Never Too Far

by Christopher, Thomas

  The man walked down the hill in a bizarre way. His short bandy legs appeared to swivel out in front of his torso as if his top and bottom weren’t connected right. His stovepipe hat wobbled on his head.

  While Mary stayed curled in a tight ball behind him, Joe got to his feet. The man was a great deal shorter than Joe, but something about his gregarious nature made him seem larger. His skin was brown like clay and his cheeks shallow and streaked with hairs. A stringy billy-goat beard hung from his chin. He held his pipe clenched in his stained teeth when he smiled. His eyes gleamed.

  “Nahum’s the name,” he said

  He extended his hand, and as soon as Joe grasped it, the man’s fingers clamped tight. He squeezed Joe’s hand hard enough to make his bones grate together.

  “Who do I have the pleasure of meeting?” Nahum said.

  “Joe.”

  “Joe? That’s it? Joe? Nothing else.”

  “Nope. Just Joe.”

  He could’ve kicked himself for saying his real name. Frank told him to never tell anyone, or else make up a phony name. But he was so taken aback by this strange man in the stovepipe hat that he couldn’t think to make up a phony name for himself.

  “Fine. Joe, it is. No need to be formal here.” Nahum flicked his pipe to the other side of his mouth while still smiling.

  “Who’s that behind you?”

  Joe nudged Mary with his heel.

  “She’s an orph—” He caught himself. “She’s my girl. She’s pregnant and I’m taking her to the city to give birth.”

  “Pregnant, huh? The city, huh?” Nahum narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You sure she is okay?”

  Joe looked at Mary. She still hadn’t moved from the tight ball she was curled into.

  “She’s kind of afraid of people.”

  “Afraid? She looks downright petrified.”

  Joe bent down beside her, his hand on her shoulder, and lowered his head to where her ear was hidden by the brim of her hat.

  “It’s okay,” he said, “you can get up.”

  He glanced up at Nahum who pursed his lips. He sucked hard on his pipe and then peeled open a corner of his mouth to let the smoke escape. Mary finally unrolled herself and stood up. Her head was bent so low it appeared as if it was growing out of her chest. At the full sight of her, Nahum stepped back and widened his eyes.

  “Jumping Jehoshaphat,” he said. “That tiny thing really is pregnant. She’s about to pop.”

  “That’s why she needs to get to the city. She’s breech.”

  “Jumping Jehoshaphat.”

  “We need to find the bridge. We’re off course.”

  “I’ll say you are. The bridge is that way.” Nahum pointed behind him over the hill. “My place is not too far from here. Why don’t you come for something to eat? You look half starved.”

  A meal sounded good, and it would make the meager amount of food they had left last longer, hopefully until they got to the forest where he could hunt for something. Still, he wasn’t sure it was worth the risk to go off with this very odd man.

  “Don’t trust me, huh?”

  Nahum shoved his hand in his frayed pants, pulled out a handful of bullets, and flung them all into the river.

  “Frisk me. No more ammo.”

  He held his arms out in invitation, but Joe didn’t move.

  “Here,” Nahum said, “take the rifle.”

  He planted it right in Joe’s chest.

  “You got no more excuses.”

  Chapter 12

  A while later, farther down the river from where they met Nahum, they arrived at a raft laid up on the bank. It was across the river from the trees where the smoke was rising. In the center of the river was a dry mud flat that shined like a dull sheet of tin as the water flowed around it in two thick channels.

  “Can I make it across?” Joe said.

  “Bring the horses and leave the wagon,” he said. “Don’t worry. Nothing is going to happen to it. You’re the first person I’ve seen along here in a year.”

  “I can’t take that chance.”

  Nahum waved his hand in the air with a dramatic flourish. “Drive on, then,” he said.

  Joe couldn’t tell if Nahum was annoyed or if that was just the way he acted.

  “I know a place to stash it,” Nahum added.

  They rode until they came to a rocky outcropping that stuck out of the ground near the river. That’s where they left the wagon. Joe led the horses as they walked back to the raft, where Nahum heaved it into the water and used a pole to push himself across.

  Joe looked at Mary and said, “We got to take the horses across, okay? So I got to help you up. I’m just going to lift you up. That’s all.”

