Alice nodded. “I know what you mean. I’ve been out behind the house, turning over land for a garden. It’s hard going, but I think there’s plenty of good soil about two feet down. I’ve been hauling off the ash—got a mighty pile of that shit. I know it’s probably useless to even try, but I wanted to see what was underneath.”
Ben grinned at the audacity of it. A garden! “How big?”
“Maybe twenty by twenty. Big enough to feed the two of us for a while, I think, if we could find some seeds.”
“Seeds,” he pondered, chewing on a slice of dried apple. “You know, I bet we could find some, don’t you think? They’d be old and maybe they wouldn’t take, but I bet they’re out there.”
Alice nodded. “The question is, do we dare search for them? It seems like tempting fate if you ask me.”
Ben scooped a handful of pecans into his mouth. “I think it’s worth a try. It might just be the change in the weather, but I feel like we could maybe get some things going out here on the farm. The old man—he claimed he had a green thumb. Said it could be a productive place. I mean, picture it, Alice!” He ticked the varieties off on his fingers. “Cantaloupe, watermelon, tomatoes, green beans—damn, it’s making my stomach growl just thinking about it. Were there any…any towns that showed promise on your way down from Atlanta?”
“Not really,” Alice replied. “There was one place that had a few old buildings still standing, but it was much closer to Atlanta. Probably a few days’ walk, at least. I wish I could remember more about how I got here, Ben, but I was really struggling there at the end. It’s all pretty much a big blank between waking up in that bed and the days that came before that. I might have stumbled through a town or two, but I was trying to stick to the country. Safer that way. How about to the south? Anything down near Florida?”
“There’s a little town to the southwest of here. Bickley, it’s called. It’s a two-day walk, but I was on fumes myself back then. We’d make a quicker go of it now, I suppose, rested like we are. You want to give it a try?”
She put her hands on her hips and turned her gaze to the empty fields. In the sunlight, they really weren’t so disheartening. She even thought she could see some potential there. “I suppose. It’ll be…it’ll be an adventure. And we do need to try our hand at growing some food.”
Ben slapped the fence post. “Well, all right then! It’s settled. We’ll go light and fast. Make good time and hustle right on back here. Also, I think I might have something that could help you out in the short term. Come on and follow me.”
They went into the barn and Ben burrowed through some old cupboards until he found a weathered tarp and a dozen wire stakes.
They walked out to Alice’s garden and covered the cleared earth with the tarp before returning to the orchard to finish up the work on the trees, knocking off for the day just a few minutes before the sun disappeared over the rim of the western horizon.
TWELVE
They left in darkness, hoping a path through the woods might be safer than the road. They packed light—bedrolls, a tent, food, an extra change of clothing and, of course, the guns. Ben kept the .20 gauge strapped to his pack. He’d practiced brandishing it the night before, until Alice had discovered him behind the barn. They shared a chuckle at it, understanding how silly he looked, but he’d been deadly serious as he showed her how to use the handgun.
“I doubt we’ll need these,” he said, “but it’s time you learned how to shoot all the same. We’ve got enough ammunition for a few practice shots—just enough for you to get the feel of the recoil down. If something happens out there, I don’t want you pulling the trigger unless you’re within ten or fifteen feet of whatever it is that you’re trying to hit. A gun like this…well, it’s hard to be real accurate beyond that. And anyway, we won’t need to use these. It’ll be okay.”
He showed her how to load the gun, how to chamber a bullet. She had a strange serenity about her when she snapped off the first shot. Three tries later she’d hit an apple tree square in the trunk from thirty paces. “It’s not so difficult,” she gloated. “You didn’t realize you were bunking with a stone-cold mercenary, did you?”
Ben laughed. “Mercenary, huh? That what you are now? You won’t hear any more complaints from me about doing the dishes, then.”
Alice laughed, her eyes shining, and it happened again—a shared gaze that lingered just a second longer than it should have.
