Earth Abides

time long ago when the children had been afraid to carry the hammer and when they had nodded knowingly at his saying he was an American. Yet he had never wished to be a god.

One day Ish sat on the hillside in the sun, and after a while he looked at his left side, and saw that no one sat there. Then he realized that at last Ezra, the good helper, was gone, and that no one would ever sit there beside him on the hillside again. At that thought he gripped the handle of the hammer, which in these days was very heavy for him to lift, even with both hands.

“It is called a single-jack,” he thought, “but now it is too heavy for my one hand. Yet now it has become the symbol of a tribal god, and it is still with me, though all the others, even Ezra, have gone.”

Then, because the shock of that sudden knowledge about Ezra had made him think and see more clearly, he looked alertly about him, and observed that he was sitting on the slope of the hill where many years before there had been a neat garden and was now only a trampled place of tall grass in the midst of overgrown bushes and high trees, with a half-ruined house standing up from among the tangle.

Then he looked at the sun, and saw that it was in the east, not in the west, as he had thought it would be. Also, it was far to the north, so that the season must be nearly mid-summer, whereas he had thought it should be early spring. Yes, in all those years, as he had sat on the hillside, he had lost hold of time itself, so that the swinging of the sun from east to west with the passing of the day seemed much the same as the swinging of the sun from north to south with the passing of the seasons, and he had lost track of them both. This thought made him feel very old and very sad.

Perhaps that sadness brought back to him the thought of other sadness also, and he thought:

“Yes, Em is gone, and Joey, and even Ezra, my helper, is gone now.”

When he thus recalled all that had happened, and his loneliness, he began to cry gently, for he was an old man, and he could not control what he did. And he thought to himself, “Yes, they are all gone! I am the last American!”

End of the second inter-chapter called Quick Years.

PART III: The Last American

’Tis merry, ’tis merry in good greenwood.

— Old Song

Chapter 1

Perhaps it was that same day or perhaps it was only that same summer or perhaps even it was another year…. When Ish looked up, he saw, very clearly, a young man standing in front of him. The young man wore a neat-enough pair of blue jeans with copper rivets shining brightly, and yet over his shoulders he wore a tawny hide with sharp claws dangling from it. In his hand he held a strong bow, and over his shoulder was a quiver with the feathered ends of arrows sticking from it. Ish blinked, for in his old eyes the sunshine was strong.

“Who are you?” said Ish.

The young man answered respectfully, “I am Jack, Ish, as indeed you yourself well know.”

The way he said “Ish” did not indicate that he was trying to be unduly familiar with an old man, thus calling him by a nickname, but rather it carried something of great respect and even of awe, and as if “Ish” stood for much more than merely the name of an old man.

But Ish himself was confused, and he squinted, peering more carefully, because at short distances he no longer saw clearly. But he was sure that Jack should have dark hair, or perhaps turned somewhat gray by now, and this one who called himself Jack had long wavy yellow hair.

“You should not make jokes with an old man,” said Ish. “Jack is my oldest son, and I would recognize him. He has dark hair, and he is older than you.”

The young man laughed, but politely, and said, “You are talking, Ish, of my grandfather, as indeed you yourself well know.” Again the way in which he said “Ish” had a certain strange sound to it, and now Ish noticed also the strangeness of his other repeated words, “as indeed you yourself well know.”

“Are you of the First Ones?” Ish asked. “Or of the Others?”

“Of the First Ones,” he said.

Then, as Ish still looked, he was puzzled that the young man, who was certainly not a child, was carrying a bow instead of a rifle. “Why do you not have a rifle?” he asked.

“Rifles are good for playthings!” the young man said, and he laughed, a little scornfully perhaps. “You cannot be sure of a rifle, as indeed you yourself, Ish, well know. Sometimes the rifle works, and it makes the big noise, but other times you pull the trigger, and it only goes ‘click.’” Here he snapped his fingers. “So you cannot use the rifles for real hunting, although the older men say that this was not so in the long past years. But now we use the arrow because it is sure, and never refuses to fly and besides,” here the young man held himself proudly, “besides, it is a matter of strength and skill to shoot with the bow—but anyone, they say, could shoot with a rifle, as you yourself, Ish, well know.”

“Let me see an arrow,” said Ish.

The young man took an arrow from the quiver, and looked at it, and then handed it across.

“That is a good arrow,” he said. “I made it myself.”

Ish looked at the arrow and felt the weight of it. This was no plaything for a child. The shaft was nearly a yard long, split cleanly from a billet of flawless straight-grained wood, and then rounded and smoothed. It was well feathered, with pinions of some kind, although Ish could not see well enough to know what bird had yielded the feathers. By feeling, however, he could tell that they were arranged carefully so that the arrow in flight would spin like a rifle-bullet, and thus keep its true course and carry farther.

Then he observed the arrowhead, again more by feel than by sight. The arrowhead was very sharp both at the point and along the edges. Ish nearly pricked his thumb. It had the bumpy yet slick feel which told him that it was of hammered metal. Though he could not see very clearly, he made the color out as silvery-white.

“What is that made of?” he asked.

“It is from one of the little round things. They have faces on them. The old men have a name for them, but I do not remember exactly. It is something like corns.”

The young man paused, as if to be told the right word, but when he had no reply, he went on again, being obviously eager to show off his knowledge about arrowheads.

“We find these little round things in the old buildings. Often there are many—many—of them in the boxes and drawers. Sometimes they are rolled up together in bundles like short round sticks, but heavier than sticks. Some are red and some are white, like this one, and there are two kinds of the white. The one kind of white—the one that has the picture of the hump-backed bull—we do not use those because they are harder to pound.”

Ish considered, and thought that he understood.

“And this white one here?” he asked. “Was there a relief—picture—on this one?”

The young man took the arrow from Ish, and looked at it, and then handed it back.

“They all have pictures,” he said. “But I was looking to see if I could still make out what picture was on this one. It has not quite all gone because of the hammering. This was one of the littlest ones, and it had the picture of the woman with the wings growing out of her head. Some of them have pictures of hawks—but not real hawks.” The young man was talking very happily. “Others have men; at least, they look like men—one with a beard, and one with long hair hanging behind him and another with a strong-looking face, without a beard and with short hair, and heavy-jawed.”

“And who—who do you think—were all these men?”

The young man glanced both ways, as if a little nervous.

“These—oh, these—yes! These, we think—as you yourself, Ish, well know—these were the Old Ones that