“Fine,” Gloria answered. “I’m starting her on the kindergarten book next week.”
“She’s five already?” Harry asked.
“Almost six,” Walt said. “Emergency Education Regulations state that the child should be five years nine months old before embarking on kindergarten book.”
“And Frances?” Harry asked. “Your oldest? She must be starting high....” He stopped, because they were all staring at him, and because he couldn’t remember Frances clearly. “Just a joke,” he said, laughing and rising. “Let’s eat. I’m starved.”
*
They ate in the kitchen. They talked—or rather Edna, Gloria and Walt did. Harry nodded and said uh-huh and used his mouth for chewing.
Walt and Gloria went home at ten-fifteen. They said goodbye at the door and Harry walked away. He heard Gloria whispering something about Doctor Hamming.
He was sitting in the living room when Edna came in. She was crying. “Harry, please see the doctor.”
He got up. “I’m going out. I might even sleep out!”
“But why, Harry, why?”
He couldn’t stand to see her crying. He went to her, kissed her wet cheek, spoke more softly. “It’ll do me good, like when I was a kid.”
“If you say so, Harry.”
He left quickly. He went outside and across the yard to the road. He looked up it and down it, to the north and to the south. It was a bright night with moon and stars, but he saw nothing, no one. The road was empty. It was always empty, except when Walt and Gloria walked over from their place a mile or so south. But once it hadn’t been empty. Once there’d been cars, people....
He had to do something. Just sitting and looking at the sky wouldn’t help him. He had to go somewhere, see someone.
He went to the barn and looked for his saddle. There was no saddle. But he’d had one hanging right behind the door. Or had he?
He threw a blanket over Plum, the big mare, and tied it with a piece of wash line. He used another piece for a bridle, since he couldn’t find that either, and didn’t bother making a bit. He mounted, and Plum moved out of the barn and onto the road. He headed north, toward town.
Then he realized he couldn’t go along the road this way. He’d be reported. Breaking travel regulations was a serious offense. He didn’t know what they did to you, but it wasn’t anything easy like a fine.
He cut into an unfenced, unplanted field.
His headache was back, worse now than it had ever been. His entire head throbbed, and he leaned forward and put his cheek against Plum’s mane. The mare whinnied uneasily, but he kicked her sides and she moved forward. He lay there, just wanting to go somewhere, just wanting to leave his headache and confusion behind.
He didn’t know how long it was, but Plum was moving cautiously now. He raised his head. They were approaching a fence. He noticed a gate off to the right, and pulled the rope so Plum went that way. They reached the gate and he got down to open it, and saw the sign. “Phineas Grotton Farm.” He looked up at the sky, found the constellations, turned his head, and nodded. He’d started north, and Plum had continued north. He’d crossed land belonging both to himself and the Franklins. Now he was leaving the Franklin farm. North of the Franklins were the Bessers. Who was this Phineas Grotton? Had he bought out Lon Besser? But anything like that would’ve gotten around.
Was he forgetting again?
*
Well, no matter. Mr. Grotton would have to excuse his trespass. He opened the gate, led Plum through it, closed the gate. He mounted and rode forward, still north, toward the small Pangborn place and after the Pangborns the biggest farm in the county—old Wallace Elverton’s place. The fields here, as everywhere in the county, lay fallow. Seemed as if the government had so much grain stored up they’d be able to get along without crops for years more.
He looked around. Somehow, the country bothered him. He wasn’t sure why, but ... everything was wrong.
His head weighed an agonized ton. He put it down again. Plum went sedately forward. After a while she stopped. Harry looked up. Another fence. And what a fence! About ten feet of heavy steel mesh, topped by three feet of barbed-wire—five separate strands. What in the world had Sam Pangborn been thinking of to put up a monster like this?
He looked around. The gate should be further west. He rode that way. He found no gate. He turned back, heading east. No gate. Nothing but fence. And wasn’t the fence gradually curving inward? He looked back. Yes, there was a slight inward curve.
He dismounted and tied Plum to the fence, then stepped back and figured the best way to get to the other side.
The best way, the only way, was to claw, clutch and clamber, as they used to say back when he was a kid.
It took some doing. He tore his shirt on the barbed wire, but he got over and began walking, straight ahead, due north. The earth changed beneath his feet. He stooped and touched it. Sand. Hard-packed sand. He’d never seen the like of it in this county.
He walked on. A sound came to him; a rising-falling whisper. He listened to it, and looked up every so often at the sky, to make sure he was heading in the right direction.
And the sand ended. His shoes plunked over flooring.
Flooring!
He knelt to make sure, and his hand felt wooden planks. He rose, and glanced up to see if he was still outdoors. Then he laughed. It was a sick laugh, so he stopped it.
He took another step. His shoes sounded against the wood. He walked. More wood. Wood that went on, as the sand had. And the roaring sound growing louder. And the air changing, smelling like air never had before in Cultwait County.
*
His entire body trembled. His mind trembled too. He walked, and came to a waist-high metal railing, and made a tiny sound deep in his throat. He looked out over water, endless water rolling in endless waves under the night sky. Crashing water, topped with reflected silver from the moon. Pounding water, filling the air with spray.
He put out his hands and grasped the railing. It was wet. He raised damp fingers to his mouth. Salt.
He stepped back, back, and turned and ran. He ran wildly, blindly, until he could run no more. Then he fell, feeling the sand beneath him, and shut his eyes and mind to everything.
Much later, he got up and went to the fence and climbed it. He came down on the other side and looked around and saw Plum. He walked to her, mounted her, sat still. The thoughts, or dreams, or whatever they were which had been torturing him these past few weeks began torturing him again.
It was getting light. His head was splitting.
Davie. His son Davie. Fourteen years old. Going to high school in town....
Town! He should’ve gone there in the first place! He would ride east, to the road, then head south, back toward home. That would bring him right down Main Street. Regulations or not, he’d talk to people, find out what was happening.
He kicked Plum’s sides. The mare began to move. He kept kicking until she broke into a brisk canter. He held on with hands and legs.
Why hadn’t he seen the Pangborns and Elvertons lately—a long time lately?
The ocean. He’d seen the ocean. Not a reservoir or lake made by flooding and by damming, but salt water and enormous. An ocean, where there could be no ocean. The Pangborns and Elvertons had been where that ocean was now. And after the Elvertons had come the Dobsons. And after them the new plastics plant. And after that the city of Crossville. And after that....
He was passing his own farm. He