“It’s more than that. Our rights come from a higher power, Noah. Men can’t grant them, and men can’t take them away. That’s the difference, I think, between what happened in the French Revolution and what we achieved in ours. We believed we had the will of God behind us, and they believed in the words of Godwin. One endures, and the other fell to human weakness.”
He touched the second word engraved in her silver bracelet. “And what about hope?”
“That means we believe in the strongest part of the human spirit. Hope and truth are tied together; if everything we know is a lie, we don’t have a chance. When a doctor tells you you’re sick, you don’t blame her for the diagnosis. You have the truth, then, no matter how bad it is, and you can make a plan to get better. That’s hope. To know that even when things look darkest, there can be a better day tomorrow.”
Molly pointed out the last word of the three. “And charity is simple. We believe that it’s up to each of us to help one another get to that better tomorrow. Ben Franklin explained my whole bracelet when the president of Yale asked him to sum up the American religion. He answered: that there is a God, that there is life after this one and He will hold us accountable for our actions in this life, and that the best way to serve Him is to serve our fellow man. That’s faith, hope, and charity.”
“It sounds good.” Noah adjusted a pillow and laid his head back onto it. “I hate to say it, though; I just don’t think it’s enough.”
“Maybe it’s not something you get right away,” Molly said. “It didn’t come to any of us overnight. When you’re ready to understand, you’ll understand.”
A sketch on white paper was attached to the wall at their side, placed so it would be easily visible to someone lying where they were.
“Who drew that, over there?” Noah asked.
She turned her head that way, rolled over slightly, reached out to tug the paper free from its pushpin, and then held it so they both could see. “I did.”
It was a drawing of a small log cabin in a valley in wintertime, near a stream within a secluded patch of woods. The details of the place were carefully rendered; a porch swing, a spot for a garden to the side within a low split- rail fence, a path of flat stones to the front steps, puffs of drifted snow on the eaves and windowsills. It was only simple lines and shades from the edge of a pencil, but the scene was fondly captured there in the artist’s sensitive hand.
“It’s really beautiful,” Noah said. “Where is this?”
“Only in my head, I guess.” She looked at him. “And do you want to know something?”
“Sure.”
“This is all I want, really, this little place. I imagine that makes me sound pretty simple to someone like you.”
“No, it doesn’t. It sounds good.”
“Just a place like this to share with someone, and the freedom to live our lives there. The pursuit of happiness, you know? That means a different thing to everybody, and that’s the way it should be. But this is mine; this is what I dream about.”
“I hope you get there someday.”
“I hope we all do.”
He thought for a moment. “Why don’t you just go out right now, and find that place?”
“You mean, why don’t I just grab mine while I can, and to hell with everybody else?”
“That’s not exactly what I meant-”
“There’s a cancer in our country, Noah. We’ve both seen the X-rays now. If we don’t stop it, it’ll spread wherever we try to hide. And I want you to know something. I need for you to know something.”
“Okay.”
“There’s nothing I wouldn’t give up to defend my country. No matter how hard it might be, there’s nothing that’s in my power that I wouldn’t do.”
“I understand,” Noah said. “I admire that a lot.”
“But I don’t want this on my shoulders. I don’t want to be right. I wish things were different. If I could I’d stay here just like this, like you said.”
“I just wish I felt that strongly about anything.”
Quiet minutes passed, and as he lay there gazing up at those imitation stars, feeling her close to him, he tried without much success to remember exactly what it was he’d been pursuing for all these years, if it wasn’t a simple togetherness just like this.
Then he noticed a subtle blur that had crept into his vision. A little shimmer had formed around sources of light, and though he blinked it away the strange haze returned after a moment more, this time accompanied by an odd discomfort, like a passing wave of vertigo.
“Whoa.”
“What is it?”
“Nothing. I think I got the whirlies there for a second.”
No sooner had the feeling left than it came over him again, but stronger this time, and he stiffened, tried to shake it off. Molly raised herself on an elbow beside him, concern in her eyes.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he breathed out. “I’m fine.”
But he wasn’t fine. There’d been a time in college after a stupid drinking game when he’d downed far too much of the spiked punch too quickly, and all that alcohol had hit his bloodstream at once. It had been the worst feeling of helplessness, because by the time he realized his mistake there was nothing he could do to stop what was coming.
“I need to get up,” he said. His own words were slow to reach his ears, and they didn’t sound right. A flutter of panic was beginning to take hold inside, and he felt her cool hand on his forehead, comforting.
“Be still now,” she said.
But it had almost all drained away by then, first the strength and then the will to move, all replaced by this building sensation of a slow-motion, backward swoon at the sheer edge of a bottomless ravine.
As the cloudy room began to swim and fade he saw that three strangers were standing nearby, young men dressed in business suits and ties.
“It’s time to go, Molly,” one of them said, the voice far away and unreal.
“Just give us a minute. Wait for me downstairs.”
And they were gone, and another, taller figure appeared.
“You’ll stay with him, Hollis, won’t you?”
“I’ll stay just as long as I can.”
He felt her arms around him tight, her tears on his cheek, her lips near his ear as the blackness finally, fully descended. Almost gone, but the three simple words she’d whispered to him then would stay clear in his mind even after everything else had faded away into the dark.
“I’m so sorry.”
CHAPTER 22
Agent Kearns had retired to the kitchenette of his double-wide mobile home to make breakfast. This left Danny Bailey sitting by himself in the parlor in his borrowed pajamas with a wicked sleep hangover, an ugly off-white cat, and a full-scale model of a small atomic bomb.
The Sunday news from some distant city lay folded at the far end of the couch. It would have been nice to see some headlines but the paper was a little too close to the cat to be safely retrieved.
“So you’ve never been to Winnemucca, you said?” Kearns called through the narrow doorway.
Again with the frickin small talk.
“No, can you believe that?” Danny said. He was looking over the elaborate cylindrical device in its heavy wooden cradle on the coffee table. “Never knew what I was missing.”
“If you think this burg is dead, wait until you see where we’re going to meet these guys tonight. This whole
