“First aid, you mean?”
“Everybody just looked at her and stood in a circle.”
“Yeah, we’re real good at circles in an emergency. Comes from our days out on the prairies with the Indians.”
Hadad looked over at Jerry, looking for some clue to his statement. He found none. But in a moment Jerry looked over at him, tried to smile, got no encouragement, and gave up and looked back at the road.
“Sorry. Just trying to make a joke. The last couple hours have been more than I could handle. Go on, tell me about Ruth. What happened?”
“She ran across the street to her car without looking for the traffic. We had been talking. The car, it could not stop.”
“So what did you do?”
“It was not special.”
“Stan seemed to think it was. He said something about if you’d been there when Mary was hurt. That’s special as far as he’s concerned. What did ya do? Come on, man, spill. Ruth’s a friend of mine. I’m interested.”
“She has told you about her healing, then?”
“More than told me. Every time I see her she’s trying to convert me to something. She got you converted?”
“No.”
“Got you’re own special magic, eh?”
Hadad laughed at that. Not a lot. Just a little. The man would not let him keep his silence. He thought about what he could say that would answer the question. They came around the bend and sharply etched before them were the jagged edges of yet a higher mountain. And then the turn took them beyond it, and another turn took it from view.
“Hurt is jagged like that mountain. Healing is putting the jagged pieces back inside instead of sticking out all over. Earth ones are smooth when they aren’t hurt or aren’t angry, or frightened.”
“Earth ones, eh? Sounds like you’re from outer space.”
“What would you say?”
“People.”
“But animals are the same way.”
“I get your point. Just sounds funny, ‘Earth ones!’ I mean, you’re an Earth one too. Do you say that about yourself?”
“No.” Hadad was honest, but he said nothing more.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to criticize. You talk like you’re from somewhere else.”
“I learned American second.”
“What did you learn first?”
“I don’t know your word for it.”
“Where are you from?”
“I was to be in Pau, to build the city again in the desert.”
“Never heard of it.”
“It is a lost city.”
“Like Atlantis.”
“What is Atlantis?”
“We’re back where we started from, a lost city.” “Then, yes, like Atlantis.”
“I give up. Where did you learn to do healing?” “At home.”
“In Pau.”
“No. At home.”
“Oh.”
Hadad looked at Jerry. The man was trying so hard to start a conversation, and Hadad felt he’d broken his commitment to talk, and so he looked for words, something that would do more than just answer the questions.
“Where I used to live, my people, we all do healing. It isn’t a special thing with us. That’s not true with all of my people. But it is true of all of us who are the marked people.”
“Like the mark of Cain?”
“I do not know about the mark of Cain.”
“Just talk, forget my comparisons. They don’t matter anyway.”
“Ruth broke her leg.”
“And you healed a broken leg, just like that, right there on the spot?”
“She is very healthy.”
“Is that all it takes, to be very healthy?”
“It helps.”
“You’re beyond me. I thought Ruth was way out there, but she’s never cured a broken leg.”
Hadad became concerned that he had made too much of the healing. He did not want Jerry to think he was different, foreign, someone to suspect. He changed the subject.
“Your parents are still in Prineville?”
“They won’t leave.”
“They must leave.”
“They say there’s nowhere else that’s safer.”
“That is not true.”
“Tell them that. I already know it.”
Jerry turned on the radio again and Hadad took that as a signal that his services as talker were no longer needed.
After a few songs Jerry snapped the radio off again. They rode for more than an hour in silence. “Where are you going?” Jerry asked abruptly. “Away from Prineville,” Hadad answered simply; but then he went on, trying to understand, to meet the abruptness of the question. “I had to leave Prineville. I am not a brave man. I do not have to defend a home. I have no family here.”
“I’m not questioning your loyalties. I’m just wondering where you’re going. I’m stopping up here a way and I suddenly don’t know what to do with you. Where do you want me to let you off?”
“This place will do as well as any other. Death will find me wherever I am. Life is as good here as anywhere.”
"Es la vita. ”
Hadad looked at the sign that marked the village they were entering. He read, “Vida,” and assumed the expression Jerry had voiced referred to the town. He looked around. Civilization stretched along the road. Nut orchards measured the yards to the river, houses nestled in the clearings in the narrow stretches beneath the sharp rise of forested mountains. The river ran swiftly, making a turn as it reached a covered bridge and then, slowing into stillness beyond the
bridge, reflecting the almost cloudless sky.
“Seriously, Dave. Are you telling me you don’t have anywhere to go?”
“Jerry, I am running away. I am not running to. This will serve me as well as anywhere else. I appreciate your ride.”
“Hell, man, come home with me then. There’s always room for one more.”
“I could not...”