  The floppy hat nodded.

  Joe scooped Mary up in his arms. He was surprised at how light her body felt, despite her big stomach and the child inside. He thought it would weigh her down more. Once he swung her up onto Lester’s swayed back, she immediately tossed her leg over his neck and sat straddling him like she’d done it a thousand times before. That surprised him too, just like the way she took care of the horses after the duster. In truth, anything she did was a surprise, at least until he learned more about her.

  Joe scrambled on the back of Sam and they waded slowly through the river. At its deepest point, the water only came to the horses’ knees. Evening approached and the sun dropped lower, but the air was still hot. On the opposite shore they weaved through a cluster of trees until they came to a mound of patchy brown grass with a brick chimney sticking out. A stream of white smoke rose from the top. Behind the chimney was a rusty windmill that looked as if it might topple over any second.

  “It’s an old bunker from a long time ago,” Nahum said, “when everybody thought the world was going to end.”

  He laughed and grabbed the black metal ring on the wooden hatch and yanked it open. They walked down a set of crumbling steps until they reached the floor of the bunker. It looked like a root cellar and certainly smelled like one. Musty and earthy. Above a wood table, a lone lamp hung from a rafter along the low ceiling. The lamp burned with a bright halo that quickly weakened before it reached into the bunker’s dark corners. On the stovetop sat a steaming pot of what smelled like boiling fish. Joe stayed stooped over, keeping his head bent so he wouldn’t bang it on a rafter. He felt like a mole in an underground burrow. And when he watched Nahum rummaging for cups and plates, the strange man sort of resembled a mole himself. His broad hands were like a mole’s flippers, and his bearded face was like a whiskered snout.

  Joe noticed Mary moving off to a dusky corner, where he was shocked to see a girl sitting there, her eyes wide and shining like a cat’s eyes. In her arms she cradled a bundle. She rocked it gently back and forth. At first Joe wanted to warn Mary not to get too close, but then he realized she was probably drawn to the bundle swaying in the girl’s arms. No doubt it was a baby.

  Nahum finally found the plates and cups he was searching for and shouted, “Aha!” When he turned, he said, “Oh, yes. That’s my girl. I named her Eileen, and that’s her baby she’s holding, and I named her Hannah, which was my mother’s name. What do you think? Nice little family I got. She’s mute, by the way. Had her tongue cut out. Shwack!”

  Nahum stuck his tongue out and chopped his hand down in front of his mouth.

  Joe stared at the mute girl.

  “You want to see it?” Nahum said.

  “What?”

  “You want to see it, her cut-off tongue?”

  Before Joe could really answer, Nahum walked over to the mute girl.

  “Grab that lantern,” he said.

  Joe took down the lantern and handed it to Nahum. Then Nahum promptly seized the girl’s hair, snapped her head backwards, and swung the lantern in front of her upturned face. Joe couldn’t believe how roughly he was handling her. It was as if she was his livestock or something. Her big cat eyes were set into broad cheeks that tapered sharply to
a tiny chin. Her skin was ruddy brown.

  Nahum pried his fingers into her mouth and pulled it open.

  “Take a look.”

  Joe peered into her gaping mouth. The glistening purple stub quivered in the back of her mouth.

  “They cut it to the nub.”

  The mute girl pulled his hand away, and Nahum struck her with the back of his hand.

  Joe was stunned. “What did you do that for?”

  “It’s the only thing they understand.”

  “But she’s a girl.”

  “So?”

  “You aren’t supposed to hit a girl.”

  Nahum laughed.

  “What idiotic dirt-eater religion are you?”

  Joe didn’t like the way he said that. “I’m a Viridian.”

  Nahum laughed even more.

  “What’s so funny?” Joe said.

  “I can’t believe people are still practicing that nonsense.”

  “It’s not nonsense.”

  “Gibberish, then.”

  “’People will taunt you, but never be daunted.’”

  “That’s catchy.”

  “That’s the Prophet Roy.”

