I close my eyes, but open them again quickly. A montage of those poignant little graveyards waits in my mind’s eye. Stephen remains patiently silent until I’m ready to continue.
“We kept going north on the coast highway, lighting signal fires every night, but there were no answering signals. Finally, we came to a junction with Highway 26. We’d been away from Amarna for nearly two weeks, and we couldn’t stay much longer. Rachel got out her map and pointed to a cross mark just off Highway 26 about fifteen miles inland. Saddle Mountain. She’d been there Before—it was a state park—and she said there was a road to its base and a trail up to the summit. And Saddle Mountain is more than three thousand feet high. From the top we could see well over a hundred miles in every direction. We could see man-made smoke or fire, and our smoke or fire could be seen over all that distance. So we headed east, and when we got close to Saddle Mountain, we found it was in one of those islands the fires hadn’t touched. The trail to the summit was passable, and at the top the old fire lookout cabin was still standing. That gave us some shelter. The wind was sometimes fierce, and nothing grew on the summit but stunted grass and salal.”
“What did you see from up there?”
“The world, Stephen.” I give that a laugh. “A small piece of it that seemed very large to us. To the south and east, we saw the burn we’d been traveling through, and above the haze on the eastern horizon, a few tiny, white cones—the high peaks of the Cascades. To the west we saw the ocean, and to the north, green forest and the Columbia River where it meets the sea at Astoria. Beyond the river lay more forest, but on the horizon we saw a strip of gray. We looked at it through the binoculars, and it was another burn. Then I turned the binoculars on Astoria. Most of the town was in ruins, but not all of it. Yet there was no sign of smoke—the kind produced by cooking fires, the smoke of civilization. That didn’t discourage me. We planned to stay for a few days, and we’d have ample opportunity to look for smoke at every time of day and the lights of fires at every time of night. And sooner or later—so I told myself—someone would see our signal and answer it. From the beginning of our trek we were so desperate for a sign of human life, we’d put aside the old fear of strangers who might be killers. We were willing to take that chance, and I couldn’t imagine that anyone out there wouldn’t be willing to take that chance with us.” I pause then, and Stephen seems on the verge of a question, but he looks at me and says nothing.
And I go on. “So, we built a fire on top of Saddle Mountain and kept it burning day and night. We spent most of the daylight hours hauling wood up for the fire, but one of us always surveyed the countryside at least once every half hour. At night we went on shifts: two hours watching, two sleeping. The times weren’t exact, but nearly so; Rachel’s watch still worked. The first two days were clear, and the nights were dark—it was a new moon—but we didn’t see any smoke or lights. Still, I kept thinking, one more day, one more night. Someone would answer our signal. On the third day the wind shifted to the south, and we could see clouds on the horizon, but we kept the fire going all day and into the night. And watched. Watched and hoped. And saw… nothing.”
Stephen reaches for my hand where it lies on the open pages of the diary. “Oh, Mary, weren’t you sad when nobody answered your signal?”
My gentle Stephen. I remember that last night….
“Yes, Stephen. Yes, I was sad.”
Chapter 14
And this Star, that is toward the North, that we clepe the Lode Star, appeareth not to them. For which cause, men may well perceive, that the Land and the Sea be of round shape and form…. And if I had Company and Shipping, I trow well, in certain, that we should have seen the roundness of the Firmament all about.
A shadow of cloud hid the stars on the western horizon, but the rest of the sky was icily clear. Mary Hope looked up at Polaris, the North Star, the Lode Star, and wondered how many miles of trackless wilderness, how many leagues of unmapped sea human beings had crossed over the millennia, all guided by that constant star. Yet only an accident of location placed it in line with Earth’s axis at this point in the planet’s history.
The wind blew chill out of the south, carrying the pungent scent of smoke from the fire behind her. It was too far away to provide any warmth, but she could hear the rush of flames. She sat on a ledge of rock with only a blanket to soften its cold hardness, sat cross-legged like a sadhu on a mountaintop, tranced in search of wisdom, and watched Cassiopeia and the Big Dipper swing around the fulcrum of Polaris. The Milky Way cast a veil of stars on the endless black of absence where silence echoed, and the accumulated light of all those distant suns served to make the sky lighter than the land only by the fine degree that was to her eyes discernible. She felt her eyes wide open, pupils large and dark, reaching into the dark of the land. The sky was full of suns, yet she denied them, sought one light, one small sun in the darkness below the myriad.
Where are you? You must be out there. Just one light, that’s all I ask.
Behind her, behind the fire, the horses were tethered to forage on the sparse grass; Rachel and the dogs and kittens were asleep in the lookout cabin. Mary could hear no sound as evidence of their existence, and she was possessed by the conviction that they did not exist, that she was the only thing living in this fathomless darkness.
No, it was a sensation more than a conviction, but it was pervading. And it was new. Through three days and three nights of maintaining the fire and scanning the land for an answer, she had never doubted that she would see that wisp of smoke, that small sun of light.
Now, finally, doubt whispered its chill in the wind, and she began shivering and couldn’t stop.
A sound behind her—loose rock displaced by light feet. Shadow came up beside her, nudged her elbow. Mary rubbed Shadow’s back, wondering if Rachel was awake. It seemed too early for her shift. But a few minutes later Mary heard Rachel’s footsteps on the stone along with the patter of Sparky’s paws.
When Rachel sat down next to her, Mary asked, “Is it time?”
“Past time, actually. It’s about twelve-thirty. Which makes it a new day.” She paused, then, “Do you realize what day this is?”
“No, I… I guess I’ve lost track of the days.”
“This is September fifteenth,” Rachel said dully. “The second anniversary of the End.”
The second anniversary. Two years. Mary looked out at the black world where nothing provided her any frame of reference for dimension. Or time. She made no response to Rachel’s revelation.
At length, Rachel said, “Mary, we’ll have to leave tomorrow. At this elevation and this time of year, that storm might mean snow.”
Mary closed her eyes, breath stopped by a rush of panic. She blurted, “We can’t leave, Rachel! Just one more day—they’ll answer our signal by then.”
A sigh in the wind. “They? If anyone were out there to see our signal, they’d have answered it by now.”
“Maybe they’re afraid to answer. They don’t know who we are—”
“Mary, please. You know better.”
Sparky whined and put his front paws on Mary’s knees, and she stroked his head. Yes, she knew better. Her shoulders slumped with the release of unrecognized tension that left her muscles aching.