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CORAL DID NOT KNOW what was wrong with her. A month ago she had trusted nearly anything another person said, wanting to believe the best of people, but her sense of security was shaken now. It wasn’t just the memory of the attack that made her mistrust Benjamin; it was that the world had changed in an instant, even it had taken her a while to realize how completely. The blue sky had disappeared, maybe forever, the grass and trees had disappeared, and summer rains had turned into cold mud storms. The reliable landscape had become an alien world, and no old rules could be counted on.
It was dizzying, like reinventing herself from the ground up. No longer Coral the sister, the granddaughter, the pre-med student, the Midwesterner, she was someone new—something new that she couldn’t even put a name to.
She thought about that while she went through her pack again, reorganizing it, making a mental list of what she needed to clean or replace when she could. After a couple hours, she went upstairs and said a cautious hello to Benjamin.
He continued their conversation of earlier, as if no time had passed. “Was the rifle with your gear?”
“I thought so.”
He looked guileless. The wave of her mistrust receded a fraction. No doubt she was being paranoid. She had to have dropped the rifle somewhere. Coral remembered holding it as she hurried out of the town and across the bridge. After that, she didn’t remember anything very clearly. She should have lashed it onto her pack, like the hatchet. “I’ll go look for it later,” she said.
He said nothing.
Midday, they shared a meal of leftover cold stew. No matter what sort of person he was otherwise, he was decent enough to share his venison, and she was acutely aware that she couldn’t continue to take his food indefinitely. Who knew when he would find more.
“I’m going to try and catch some fish,” she said, after they were done eating. She’d bring him back enough food to repay these meals. And then she could leave, without guilt, if she wanted to.
She was afraid of encountering the man from town, but if she stayed far upstream from the bridge, she’d be safe. The ash in the air was a pain in the ass in a dozen ways, but at least it kept her invisible. You had to get pretty close to someone to be certain they were even there.
“You mean to go where, exactly?”
“Back toward the town—Mill Creek. The stream along there has fed me for more than a week.”
“You have other choices,” he said.
“What do you mean?” Did he have more food hoarded?
“I mean, there’s a closer stream. There’s three of them that feed into the lake.”
“There’s a lake near here?” Maybe deeper water meant more fish.
“Yeah,” he said, pointing. “Over that way a dozen miles. Here.” He picked up a bent nail and smoothed a place in the fallen ash, then he started to draw a map, starting by tracing something the shape of a human ear. “This is the lake. And Mill Creek is here, the river itself, I mean.” He drew a line then poked at a spot right by it. “That’s the town of Mill Creek. There’s a ridge here, then a valley with another creek.” He drew a line roughly parallel to the first. “We’re here,” he said, poking the nail nearer to that line. “And then over that way a third creek, the smallest.” He drew a final line. “Why walk all the way down to Mill Creek when you can stay closer?”
Coral looked at the map. “Is this to scale?”
“Pretty near.”
She had come farther from the town than she had thought. Or Benjamin had dragged her farther than she had imagined. “Are there fish in this closer creek?”
“No idea,” he said. “But we have the venison for another day.”
“I’d like to try fishing the nearer stream. I have the gear. And I want to replace what I’ve eaten of yours.”
“You don’t owe me,” he said.
“I do. We can’t live forever on the rest of that deer. Just get me pointed in the right direction.”
“Downhill along the road will get you there.” He studied her face. “You want me to come along and show you?”
“No,” she said. “You look busy.” As for possible dangers out there, she’d be on guard listening and watching as she had not before. No one would get the jump on her from now on, she promised herself that.
At his insistence, she took a small slice of dried venison with her. She packed, leaving nothing behind. He glanced at the full pack and raised his eyebrows but didn’t comment.
“I’ll be back by nightfall,” she said. “Unless something goes wrong. Tomorrow, for sure.”
He nodded.
She followed his directions to the stream. Several times she turned around and looked at where she had been, so that she wouldn’t get lost on her way back. The soot-streaked walls of the house faded away from sight quickly. She picked out landmarks—a bare gray face of rock, a snag that looked like a face—and memorized them. At a couple points, she stopped and dug a big arrow in the fallen ash with the toe of her boot. She’d erase them on her way back. No reason to advertise the location of Benjamin’s house.
