Posted on August 21, 2007

Part 31

Elliot shook his head. “They’ve been a mess,” he said, “and I was hoping you and your people could help us get back where we were headed. I don’t know if Evajean told you, but our car is back up by the main road. It slid down the hill and flipped over and if you have some men who could help get it righted again and maybe back up that hill, that’d be more than enough.”

“Probably,” Jeffry said, looking up at the ceiling and thinking. “A dozen strong men we have, and ropes. How big is this car?”

“It’s a truck,” Elliot said. “A pickup.”

“Two dozen, then. Is that all you’ll need?”

“If you can get our truck back up on the road, that’ll be plenty,” Elliot said. “If it still drives.”

“We don’t have any mechanics, I’m afraid,” Jeffry said. “And the world beyond Nahom’s borders looks to be such that you’re unlikely to find one elsewhere.”

“Probably right about that,” Elliot said. “Help me get that trucked turned over and I’ll be grateful enough. More than anything, we just want to get started back on our expedition.”

“Where is it you’re going, exactly?” Jeffry said, leaning forward over the papers and books. “Clearly the roads aren’t safe and we have no idea how bad it gets beyond Virginia’s gorgeous borders.”

Suspicion dragged at Elliot and he knew telling this man anything was a bad idea. Yet he had the sense that Uncle Jeffry was the kind of guy who could read falsity easily, so Elliot went with vague. “West,” he said. “There’s nothing for us, for either of us, in Virginia anymore. Maybe there’s nothing west but we can’t stay where we were.”

“You can stay here,” Jeffry said, tossing off the suggestion like it was nothing more than a dinner invitation. “Nahom has plenty of room for good people–and you already have a house.” He smiled.

Elliot shook his head. “Thanks, but no. It’s appreciated but this isn’t where we want to end up. Out west, maybe there’s something.”

“Are you lovers?” The smile was gone, replaced by the concerned blankness of a potentially upset parent.

Elliot was taken aback by the abruptness of the question and didn’t immediately answer. Why did Jeffry care? “Does that matter?” Elliot said, setting his glass down on the desk.

“You’re not married.”

“No, were not. And we’re not lovers, either. Just–what was it you said before? Just ‘traveling companions.’ Which is what we want to get back to, really. Can you help us?”

The grin came back and Jeffry was friendly again. “Of course. Though not today, I’m sorry to admit. Today my people are preparing for the funerals of the men killed during your rescue. There will be mourning and celebration and they will be ready to help you turn over your truck by tomorrow–the day after at the latest. You’ll be our guests until then. Does that agree with you?”

“It’ll have to,” Elliot said.

“Wonderful,” Uncle Jeffry said, standing up. He offered his hand to Elliot. “Then I will send someone over to make sure you and Evajean have everything you need and then I will expect the two of you at our service tonight. Whether you are a man of Jehovah or not, I assume you are not adverse to attending a funeral preached in his name?”

Elliot shook Jeffry’s hand and said, “Not at all. We’ll be there. It’s the least we can do for what they did for me.”

Jeffry nodded. “Then, Mr. Bishop, I’ll see you there. If there’s anything you need between now and then, anyone in Nahom will be happy to help you. Lunch, like breakfast, is communal and we eat it at noon.”

“Thank you,” Elliot said and he left Jeffry in the small office, again behind the desk, consumed by the administration of his one hundred and forty citizens.

---

The afternoon prior to the funeral slithered by, with Evajean helping several of the women with household chores and Elliot joining the men in harvesting what would be the vegetable haul last before winter. This gender division seemed strictly enforced in Nahom, the men and women having their duties and places, only to meet, Elliot figured, in the marital bed.

The men he worked with, picking root vegetables, squash, and withered corn, were friendly and warm, but far from talkative. Their conversation focused on the weather or pregnancy rumors, and never touched the terrors of the outside world or the deaths that had afflicted their town in the last day. The banality of it all made Elliot uncomfortable, a feeling he was unfortunately rather used to at this point. Still, he did his best to participate and laugh at their jokes, trying to be one of the boys for just this afternoon.

He wanted to press them for knowledge, however, because questions kept banging around inside his head. How had Nahom made it through the plague so unmarred? Had any of these people fallen prey to the sickness, been driven mad? And, if not, why? Everywhere he and Evajean had been since this started was dead and empty, except for the crazies. Now they were spending a pleasant day in a small town that might’ve been from an entirely different world. He wouldn’t be able to convince anyone of it, but Elliot knew the answer to these questions was sinister. A sort of heat in his stomach and chest had dogged him since the men had first shown up in the cave, but until now he’d passed it off as exhaustion or nerves. But those felt different, were different, and Elliot had to entertain, though with minimal credulity, the notion that maybe his mind was trying to tell him something, that his unconscious was picking up signals he wasn’t yet aware of. Call it ESP, he thought, and laughed. One of the men, a burly farmer in grey overalls and a straw hat, turned to him, curious, but Elliot only waved and said, “It’s nothing. Just something I thought of now. Is this were these go?” And he dropped his armful of zucchini into an empty reed basket.

When they’d finished, the men shared iced tea brought by Cecilia, who asked Elliot how the day’s work was treating him.