“That’s…that’s really good, Alice,” Ben finally said, silently cursing himself for letting the moment pass. God, what was he doing? “Let’s head in and grab some rest. Could be a long couple of days ahead.”
They carried a map with them, but it was little help. They didn’t know the precise location of the Winstons’ farm, so Ben just tucked it into his pack, hoping they’d find Bickley in due time. If they were successful, they could gather their bearings and piece things together from there.
They picked their way through the woods, stepping over fallen pines and around blackberry brambles and thick patches of kudzu. The ash was everywhere, and they quickly became filthy. It was cool and gray, the previous day’s warmth a fleeting memory.
They paused from time to time so Ben could mark the trees with his hatchet.
They hiked gently undulating hills and tromped through swampy lowlands. Twice, they skirted the periphery of sizable farms. The first set of buildings had been gutted by fire and looked abandoned. The second farmhouse was in better shape. It was eerily quiet; from even a hundred yards away, the place made Ben anxious.
They knelt in the brush, watching it through binoculars. “I just have a bad feeling. I don’t think we should go in there.”
“Okay,” Alice replied. “We’ll trust your instincts.”
They walked until dark, speaking very little. When they did, it was in hushed whispers. They had a quick lunch and stopped a few times to rest before finally stumbling into a clearing. A set of rusted train tracks, the decomposing railroad ties scattered askance, cut a swath through the forest.
Ben peered up and down the corridor. “I know, I know,” he said, answering the unspoken question that hung between them. “It’d make the going so much easier, and they probably head straight into Bickley. But it’s just too dangerous, I think. We’d be sitting ducks, Alice.”
She merely nodded in reply, clearly frustrated.
“I’ll tell you what…we can,” his head spun, “we can kind of follow the tracks from the woods. It looks like a fine path, Alice, but it’s just a road of another sort. We can’t leave ourselves out there—exposed.”
“Yeah, I know,” she replied coolly. Her eyes went to the sky. “I think we need to start thinking about shelter, Ben. There’s not much daylight left.”
They deliberated briefly before putting the tracks behind them and pushing deeper into the woods. The further south they ventured, the denser the foliage became. The last of the day’s light faded quickly, and before long they were stumbling through the brush in the dark.
“Ben! We’ve got to stop,” Alice pleaded. “We could be walking in circles for all we know.”
“I know it, but let’s just go a little further. I’m telling you, those train tracks are a bad idea. I want to put some distance between us and them if we mean to have a fire tonight. We’ll pick them back up in the morning and follow them into town.”
Forty minutes later they found a granite outcropping at the edge of a small stream. Ben took the measure of the spot, content that they could put the rocks at their back and keep an eye on the woods. “This’ll do fine, I suppose.”
“Finally,” Alice grunted, slinging her pack to the ground with a groan. “My feet are on fire.” She wore the young girl’s hiking boots, and they were just a tad too small for her slender feet.
Ben built a small fire and set up the tent while Alice gathered firewood. When they’d made camp and the fire was roaring along, Ben put water on to boil.
It was another cold night—there would be morning fr
ost, at the least—and they huddled together at the edge of the fire for warmth, sipping tea and eating a modest dinner of dried fruit and tortillas they had fashioned from the last of the cornmeal.
“You know, this right here is just what we need,” Ben said, savoring each bite of tortilla. “Corn and wheat—we need the staples, you know? I think…I don’t think that ol’ codger did a damned thing out there. Least I can’t find any evidence of it, if he did. All of it—the power station, the food supplies for the ponies—was the Winstons’ doing, I imagine. I think he was just living in their house, using up all of their resources. Squandering the life they’d been carefully building for themselves. Otherwise, I really don’t think we’d have to be out here risking our lives like this. If it were up to the Winstons, they would have had that place humming along just fine. There would have been seeds and supplies—things to sustain their family for the long haul. I think they were survivors. They knew how to make it work.”