The stream was farther than she expected, and a little clearer of mud than Mill Creek had been. She found a flat rock next to the water and stripped down to her underwear. She pulled all her dirty clothes out of her pack. The bloodstain on her shirt stopped her short, sent a chill through her. The memory of the attack tried to force itself to the front of her mind, but she thrust it back. Scrubbing hard at the clothes with her sliver of hand soap, she made progress against the blood and dirt. Not as clean as a commercial washer would get them, but clean enough. At least they didn’t smell bad after the final rinse.
She moved upstream of where she had washed, hooked the clean clothes on a couple skeletal nubs that had once been branches of trees, and settled down bare-legged to fish, catching three trout before they quit biting. She tied her damp clothes to the pack’s straps and pulled on the damp jeans before wandering downstream, tossing her line in periodically. The fourth time she stopped and cast the line, a fish hit quickly and its cousins came to the bait soon after. She caught thirteen in all before they quit biting, sixteen in all for the day’s work.
By the time she made her way back to the house, she was weary and her head was beginning to throb again. Benjamin cooked up a third of the trout and they ate them in silence. She was too tired to make conversation, and he seemed comfortable with silence.
The next morning, she woke feeling physically better. Her head was still tender to the touch, but the headache had gone, she hoped for good this time. She found Benjamin working at scavenging more debris.
“Can I help?”
“Sure. This was a barn. My workshop was in here. A lot of metal survived the fire. Be on the lookout for any parts of tools, screws, or nails, hinges, bolts, anything like that”
They dug in the ash together in silence.
When he uncovered a pile of rib bones, she recoiled, worrying he had found a dead person, but he said, “Lizzy, a goat. She was a good old thing too. Dumb but kindhearted.”
His tone was matter of fact, and Coral wondered again what kind of man he was. Had he seen the animal as a pet, did he grieve her death? She couldn’t think of how to ask such a question of this reticent man. He could work for hours without speaking, while she had to bite her tongue to keep from chattering nonsense at him.
“I really appreciate your helping me out,” she said. He gave a sharp nod and continued combing through the piles of ash. She cleared her throat. “But I think I should be going pretty soon. I need to find—well, you know. Civilization. A phone, to call my family.”
One eyebrow twitched.
“What?” she said, but he didn’t answer.
A few minutes later, he picked up a bit of twisted metal and turned it around, examining it, before dropping it into the pile of potentially useful trash. “I wonder if I can ask you for something first.”
“What’s that?” She could hear the suspicion in her own voice.
He didn’t notice it, or if he did, he didn’t comment on it. “I mean to re-roof over the kitchen. Every time it rains, there’s a new mess to clean up.”
“I don’t know anything about putting on roofs.”
“It ain’t rocket science,” he said. “All you need are working eyes and arms.”
“What are you going to use?” She didn’t see piles of shingles around, that was for sure.
He scratched his beard, then turned around and looked at the house. Coral turned her eyes in the same direction. “Here’s the theory of roofing this place. The straw bales go up to there, the framing and the ends of the rebars are up there.” He pointed up to the top of the walls. “Roof has to be tied into the bar system, or it’d go flying away. The framing over the kitchen is fire-damaged, so we’ll have to put up new rafters.”
“Okay,” she said. “But what are you going to put up there, as the roof?”
“There aren’t trees, so I can’t make shake, even now that your hatchet would let me. I’ve found lumber in a neighbor’s crawl space that’s solid enough for the framing, but there’s no thatching to be had.”
“So what can you do?”
“The downstairs carpets made it through without much damage. I’m thinking it’d be a better roof than nothing.”
“You’re going to put a carpet on the roof?” She cocked her head, trying to imagine that.
“It’s what I have.”
“Won’t the rain just come through it?”
“One rug is wool, so it can repel some water. And at least it will filter out the ash. I care less if there’s water dripping through than if I have to clean mud every two days, or spit grit out of my food.”
“Sure, I can see that.” If she stayed and helped him do that, she’d feel she had paid off her debt to him. “How long, do you think? To do it?”
“Two or three days. I have to work on making the ladder a bit first. That’ll take me a couple hours. Why, you in a hurry to be someplace?”
“I’m in a hurry to be any place. I want a town. Pocatello. Boise. Whatever I can find. And people who know what’s going on. A way to contact my family. Or get back east somehow.”
He frowned but offered no comment. In a moment, he stood. “I’d appreciate your help on the roof, at any rate.”
“Okay,” she said. “Happy to help.”
