One Second After [155]
After the dinner, music, and play he had met with Abel, Malady, and the surviving faculty to talk about trying to get at least a few courses up and running ... but the conversation had fallen away. It was time to struggle to bring in the first greens, to get hunting parties out, to maybe, just maybe, get the turbine project finished at the dam and finally hook electricity back up. Courses could wait until the fall.
He walked out into the living room, Elizabeth standing by the window, watching the sun rise, Ben nuzzled against her, nursing.
She did so look like her mother as she looked over her shoulder and smiled at him contentedly, that Madonna-like face all new mothers have when nursing a child.
"Morning, Daddy."
"How is he this morning?
"Hungry little devil."
"Get something on a little more presentable than that old bathrobe; you're going into town with me now." "Why?"
"Just do it; wake up Jen and tell her to get moving as well."
He walked outside; the air was chilled, the sky overhead clear. The trees were really leafing out now, though farther up the slope of the mountains it was still winter and Mitchell was still snowcapped.
Strange, a year ago today. Precisely a year ago.
He walked round the side of the house and saw a fresh tulip beginning to blossom. He snapped it off and placed it on Jennifer's grave.
"Good morning, my little angel," he whispered, and looked back to the window where Rabs sat gazing down protectively.
Next to her grave was another, smaller. Very little had been buried there, but he felt he owed Ginger that for her sacrifice. Elizabeth had found a faded ceramic dog and placed it there for Ginger shortly after Ben was born.
"Dad, what is it?"
Elizabeth was outside, holding Ben. "Just get in the car."
The old Edsel, the miracle machine, was still running, though just barely, the rings going. He turned it over and it revved to life, black exhaust blowing out. Their remaining stock of gas was increasingly contaminated.
Jen came out, helped by Makala. The two had indeed bonded over the long winter; the starving winter it was now called by those who had survived it. Jen was failing. Though she stood proudly straight a year ago, osteoporosis was taking over. She was developing cataracts also but could still see well enough to at least read, which had become her source of comfort during the long cold winter months spent next to the fireplace.
The firewood. Though he argued against it, students made sure the house was supplied ... and provided extra rations for Elizabeth as well.
Jen got into the back alongside Elizabeth, and Makala climbed into the front seat. He backed out and started towards town.
"What the hell is it?" Jen asked a bit peevishly. "Did someone get a bear?"
That had happened three weeks ago and had been the cause of an actual celebration in town. Bear stew, enough to feed a thousand when some of the precious dried corn and apples were mixed in.
A thousand, 960 actually, was the number now, at least as of yesterday afternoon.
The starving winter, as Kellor predicted, had taken down most of the rest of the survivors. The months of cold, increasing solitude as already weakened neighbors died away, fires going out, the weak far too weak to crawl out, bring in wood, and relight the flame ... curling up and then just going to sleep. The death rate soared once more.
Just yesterday, at the town council meeting, Makala, now head of public health, had raised the terrible issue of burials. It had broken down by February. There were too many dead and too few left with the strength to bury them. It was estimated that hundreds of homes might now actually be morgues, the entire family dead. A hundred or more bodies were lying in the graveyard, decaying.
The decision was made to burn them, the grisly task to be seen to by those who would accept triple rations as payment.
That now was a horrible irony as well. With so many dying during the long winter, there was now actually enough food to see the rest through to summer.
John drove down Black Mountain Road, the