The Long Loud Silence

“Yonder.” The blue hills somewhere behind. “Seen your smoke this morning.”

He twisted his head to survey the ashes.

“Did you, now?”

“Did. You hiding out?”

“Yes.” He glanced up into her face.

“Seen your smoke. You ought to use good wood.”

“I'm afraid I don't know very much about wood.”

“Guess not. I could show you.”

“You could? Now why would you do that? Why would you help me if I'm hiding out?”

The girl gravely stared at him. “I'm hungry.”

Oliver nodded slowly, still watching the way she had come. “Swap?”

“Sure, swap. I'm alone.”

With caution he raised up on his knees and peered over the hillock, searching the area behind her. “How do I know I can trust you? How do I know you're alone?”

“I said I was alone.” She came a few steps nearer and stared down at his upturned face. “I'm awful hungry. The other man can watch.”

“What other man?” he shot back.

She gestured off among the trees to her left. “Him. I seen him first, when he jumped out of the truck.”

Oliver laughed loudly, sat back on the ground. “Come on out, corporal, the girl scout spotted you.” He turned his head to watch Gary as he emerged from cover. “The army could have used her.”

“Maybe we can,” Gary suggested. He stopped at a distance and spoke to the girl. “All alone — where's your folks?”

“They died, long time back. Most everybody's dead. Folks, they went into town to see what was happening, and when they come back, they died. It's like the end of the world, ain't it?”

“For us,” Oliver said, “for you and us it is the end of the world. The world is still turning across the creek, but the end has come on this side. Have you got a name?

“Sally.”

“Welcome home, Sally.” He stood up and rubbed the stiffness from his knees, all the while looking at her legs. “Take over, corporal. I'll fix her something to eat.”

She joined them as quietly as that.

That she intended to remain with them became evident after Jay Oliver had prepared her breakfast and then cleaned and stowed away the gear for a second time that morning. She ate everything he cooked, not speaking to either of them, but watching Oliver's movements with a curious intent interest. She had pointed out what to use for the fire that would not give off a betraying smoke, and then sat down cross-legged, feet tucked up beneath her, to let him feed her. Sally had not understated her hunger.

Gary was on the hill position as lookout.

In less than an hour they broke camp and once again locked the rear doors of the mail truck. Oliver climbed into the cab and took his place behind the wheel, resting the rifle on the edge of the seat near his left leg. He started the motor. Sally followed him into the truck then, leaping in with a quick movement to sit next to him, still without a word. Oliver turned to look at her, studied her face for an instant and then beat a short, sharp note on the horn.

Gary left his position and came running down the incline to the truck. He stopped, staring at Sally, one foot lifted to climb in.

“Company,” he said, looking at her thin body. His voice did not give evidence of being surprised.

“Seems that way.” Oliver was grinning in satisfaction.

“Your company,” Gary persisted.

“Been on a fifty-fifty basis so far,” Oliver answered. “We get along better as a team.”

Gary hesitated but a second longer and then climbed into the cab and slammed the door. “Suits me.” He shifted the weight of the rifle from his shoulder, resting the butt on the floorboards. “Suits me.”

Oliver put the truck into motion and rolled it forward across the slope of the grassy hill, seeking the lonely dirt road which would lead them back to the highway. The seat was crowded with the three of them, their bodies tightly wedged together. Silence held the cab until the truck had found and followed the twisty little road to the pavement, until they had turned south and were moving out of the hills for the flatter land of Georgia and Alabama. The sky remained cloudy and bleak.

After a while Oliver broke the silence. “Me and the corporal are partners.”

The girl seemed puzzled.

Oliver correctly interpreted the expression. “Gary — he's a corporal.”

“Army soldier?” Sally wanted to know curiously.

“That's our hero, complete with Purple Heart.” He broke off when he saw that he was adding to her confusion. “Both soldiers,” he told her then, feeling her eyes on his face. “Partners — we share everything.”

She didn't answer him immediately but concentrated on his face, studying his eyes and lips. The truck rumbled along the highway.

Sally said to Oliver, “I like you.”

“Thank you — appreciate the compliment no end.” He briefly took his eyes from the road and flashed her a warm grin. “I like you too — but that doesn't alter the terms of our partnership. The corporal and me: fifty- fifty.”

Sally thought about it. “You want me to be nice to both of you?”

“That's right.” Oliver nodded. “Or not at all.”

The long silence descended on the crowded cab once more. She turned her head sharply to study Gary, to examine his eyes and lips as though they were most important to her, as though they were the keys she sought to determine character. Their glances met and locked, each glance a neutral one that had not yet found time to form a bias. When the girl turned away to again concentrate on the driver's profile, Gary went back to his continual chore of watching the countryside for movement.

The mail truck rolled rapidly through some small, anonymous Tennessee town which appeared completely deserted. Each one of the few stores in the village had been looted and wrecked, the windows smashed and splintered doors left hanging on hinges. The body of a dog gathered flies on a porch. And then they were out of the place, the last houses vanishing behind.

The sight and soundlessness of the town had reacted on the girl. “All right,” she said suddenly. “I can like both of you. Fifty-fifty.”

“Pleased to hear it,” Oliver commented. “Partners.”

“But I like you best,” she added quickly.

* * *

It required several days to work their way south to the Gulf of Mexico, avoiding the larger cities and using only the less-traveled highways and sometimes a dusty country road. Occasionally they met, or even overtook and passed another automobile, but the occupants of both vehicles regarded each other with a maximum of suspicion and with weapons in readiness. There was no stopping, no seeking or exchanging of information. That stage of human curiosity seemed to have passed.

Sally was beside herself with surprise and delight when they came in sight of the sea, revealing without words that she had never seen an ocean before. The highway turned and ran parallel to the water.

The trio spent the mild winter months on a long, sparse sliver of land jutting out into the sometimes blue, sometimes green waters of the Gulf; it was a sandy island lying like an outstretched finger offshore from the mainland of western Florida and reached only by a wooden causeway. There were no signs of recent habitation. After Gary had trucked in supplies calculated to last through the winter, he and Oliver set about ripping up the planking of the causeway to prevent any other vehicle from following them. They hid the lumber in a ramshackle boathouse and lived in an adjoining fisherman's cabin.

The truck was parked to the seaward side of the cabin to conceal it from eyes on the mainland, and a part of the winter provisions taken inside. Not until several weeks of complete isolation had passed did Gary and Oliver abandon the habit of standing guard each night; occasionally the fast-moving roar of a speeding automobile could be heard along the highway paralleling the coast, but none ever stopped, none ever investigated their island.