Beyond the cut was a road. It was a good, wide road, and Hostetter said it had been made a long time ago before the Destruction. He called it a switchback. It zigzagged right up the side of a mountain, and Len could still see the marks on the rock where huge iron teeth had bitten it away. They moved up slowly, the teams grunting and puffing, and the men helping them, and Hostetter pointed to a ragged notch very high up against the sky. He said, “Tomorrow.”
Len’s heart began to beat fast and the nerves pricked all through his stomach. But he shook his head, and Hostetter asked, “What’s the matter?”
“I never thought there’d be a road to it. I mean, just a road.”
“How did you think we’d get in and out?”
“I don’t know,” said Len, “but I thought there’d be at least walls or guards or something. Of course they can stop people in the cut back there—”
“They
“You mean people walk right through there? And up this road? And through that pass into Bartorstown?”
“They do,” said Hostetter, “and they don’t. Didn’t you ever hear that the best way to hide something is to leave it right out in the open?”
“I don’t understand,” said Len. “Not at all.”
“You will.”
“I guess so.” Len’s eyes were shining again in that particular way, and he said softly, “Tomorrow,” as though it was a beautiful word.
“It’s been a long way, hasn’t it?” said Hostetter. “You really wanted to come, to stick to it like that.” He was silent a minute, looking up at the pass. Then he said, “Give it time, Len. It won’t be all that you’ve dreamed about, but give it time. Don’t make any snap decisions.”
Len turned and studied him gravely. “You keep sounding all the time like you’re trying to warn me about something.”
“I’m just trying to tell you to—not be impatient. Give yourself a chance to get adjusted.” Suddenly, almost angrily, he said, “This is a hard life, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. It’s hard for everybody, even in Bartorstown, and it doesn’t get any easier, and don’t expect a shiny tinsel heaven and then break your heart because it isn’t there.”
He looked hard at Len, very briefly, and then looked away, breathing hard and doing the mechanical things with his hands that a man does when he’s upset and trying not to show it. And Len said slowly, “You hate the place.”
He could not believe it. But when Hostetter said sharply, “That’s ridiculous, of course I don’t,” he knew that it was true.
“Why did you come back? You could have stayed in Piper’s Run.”
“So could you.”
“But that’s different.”
“No, it isn’t. You had a reason. So have I.” He walked on for a minute with his head bent down. Then he said, “Just don’t ever plan on going back.”
He went ahead fast, leaving Len behind, and Len did not see him alone again the rest of that day and night. But he felt as shocked as he would have if, in the old days, Pa had suddenly told him that there was no God.
He did not say anything to Esau. But he kept glancing up at the pass, and wondering. Toward late afternoon they were high enough up on the mountain that he could see back the other way, over the ridge of the scarp, to where the dessert lay all lonely and burning. A terrible feeling of doubt came over him. The red and yellow rock, the sharp peaks that hung against the sky, the gray desert and the dust and the dryness, the pitiless light that was never softened by a cloud or gentled by rain, the vast ringing silences where nothing lived but the wind, all seemed to mock him with their cheerlessness and lack of hope. He wished he was back—no, not home, because he would have to face Pa there, and not in Refuge, either. Just somewhere where there was life and water and green grass. Somewhere where the ugly rock did not stand up every way you looked, like—
Like what?
Like the truth, when all the dreams are torn away from it?
It wasn’t a happy thought. He tried to ignore it, but every time he saw Hostetter it came to him again. Hostetter seemed broody and withdrawn, and after they camped and had supper he disappeared. Len started to look for him and then had sense enough to stop.
They were camped in the mouth of the pass, where there was a wide space on both sides of the road. The wind blew and it was bitterly cold. Just before dark Len noticed some letters cut in the side of a cliff above the road. They were crumbling and weather-worn, but they were big, and he could make them out. They said FALL CREEK 13 mi.
Hostetter was gone, so Len hunted up Wepplo and asked him what they meant. “Can’t you read, boy? They mean just what they say. Fall Creek, thirteen miles. That’s from here to there.”
“Thirteen miles,” said Len, “from here to Fall Creek. All right. But what’s Fall Creek?”
“Town,” said Wepplo.
“Where?”
“In Fall Creek Canyon.” He pointed. “Thirteen miles.”
He was grinning. Len began to hate the old man’s sense of humor. “What about Fall Creek?” he asked. “What does it have to do with us?”
“Why,” said Wepplo, “it’s got damn near everything to do with us. Didn’t you know, boy? That’s where we’re going.”
Then he laughed. Len walked away fast. He was mad at Wepplo, mad at Hostetter, mad at Fall Creek. He was mad at the world. He rolled up in his blanket and lay shivering and cursing. He was dog-tired. But it was a long time before he fell asleep, and then he dreamed. He dreamed that he was trying to find Bartorstown. He knew he was almost there, but there was fog and darkness and the road kept shifting its direction. He kept asking an old man how to get there, but the old man had never heard of Bartorstown and would only say over and over that it was thirteen miles to Fall Creek.
They went through the pass the next day. Both Len and Hostetter were now morose and did not talk much.
They crossed the saddleback before noon, and after that they went much faster, going down. The mules stepped out smartly as though they knew they were almost home. The men got cheerful and eager. Esau kept running up as often as he could get away from Amity and asking, “Are we almost there?” And Hostetter would nod and say, “Almost.”
They came out of the pass with the afternoon sun in their eyes. The road pitched down in another switchback along the side of a cliff, and way at the bottom of the cliff there was a canyon, with the blue shadow of the opposite wall already sliding across it. Hostetter pointed. His voice was neither excited, nor happy, nor sad. It was just a voice, saying, “There it is.”
Book Three
19
The wagons went down the wide steep road with the brake shoes screeching and the mules braced back on their haunches. Len looked over the edge, into the canyon. He looked a long time without speaking. Esau came and walked beside him, and they both looked. And it was Esau who turned around with his face all white and angry and shouted at Mr. Hostetter, “What do you think this is, a joke? Do you think this is real funny, bringing us all this way—”