The next day’s work on the roof was, as promised, not complicated, just labor intensive and more than a little nerve-wracking. Coral had never been particularly afraid of heights, but it was unnerving crawling around on the edges of the house frame, seeing the kitchen appliances from such a strange vantage point. The top of the fridge needed cleaning. Trying to balance the weight of supplies he handed her did not help her feel more secure. At first, she held on with hands and thighs, crawling slowly every time Benjamin directed her to move, clinging so tightly with her legs that her thighs began to tremble.
Yet he never complained, waiting patiently for her to find her balance and move along. The second day, she went fishing again, and he wasn’t able to accomplish much by himself. By the beginning of the third day of work, they had a frame of scavenged lumber and were ready to haul up the carpet. She was moving around with more ease, walking across the beams without a wobble. It was a good thing she was too, because that carpet was damned heavy. It took them half the morning to get it hauled up to the main beam and secured temporarily. Despite the cool air, she was sweating hard by the time they had it in place.
Coral stood at the peak of the roof and used a rock to pound a nail through the carpet and into a rafter. With a smile of pleasure at a job done right, she looked up and saw Benjamin at the edge of the roof, sitting with one leg stuck out, not moving an inch. She pulled the nails she was holding out of her mouth and called down to him, “What, you having a brilliant inspiration, there?”
He said nothing.
“Benjamin?”
“Give me a second.” His voice was strained.
She tucked the nails back in her jeans pocket. “What’s wrong?”
“Twinge in my back. I’ll be okay in a second.”
“I’m coming down there,” she said.
“No! Don’t let go of that carpet. You have to get it tacked up there, or the next gust of wind will pull it down and we’ll have to haul it up again.”
“But you’re hurt.”
“I’m fine. Had this before. It’ll ease up.”
She wasn’t so sure. He seemed frozen in place and his shoulders were hunched in pain. But he was right, she couldn’t just let the carpet roll back down to the ground. It had taken too much effort to get it up here. Quickly, she crawled along, pounding salvaged nails into the beam, tacking the center of the carpet in place. Benjamin still hadn’t moved. “Okay, that’s enough,” she said “I’m coming down there to you.”
“No, finish up,” he said.
“There’s no wind to speak of. That rug is not going anywhere in the next ten minutes,” she answered. “I’m going to help you down before you fall off.”
“I’m not going to fall,” he said.
She walked over to where he still sat in the same position. “What can I do for you?”
He snapped, “You can get back up there and nail down the roof.”
“God, you’re a bad patient.”
He sucked in a breath, gritting his teeth against the pain.
“Benjamin, relax.”
He grumbled something.
She crawled around him, got to the ladder he’d made, then pulled it over so that it was right at his feet. “Can you move at all?” she asked.
“I can move,” he growled. But he didn’t.
She got behind him and braced his back, pivoting him around on his butt. If he could move just a little, change positions, the spasm might let go of him.
“Jeez,” he breathed. Then “Okay, okay, I can move now.” He bent his leg and began to shift himself around, very slowly.
She stayed right by him, holding on to the top of the ladder with one hand, ready to help him if he froze up again. Slowly, he got himself onto the ladder and backed down. “Don’t get on the ladder with me. I don’t trust the integrity of it that much.”
“Great time to mention it.” She watched him all the way to the ground. “Go lie down,” she told him. “Take care of that back.”
“I’m fine,” he lied. “You know what to do up there?”
“Pound nails.”
“Start in the middle. Keep it flat.”
“I know, you told me already. Go lie down.” she said. “And relax, would you?”
“I’ll be right here.”
“Go inside,” she said. “I’ve got this covered.” Then she heard what she’d said. “Ha, covered! A roofing joke.”
He shook his head at her.
She waved at him, scrambled back up and went on with her work. It began to rain on her, a light rain that came and went, but she kept going, tacking the carpet down all the way around. It covered little more than the kitchen, but he said that’s the only room he’d be using upstairs anyway. There was still an open space between walls and roof, but it’d let some light in, even if it did let some ash drift inside too.
The sky grew darker as she finished up. She couldn’t tell if the clouds up there were tall, dangerous thunderheads or not. They were just vague darker patches in the ashen sky. When would the sky clear of the ash and soot? It seemed it never would.
Climbing down from the roof, she felt almost cheerful, pleased at getting the project completed. She went inside to check on Benjamin, aiming for the stairway down. His voice from nearby stopped her.
