Another Like Me

by Albert Norton, Jr.

  Peter was a font of information, but it wasn’t just data, facts, and figures one might get in classes on agronomy, climatology, hydrology, geology. It was experience applied to knowledge, as if he intuited the interaction among variables of temperature, moisture, clay content, sand content, friability, depth of organic material, depth of subsurface compaction, acidity, drainage, nutrient leaching, orientation as to sunrise and sunset—and that at different times of the year—and varied yet again for the different crops he expected to grow in different places, started at different times in the respective growing seasons. Just the reliability of the wells Peter had dug constituted a matrix of variables all their own. There was no time or feasibility for scientific analysis of every element of the project. Peter just talked about it as he went along, knowing that Jack the big-city lawyer probably knew little of it, and even if he had some understanding, it would relate to an entirely different part of the country and, therefore, be of little value here in the dry west. Even the seemingly simple decision of where to put the fence line was fraught with so many future-oriented variables that Jack found it bewildering. It was more and more interesting to Jack the more he learned about it, and as his understanding grew, it seemed that they were tearing along, helter-skelter. An exercise in applied science at breakneck speed. And then Jack would remind himself of all the times he’d seen farmers in their fields driving their tractors, trundling across the earth’s surface with a dust cloud behind, Jack thinking how mind-numbing that must be. He’d had no idea how wrong he was. He and Peter were engaged in high-level executive mental functioning, at fast speed, and yet so far they were just laying out the new garden space. Jack’s admiration for Peter grew as his appreciation of the value of his own legal training diminished. Jack felt close to the land, to the elements of air, water, soil, and sunlight—and all of this just to enclose another area around the existing acre of fenced garden.

  It was peculiar, his relationship to Peter. Or it would be if Peter were not the humble young man that he was. Jack was older, and wiser in some ways though not in others, he now saw. Peter was deferential to Jack’s relatively exalted status as it was before the die-off, not to mention to the presumed wisdom that came with more age. But, perhaps precisely because of that additional age and experience, Jack understood well that his advantage was certainly not in practical knowledge that might be of any use now. Rather, if there were an advantage at all, it was in the ability to navigate between the youthful idealistic desire for altruistic giving of self and the mature understanding of that grasping drive to domination that existed in humanity, then and now. In other words, dealing with the rest of mankind. Of which there was little, now. That which was, though, certainly required the exercise of wisdom.

  Jack still had some dark moments, though fewer and fewer in the face of the physical job to do and the satisfaction of seeing it done in place, in physical reality, and with the exhaustion that came with spending himself on it. But in the dark moments he did entertain, Jack considered that the existence of the Apache, and the Diné, and the potential for conflict between them, and the potential for threat to Peter and Robin, gave him a reason for continuing to place himself as Peter’s senior, in his and Peter’s minds. Otherwise, he was just a workhand on the ranch with no other place to go—not because he couldn’t afford it (it was all free) but because he’d have no idea what to do with a place of his own, and no desire to separate himself from the one small community he was welcomed into. Why leave the one and only oasis when all the world’s a desert?

  The days marched on in this way. Two weeks went by—six days of strenuous physical work, a day of whimsical nothingness, then six more days of work, and another day of nothing. By the second of such rest days, Jack clearly understood that Robin and Jack were observing the Sabbath. Though he’d completely lost track of the days of the week himself, Jack took it as given that each of the rest days was a Sunday—the first day of the week, and a day that Robin and Jack would not lift a finger to what seemed like pressing work, instead spending the long day first holed up in their rooms with their Bibles, and then lolling about the kitchen table, or surveying the field, or walking a few miles into the White Mountains with rifles slung onto the back for protection and not for hunting. Jack had nothing but respect for this. The workload for getting the new garden space ready, before the hard cold of winter, had admittedly caused him to move a few steps mentally toward the driving, compulsive man that he was prior to the eclipse of mankind. And yet, the wisdom, indeed the necessity, of this pattern of every-seven-days rest seemed obvious.

  “You haven’t told us much about your family,” Peter said one day as they were driving back in Jack’s SUV from the Sentry Hardware store in Alpine with fence-building materials.

  “Well,” Jack made a gesture of futility with one hand. “Happy home, good upbringing. Mom, Dad, a brother and a sister. Funny little Christmas traditions unique to our family. All good.”

  Peter was silent.

  Moments went by, and Peter remained silent.

  “I’m sorry, Peter.”

  Peter shrugged, and looked up and forward, down the road.

  “Peter, can I tell you something?”

  “Sure.” Jack was glad that he was driving. He had to keep looking forward, not at Peter.

  “I do miss them. I’m tempted to say that it wasn’t such a loss because I was fully an adult when everything happened, and I’d moved on, so it wasn’t like you might imagine, someone at your age. That’s what comes to my mind. The thing I’d tell you so we both get by it and move on. But you’re a good man. I respect you.”

  Peter ducked his head. He was looking at the baseball cap he was holding in his hands.

  “It’s always hard to lose your parents, but everyone does. At least, that’s the usual order of things.” Jack looked over at Peter, who was looking down again, but Peter was nodding, a sign of recognition of the truth. He’d been there.

