Chapter Four

Still May 25 th

It is night again, and I am in the cave with one lamp lit.

An inexplicable thing: the dog, Faro, has come back. How that is
possible I don’t know. Where has he been? How has he lived? He looks
terrible—as thin as a skeleton, and half the hair is gone from his left side.
I think I have already written that Faro was David’s dog. He came with
David when David moved in with us about five years ago after his father
died and he became an orphan (his mother died when he was born). Joseph
and David were within six months of the same age, so they became really
close friends—all three of us were, in fact. But Faro was always really
David’s dog; he would never go with any of us unless David went, too. He
was—he is—a mongrel, but mostly setter, and he loved to hunt. When we
went hunting, when he even saw a gun come out, he would get so excited
you would never believe he would freeze on a point, but he always did; he
was really good. So when David left with my father and mother, and then
later the dog disappeared, I assumed he had gone looking for David,
through the gap into the deadness. (He used to follow the truck sometimes
if David was in it; you had to tie him up.) But apparently he did not go
through the gap. He must have been living in the woods up there near it,
waiting for David to come, eating what he could catch.
I suppose he heard the two gunshots, and that’s what brought him back. I
was watching at the time. It was about one-thirty and the man, wearing his
blue coverall—he did not put the plastic suit back on—had cleaned the
chicken with a knife from his wagon and was cooking it on a spit he had
made. The dog came up very cautiously and stood at the edge of the front
garden, watching and sniffing. When the man looked up and saw him he
stopped turning the spit and stared, not moving. Then he took a step
towards Faro, and Faro backed away. The man crouched down, slapped his
knee, whistled, and said something; I could hear the whistle but not the
words. I knew he was calling him, though; he wanted to make friends with
him. He walked forward again, and Faro backed away, keeping the same
distance between them.
The man gave up and went back to the fire. That is, he seemed to have
given up, but he had not really, I could tell. He had an idea, a very simple
one, and he kept looking up to see if the dog was still there. When the
chicken was cooked, just a few minutes later, he went into the house and
came out with two plates (mine!). He cut off a big chunk of chicken. He
opened a tin from the store-box, some kind of meat. He put the chicken and
some of the meat on one plate and carried it, moving very gently, past the
edge of the garden to about where the dog had first appeared. And he put it
down there.
Back to his spit he went, very unconcerned, and carved up his chicken
and ate it, along with some kind of dried bread he took from his wagon. (I
could have given him some fresh-baked cornbread.) He ate the whole
chicken, very quickly too, and as he ate he watched the dog from the corner
of his eye. Faro crept up, looking at the man, then the plate of food, then the
man again, until finally he reached it. Standing as far back as he could he
stretched out his neck, snatched the chicken and ran back fifty feet. He
swallowed it in two gulps, came back for the other meat and did the same
again.
Having eaten, the dog came back to the plate, licked it, and then slowly
began circling the garden, sniffing as he went, still keeping away from the
man. He went all the way round the house twice. Then, to my horror, he
started wagging his tail the way he used to when he was tracking, and he
turned from the house and headed up the hill towards the cave. He had
found my tracks.
The man stared after him as he left, whistled loudly, and started to
follow. But the dog was out of sight by then, and he gave up after a few
steps. Fortunately the area between the house and the cave has a lot of trees
and underbrush, so I am quite sure there was no glimpse of the dog after
that. I crept back into the cave and in two minutes Faro came bounding in.
Poor dog. He looked terrible, even worse close up, even in the dimness
of the cave. He gave two short, creaky little barks and ran to me. But I was
scared. Inevitably, if he stayed around, if the man made friends with him, he
was going to betray me. So I did not know what to do; I did not dare act too
friendly. I said in a whisper, “Good Faro,” but I did not hug him the way I
felt like doing. The truth is, though I liked him and he liked me, it was not
me he was looking for anyway. He had been in the cave a thousand times
before when we played there, and now he ran around it sniffing everything,
looking for David. When he did not find him he left again in just a few
minutes, and ran back down the hill, towards the house.
It is trouble, because that’s where the man is, and the plate, and the food.
If the man makes friends with him, he will come to a whistle, as he did for
David; the man can keep him close, and follow him when he comes up
here.
I suppose it seems wrong to be so afraid of that. It is just that I don’t
know what the man will do. I liked most people. I had a lot of friends at
school, and a boy friend, too. But that was a matter of choice; there were
some people I didn’t like, and many that I didn’t even know. This man may
be the only man left on the earth. I don’t know him. Suppose I don’t like
him? Or worse, suppose he doesn’t like me?
For nearly a year I have been here alone. I have hoped and prayed for
someone to come, someone to talk to, to work with, and plan for the future
in the valley. I dreamed that it would be a man, for then, some time in the
future—it is a dream, I know—there might be children in the valley. Yet,
now that a man has actually come, I realize that my hopes were too simple.
All men are different, but the man on the radio station, fighting to survive,
saw people that were desperate and selfish. This man is a stranger, and
bigger and stronger than I am. If he is kind, then I am all right. But if he is
not—what then? He can do whatever he likes, and I will be a slave for the
rest of my life. That is why I want to find out, at least as well as I can by
watching him, what he is like.
After the dog left the cave, after it had been gone a while, I went back to
the entrance and looked down at the house. The man had scissors in his
hand, a small mirror propped in front of him, and was cutting his hair and
his beard. He kept at it for a long time, and trimmed them both quite short. I
must admit it made a great improvement; he looks almost handsome,
though he got the hair rather lopsided at the back, where he could not see it
in the mirror.
 May 26th

