And I did, going out like a lamp blown out, and dreamed wild, exciting dreams about riding astride ships that went sailless across waterless oceans of nothingness and burned with white hot fury that woke me up to full morning light and Merry bouncing happily on my stomach. After breakfast, Mama carefully oiled Timmy's scabs again. 'I'm almost out of bandages,' she said. 'If you don't mind having to see,' said Timmy, 'don't bandage me again. Maybe the light will come through.' We went out and looked at the dimple by the porch. It had subsided farther and was a bowl-shaped place now, maybe waist-deep to me. 'Think it'll do any good to dig it out again?' I asked Father. 'I doubt it,' he answered heavily. 'Apparently I don't know how to set a charge to break the bedrock. How do we know we could break it anyway? It could be a mile thick right here.' It seemed to me that Father was talking to me more like to a man than to a boy. Maybe I wasn't a boy any more! 'The water is there,' said Timmy. 'If only I could 'platt'-' His hand groped in the sun and it streamed through his fingers for a minute like sun through a knothole in a dusty room. I absently picked up the piece of stone I had dumped from the bucket last evening. I fingered it and said, 'Ouch!' I had jabbed myself on its sharp point. Sharp point! 'Look,' I said, holding it out to Father. 'This is broken! All the other rocks we found were round river rocks. Our blasting broke something!' 'Yes.' Father took the splinter from me. 'But where's the water?' Timmy and I left Father looking at the well and went out to the foot of the field where the fire had been. I located the rock where I had buried the box. It was only a couple of inches down-barely covered, I scratched it out for him. 'Wait,' I said, 'it's all black. Let me wipe it off first.' I rubbed it in a sand patch and the black all rubbed off except in the deep lines of the design that covered all sides of it. I put it in his eager hands. He flipped it around until it fitted his two hands with his thumbs touching in front. Then I guess he must have thought at it because he didn't do anything else but all at once it opened, cleanly, from his thumbs up. He sat there on a rock in the sun and felt the things that were in the box. I couldn't tell you what any of them were except what looked like a piece of ribbon, and a withered flower. He finally closed the box. He slid to his knees beside the rock and hid his face on his arms. He sat there a long time. When he finally lifted his face, it was dry, but his sleeves were wet. I've seen Mama's sleeves like that after she has looked at things in the little black trunk of hers. 'Will you put it back in the ground?' be asked. 'There is no place for it in the house. It will be safe here.' So I buried the box again and we went back to the house. Father had dug a little, but be said, 'It's no use. The blast loosened the ground all around and it won't even hold the shape of a well any more.' We talked off and on all day about where to go from here, moneyless and perilously short of provisions. Mama wanted so much to go back to our old home that she couldn't talk about it, but Father wanted to go on, pushing West again. I wanted to stay where we were-with plenty of water. I wanted to see that tide of Time sweep one century away and start another across Desolation Valley! There would be a sight for you! We began to pack that afternoon because the barrels were emptying fast and the pools were damp, curling cakes of mud in the hot sun. All we could take was what we could load on the hayrack. Father had traded the wagon we came West in for farm machinery and a set of washtubs. We'd have to leave the machinery either to rust there or for us to come back for. Mama took Merry that evening and climbed the hill to the little grave under the scrub oak. She sat there a long time with her back to the sun, her wistful face in the shadow. She came back in silence, Merry heavily sleepy in her arms. After we had gone to bed, Timmy groped for my wrist. 'You do have a satellite to your earth, don't you?' he asked. His question was without words. 'A satellite?' Someone turned restlessly on the big bed when I hissed my question. 'Yes,' he answered. 'A smaller world that goes around and is bright at night.' 'Oh,' I breathed. 'You mean the moon. Yes, we have a moon but it's not very bright now. There was only a sliver showing just after sunset.' I felt Timmy sag. 'Why?' 'We can do large things with sunlight and moonlight together,' came his answer. 'I hoped that at sunrise tomorrow-' 'At sunrise tomorrow, we'll be finishing our packing,' I said. 'Go to sleep.' 'Then I must do without,' he went on, not hearing me. 'Barney, if I am Called, will you keep my cahilla until someone asks for it? If they ask, it is my People. Then they will know I am gone.' 'Called?' I asked. 'What do you mean?' 'As the baby was,' he said softly. 'Called back into the Presence from which we came. If I must lift with my own strength alone, I may not have enough, so will you keep my cahilla?' 'Yes,' I promised, not knowing what he was talking about. 'I'll keep it.' 'Good. Sleep well,' he said, and again waking went out of me like a lamp blown out. All night long I dreamed of storms and earthquakes and floods and tornadoes all going past me-fast! Then I was lying half awake, afraid to open my eyes for fear some of my dreaming might be true. And suddenly, it was! I clutched my pallet as the floor humped, snapping and groaning, and flopped flat again. I heard our breakfast pots and pans banging on the shelf and then falling with a clatter. Mama called, her voice heavy with sleep and fear, 'James! James!' I reached for Timmy, but the floor bumped again and dust rolled in through the pale squares of the windows and I coughed as I came to my knees. There was a crash of something heavy falling on the roof and rolling off. And a sharp hissing sound. Timmy wasn't in bed. Father was trying to find his shoes. The hissing noise got louder and louder until it was a burbling roar. Then there was a rumble and something banged the front of the house so hard I heard the porch splinter. Then there was a lot of silence. I crept on all fours across the floor. Where was Timmy? I could see the front door hanging at a crazy angle on one hinge. I crept toward it. My hands splashed! I paused, confused, and started on again. I was crawling in water! 'Father!' My voice was a croak from the dust and shock. 'Father! It's water!' And Father was suddenly there, lifting me to my feet. We stumbled together to the front door. There was a huge slab of rock poking a hole in the siding of the house, crushing the broken porch under its weight. We edged around it, ankle-deep in water, and saw in the gray light of early dawn our whole front yard awash from hill to porch. Where the well had been was a moving hump of water that worked away busily, becoming larger and larger as we watched. 'Water!' said Father. 'The water has broken through!' 'Where's Timmy?' I said. 'Where's Timmy!' I yelled and started to splash out into the yard. 'Watch out!' warned Father. 'It's dangerous! All this rock came out of there!' We skirted the front yard searching the surface of the rising water, thinking every shadow might be Timmy. We found him on the far side of the house, floating quietly, face up in a rising pool of water, his face a bleeding mass of mud and raw flesh. I reached him first, floundering through the water to him. I lifted his shoulders and tried to see in the dawn light if he was still breathing. Father reached us and we lifted Timmy to dry land. 'He's alive!' said Father. 'His face-it's just the scabs scraped off.' 'Help me get him in the house,' I said, beginning to lift him. 'Better be the barn,' said Father. 'The water's still rising.' It had crept up to us already and seeped under Timmy again. We carried him to the barn and I stayed with him while Father went back for Merry and Mama. It was lucky that most of our things had been packed on the hayrack the night before. After Mama, a shawl thrown over her nightgown and all our day clothes grabbed up in her arms, came wading out with Father, who was carrying Merry and our lamp, I gave Timmy into her care and went back with Father again and again to finish emptying the cabin of our possessions.
