Gilead at last. There was no mistaking the tidy little crossroads and the general store, obviously the Co-op that Jeremy had spoken of. He had also said something, Carol recalled, about 'high walls' surrounding the town, but no doubt he'd exaggerated; the only walls she'd seen were low stone ruins back at the approach road, stretching from each gatepost and winding off among the trees. She might not even have noticed them if she hadn't been told to look.
But perhaps, she mused, there were walls here of a different sort. The place seemed different from other towns: neater, certainly, to judge by the well-tended lawns she'd passed coming in, and more decorous in other ways as well. Across the street from the Co-op, where a red-brick schoolhouse glared through a line of trees at the grassy playing field in front, a group of little children played quietly on seesaws, neither shouting nor laughing, as subdued as children in a century-old woodcut, and all without a sign of adult supervision. Nor were there the usual small-town idlers gathered in front of the general store.
Parking in front, just beyond the untended gas pumps, she climbed the steps and entered. The store appeared uncommonly well stocked, and smelled, in the dim light inside, of spice and old apples. It was almost like entering a cave. The beams in the ceiling were heavy with merchandise – everything from sausages to snow-shoes, from bulbous white garlics to lamp wicks, frying pans, and coils of rubber hose. A tall white metal cooler hummed serenely near the back, stocked with cheeses, ordinary-looking cans of soda, and things wrapped in wax paper. Low shelves near the front displayed cellophane-packed cup-cakes, barbecue chips, and beef jerky. A huge jar of picked eggs stood beside the cash register on the counter.
The woman behind the counter was talking with another woman; both were elderly and dressed in black. While pushing through the screen door, Carol overheard references to a Brother Joram and a Lotte Sturtevant, who was apparently growing quite enormous lately, but the two women fell silent and turned to her as soon as she came in. She asked directions of the one behind the counter. 'I'm trying to reach the Poroths' farm,' she said.
'Well, now, Sarr and that wife of his, I believe they bought the old Baber place.'
The other woman nodded gravely. 'My Rachel was out there last Friday evening. They're the ones that planted late.'
Farther back, in the shadows, Carol saw an alcove with another wooden counter, almost the mirror image of this one, and a wall lined with shelves and cubbyholes, in some of which leaned dusty-looking white envelopes. This, then, would be the local post office. It looked little used.
'You want to head out along the granary road,' the first woman – no doubt the postmistress – was saying. She stepped from behind the counter and, holding open the screen door, gestured in the direction of the retreating maples and the line of distant hills. 'Keep goin' straight past Verdock's dairy – it's just around that bend – and there you turn right and go along for half a mile or so.' She launched into a lengthy, detailed account replete with references to gullies, washed-out crossings, and lanes that dipped up and down like greased pigs, with particular attention to a mill road (' 'Course there ain't no mill there nowadays, it's all fell down since I was a girl') and a fork ('Don't go turnin' off on the little old road that splits off it on the left, 'cause that's goin' to lead you to the Geisels, and Matt and Cora like visitors so much they ain't goin' to let you leave before suppertime'). Carol found herself nodding politely, eagerly, but forgetting everything as soon as it was spoken. Right past Verdock's dairy, she remembered that much. She would find the place, no fear. She thanked the two of them and left the store.
'And be sure to say hello to Sister Deborah,' the woman called after her. 'Tell her we'll be lookin' for her at worship tomorrow.' The other woman tittered.
Parked in front of the store like a reminder of the world she'd left, the small cream-colored Chevy was one of the brighter objects in sight; the only other vehicles she'd seen since entering town had been dark unornamented cars and pickup trucks at least a decade old. Driving down the road in what seemed the suggested direction -it was, at least, the way she'd been heading anyway – she proceeded slowly at first, studying every passing farm and homestead for signs by which she might distinguish it later, if she had to return this way; then, as she realized that there were relatively few turnings to choose from, with more confidence. On impulse, more from the memory of something Freirs had told her than anything the woman in the store had said, she turned right when the road branched after the large dairy farm and found herself heading downhill toward a small, swiftly running stream whose sound echoed in the fields and thickets through which she was passing.
She drove for what seemed several miles along its winding banks, avoiding a narrow stone bridge – had the woman said anything about a bridge? – and coming at last to a clearing where a cluster of shanties stood huddled at the edge of the woods. The road she'd been following curved back uphill among the trees, branching just before the houses into an unsavory-looking pitted dirt road that she prayed was not the Poroths'. Three large, nondescript dogs raced up to the car and yapped fiercely at its wheels. A man in shirt sleeves – not bearded but unshaven, and with a hillbilly's long, straggly hair -looked up from a rusting automobile he'd been scraping, his dark little eyes peering suspiciously toward her car. In the weed-choked yard several pale, moon-faced children in T-shirts and shorts paused in their playing to watch her pass. They looked surprisingly ragged for this area, almost Appalachian. She drove past quickly, determined not to ask for directions here, and with sinking heart followed the road back uphill, taking the first opportunity she found to double back in the direction of the stream.
This time the way felt familiar; when she came again to the stone bridge, she turned left with more confidence and drove over it. The road wound steeply uphill once again, curving past a small stone cottage, a cozy-looking place set well back on a rounded hill, the yard around it overgrown with flowers.
She was so busy admiring them as she drove by that she almost didn't see the tall, faceless figure looming darkly at the edge of the road. With a little cry she swerved to avoid it, the car speeding around the bank of earth and shrubbery as if under its own volition, carrying her past. The road climbed farther, curving now in the other direction; she wasn't inclined to look back. It was only later, when the house would have been concealed from sight behind the bend, that she realized what she'd seen was a woman in a long black dress and the odd, shroudlike mask of a beekeeper.
'She's going to be here soon,' Deborah was saying, 'and I mean it, honey, the least you can do is drive to the Geisels and get us some of that rhubarb wine.'
'I heard you the first time,' said Sarr. 'Don't worry, I'm going.' He wiped the sweat from his forehead. 'But I don't intend taking out the truck for a task like that. Some of us still know how to walk!' He cast a pointed glance to where Freirs lay dozing. 'You've got the room all ready for her?'
Deborah nodded. 'If she's really going to use it.' This had been designed to get a rise from him, and it did.
'She'd damned well better!' he said, exasperated. ' 'Tisn't a whorehouse I'm running!'
'Oh, easy, honey, it's not for us to decide. Don't forget, they're not our people.' She paused, musing. 'Wonder if she'll be pretty. It's hard to picture what Jeremy likes.'
'I can tell you what he likes,' said Sarr. 'Have you ever seen the way he looks at you?'
'What he does with his eyes is his business.' Still smiling, she raised her fist. 'But let me tell you something, mister. What you do w ith your eyes is my business! Now get along down to the Geisels and buy that wine! She ought to be here any minute – should've been here hours ago. Get moving!'