  “Suicide Roy, you mean. Let me ask you this. Has anything the Prophet Roy said come true? Has the mighty Goddess saved you yet? When is the Goddess coming to rescue all of her dunder-headed worshipers?” He roared with laughter. “Tell me, I must know. Tell me. Tell me!”

  “Stop laughing at me!” Joe shouted.

  “The Goddess is coming! The Goddess is coming! The New Paradise has arrived! We’re all saved!”

  “Stop!” Joe shouted again.

  He lunged recklessly at Nahum, who swiftly caught Joe by the throat and brandished a knife from beneath his ragged clothes. He stuck it in Joe’s mouth. The cold blade pressed against his trembling tongue. He tasted the bitter metal and waited for the knife to jam through his throat. The lantern swung from the elbow of Nahum’s outstretched arm.

  “You got a lot to learn, kid,” he said. “Everything is poppycock, and poppycock is everything.”

  He pulled the flat of the knife across Joe’s tongue and out of his mouth.

  “You’re quite a fratchy one. You need to get a handle on that or it’s going to get you killed.”

  Nahum let go of Joe’s neck, and Joe rubbed it to ease the sting. He stretched his mouth and wiggled his tongue to make sure it was okay.

  “You were making fun of me,” Joe said.

  “That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” Nahum said. “You got to learn when to keep your mouth shut if you know what’s good for you.”

  “I was sticking up for what’s right.”

  “Oh, idealism is dandy. But you’re going into a different world now. Life is cheap. Take my Eileen, for example. I bought her off some tribesmen in the south forest. They’d murdered her family and had a sack full of their eyeballs that they’d cut out of their sockets. Nasty, brutish people. Avoid them if you can. Anyway, they had the girl but they were getting tired of her. They cut her tongue out to keep her quiet. They were more than happy to get rid of her. They had their fun, you know. She was damaged goods now. I was coming back from selling the horses I had because, you see, I was planning to never leave my bunker and to live straight off the land till I died. So, anyway, I saw this girl and saw an opportunity, a cheap one, mind you, to have a companion. I showed them a little money and they fairly threw the girl at me. But I should have known better after what they did to her. Let my desires get the best of me. She came up pregnant. A baby from one of those damn brutes. What can you do? They’re mine now. Got to work twice as hard to feed everybody.”

  Nahum shook his head.

  Joe felt sorry for the mute girl, but her story also made him think of Mary. After all, it involved an orphaned girl who was pregnant. He wondered again where Mary had come from and what happened to her. Was it possible that something similar happened to her? Had her family been killed? Had she been abused by some tribesmen? Was that how she got the baby?

  “Eat!” Nahum shouted.

  After replacing the lantern on the rafter, Nahum ladled out chunks of breadroot and strips of fish onto the tin plates spread on the table. The girls didn’t seem interested in eating. Mary sat down beside the mute girl, who had unbuttoned the top of her dress so it fell open. She held the bundled baby up at an angle with one arm, propping its head against her chest, while Mary leaned over to get a closer look at the suckling baby.

  “Who knows what kind of savage that thing is going to grow up to be? I should’ve dashed its head on a rock and tossed it in the river like I first thought I was going to do. But the girl seemed so attached to it. I couldn’t bring myself to kill it. I got a soft heart, I guess. Who knows what kind of hell that’s going to get me into? Dig in.”

  Nahum plunked himself down at the table and shoveled spoonfuls of food into his chomping mouth.

  “How’s it taste?”

  “Good,” Joe said. That was the truth.

  “It’s cactasil. I grow it in my garden near the well. It makes everything taste good.”

  When Joe finished his food, he brought a plateful over to Mary.

  “You got to eat,” he said.

  She took the plate and scooped some up in the spoon and slipped it beneath the brim of her hat.

  After supper, the burrow filled with a smoky haze that became so suffocating Joe had to open the hatch to let some air in and some smoke out. But it didn’t seem to bother Nahum, who breathed smoke like others breathed air. At the mouth of the burrow, Joe sucked in the fresh night air and looked into the sky. It was teeming with glittering stars that appeared like falling snow caught in the glow of lantern light.

  They had to get back to the wagon soon, he thought. He was worried about somebody finding it and stealing the diesel. Their bellies were stuffed, and they had two jugs of water and another empty bucket that Nahum gave them.