A sunny day, like yesterday only warmer. According to my calendar (I

have it and the alarm clock here in the cave) it is Sunday. Ordinarily that
would mean I would go to the church in the morning, and try to make the
rest of the day a day of rest, as Sunday is supposed to be. Sometimes I went
fishing, a practical way of resting. I would take the Bible with me to the
church, and some flowers for the altar in spring and summer. I did not
pretend to have a real service, of course, but I would sit and read something
from the Bible. Sometimes I chose—I like the Psalms and Ecclesiastes—
and sometimes I just opened it at random. In the middle of winter I usually
did not go; there being no heat it was too cold to sit there.
There never were any real services in the church, not in our time,
anyway, nor any minister. It is very small, and was built a long time ago by
one of our ancestors—“an early Burden”, my father used to say—when
they first settled in the valley and I suppose thought it would grow into a
village. It never did, since for years afterwards there was no road in, but just
a horse-trail; the road ended past Ogdentown, at the junction. When we
went to church we drove to Ogdentown; in the last year before the war I had
finally graduated from Sunday School to the real service.
But this morning I had to forget about all that. The man got up early and
cooked his breakfast, still on the fire out in front of the house; he was quick
and purposeful. He had plans and I learned what they were: he wanted to
explore the length of this valley and take a look beyond. He still did not
know how far the green part extended.
Before he went he put some more of the tinned meat in Faro’s plate and
set it out. Faro himself was nowhere to be seen—at least not at the moment,
but as soon as the man started up the road he emerged from the woodshed
where he had been sleeping, ate the food, and then followed him. You could
tell Faro wanted to join the man—he was carrying the small gun—but could
not quite get up his nerve. After a hundred yards or so he turned back,
sniffed at the plate again, and went and lay down not far from the tent.
I followed the man, staying on my high woods path. Sooner or later he
will explore up here, too, and then I will have to cross to the other side of
the valley—also, I will have to stay alert, because in the woods he will not
be so visible.
But today he stayed on the road. He did not wear the plastic suit, and
walked much more briskly without it, so I had to work a bit to keep up with
him—the path is not as straight as the road; also I had to be careful not to
make a noise.
When he got to the store he went in, and when he came out I was
amazed—I hardly recognized him. The wrinkled coverall was gone; he was
dressed in a whole new outfit—khaki drill slacks, very neat, a blue work
shirt, even new work shoes and a straw cap. (My clothes.) But he really
looked like a different person, and quite nice. For one thing, with his hair
and beard trimmed and now neatly dressed, he looked a lot younger, though
still much older than I. I would guess maybe thirty or thirty-two.
He walked on down the road, heading south towards the far end of the
valley, towards the gap. He looked around him as he went; he was curious
about everything, but he did not slow down much until he reached the
culvert. At that point the small stream, having flowed into the pond and out
again, and meandered along through the meadow, runs into a rise (the
beginning of the end of the valley, I suppose), bears right, and is joined by
Burden Creek.
He stopped there. I think it dawned on him then for the first time that
there were two streams, and that the pond was not formed by Burden Creek.
And here, if you look at them closely where they join, the difference
between them becomes plain. I have done it many times. Even in the last
few feet, the small stream has life in it—minnows, tadpoles, water bugs
(skippers), and green moss on the rocks. Burden Creek has none at all, and
after they merge, downstream all the way to the gap and out, the water is
clear and dead.
I cannot be sure that he noticed all that, but he stared at it for a long
time, getting down on his hands. If he did see it he must have begun
worrying, and maybe it was then that he started feeling sick. In a short time
he was going to get very sick.
However, worried or not, he got up in a few minutes and walked on,
striding out briskly as before. In another fifteen minutes he was
approaching the end of the valley, and the beginning of the deadness
beyond, where the road leads on to the Amish farms.
He could not see that, of course. In fact, unless you know about it, it is
hard to believe that there is any way out of the valley at the south end. That
is because the gap is in the shape of a very large “S”, and until you are right
on top of it you think you are coming to a solid wall of rock and trees. Then
the road (and the stream beside it) turns sharply right, left, and right again,
cutting through the ridge like a tunnel without even going uphill.
With Burden Hill on the other end, the result is that the valley is
completely closed in. People used to say it even has its own weather; the
winds from outside do not blow through it.
When he reached the gap I lost sight of him—there is no way you can
see into it from the hillside where I was. But the stretch of road going
through it is only a couple of hundred yards long, so I knew he would
reappear shortly. When he saw the dead land outside he would turn and
come back; he could not go farther without his plastic suit.
I sat down in the sun to wait, and looked at the scenery below me: the
narrow black road running straight and the river winding beside it, the other
side of the valley here quite close, rising gently in woods, big oak and
beech trees, old ones with black shadows beneath their branches. Higher up
there was a big outcropping of grey rock, a cliff. We used to climb it; it is
not as steep as it looks from the distance. It was eleven o’clock and had
turned quite warm again. Behind me some blackberry bushes gave off quite
a sweet smell, and there were bees humming in the blossoms. At times like
that I miss the songbirds.
He must have stood a while near the end of the gap, resting or looking,
because it was twenty minutes before he came out, walking somewhat more
slowly, and started back towards the house.
About half way back it happened: he stopped, sat down quickly in the
middle of the road, and was very sick. He stayed there, retching, leaning to
his side on one arm, for several minutes. Then he got up and walked on.
He did that again three times on the way, and after the third time he was
barely stumbling along, dragging the rifle. When he reached the tent he
crawled in; he has not come out again. Faro came, braver now, and sniffed
at the opening of the tent. He even wagged his tail a little, and then went
and sat by the empty plate.
But the man did not feed Faro. He did not make a fire tonight, nor eat
any supper. But it may be that in the morning he will be better.