Alice nodded, finishing her supper. “That’s why we need to be smart about this. I’m nervous about being away, just like you are, and it’s only been a few hours. I say we gather whatever we can carry home quickly and we get back there and put our hearts and souls into making it work. It’s…I don’t know, Ben, but that place feels like an oasis.”
They locked eyes and he pulled her closer, swiping a piece of ash from her cheek. It was instinct, and he felt the electricity blazing through him at the touch of her skin.
“Thank you, Ben,” she whispered, touching her temple to his. Her breath was warm on his ear. “Thank you for being kind and for being decent, and thank you for taking me in when…when you didn’t have to help me.”
He pulled her into an embrace. She was so small, and yet so solidly there, and the paradox thrilled and excited him.
“Ben?” she whispered. The question hung between them for an instant and then he brushed the hair from her temple. She closed her eyes and he put his lips on hers—softly, tentatively. They kissed and he felt her tongue dart between his lips. After a long moment, he pulled back and she immediately snatched him to her breast, as if he might vanish in the darkness. Their breath was ragged with excitement, any walls that had existed between them gone.
“It’s the other way around, Alice,” Ben whispered, their foreheads touching. “I owe you. I’ve been alone for so long. So long that…well, I’m just very thankful that you came into my life.”
She touched the side of his face and kissed him again. He closed his eyes and she covered them with kisses, and then they were up and stumbling into the tent, awkwardly stripping in the tiny enclosure, shedding their clothes as quickly as they could.
When they were nude, her petite body perched over his, he inhaled deeply, terrified of her reaction. Here was the moment—that ultimate instant of truth—and sure enough, her fingers found his chest. She traced the scars there, and the sharp intake of air was her only response. There was no light by which to gauge her expression, but he didn’t need any. She lowered herself into his arms, her ear to the steady beating of his heart.
“Oh, Ben,” she whispered, the pads of her fingers lightly skimming the ridges of tissue. He started to speak but she shushed him. Instead of talking, she reached down and guided him inside, sighing a little as they merged. She burrowed her face in the hollow of his neck, her breath hot there, and she began to move on him—feeling him with every part of herself.
Ben felt the sting of tears in his eyes, overcome by the sensation of connection and the intimacy of the secret they now shared.
“I…” he started, but she covered his mouth with hers.
They filled the tent with warmth, a hungry, human warmth that neither had known in so long that it was brand new to them in that moment, utterly oblivious to the presence of those that watched their camp from the shadows of the forest.
THIRTEEN
Alice fell quickly into a deep sleep; Ben covered her and dressed. He slipped the handgun into his trousers and ventured out into the night.
The fire was low, and he added a piece of wood. He collected their packs and placed them near the tent, suddenly anxious that they might have to flee their temporary Eden.
Something was off.
He sat at the edge of the fire and studied the darkness, listening. He heard movement in the brush and he rested the pistol on his knee, knowing that it was probably just a squirrel. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling of eyes on their campsite.
He stood watch as long as he could, but he was tired. After nodding off for an instant, he retreated to the tent and Alice’s warmth. He pulled her to his chest, marveling at the sensation of her warm breath on his neck.
The shotgun was close, and that was a comfort. He said a quick prayer and fell into his dreams, expecting Alice to meet him there.
Instead, it was Coraline that waited for him when he finally slipped away.
~
They rose before dawn. Alice had covered him with a blanket in the night. She knelt and kissed his forehead before dressing. Ben watched her. It was really something, watching a woman dress. Things had certainly changed between them, and that hurdle of intimacy and the revelation of his secret were burdens that had vanished in the night.
It was invigorating.
“If we make good time to Bickley, maybe we can just push for home tonight,” Alice said. “It would be nice to sleep in our own bed.”
Ben smiled at the plural pronoun. “That’d be nice.” He wanted to say more—he had so much to say, really, but words escaped him. He finally decided just to come out with it. “Do you want to talk about what happened last night, Alice? I mean—the scars?”
