Z for Zachariah

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.