Perhaps they would find hope. For him, it could never be.
Eric stayed away from camp that day. He walked up and down the mountain, once spooking a group of does from their browsing. Their white tails flagged behind them as they leapt away. When he walked back up the mountain, he climbed a tree at the edge of the meadow and watched Sergio fish.
Eric hadn’t noticed, but Sergio had quietly become accomplished, holding the thin fishing line in his hand, waiting for a bite to electrify the line. He had already caught four trout. He had strung them by the gills with clothesline and, to keep them fresh, immersed the fish in a cool eddy of water. Eric watched until Sergio caught one, crying out as it came flapping free of the brook, amidst the crystals of water droplets. He smacked it hard against a rock and then strung it on the line with the others.
Watching him, Eric felt the first real pain of leaving them. It would not stop him, he knew that, but it hurt to watch him, a distant, almost nostalgic pain, as if he were already years in the future and remembering this moment.
When Eric walked back to camp, he stopped abruptly at the edge.
There was a man at the campfire. He wore a Red Sox jersey.
Pulling out his pistol, Eric walked toward him. There was little fear. His only emotion was a kind of satisfaction that the man who meant to surprise them when they returned was going to be the one surprised. As a Minuteman, he would be carrying weapons, Eric thought. It was better to shoot first.
Eric walked forward, aiming his pistol. He had never killed anyone before. This would be his first time. The thought made him scared but resilient. This was something he had to do. He must do it. This was the world they lived in. Eric pointed the gun and was content to see that his hand was not shaking. Once he would have been frightened. No more. If only his father could see him now.
He approached softly on the hard ground, his pistol held out before him. He had to be quiet, he had to be close. One shot to the back of the head. Quick. Painless. Humane. But not too close. He stopped about ten feet away. Held out his arm. Aimed.
“ERIC! NO!” Lucia ran into the campground, waving her arms and screaming.
She could not make the hard decision. He could. His finger pressed the trigger.
The man turned toward him.
Eric’s hand went numb an instant before he fired. The pistol dropped to his feet and his mouth hung open.
“Hello, Eric,” the man said weakly.
It was John Martin.
All three of them huddled around John Martin who lay now by the fire. Carl Doyle’s gunshot had not killed him. All the antibiotics that John had gathered after Brad’s death had kept the wound from festering, but in his weakened state, the Vaca B invaded. His eyes were red with blood.
He breathed heavily by the fire. “I’ve been searching for you,” he said. “Thank God,” he said. “Thank God I found you. I’m out of time.”
“Don’t talk now, John,” Lucia said. “You need to eat.” She turned toward Sergio. “Get him some water and food,” she ordered. Sergio nodded and dashed away.
John Martin took a deep, labored breath that rattled in his chest, an ugly sound. “Listen to me,” he said. “The truck.” He lifted his hand and pointed east. “Birdie,” he said.
Eric felt the hair rise at the back of his neck. A thrill of lightning ran through him. “What? What did you say?”
“The truck,” John Martin repeated. “About a mile. Maybe two.”
Eric shot to his feet, and then, tearing himself away from Lucia who had clutched at him, he found he was running through the woods. Tears blinded his eyes. Tree limbs tore at his face, but he felt nothing. His heart was a ball of light in his chest. When he hit the road, he spun around and around, searching for a vehicle.
“Birdie!” he shouted. “Birdie!”
Blindly he ran down the road calling her name.
Suddenly he saw a red truck and stopped, trembling. The door opened and a figure crawled out, feet first.
“Eric?”
Eric didn’t remember moving. Birdie was suddenly in his arms and they were crying. He clutched at her and kissed her head a dozen times. She smelled like ash and peanut butter. When he became aware of himself, he was carrying Birdie in his arms through the forest, toward the camp. Birdie’s grip around his neck nearly choked him, but he didn’t care.
He listened to himself talk. “I’ll never leave you again, I swear it. I swear it, Birdie. I’ll never leave you again.” Birdie wept hotly into his neck.
It was a very long time before they released each other.
15
John Martin did not live through the night. For all of Lucia and Sergio’s attention, he began trembling at midnight, and, hours later, when the sky had turned blue as dawn slowly approached, he went still. When dawn came, he was dead.
Both Lucia and Sergio, who had spent so much time with him, who owed their lives to him, wept, holding each other. Then Lucia washed John as best she could. She took off his filthy jersey and replaced it with a clean shirt. With great labor and care, they carried his large body into the meadow. Over his stolid body, they piled dry wood and branches until he was underneath a great pyramid of tinder.
Before they set it afire, Sergio stood forward to speak.
“I don’t know why all this has happened. I don’t understand why some of us live and some of us die. The more I see, the more I think it’s random. It’s just luck that makes us live and bad luck that makes us die. John Martin was a good man. He didn’t have to look out for us. He probably would be alive today if he looked after himself more. But he didn’t. He wasn’t like that. I’d say he didn’t deserve to die, but that doesn’t make any sense to me anymore. I guess what I want to say is thank you. Thank you for helping us, John Martin. I swear I won’t ever forget it.” He said a few words in Spanish, but Eric did not understand.
Lucia stood forward and, her lips moving as if in speech, she lit the fire. It snapped and popped at first, but then it began to hiss and crackle and finally roar. The pyramid turned into a twisting column of fire they could not approach for the heat.
It burned hot while they packed their campsite, and, by the time they moved away through the woods toward the north, toward the island, Eric holding Birdie’s hand, the fire had become smoke and John Martin, who had saved them all, had been transmuted to ash.
How Birdie came back to them was a complicated story, filled with gaps, uncertainty, and confusion. From what John had told them before he died, which was not much, and from what Birdie herself understood, Eric was able to puzzle together something like a narrative.
John Martin had awakened after being shot by Carl Doyle. For days he could not move, but slept and rested, eating and drinking what was left in his pack. Somehow he had found a truck and began to follow them, hoping to rejoin them. How he avoided Carl Doyle or if Doyle was an impediment to him, Eric never knew. Finally John found them, but when he did, there was only Birdie.
Birdie said that John had told her that they were not coming back. They guessed that John Martin had seen them enter the deserted cabin, saw the Minutemen enter, heard the gunfire, and believed them dead. Birdie said that she didn’t want to leave, but Eric had told her to look after herself. So she did as she was told.