Alice shrugged, a little smile on her face. “We have plenty of time, Ben. For now…let’s just do what we need to do to get home. I say we scarf down a quick breakfast and get the hell out of here. Sooner begun, sooner done.”
Her ambivalence didn’t surprise him. It was the Alice he had come to know. “Fair enough then” he said, scrambling to dress. The fire had died in the night, and they didn’t bother with tea. They ate quickly and broke camp and soon they were once again picking their way through the woods. After an hour they located the train tracks.
Day broke and they pushed forward.
At midmorning, they happened upon an orderly little clearing in the forest. There was a small shack in the center. Smoke leaked from a crooked chimney pipe in the tin roof. A sad excuse for a goat stood tied to a metal post, picking at a patch of ash-covered grass near the front porch.
Ben looked at Alice and nodded toward the woods. They would go around it.
“You folks are not as clever as you think you are,” a sonorous baritone called from behind them. They wheeled to discover an enormous man, clad head to foot in deer hide, standing behind them. His arms were crossed over a barrel chest, his wrists the size of healthy pine boughs. He had a shaggy beard and square white teeth, neat and straight like dominoes, in his wide, smiling mouth. “Although you did survive a night at Parish Creek. That’s no small feat with Talmidge’s goons sniffing around your back trail.”
“We don’t mean any harm,” Ben said. He had stepped in front of Alice, the act as natural as breathing.
“Oh, I know it,” the man said. “If I thought you were a threat, you’d already be dead.”
“Then thank you,” Alice said quickly. She took Ben’s hand. “We were trying to be careful. I guess we have some work to do on that front. What’s your name?”
“Buck,” the man replied. He unfolded his arms and pointed at the shack. “You folks join me for coffee?”
Alice flashed a stunned grin. “Coffee? Are you serious?”
“I am,” he replied. His voice was deep and rich, melodious, and she felt strangely at ease in his presence. Buck brushed past them into the clearing, and they watched him stride for home.
“Let’s do it, Ben,” Alice finally said. “I trust him. I’m not sure why, but I do.”
She stepped into the meadow, but Ben stood his
ground. “I don’t know,” he said, his voice hushed. “I trusted a fellow too, once. Remember? All it did was get me shot. What if he’s—what if he’s one of them?”
“Damn it, Ben,” she said impatiently. “We have to learn how to trust again if we’re going to make our way! He knows the area. Maybe he can help us. And aren’t you at least a little curious about what he said? Ben, he said we were being followed! Doesn’t that bother you?”
Ben scanned the woods. He looked at Alice, who shrugged in frustration. With a sigh, he followed her into the meadow and up to the deer man’s shack.
Buck, apparently, was a disciple of an overlooked school of interior design: Middle-21st Century Deer. Glass-eyed trophies of every size and shape leered from all four walls. A tidy little bed stood in the corner, and there was a table and chairs and a little kitchen. A bookshelf held thirty or forty titles. Ben thumbed through them while the deer man fixed coffee at the stove. “I know a place where there’s still quite a store of the stuff,” he said when he had the coffee on the table. Grinning, he even produced a canister of sugar, placing it in the center of the table with obvious pride. “It’s instant, but it’s better than nothing. I’ve got it knocked on how to make a decent cup of the stuff.”
“So,” he said when they were all seated, “what are you two doing in my woods?”
“We’re going to Bickley,” Alice said. “We’re hoping to find some supplies there.”
The man nodded. He sipped his drink, a few droplets glistening in the long whiskers of his moustache. His red beard was streaked with gray and he had bright brown eyes that didn’t often blink. Ben put him at 6’5” and 220 pounds—maybe a little more.
“Bickley’s a dangerous place, I’m afraid. Course, there’s not many places that aren’t anymore. Go if you must, but there’s a good chance it’ll end badly. You two,” he winked at them, “aren’t impossible to keep tabs on, you know. I made you almost immediately yesterday afternoon. So did those other boys.”
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