Mary looked around at her, returned to herself, willing eyes and mind into focus. Rachel was regarding her with a gaze shadowed with sorrow, but there was no recognition of defeat in it. “Choice is the measure of our humanity, Mary. Death is inevitable, but until it becomes imminent, we still have a choice. We can choose to die, or we can choose to live. I can’t give you any reason why you should go on hoping or living, or why I should. The time may come when I’ll know, one way or the other. But I’m not ready to surrender yet. And you’re wrong about one thing: this winter will end. I’ve read the TTAPS report. I don’t know what kind of spring will follow, or whether we can survive until spring comes. But I intend to find out. That’s my choice.”
She stopped then, as if there were no more to be said, and denial clamored in Mary’s mind. She sat mute, trying to shape it into words, to forge her despair into arguments. The wind howled in the waiting darkness, while she shivered with cold.
But the arguments melted like snow in her hands.
Choice.
She became aware of the sensation of a smile, something she’d never expected to feel again. It was a fragile sensation besieged by grief, but she held on to it, called it hope. Her eyes were suddenly blurred, and at last the tears came, and she welcomed them. She reached out, embraced Rachel, and together they wept, together they acknowledged their grief and fear and hope.
How long they wept in each other’s arms, Mary didn’t know, but finally she drew away, said, “I promise you, Rachel, I won’t surrender, either.”
Rachel nodded, then cleared her throat and rose to tend the fire. “If you’ll look on the shelves at the foot of the stairs, you’ll find a case of bourbon. I think this is the time to open one of those bottles.”
Mary came to her feet stiffly as if she hadn’t moved in hours, and perhaps she hadn’t. While Rachel added more wood to the fire, Mary searched for the bourbon with a flashlight. At length, they sat facing the renewed fire, each with a mug half-full of smoky-flavored whiskey. Sparky leapt up on the hassock behind them, while Shadow sat again at Rachel’s knee, and now Rachel offered her the reassurance of her hand gentle on her head.
Mary sipped at the whiskey, savored the warmth of it. “Rachel, there must be other survivors somewhere.”
“I’m sure there are. Somewhere.”
“And there must be some vestiges of the government left. They’ll find us, or we’ll find them sooner or later.”
Rachel shook her head. “A government, maybe. Not the old U.S. of A. That government was already foundering. It won’t survive this.”
Mary took another swallow of whiskey and grimaced. At the beginning of this day she wouldn’t have recognized the truth in that, but she did now. “The Bill of Rights, the Constitution—damn, to lose them, to lose the ideas…”
“Maybe they won’t all be lost. A great deal survived the last dark age. The Renaissance was built on it.”
“But this time…” She couldn’t yet assimilate the scope of this dark age.
Rachel said dully, “This time will be unimaginably worse—for humankind, for all the species of animals and plants that will be wiped out in this frozen holocaust.” She closed her eyes. “But I can’t deal with that now. I can only deal with our survival. Someday maybe I can deal with what’s lost and what can be saved. Not yet.”
Mary watched the flow of the flames, listened to the moan of the wind in the chimney. The seeds of a commitment had been planted, but had not yet germinated. She was only sure of two things: they had survived, and they had chosen to continue to survive.
No. They had chosen to try to survive.
Chapter 13
It’s only four days short of May, and April seems determined to depart in clouds and rain. But the rain has stopped now—at least, temporarily—leaving only the clouds, and I revel in their soft, gray light, in the rich scents of wet earth and grass. Shadow runs ahead as I walk through the north pasture with my moccasin boots and wool skirt shaking rainwater off the grass, and the pasture is vividly green, powdered with pink clover blossoms, humming with bees.
At this time of day, just after midday meal, all the women are busy in the kitchen, except for Esther. She’s at the firepit in the open shed behind the house tending the kettle of fat she’s rendering for soap. The fitful wind occasionally brings the stink of it to me. I expected to help with the soap making, as I usually do, but I was told I wasn’t needed.
Miriam made that pronouncement, of course.
I wonder if she thinks I believe she was concerned for my advanced years. She’s simply trying to isolate me from the family. Since Stephen’s whipping, she’s done nothing to rock the familial boat, no doubt recognizing that our Elder is still too much my ally. Or, as Miriam would put it, too much under my evil influence. But she has other options open to her.
Yes, I must gird my loins for battle. Rachel used to say, “And the voice of unreason is heard in the land.” That was before the End, when the voice was a roar heard all over the world. Now my world has shrunk to a few square miles, but the voice of unreason is still heard here. I’m getting too old to lose another battle. I’ve lost too many.
I stop and look up at the Knob, at the vault snugged into its slope. Perhaps I haven’t lost all of them.
At length, I turn and continue toward the east fence. The chunk of axes biting into wood comes in an odd, syncopated rhythm from that direction. Just beyond the fence, Jerry, Stephen, and Jonathan are felling trees, which will not only clear a space to enlarge the pasture, but supply us with heat next winter.
Stephen and Jonathan see me and shout hellos, but they pause only briefly. They’re chopping at small hemlocks, while Jerry notches a tall spruce. The long, two-man crosscut saw waits nearby, and I frown at that. The spruce is probably three centuries old, its branches as thick as the trunks of the trees the boys are cutting. If Jerry must be rid of it, he’d do better to cut the branches and leave it a snag that would cast no shade, rather than risk breaking the crosscut saw. We have a dozen smaller saws, but no replacement for the big one.
In so many ways we live off the past. Already, Jerry is using a bow and arrows for hunting. There’s still some ammunition for the guns, but he’s saving that. I’m not sure what for. For the same reason he’s saving the dynamite, I suppose.
His arrowheads come from Rachel’s collection of Indian artifacts.
Jerry props his ax against the spruce and walks to the fence to meet me; he smells of sweat and damp leather. “How are you, Mary?”
“Better than I have any right to be, probably. I’m sorry I didn’t think to bring you some water.”
He wipes his sleeve across his forehead. “Well, it’s not that far to the creek. I… I’m glad to get a chance to talk to you.”
Shadow lopes up to greet Jerry, but when she starts under the fence to see the boys, I call her back sharply. I don’t want her getting in the way of their arcing blades. She sits, reluctantly, at my command.
“What is it you want to talk to me about, Jerry?”
He’s not anxious to begin, whatever it is. He leans against the fence post, frowning. “Well, last night, when Miriam was on her way upstairs for a visitation, Jonathan—” Jerry looks around as if to be sure his son can’t hear him. “Jonathan asked Miriam if… if she was going to copulate with me.”
Jerry, who casually discusses the women’s visitations, blushes at the word copulate, and I find that annoying. I say nothing, waiting for him to go on.