He managed not to recoil when she took his hand. He was getting information from her. Let her touch him as long as she kept talking.
'You've got to understand,' she said. 'It's really hard on us the way we limit our growth. We can only do it because we're so isolated. But if you escaped-with or without your kids-we'd have to escape too before you could send people here to corral us. I don't know where we'd go, but chances are, we'd have to split up. Now you imagine, for instance, Ingraham out there on his own. He was high-strung before, and damned undisciplined. He doesn't shake because there's more wrong with him than with the rest of us. He shakes because he's holding himself back almost all the time. He respects Eli and he loves Lupe. She's going to have his kid. But you force him out of here, and all by himself, he'll start an epidemic you won't believe.'
'And you're saying that will be my fault,' Blake said angrily. She was boxing him in. Everything she said was intended to close another exit.
'We'll do anything to avoid being locked up,' she said. 'I'll do anything to keep my sons from being taken from me.' 'Nobody would take your-'
'Shut your mouth! They'd take them. They'd treat them like things. If they killed them-accidentally or deliberately, it would just be one of their problems solved.'
'Meda, listen-'
'So if you're afraid of an epidemic, Doctor, don't even think about leaving us. Even if you spread the word, you can't possibly stop us.' She switched tracks abruptly. 'I'm starving. Do you want anything to eat?'
He was disoriented for a moment. 'Food?' 'We eat a lot. You'll see.'
'What if you didn't?' he asked, immediately alert. 'I mean, I couldn't have put away the meal I saw you eat only a few hours ago. What if you just ate normally?'
'We do eat normally-for us.' 'You know what I mean.'
'Yeah, I know. You're still seeking weakness. Well, you've found one. W^e eat a lot. Now what are you going to do?
Destroy our food supply?' She produced a key from somewhere, seemingly by magic. Her hands actually were quicker than his eyes. 'Don't even think about doing anything to the food,' she said. 'Someday I'll tell you how people like you smell to my kids.' She let herself out and slammed the door behind her.
She returned sometime later, bringing him a ham sandwich and a fruit salad. 'I'd like to see my daughters,' he told her.
'I'll see,' she said. 'Maybe I can bring you one of them for a few minutes.'
Her cooperativeness pleased but did not surprise him. She had children of her own and she could see that his concern was genuine; there was no reason for her to find that concern suspect.
He was lying down, tired and frightened, hanging on to the bare bones of an escape plan when Eli brought Keira in. Keira seemed calm. Eli left her without saying a word. He locked her in and probably stood outside listening.
'Are you all right?' Blake asked.
She answered the question he intended rather than the one he had asked. 'He hasn't touched me,' she said. She did not sit down, but stood in the middle of the room and looked at Blake. He looked back, realizing that for her sake, he could
not touch her either. Such a simple, terrible thing. He could not touch her.
'He said Meda scratched you,' she whispered. Blake nodded.
'He told me about the disease and . . . where he got it. I didn't know what to think. Do you believe him?'
' 'Her' in my case.' Blake stared through the bars of the window into the desert night. 'I believe. Maybe I shouldn't, but
I do.'
'Rane always says I'll believe anything. At first, I was afraid to believe this. I do now, though.' 'Have you seen Rane?'
'No. Daddy?'
He looked away from the bright full moon, met her eyes and saw that in a moment she would come to him, disease or no disease.
'No!' he said sharply.
'Why?' she demanded. 'What difference does it make? Someone's going to touch me sooner or later, anyway. And even if they don't, I've probably already got the disease-from the salad or the bread or the furniture or the dishes . . . What's the difference?' She wiped away tears angrily. She tended to cry when she got upset, whether she wanted to or
not.
'Why hasn't he touched you?'
She looked at Blake, looked away. 'He likes me. He's afraid he'll kill me.' 'I wonder how long that will stop him?'
'Not long. He obviously feels terrible. Sooner or later, he's going to just grab me.'
Blake opened his bag again, turned it on, and keyed in a prescription form. 'ARE YOU LOCKED UP?' he typed. 'ARE YOUR WINDOWS BARRED?'
She shook her head, mouthed, 'No bars.' 'THEN YOU CAN ESCAPE!'
'Alone?' she mouthed. She shook her head.
'YOU MUST!' he typed. 'AT TWO A.M., I'LL TRY. I WANT YOU WITH ME!' Aloud, he said, 'I can't help you, Kerry.'