“Man, where do you think you’re going to live? This is a small community. You either know someone, or you buy a home. There’s no work here, no hotels. You’re coming home with me. Fm not going to just let you wander off into the forest. Come on.” Jerry pulled into his driveway, got out, and started unloading the truckbed. There was nothing for Hadad to do but to help. It would have been rude to leave him there with all the boxes and furniture to carry. And so Hadad carried as he had at the mill There was family. Jerry had a wife, Madge; a son, Tony. The only concern at first was where were the parents. And then when the questions were answered there were introductions. Hadad was welcomed and another place was set at the table and he was shown to a room that he could sleep in, and then Madge began to cook the major meal of the day. it was still morning. Hadad had not been in a home in which cooking was the major function, and so he was puzzled at all the preparations. And he was not a part of all the conversations that accompanied the work.
He went outside and browsed the edge of the farm. He saw mice. He watched. He was not hungry yet. He was hungry, but not hungry enough to take a chance yet on what he ate. He watched the mice and wondered if they carried the virus. Soon he would have to take the chance. He waited, watching, wondering if he
had come to Vida to die.
“There you are. Dinner’s almost ready. Come on in and eat.”
“I cannot.”
“Dave, you’re welcome here. You’re not imposing. I could use some help on the farm if you need work. It’s okay.”
“I cannot eat.”
Jerry came over and squatted beside him. He did not say anything more. After a while Jerry watched the mice too.
“I gather there’s something bothering you, something more than your welcome.”
Hadad didn’t answer.
“Look, Dave, a lot of people are going to be uprooted in this. It’s that or die. You’re lucky you don’t have anyone to leave behind or take with you.” Hadad looked at him and then back down at the mouse that was peeking out from the
clutter of tools and toys.
“Wrong again, eh? There is someone. Someone back in Prineville. Are you sure you were right to leave?”
Hadad nodded.
“That’s a tough one. Did you have to leave her there?”
Hadad didn’t respond.
“Or wouldn’t she come?”
Hadad looked at Jerry. He didn’t say anything or suggest anything. He just looked.
“Trouble between you, eh?”
Hadad looked back at the mouse.
“Look, Fm not one to give advice, I don’t know you. I don’t know her. You have to make your own decisions in life. But when you care about someone, it’s hard when you can’t agree. I don’t know what to
say. You’re welcome here. Maybe shell change her mind. Look, come on in and have some dinner. Maybe you’ll feel better if you eat something.”
“I cannot eat.”
“At least come inside.”
“You and Madge are happy.”
“Yes; yes, we are. . . . Oh, I see. That does make it rough, doesn’t it? Fve been there. It’s hard to be around happiness when you’re not happy. I got it. What are you going to do?”
Hadad looked up toward the forest.
“You can probably camp out there. They’re not cutting at the moment. I doubt anyone would hassle you at this point. You can tell them you’re my guest if it helps.”
Hadad nodded.
“Let me at least fix you up with a tent and a sleeping bag. We’ve got a whole bunch of gear. You might as well be comfortable out there if you won’t stay here.”
He left and rummaged in the storage shed behind the house and came back with a tent, a sleeping bag, a lantern, and a canvas bag with straps that seemed to be stuffed with odd-shaped angular items.
“Here, this should get you started. Come back if you need anything else. I tossed in some freeze-dried food in case you change your mind about eating. And there’s a canteen of water in there too. And matches. Anything else you need, come on back. And don’t worry about them. Just drop them by when you’re done with them.”
Hadad nodded.
“And, Dave, I mean it; if there’s anything—” Jerry stopped, and went back to the house.
Hadad looked at the camping equipment. There was nothing he could use. But if he didn’t take it,
Jerry would be suspicious. He left the pile on the ground, went back to the truck for his clothes, came back to get the gear, and then headed uphill behind the farm into the reforested stand of trees that reached straight up behind the house.
The forest was damp. Hadad found a spot close to the ridge, a spot clear enough to make a dugout unnoticed from the road below, sheltered from anyone hovering above, yet open enough to give him a vantage point over Vida and the highway. He dug with his feet, not randomly as a dog will dig, but measuredly carving a space that would fit him, give him a space to store, and no more.
The ground was damp, and the rocks he uncovered were cold. It was not like the desert. The temperature was warmer but the chill was colder. He tried to lie on the ground and found the moisture crept into his clothes.
Among the items in the canvas pack was a square of heavy plastic. It was smudged with paint, dusty with red clay, but untorn. Hadad fit the plastic into the hovel, edged it with stones, burying the edges to keep them down. The rest of the gear he put in the storage place behind a rock with the other clothes he had carried.
He worked and then he watched.
He did not look for food.
The day moved slowly through the trees. Gradually it was replaced by woodsmoke. And then there were stars.
He was watched that night by the forest dwellers. He sat and established his presence. At dawn, he gave in to sleep.
The next day he made his peace with life and started to look for food. There were strange ratlike creatures with sharp teeth that were easy to catch by their tails. The smaller ones were tender, the larger ones chewed like leather. It was easy to find insects to season the food, but for the most part they were scrawny specimens, all crackle and little meat.