  “As for my siblings, that was harder, honestly. But it was a while back, and I’m reconciled to it. It’s not like losing a child. Or so I imagine—I never had a child.”

  Peter looked over at Jack—a sustained, inquisitive look—then down again. Then what? He had to have been wondering. What disappointment was left for Jack to cling to?

  “I don’t mind telling you that I’ve struggled a bit by myself,” Jack said.

  “Of course.”

  “Yes, of course, but I didn’t like the direction I was going before I met you and Robin.” Jack was getting choked up, and he took some deep breaths because he didn’t want his emotion to get in the way.

  “It was different for you,” Peter said. “I had Robin. And we were aware of the zombies, at least. It had to have been harder for you.”

  “No.” Jack tapped the steering wheel, summoning his thoughts. “It wasn’t hard. It should have been hard, but it wasn’t. Well,” and here his voice said he was relenting, “it was, but not in the ways you’d expect. I was as ingrained in the population of the world as it’s possible to be, and at the time, I treasured every moment alone. Every moment I could redeem from the mass of humanity around me.”

  “That doesn’t seem unreasonable for a single guy in New York City.”

  Jack looked over at him, a testing grin on his face.

  Peter smiled. “I’m imagining. I’d have had a hard time with it, too, I’m sure.”

  “Okay, fair enough. But that’s how I was then. It was exhausting, being so much a creature of society. Then suddenly, there was no society at all. I did all right for a while, but then I found that to be the problem. The opposite extreme. Not exhausting in the same way this time, but not healthy. You can’t imagine how glad I was to meet you and Robin.” Again Jack felt the emotion rising, and he paused, hoping to have the pause seem natural in the exchange. “I had no idea how far I had gone in loneliness. It changed me. Gradually. Then I met you guys, and there was this big change the other way. All of a sudden, I thought about everything differentl
y from one moment to the next. I had no idea someone’s outlook could change so quickly and so completely and so fundamentally.” Jack wanted to put the difference into words, but even he, with his considerable ability to articulate, couldn’t do so. Finally, he just said, “People aren’t meant to be alone.”

  Jack pulled into the gravel driveway of the ranch, scattering chickens. He was planning to park between the house and the outbuilding in order to offload fencing and stage it to enclose the new garden area they’d been preparing. Before he could make his way down the drive, however, Robin ran out to greet them. This was unusual for her, and Jack slowed to a stop. Her hands were folded across her chest. Jack noticed the household 9 millimeter cupped inside her hand and hugged to her side. Even Dewey had a more serious air about him. Robin stuck her head into Jack’s driver’s-side window to address Jack and Peter. “They’re here,” was her hoarse whisper.

  Both Jack and Peter had the presence of mind not to ask who—a question that could be delved into later, as important as it might be.

  Jack inferred from the whisper and from the way Robin held the gun that the intruders didn’t know they’d been spotted, but to be sure he asked, “Not inside the house?”

  “No.”

  “Do they know you know?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Jack smiled as if Robin had delivered a funny story about her day. “Where, but don’t point,” he said brightly.

  “The treeline. Past the garden. East side.”

  “Do they see us now?”

  “I think so.”

  “Lean your arms into the window.”

  Jack was gratified to see how well Robin understood the terse direction. She put her forearms onto the base of the window space and dropped into a casual stance next to the vehicle. She held out the .9-millimeter, palm down, as if she were making a speaking gesture, and released it into Jack’s hand. Jack inverted it again and placed it onto the space just ahead of the console, where Peter’s hand closed over it.

  Jack rolled forward at a casual pace, Robin walking alongside casually, no more than a couple of feet from Jack’s SUV. They carried on a chat as if they were talking about the weather, but in the space of that minute or so, Robin informed them that she’d seen three people and suspected more—and just within the last hour. She said they were attempting to hide themselves, but she’d nonetheless spotted them, and that she thought that they as yet believed she was unaware.

  Jack braked right next to the step-up onto the little back porch, smiling big and talking to Robin as if he were in no hurry to get out of the vehicle. What he was actually telling her was this—“Everything’s normal. Let your body language convey it. We’re going to come in like we’re taking a break inside. Peter, put the gun under your shirt. Let’s take in the rifles, but at the same time, we take some of the materials we got, just pick up something at random so the rifles don’t seem odd. Then we’ll all go inside, but Robin you go first. Now. Get Dewey in before he acts more skittish than he already is.”

  Robin smiled big, bigger than he’d ever seen. “Okay! Dewey, come on boy!” And she went inside. Thankfully, Dewey followed obediently. Peter took both rifles over one shoulder and carried a box of fence connecting pieces. Jack fished out his binoculars and the monocular and the collapsible mount for it, placing it inside another box. He started to turn from the car, but turned back, put the box on the seat, and quickly loaded more ammunition into it. Then he followed Peter inside.

  Inside, Jack dashed to the table and set down the box. He handed an extra magazine for the Sig to Peter, taking from him the Weatherly, and taking up some more ammunition from the box for himself. But then he slung the Weatherby across his back and gestured to Peter to do the same. “We need information,” he said and handed the binoculars to Robin. He handed the monocular eyeglass to Peter. “For all we know, they’ve got binoculars, too, and they could be sitting out there watching the windows. Try not to be seen.”

