But he seemed like a nice-enough kid. People seemed to enjoy seeing a new face. Everybody shook William’s hand and made welcome noises at him. Even Colonel Tyler bent and ruffled the boy’s hair—though William’s smile at that moment looked suddenly less genuine. And that was odd, too, Beth thought.
Then Matt Wheeler called the meeting to order.
They had gathered in the living room of a little wood-frame house next to a gas station. The house was dusty and stale from being closed up so long, but cozy enough on a chilly spring night. Matt had brought in ten folding chairs from his camper. Tom Kindle had plugged in an electric heater, which was minimal help, but what really mattered, Beth thought, was that they had come over the Cascades into the Land of the Functioning Wall Sockets. She guessed it was some Helper voodoo that kept the electricity working in all these derelict towns… as in Buchanan before the storm trashed everything. She didn’t care. Lights that didn’t need batteries: heaven. Hot water: bliss.
This very afternoon they had broken into the house and taken turns under a working shower. Beth recalled that first amazing flourish of steamy water on the skin of her back. It was like the caress of some fiery angel. She’d been savoring the memory for hours.
She settled into a folding chair next to Abby Cushman, a row behind Joey. Up front, with the room’s two sixty-watt floor lamps making him look pale and skinny, Matt Wheeler zipped through some old business, chiefly the news that Joey had scavenged a portable ham rig in Twin Falls, plus a quick unanimous “aye” on the proposition to continue east first thing tomorrow.
Then it was time for the serious vote of the evening… the one Beth had been dreading.
Matt looked tired when he announced it. “Last week we resolved to open the position of Chairman to an election. We can start with nominations—anyone?”
Joey jumped up, almost knocked his chair into Beth’s knees. “I nominate Colonel John Tyler!”
“Seconded,” Jacopetti said.
Well—that was quick, Beth thought.
Abby Cushman, looking a little startled, put her hand up. “Matt, you’ve been doing a fine job. Can’t we just carry on? I nominate you.” Now it was Miriam who seconded. Another surprise. “Two candidates,” Matt said. “Anyone else?” Jacopetti said, “Isn’t two enough? Why don’t we all run?” No more.
“Okay,” Matt said. “Do we need debate on this? I think everyone knows where the Colonel and I stand.” Conceded.
“We’ll vote by show of hands. Colonel Tyler and I will abstain—and maybe our new resident should, too, at least until he’s more familiar with current events.”
Miriam smiled. “I’m sure that’s all right with William.”
“Good. Show of hands for Colonel Tyler?”
Beth looked around hastily. Joey’s hand shot up, of course. Jacopetti’s, in a gesture that was somehow smug. Two, Beth thought. Two out of nine.
Bob Ganish offered a plump hand. Three.
There was a long, tense moment. Nothing.
“Hands for yours truly?”
Abby’s, at once, and Tom Kindle’s; then Miriam’s hand went up. Three versus three, Beth thought. Abby said, “In the event of a tie?”
“Ordinarily,” Matt said, “the Chair would cast the deciding vote… but that’s hardly fair, since both Colonel Tyler and I agreed to abstain. There’s probably something in the Rules of Order. Maybe it would be simpler just to try it again—we had a lot of abstentions. Maybe some of those folks will change their minds.”
Meaning me. Beth found herself blushing. Me and Chuck Makepeace and Tim Belanger.
Makepeace she couldn’t predict. As for Belanger… Matt had saved the guy’s life, dragging him down a hospital corridor during the storm. But Belanger had been pretty close to Tyler ever since the Colonel arrived. And this was only a chairmanship vote, after all, not a test of loyalty… or at least that was all it seemed to be.
Makepeace, Belanger…
And me, Beth thought. Please God, don’t let it come down to me. “Hands for Colonel Tyler?”
The same three: Joey, Jacopetti, Bob Ganish… and now, uh-oh, Beth thought, a fourth—Chuck Makepeace had slid into the Tyler camp. “Could still be a tie,” Abby commented. “No cheerleading,” Matt said. “For yours truly?” Miriam, Abby, Tom Kindle. Beth folded her hands in her lap and stared at them. When she looked up, Belanger had raised his hand for Matt. Four to four.
Jacopetti turned to her. “Time to shit or get off the pot, m’dear.”
She thought about Matt: weary, unhappy at the front of the room.
She thought about Colonel Tyler. The way he shook her hand one time. The way he smiled.
She couldn’t bring herself to look at either candidate. Or at Joey. Or Jacopetti, the toothless SOB. “Tyler” she said, a whisper.
Jacopetti: “Pardon me?”
She gave him a hateful stare. “Colonel Tyler!”
There was a silence in the room.
Joey turned, offered an evil grin.
Matt cleared his throat. “Colonel?”
Tyler stood up, immaculate in his uniform. “Yes, Dr. Wheeler?”
“I believe this is your gavel now.”
Beth remembered when Colonel Tyler came to town. It was in that desperate time when the storm had passed, when Beth had climbed out of the rubble into a world of no landmarks—a world of everything flat and broken, where you might find a bedframe nestled in the hollow shell of a Volkswagen, or a pleasure boat riding on a sea of windfall pines.
After a few days, Beth had been assigned to the food search. With Abby Cushman and Bob Ganish, she had hiked south on the highway—which was not even a road anymore, barely a trail among the scattered detritus of ruined buildings—to the place where the big A P had stood. Just finding it was an act of archaeology. Beth had always navigated by the man-made markers, road signs and intersections and malls. Now there was nothing except the curve of the bay, the cryptic angle of Mt. Buchanan above a plain of homogeneous junk.
The storm had left chalk-blue skies and a chill wind behind it. Beth was cold in a ragged sweater, soon dirty from prying up soggy drywall and ancient lathing, hunting for canned food, which they loaded into big double-ply garbage bags for the trip back into town. She felt like something medieval. A ragged, scrounging peasant.
Mid-afternoon, her nose running from the chill, she stood up straight to ease the ache in her back; and that was when she saw him.
Colonel John Tyler.
She knew immediately who that distant figure was. Joey had talked to him on the radio. More recently, Chuck Makepeace had announced that the Colonel was on his way to Buchanan. But that was before the storm. Beth thought the storm must have changed everything—all plans had been erased.
But Colonel Tyler had arrived as promised.
He was on foot. He was a little dusty. But he came along the ruin of the highway with his head high, face clean-shaven, his Army jacket threadbare but neat, and Beth felt a voiceless rush of pleasure at the sight of him—ghost of a world that had seemed so lost.
She didn’t tell the others. Let them scrounge in the ruins while Beth watched this man come closer. She wished her face was less dirty, her hair not so tangled.
Then Abby straightened and caught sight of him.
“Well, gosh,” she said.
Bob Ganish stood with a green garbage bag in one hand, mouth open and his belly spilling over his belt. Some welcoming committee, Beth thought. A middle-aged lady, a grimy ex-car dealer. Me.
Tyler smiled as he approached. You could see his age. He wasn’t young. But he was in good shape. His gray hair was cut close to his skull. He looked like he wasn’t tired. He looked like he could walk forever.
Beth, suddenly embarrassed, plucked at the hem of her ratty sweater.