'I know,' she whispered. 'Most of the time, I'm not even worried about myself. I'm worried about you and Rane. I
don't even know where Rane is.'
He began typing soundlessly again. 'THEN BREAK FREE ALONE! THEY THINK YOU'RE HELPLESS. THEY'LL BE CARELESS WITH YOU.'
She shook her head as she read the words. 'I can't,' she mouthed. 'I can't!' 'Are you having any pain?' he asked aloud. 'Did you take your medicine?'
'No pain,' she said softly. 'I had some, but I told Eli and he got my medicine from the car. He wore what he called his town gloves.' She glanced at the door. 'He said if he wasn't careful, he could transmit the disease just by paying for
supplies. They all have to wear special gloves when they're in town.'
'Yet they deliberately spread the disease to people like us,' Blake said. He wiped everything he had typed and began again on a clean form. 'YOU MUST ESCAPE! THERE'S AN EPIDEMIC BREWING HERE! WE MUST GIVE WARNING, GET TREATMENT!'
She was shaking her head again. God, why hadn't Meda sent Rane to him? Rane would be afraid, too, but that would not stop her.
'EVEN IF I FAIL,' he typed, 'YOU MUST TAKE THE CAR AND GO--OR WE COULD ALL DIE. DO YOU REMEMBER HOW TO START THE CAR WITHOUT THE KEY?'
She nodded.
'THEN CO! SEND BACK HELP. GIVE WARNING!'
Tears ran down her face, but she did not seem to notice them. He spoke aloud with painfully calculated brutality. 'Meda told me people with serious injuries die of the disease. She's seen them die. She didn't say anything about people with serious illnesses, but Kerry, she didn't have to.' He gave her a long look, trying to read her, reach her. She knew
he was right. She wanted to please him. But she had to overcome her own fear.
He typed, 'SOONER OR LATER, ELI WILL TOUCH YOU-AT LEAST.' She read the words without responding.
'BE NEAR THE WAGONEER TONIGHT,' he typed. 'AT TWO.' She swallowed, nodded once.
At that moment, there was a sound at the door. Instantly, Blake shut off the computer, automatically wiping the prescription form and everything he had typed. He closed the bag and turned to face the door just as Eli opened it.
Blake looked at Keira, aching to hug her. He felt he was about to lose her in one way or another, but he could not touch her.
PAST 9
Within twenty-four hours, Eli had infected everyone on the mountaintop ranch. He had also talked the old man, Gabriel Boyd, into giving him a job as a handyman. Boyd was not willing to pay much more than room and board, but room and board was all Eli really wanted-a chance to stay and perhaps save some of these people.
He was given a cot in a back room that had been used for storage. He was given his meals with the family, and he worked alongside the men of the family. He knew nothing about ranching or building houses, but he was strong and willing and quick. Also, he knew his Bible. This in particular impressed both the old man and his wife. Few people read the Bible now, except as literature. Religion was about as far out of fashion as it had ever been in the United States-a reaction against the intense religious feeling at the turn of the century. But Eli had been a boy preacher during that strange, not entirely sane time. He had been precocious and sincere, had read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and could still talk about it knowledgeably. Also, Eli knew how to be easygoing and personable, a refugee from the city, grateful to be away from the city. He knew how to win people over even as he condemned them to illness and possible death.
He wanted them all to start showing symptoms at about the same time, and he wanted that time to be soon. Left to themselves, infected people feeling their symptoms tended to huddle together in an us-against-the-world attitude. If everyone became ill at the same time, he would have less trouble keeping individuals from trying to go for help. He had started what could become an epidemic. Now, if he were going to be able to live with himself at all, he had to contain it.
He worked hard on the house that was intended for the son named Christian-Chris to everyone but his father. Christian's wife Gwyn was going to have a baby and Christian had decided that the house would be finished before the baby arrived. Eli did not know or care whether this was possible, but he liked Christian and Gwyn. He worried about what the disease might do to a pregnant woman and her child. Whatever happened would be his fault.
Sometimes guilt and fear rode him very nearly into insanity, and only the exhausting hard work of building kept him connected to the world outside himself. He liked these people. They were decent, kind, and in spite of the angry God they worshipped, they were remarkably peaceful and uncorrupted by the cynicism and violence outside. They were
good