He did not die.
He waited for death for days, but he did not die.
And so he began to seek life and to become a part of the community below him. There was some work at Rhodoland. At night he swept the floors at Ike’s Pizza. When people asked where he lived, he said he was Jerry’s guest, and that seemed to satisfy everyone. He found that people wanted to talk. There weren’t many places to go, and so people talked to one another, more than the people in Prineville had. He learned that the rush of the river told the men of Vida about the weather around them, beyond their valley. He learned the language of the filbert crop from the man at Filacres, the talk of the real estate people who were drawing in the “other” people up Goodpasture Road —people who were not farmers, had not grown up in the narrow gorge, but who had come looking for a hideaway in the Oregon mountains. He listened, and became part of the backdrop of Vida, just as he had become part of the backdrop of Prineville. In time, the townspeople greeted him by name. And none ever realized that he had become accepted as one of them without ever revealing who he was or anything about himself.
He purchased a plastic ground cover to replace the one that he had taken from the canvas pack. And he bought another jacket, one like the men in Vida wore, one that withstood the rain and looked of the mountains.
When he was part of the mountain as well as part of the town, he packed up the gear to return it to Jerry.
He swung the pack over his shoulder and lifted the tent before he saw her standing watching him. It upset him that anyone had been able to watch him without his knowing it. He looked back over the moments to calculate when he had abandoned his awareness of the road, of the forest, of the sounds of movement. He found the last moment of recall and worked forward, realizing he had been absorbed in the repacking of the gear, as an Earth one would be.
Ruth stood a little below him on the trail he would take back to Jerry’s farm. He could see her old car below her on Angel’s Flight Road. She watched him. He stopped his movements and stared back at her. She looked down at the ground and then back at him. She looked as if she expected him to say something. He walked toward her and stopped just in front of her.
“I wasn’t certain I’d find you.”
“Why are you here?”
“You weren’t there when I got back.”
“But why are you here?”
“You send me off on a wild goose chase to a city that doesn’t even look like it used to, to find people whose names I don’t even know, who don’t know I’m coming or whether to trust me or not, carrying a message that I can’t confirm or explain, telling me to be sure not to tell the wrong people when I don’t even know who the right people are, let alone who the wrong people are, driving off in the middle of nowhere to catch a plane with money I haven’t got, all because of some blamed theory of yours, and then when I get back you aren’t even there to ask me if I did what you said.”
“You did what I said?”
“Yes.”
“And they have sent the red dust to Prineville?”
“No.”
“No?”
“They wouldn’t do it. They told me that if they use any more red dust anywhere, the ecology will be thrown off balance. Apparently the rest of us can withstand only so much of the stuff in our systems before we get sick from it too.”
“But there is no red dust in Prineville.”
“I told them that, but they didn’t believe me. Or maybe they believed me. They just wouldn’t do anything about it.”
“And you told the right people?”
“As far as I know. Look, I don’t know. I may have told the only spies they have in the resistance. Maybe I got the wrong people, the wrong answers. I did the best I could under the circumstances.”
“And you went back to Prineville?”
“I went back to find you.”
“And it was safe for you in Prineville?”
>
“It’s not safe for anyone in Prineville. It’s just like you said it would be. The Visitors have taken over. They are taking people, no one knows where. People disappear. There is resistance. Everyone shoots first and asks questions later. It’s hard to tell what is more dangerous, waiting to be taken by the Visitors, or trying to drive through the town and find the resistance. There aren’t any windows left that aren’t broken. It’s like a ghost town with the skeletons still fighting the war. Nobody trusts anyone else. It’s horrible. No one can save Prineville now.”
“We must tell Jerry. His parents are still there.”
“I told him. He left an hour ago to get them.”
“It will not be safe for him to drive there.”
“He’s already gone.”
“He will need help.”
“Hadad, he’s already gone.”
He looked at her and realized that he had not seen the look on her face that he had seen before. He turned his head and looked more closely at her face. She closed her eyes and looked down at the ground by her feet.
“How did you find me here?”
“I went to the mill. It was the only place I could think of to look. They didn’t know anything. Mary told me Stan knew where you were, or at least that he’d seen you before you left. I’d given up hope of finding you by then. I was just working up at the hospital, trying to keep people alive, to do something.”
“But you do not run away. Whv did you come here?”
“Because you are here, not there.”
“To give me the message then?”
“It doesn’t matter what the message is if you’re not there. You knew what would happen. It happened.” “And you are here.”
“Yes.”
Hadad looked again at the eyes that looked at him. This time he saw “the deer,” but also he saw sadness. “I do not understand.”
“I am here to find you.”
“And you have found me.”
Hadad watched as she shook her head.
“Maybe I ... I ... I want to be where you are.” “But I am here on the mountain.”
“Then I want to be here on the mountain.”
“But you do not live as I do.”
“Then I will live as you do.”
V 14 - The Oregon Invasion Page 8
