“Peter saved us yet again,” Natasha whispered, smiling at the man sleeping huddled in the snow with his head propped up by a smooth rock.
“I get the feeling that he is very fond of you and Lang, and that he’s glad to be able to protect you and to take care for you,” Elsie replied.
“He’s a good man,” Natasha said. She looked on him fondly, and wondered how she’d never noticed his gentle side before.
“I see that.”
“He’s lost his family, and we’re all he really has.”
“Oh!” Elsie started, “were they—?”
“No. No. I’m sorry,” Natasha said. “They left long ago. He hasn’t seen them in twenty years.”
“Divorce, then?”
“No. Oh… Listen… Elsie, I’m sorry,” Natasha said, suddenly remembering that, even though they had already passed through a great deal together in a short time, it was not her place to share Peter’s story if he didn’t want it known. “I probably shouldn’t be talking about him. I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s his business to tell you about himself as he sees fit. I just…” she stammered, embarrassed for having taken the conversation into more private concerns, “…I just wanted you to know that he is a very good man.”
“I do know. I see that,” Elsie said, smiling. “So, my dear, let’s just leave it at that.” She looked at Natasha and gave her the kind of loving smile that a mother gives a daughter. Natasha noticed it, and she was happy to have seen it.
Just as the two women finished their conversation, they heard the sharp crack of a small-caliber rifle being fired. Peter jumped to his feet, just in time to see Lang sauntering into camp swinging a white rabbit that he’d shot with the .22 Marlin. Without saying a word, Lang tossed the rabbit so that it landed within a few feet of the fire, and, keeping his head on a swivel and his eyes alive, he turned softly and walked back to his station to stand guard.
CHAPTER 25
Peter figured that they were within thirty minutes of reaching the outskirts of Carbondale when, while coming over a low-rising hill, they happened upon three men sitting around a fire. Peter saw them first, and the three men saw Peter’s gun almost immediately.
Two of the men leapt up from the log they were sitting on and sprinted away as though they were acting out of pure instinct. The third, reacting more slowly, sat frozen in place for a moment. He watched the four hikers approach him, and he finally rose to his feet and began backing away while keeping his eyes on them. Peter lowered the weapon, raised up a hand and tried to indicate with his eyes and his actions that he meant no harm.
The man looked uncertain, as if he were about to run after his mates, when Lang said calmly, “Listen, sir, we mean you no harm. You can go peacefully, or call your friends and have them return to your fire. We’re just traveling through. We didn’t see you from further away, due to the hill, or we would have avoided you. We have no desire to hurt anyone. And we’re not bandits. We’re simply passing on.”
“Umm…” the man sputtered, his eyes racing from point to point as his mind flipped through his options and the probabilities attached to each. “Yes. Well, okay then. I’ll just… I’ll just go get them. They won’t have gone far. I’ll be right back.”
The man began to walk nervously away through the trees, almost as if he expected Peter to shoot him in the back at any moment. After a few seconds of this trepidation walking, he broke out into a run as though the anxiety was simply too much.
“Do you think he’ll come back? Elsie asked.
“I don’t know,” Peter replied. He looked at Elsie, then at Natasha and Lang and shrugged his shoulders, as if to say, “This is what life is like now.”
“What can you do?” Peter said. “Everyone is spooked. And they should be. These people seem harmless enough, but keep your eyes on them and watch their every movement. Watch how they interact with one another. Be looking for clues that perhaps they are not as harmless as they look.”
Before long, the three men came walking back sheepishly through the woods. They did not look malevolent, but they were very nervous, like cattle, hungry but cautious.
Lang spoke first. “We apologize for interrupting you. As I am sure your friend here has told you, we’re just traveling through. We mean no harm at all. We’ve seen our share of death and violence, and we understand your concerns. We’ve lost our homes, and we’re traveling into Pennsylvania to meet up with some friends.”
One of the men, the one who had been too slow to escape at first, shuffled his feet in the snow and then looked up at Peter, and then at Lang. He nodded his head to the two women with them, as if by way of formal greeting.
“Well, if you are traveling into Pennsylvania, you’ll be glad to know that you’ve been there for some time. We came from Carbondale, just over that hill. You can see it from up-top there.” He pointed along a ridgeline to the southwest and squinted into the sun.
Lang nodded at the man, thanking him. “We don’t intend to go there—not into town—but if you have any news you’d be willing to share, we’d appreciate it. At some point we’re going to have to find some supplies or—at the very least—some way to find out what’s in front of us.” He left a kind of open-ended invitation hanging in the air for the men to tell them anything they found to be appropriate.
“I’ll tell you,” the man said, with a bitterness that verged on anger barely disguised in his voice. His visceral passion was surprising to the four hikers. “You don’t want to go anywherenear Carbondale. In fact, we’re still too close to it for my own comfort.” He looked sideways at his colleagues, and Peter judged that their proximity to the city had been a matter of some debate as they’d sat around their campfire. “And as for supplies, I think you’re gonna be out of luck, man.”
“What’s going on in Carbondale?”
The three men exchanged looks that betrayed a shared experience, and in their looks, Peter saw what he could only call fear. The air between them dripped with anxiety and concern.
“The town’s been taken over by the National Guard.” One of the men snorted at the mention of that name. “Supposedly,” the man said, making quotes around the word with his fingers, “they did it to help feed and shelter refugees pouring into the area from New York and the surrounding area. A couple of weeks ago, the town had about 9,000 people living in it. It was nice. We grew up there,” the man said, making a little waving motion with his fingers, pointing back and forth between his mates. “Industrial town, but nice. Anyway, it was a little outlying suburb of Scranton. But…” the man’s voice halted a bit, and he closed his eyes for a few seconds before he started talking again. “Scranton is gone. It’s just gone. Burned to the ground. And now there are over 100,000 people in what can only be called an internment camp. A death camp. Something like out of the war.” He didn’t say which war, but, judging by their age, Peter guessed that he probably meant the one their grandfathers had likely fought in, the Second World War. “There are thousands more arriving by day and by night. It’s a hellhole.”
“What do you mean? How so?” Lang asked. He reached up and soothed his aching shoulder as he did, feeling the heat of the wound radiate along his arm.
Another man picked up the conversation and answered. There was anger in his voice as well. “The place has turned into nothing more than a prison camp. The National Guard unit running the place was up from Missouri to help in the emergency following Hurricane Sandy and the Nor’easter. They were working in New York, I believe. When all the power went out and the authority structure broke down—whatever that was that knocked out all the lights—they just took control. Rolled through here and began knocking people around. They supply the camp by doing raids in the surrounding area. They rob farms, loot whatever stores are left, kill people in their homes.” The man relayed this information as though he himself couldn’t quite believe it, emphasizing at the end of each phrase a kind of incredulity, as though there had been something sacred in the very mention of such places.