He was lying on the floor in the kitchen, looking up at the new roof. “Any problems?” he asked.
“You look like crap,” she said.
“Thanks.”
“I meant, you look like you feel like crap. It wasn’t a fashion critique or anything.”
He closed his eyes. “It looks good. The roof.”
“You aren’t looking at it,” she pointed out.
“You’re an irritating person, you know that?”
“Yes. You’re welcome.”
He opened his eyes. “Sorry. You did a great job up there. Thank you.”
“I know you’re in a lousy mood because you’re in pain.”
“It’s not pain. I’m just a little stiff.”
“No wonder, lying on the floor. Why aren’t you in bed?”
“The floor is hard. It feels better.”
“Okay.” She walked over and squatted down by his side. “Can I get you anything? Water, blanket? I have a few ibuprofen in my pack. And something a little stronger.”
“I hate taking pills.”
“Suit yourself,” she said, standing up. She had never understood people who wanted to avoid taking drugs for pain. That’s what they were there for. Suffering was senseless, in her opinion. She turned to leave him alone.
His voice stopped her. “Maybe one favor.”
“What?”
“Water. You can get some out of the tap downstairs.”
“I can?” She went downstairs. A metal cup stood on the counter there. Sure enough, when she turned the tap, water came out. She ran back up with a full cup. “Where’s that water coming from? Is it safe?”
“You’ve been drinking it all along,” he said, taking a sip. “Yeah, it’s safe, and cleaner than any water you’re likely to find in a river. There’s a well too, but the pump for that’s electric and I haven’t looked at changing it over yet. This is coming from a cistern.”
“A cistern?”
“An underground water storage tank.” He shifted himself on the floor, winced, then settled back down and went on, “When the heat came, and then the fires, I stayed there, in a space between it and the basement wall.”
“So you were down there for how long?”
“Four days. Insulated by the tank, I was cool enough to survive the big heat. I was able to get to the drain for water to drink too.”
“You’re lucky it was there.” She had always lived in a city where water magically appeared at her taps, and she couldn’t have told its source.
“The guy who owns the house, he’s rich and an eco freak. So the house is straw bale, and partly earth sheltered.”
“Earth sheltered?” She frowned. “You mean, the basement where I’ve been sleeping.”
“Yeah.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “It’s the protection of being underground that saved most of the furnishings down there, and the carpet. The house had solar panels and the cistern and a wind generator too. The cistern was meant to supply the gardens during the dry months. It was sustainable housing, all self-contained, but I don’t think he ever thought he’d need it.” He grimaced. “Not like this. There may even be a little charge left in the batteries.”
“You mean you have electricity?” Electricity sounded like some form of magic, from a far-off realm. She supposed that’s what it was. “That we can use?”
“In theory. But I haven’t been able to make the water pump or anything else work with it, not even the lights, and they’re LED and take almost no juice at all. Could be there’s a break in a line I haven’t found yet. There’s no lines feeding them juice any more—and nothing to feed them with anyway. The wind generator is down, and the cabling is all destroyed. The solar panels—well, if they hadn’t been screwed up, there’s no sun anyway.”
She thought over all he had just said. “So this isn’t your house? Then why are you here?”
“I’m the caretaker. Guy who owns it is a TV producer in Hollywood. He has—had—four or five houses all over the place, Aspen, Mendocino coast, France, and here, that I know of. Came here to this one maybe twice a year, three times.” He colored faintly, embarrassed by some part of this. “The whole rest of the time, I had the run of the place.”
She couldn’t imagine such a prosperous life, so much money that you could own a house and hardly ever use it. If her parents hadn’t died and left a little insurance money, she couldn’t have even gone to college. She still had to work summers to pay for books and food. She understood working class. She definitely did not understand rich. “Did you like the guy?”
“He’s okay. But I can stand anyone for a couple weeks a year.”
Coral wondered what would happen when her couple weeks were up—would he begin to hate her? It didn’t matter, really, because she wanted to get going again long before that happened. “You’ve had this before—this back thing?” she asked him.
“Yeah.”
“And how long does it last, usually?”
“Couple days is all.”
Coral wondered if he was telling her the truth or if this was stoicism or optimism operating. It didn’t matter. She couldn’t leave him alone in this condition—not after he’d helped her when she had been hurt. She’d have to stay here for a little while longer, fish to feed him, and make sure he was okay. Finding civilization would have to wait once again.
