those days in which they rode back to the wagon with the collected seed, they rode side by side in silence for most of the time, simply because there was no need to talk. It was as if some invisible current flowed back and forth between them and they were joined by that beyond the need for words.
They reached the wagon at last just at twilight and were welcomed by both Paul and Nick, standing just outside it to watch them ride up.
Wolf, who had not been visible to them all day, came trotting in almost on their heels. The dogs of the wagon came out to meet Wolf, and for the first time Jeebee saw him acting almost apologetic toward them, with his ears back and his tail low.
The dogs swarmed all over him. For a moment, as Jeebee and Merry came finally up to Nick and Paul, Jeebee thought that the dogs were likewise being welcoming. They were, but almost in a negative sense. They were swarming around Wolf in a generally antagonistic manner, none of them seemingly giving him a direct challenge, but all of them barking at him and nipping at him from the side or behind. Surprisingly, Greta also joined in this.
Wolf endured this more than objected to it. Only when one or two got too obtrusive did he show any sign of threatening back. Eventually the dogs slowed down their unwelcome attentions, and one by one dropped out of the group that were effectively, it seemed, punishing Wolf for having been away for such a length of time, without touching base with the rest of them.
Later on, quiet was established, the packhorses were unloaded, and the seed grain tucked into storage spaces that had already been made for it, clearly by Paul and Nick rearranging what was already kept in the storeroom.
Both Paul and Nick examined the grain, found it good, and listened with interest through dinner and into the twilight to the story of the going, the coming, and the gathering of the grain.
“I think by next year,” Paul said thoughtfully, “we can simply swing that far north and load directly into the wagon.”
Merry had done most of the relating, Jeebee only coming in when it got to be a matter of explaining the business of the difference between hybrid and genetic grains and the reason behind the various patterning of the plots and the experimental farms as a whole.
Merry seemed content to let him do this and was quite warm to him in front of her father and Nick; at the same time Jeebee thought that she showed a certain amount of relief at being back at the wagon, with her familiar environment around her. The next day they all, including Jeebee, fell automatically back into their old routines.
The wagon itself moved on, while Jeebee took his turn to be in charge of the horses. Merry, with Nick, worked in the wagon to separate the grain from the chaff with which it had been sacked. Jeebee felt himself caught in a timeless moment in which he could not think about either the future or the past, and right now did not_ particularly want to think about either.
Eventually, after they had stopped briefly for lunch, which as usual when they were in transit consisted of sandwiches and coffee, Merry took over with the horses and Jeebee went up to take his turn at handling the wagon, while Paul took advantage of the one luxury he allowed himself, which was a brief midday nap while the wagon moved.
Following this nap, Paul came forward and sat down beside Jeebee. However, he made no immediate move to take the reins back out of Jeebee’s hands. After a moment he spoke.
“Tomorrow,” he said, “we’ll turn south. You’ll be leaving us then.”
“Yes,” said Jeebee. There was nothing much else to say.
“We’ll stop a little early tonight and have a sort of going-away party,” Paul said. “I’ll pay you off, and I think you’ll be pretty well supplied with what I can give you. Also, we’ve each one of us got a small, personal gift for you. You’ll get those while we’re sitting around the fire after dinner, this evening.”
Jeebee was startled into glancing at the older man for a moment. Only for a moment, because he could not take his eyes off the road and the horses for longer than that, but his glance was a sharp and questioning one.
“Gifts?” he said. “I haven’t been with you… ” His voice trailed off.
“You’ve been with us long enough,” said Paul. “Anyway, we can do what we want, can’t we?”
“Oh. Of course,” said Jeebee. “It’s just, I wasn’t expecting gifts.”
“Well,” said Paul, producing his pipe, packing it, and lighting it up, “you’ll be getting them.” He struck a wooden match and held the flame to the tobacco in his pipe, drawing long and hard until the packed shreds were alight.
After a second he spoke again.
“I see you and Merry worked things out,” he said.
Jeebee glanced at him again, this time only out of the corner of his eyes, and saw that Paul’s gaze was fixed ahead on the horses pulling the wagon.
“Yes,” Jeebee said after a moment, unable to think of what else to say.
“I hoped as much,” Paul said, still to all appearances talking to the team ahead. “That’s one reason I wanted her to go with you.”
This time Jeebee didn’t glance at him.
“I thought there was no choice,” he said. “You couldn’t leave the wagon, and Nick—”
“Oh, I could have left.” Paul took his pipe out of his mouth, blew a jet of smoke, and glanced up at the few clouds dotting the blue sky ahead of them. “It wouldn’t have been as smart as you two going. But Merry could have handled this wagon by herself if she’d ended up having to. She knows all there is to know about it. She still can’t handle customers like I can, but most of them know her, and she knows how she ought to deal with them. Nick would work for her. No, if I’d thought it was really best, I could have been the one to go with you. I just thought it was better she did.”
Jeebee drove in silence for a few seconds, letting these last words sink into him. Plainly, the silent understanding he and Merry had come to was obvious; at least to her father, and probably to Nick as well.
Jeebee decided to accept the fact.
“It wasn’t easy,” he said.
“Didn’t figure it would be,” Paul said, puffing on his pipe. “Most important things aren’t.” Jeebee laughed unhappily.
“You’re right about that.” He glanced ahead and up at the clouds, himself. They seemed to be moving, following the way ajking with the wagon, although he knew that this was only an illusion. Still, for the moment, seeing them seem to move, it was as if the wagon was holding its place while the earth turned underneath it, so that once he left it and those riding it, the rotating world itself would carry him away from them.
CHAPTER 16
It was both strange and hard for Jeebee to admit to himself that he had come to feel so close, not merely to Merry, but to Paul and Nick. Close enough so that he was torn at the thought of parting with them. It was even harder and stranger yet to accept the fact that they might have become fond of him in reciprocal measure.
But evidently that was the way it was. His whole life had taught Jeebee to trust his perceptions. Faced with a problem—physical, mental, or emotional—his instinctive reaction was to take it apart and find out why it was the way it was, as he might have done with an unfamiliar mechanism that was not working, like the nonworking alarm clocks of his childhood.
This need to dismantle and understand was instinctive in him. As a result, he faced the fact that the present times were simply those in which friendships could come more strongly and more suddenly than they had in the earlier, more technological years.
At the same time it was part of what they all had to do for survival’s sake. He and Merry could not stay together. Paul could not give him in trade anything he had not earned or paid for, no matter how much the other had come to like him. There was a point now at which charity became unnecessary sacrifice, and unnecessary sacrifice became self-destruction.
Still, as they rode now through the hours before stopping, he and Paul discussed what Jeebee would take by way of payment for his gold and the seed he had brought back. Jeebee had not realized that he would have to make
