffee can, well
vented with holes around its base and elsewhere, to contain a fire built from
paper and twigs.   The first cup I carried to Gabriel before rejoining Anna
where we examined the map I have so often referred to.

We
found the town of Orson on the map and first determined that we had about one
hundred miles to go, give or take, before reaching Woburn.  Once again, I
figured about five days travel if we pushed ourselves hard and made at least
twenty miles a day.  That would have us arriving a couple of days before the
expected attack.  We might do better than that if the terrain and our enemies
were accommodating.

One
of the problems, we agreed, was that the route we now traveled was dangerous.  Several
times now, we’ve encountered people intending to do us harm.  We’ve so far
managed to escape unhurt but bad luck, a moment of inattention, or a mistake on
our part could change all that.  If one of us got hurt or trapped, we might not
get to Woburn in time, and if killed, not at all.  So we decided to change our
route slightly.

The
map wasn’t detailed enough to show exactly where, but in or near the town of
Orson there was a road that went due east for several miles before connecting
with another road, a minor road, that went south, essentially parallel to the one
we had been traveling on.  The parallel road (not named or numbered on the map,
so I’ll call it “Road P”) continued south approximately sixty or seventy
miles.  At its point of termination, we’d have to choose to turn back to our
original route of travel or go cross country for the next twenty miles or so. 
We might even find some lesser, unlisted roads to travel on at that point.