  So when Nahum finally went to sleep, Joe and Mary snuck away.

  Chapter 13

  Through the night they traveled northward along the contours of the river. The banks glowed from the bright moonlight and the dark water shimmered. An edge of Mary’s floppy hat glimmered from a bit of moonlight that shone into the cab. All was quiet except the creak of the wagon and the clip-clop of Lester and Sam’s hooves.

  Joe didn’t want to spend the whole night in silence. He tried once again to get Mary to talk to him.

  “How about that old man?” he said. “Kind of crazy, huh?”

  What he really wanted to ask her was about Nahum’s story. Was it anything like her story? Mary wouldn’t answer, though, so there was no point in that.

  “And how about that baby?”

  Mary turned her head. That was all.

  “You don’t have to say anything right now,” Joe said. “You can think about it for a while and then tell me later.”

  Near dawn they climbed a bluff studded with white rocks. It overlooked a valley where the river meandered off into the brightening sky. Joe could see some thin trees crowding the river’s edge. He looked up river to see if he could discern a bridge, and he saw something dark that crossed the river. He didn’t know if was a bridge or not, but whatever it was it led to some forlorn buildings on the other side. It appeared to be some kind of a town. His brother Frank hadn’t said anything about a town, and neither had Nahum. Probably it was a ghost town, and not worth mentioning.

  When they got closer, Joe had a hard time believing what he saw was the actual bridge. In the back of his mind he wondered if they’d somehow missed the real one. The present bridge wasn’t much. It was made of wooden planks secured to rusty pontoons that stretched across sandbars and streams of slow moving water. He spotted some old tire tracks off to the side and some dark red shards of rusted metal. On the riverbank beside the wagon was a pile of crumbled concrete that must’ve been a pillar for a more substantial bridge in the past.

  Joe flicked the reins. Lester and Sam stepped reluctantly on the
shaky bridge and yanked the wagon up behind them. They plodded slowly while the bridge swayed and wobbled. Once they made it across, Joe could plainly see the remains of the old town—the half-crumbled buildings drifted with dirt and the wind-swept foundations of demolished houses. It was hard to tell what happened, or if what happened occurred all at once or in pieces. At one time, some people obviously tried to rebuild. They cleared the riverbanks of trees to construct crude structures. One of them even looked like a general store or a mercantile.

  As they passed the second battered building, Joe thought he saw something move in its open doorway. He stopped the wagon and grabbed the Calvin rifle from underneath the bench. He stared at the dark doorway.

  “You see anything?” he said to Mary. “I thought I saw something.”

  Nothing moved.

  Then he remembered that stopping for the caravan had got him in trouble last time. He didn’t want to make that mistake again. With one hand on the rifle, he shook the reins to keep going. Just as the wagon lurched forward, a half-naked man sprang wildly from the doorway.

  He charged toward the wagon. Joe didn’t have time to think, or else he would’ve shouted “Yah!” and Lester and Sam would’ve started to run, especially since they flinched and seemed ready to run anyway. But once again, Joe stayed put. Only this time he raised the rifle and aimed it at the crazed man barreling at him.

  “Stop!” Joe shouted.

  “Stop!” the man wailed back, but kept coming, waving his arms.

  “Stop!” Joe shouted again.

  The man didn’t stop, though. He looked savage, like a rabid animal.

  “I’ll shoot,” Joe said.

  The man’s eyes were wild, panic-stricken. He kept storming forward as if he wanted to attack them. In a spilt-second Joe pulled the trigger. He didn’t even really think about it before he did it. For an instant, nothing seemed to happen. The rifle fired, then nothing. After Mary screamed, the wild man stopped short like he either forgot something or he finally understood what Joe had been shouting. Then his head snapped back, his shoulders twisted to the side, and his body crumpled to the ground. He rolled over twice and lay still with his face up. He was covered in dust. There was a black hole through his left eye. Joe had shot him. He looked at Mary, who was crouched on the bench, and then he stared at the dead man again. Blood ran from his blown-out eye. Beneath his head was a spreading pool of dark red that shined like oil. Joe didn’t know what to do next. He’d never shot anyone before.