  With that, Robin positioned herself a few feet back from the window closest to where she’d spotted the intruders, and at a bit of an angle. Peter did likewise on the opposite side of the house, looking for sign of movement inside the treeline at the uphill, southwest edge of the garden, and then westerly at the edge of the overgrown pasture to the northwest.

  “Holler if you get a hit,” Jack said to Peter.

  Jack positioned himself behind Robin. “Have they moved?”

  “I think so. I don’t see them now.”

  “Tell me what they looked like.”

  “Just white guys. One maybe Mexican. Dressed like you, nothing unusual. A big guy. They’re all kind of clumsy.”

  “Not too stealthy. Not Indian then.” Jack watched her face in response to this and could see the corner of her mouth twitch up a little, despite the tension.

  They watched intently for a few minutes, and when they had no further sighting from any angle from the house, they began speculating about who it was and what it all meant. It seemed like more effort than they’d expect of the zombies, but it could have been other Apaches or Diné. Perhaps they’d seen Jack’s vehicle in Alpine. Jack became antsy, wondering if the idea of staying in the house in a defensive posture was the right thing to do. They’d hardly had a choice at first, but that was then, and this was now.

  “I think we should move,” he said to Peter and Robin.

  “All three of us?” Peter asked.

  “I don’t know. There’s not an ideal option. We don’t want to end up with one of us trapped here. Let’s you and I do a sweep around the house—but stay in sight of it. We can go opposite ways and meet back here in ten minutes. Sound good?”

  “Yeah,” Peter said, pocketing the spare clip in the big pocket of his down vest. “Robin?”

  “I know, I’ll keep an eye out the windows for you, but I won’t get too close.”

  “Good girl.”

  Jack said, “I’ll go southwest past the barn and sweep over to where Robin saw them, to the east. Why don’t you go out the front, along the pasture, and then sweep this way, from northwest to east.”

  “Okay,” Peter said, and they were gone.

  Robin watched anxiously out the windows, occasionally catching glimpses of Peter and Jack. They were in a pincer movement, closing in on the area where she’d seen the intruders. A few minutes later, she saw Peter gesturing to Jack to indicate he’d seen no sign of strangers. Then another few moments went by, and she saw Jack and Peter meet up. They had a brief exchange and came jogging back to the house, each entering the same door he’d left in order to get one last look around in every direction from the house.

  “No sign?” Robin asked when they were inside.

  “There were signs, but they were gone,” Jack said.

  “They were on horseback,” Peter said. “Four horses.”

  “You could tell it was four?” Jack asked. “Good thing I’m running with Apaches. I wouldn’t have even seen that the ground was disturbed by horses. What?”

  Peter was chuckling. “Boy, so much wrong with that statement. You know we’re Americans, right?”

  Jack laughed, even as he considered that there was much wrong with Peter’s jest, too, in this new era. What America? “I’m thinking we should go. I don’t want to hang around here in case they come back, and us still not knowing anything.”

  “Yeah, let’s go,” Robin said.

  Both Jack and Peter looked at her.

  “Well, we don’t want her here alone if they circle back,” Peter pointed out.

  “Right, let’s go and be quick about it.”

  “I’m thinking horses,” Peter said.

  “I was afraid you’d say that, but you’re right. They’d hear my car from miles away, plus we’d have to stick to roads. Too bad I didn’t finish my riding lessons. You want to saddle ’em and bridle ’em, or whatever you do?”

  “Sure, why don’t you keep a watch from here in case they do come back? I’ll be ready in ten minutes. Five.” Peter h
ustled out the back door, taking the Sig with him. Robin settled in to scan out the first east-facing window.

  “Is this how you caught me?” Jack asked.

  Again the corners of her mouth drifted upwards, behind the binoculars. “Pretty much,” she said.

  In fifteen minutes, all three of them were jogging from the barn toward the treeline where Robin had last seen the intruders, the horses trotting along behind them, each at the end of the reins used now as a tether. Jack wondered if he imagined a sense of mission on the part of the horses, having been readied so quickly and bolted out of the barn with no warmup.

  They paused to peruse the place where dark scuffs in a wide bed of ponderosa pine needles indicated horses recently tied up, a little downhill from the crest above the house on the east side where Robin had seen the intruders. They could see more scuffs where the needles were particularly thick, and in this way were able to track the horses.

  This tracking, up and down, through forest and grown-over pasture, carried on for the better part of two hours, and it seemed that just when they thought they might lose the trail, they’d pick it up again. Several times, Peter or Robin jumped off their mounts to avoid scuffing up an area that might contain tracks.

  “I feel like I’m in the middle of a Western,” Jack said.

  “You are,” Peter responded.

  Indeed he was, Jack thought, but then realized his situation was doubly, triply removed from the routine of a matinee Western. He was living a western movie inside a zombie movie inside an apocalypse movie. Movies and novels and plays are little worlds we devise for ourselves, but they’re not as strange as reality. They’re just plot lines compressed.