Gold mine? Below has been nothing but a dungeon. Returning, even if it is to collect the commodities that will help me and Adam and be of some use to the survivors, fills me with dread.
“Perhaps we can have this discussion another time.”
Bill hands Adam the key. “Son, you hang on to this, and when you and your mother are ready to share those documents, you let me know.” And because he is a kind man, he changes the subject. “You mentioned diagrams of inventions. Do you like to make things?”
Adam nods.
“Tell him about that car you made, Adam.”
“Mom, it was a toy.”
I tell Bill about how Adam constructed a vehicle out of this and that.
Bill looks at Adam intently. “Very few folks can earn or trade enough for a car, son, so if you can build even a go-kart, you can do very nicely indeed.”
Bill is teaching Adam how to attach a piece of wood to a spindle on a lathe. He suggests I might want to visit with Ginny. I take the hint.
She is in the kitchen, filling up two baby bottles. She seems pleased to see me. She offers me a bottle and gives me the choice of which baby to feed. I lift Molly out of the bassinet and situate her in the crook of my arm. She is eager for her meal and seems to hold no grudge against me for my earlier remarks. Babies are a forgiving lot.
“Adam’s taken quite a liking to Bill.”
Ginny presses her throat, and a husky whisper comes out. “Lava . . . lamps.”
I laugh. “Yes. I expect I’m not going to hear the end of it until Adam gets himself one.
“Do you find families for all the children who come here?”
She shakes her head. Her smile slips ever so slightly.
“What happens to them?”
“I take ’em.” Marcus enters the kitchen with a bouquet of wildflowers. He fills an enamel pitcher with water and puts the flowers in it. He peers at each baby face. “How my girls doing? Can you say hi to Uncle Marcus? No? Too busy eating, I guess.”
“Take them where?”
Marcus doesn’t answer me but asks Ginny if she has any idea who they might recruit to rescue babies from Sunflower now that he’s no longer working there. She brings him a big leather book and leafs through the pages until she comes to a name. She copies the details onto a slip of paper while Marcus explains that the book lists all the people who’ve adopted children. “Any number of these folks will step forward. It’s just a matter of asking.”
He hands me the book. There are dozens of entries. In the box designated for address, many people have written “East Prefecture,” or “Maynard Caravan,” or “NPA.” No permanent abode, Marcus says. Only in two spaces have people written “Eudora.” One is written in a hand too illegible to make out the name. The other, printed in tiny capitals, is a name I recognize. I bend down close to make sure it is not the fault of weak eyes. Mercy Coleman. She has given her address as 41 Terrace Street, Eudora. Out near the river. I scoot the journal over to Ginny and tap on the entry dated only months ago. It must surely be an error. In the name, in the date. “Do you remember this person?”
Ginny examines the book and, without hesitation, nods. She rubs her fingers over her arm, the same sign she uses to refer to baby Molly.
“An albino, yes!”
Ginny and Marcus are both taken aback. “You know this person?” asks Marcus.
We are all standing and cheering and hugging and saying things like what a small world it is, when three people hurry into the kitchen—the owner of the car from last night and the oddest pair of prospective parents I have ever clapped eyes on. They are both bald and dressed in long, tunic-type garments cinched with cord belts. It is impossible to tell whether we have a father and a mother, or two fathers, or two mothers, whether they are eighteen years old or eighty. Their faces are wrinkled and marred with warts the size of grapes, yet their postures are upright and their eyes undimmed.
The driver, Anton, is in some sort of huff and beckons to speak to Marcus privately. When Marcus swings his head my direction, I don’t have to be told that I am the subject of their fevered discussion. My gut tightens, a belt with no more notches. Ginny quickly leads the couple to Molly’s crib, and I approach Marcus. “They know where we are, don’t they?”
“Get Adam.”
I run out to the barn. By the time we return, Ginny is stuffing provisions in a bag, the couple with their new baby are already headed for the car, and Marcus has retrieved our belongings from upstairs. It occurs to me that for this man we’ve just become a burden.
“Where are we going?”
“To my place. Lawrence.”
Bill is shaking his head. “Let me guess: Sheldon.”
Marcus nods. “Called in to Republic Radio this morning to announce that if the Grand Council had any sense at all, they’d be supplying their breeding programs with untainted stock like the kid here instead of candidates who were practically defectives themselves.”
The sound Bill makes is the same as a teakettle about to boil. “I don’t know why I didn’t send them home when you arrived.”
Adam has picked up Angel and seems to be ignoring all this. He adjusts her knitted cap, then takes her tiny hand in his and gives it a shake.
Ginny comes up beside him, but he does not pass her the baby. In fact, he holds her even closer.
Ginny makes some gesture to Bill.
He answers her. “It’s not Sunflower I’m worried about. If anything, they’re going to deny it and save themselves the embarrassment of having let Adam slip through their fingers.”
Ginny’s face darkens.
“Why do we need to run, then?” I ask.
Nobody wants to look at me. They prefer to watch Adam and the baby, who have locked eyes. The baby pumps her little legs.
“Tell me!”
“It’s open season,” Marcus says. “For the next few days, every trader, bounty hunter, and crackpot out there is going to be trying to make a score with Adam.”
Adam presses his lips against Angel’s forehead, then hands the baby to Ginny as if he might change his mind. He picks up his suitcase. It’s the resigned way he walks to the front door that breaks my heart.
When it comes to saying good-bye, Adam and I are both at a loss. Bill slips Adam a baseball card. “Shoeless Joe Jackson. That’s gold at the swap meet.” He also gives Adam the spurs. Ginny hands Marcus the bag of provisions, which gives the impression we’re about to hit the Appalachian Trail, not drive twelve miles to Lawrence. She gives me a hug, hands me the tube of sunscreen, and tucks an envelope in my shirt pocket.
We race to the car where the dog is already sitting in the passenger seat. Adam and I are once again on the run. Tumbleweed people in a land where the wind has its way. I unfold the note when I’m in the car. It’s a packet of peony seeds with a note that reads,
Flowers for Charlie’s grave.
It seems to confirm my fear. Only the dead put down roots.
Anybody who went to public school in Kansas was taught that seismic activity millions of years ago caused much of the state to sag. Water seeped into the great basin, forming wetlands. On field trips to this area, teachers would have us look out at the federally protected land and ask us to imagine what it might have been like in eons past, when thousands of species of birds feasted at a banquet of bugs and larvae. What we’d see was a bunch of grass, maybe a duck or two. We’d all yawn and scratch, and someone would raise his hand and ask if there was someplace to go potty. Well, it seems as though Eons Past has returned, taken up where it left off, and then some. The bright pink smear along the water’s edge is a flock of flamingos. Scores of blue heron have
claimed much of the marsh. Every reed is gussied up with the iridescence of a kingfisher. A flock of goldfinches takes off from the bushes, and all at once the sky is strewn with sequins.
The driver has asked us to keep the windows closed because we’ve already had to drive through one locust swarm, but you can still hear it, the sound of bursting seams. I look across the charred landscape and can hear it on this side, too. The earth can’t contain itself. Should we drive down this very road tomorrow, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it turned as green as a golf course.
There is something comforting about my side of the road. It is the side of loss. It is the side of mourning, of things past. The remains of a tree, the remains of the fence rail, the implied remains of the man who pegged that fence in place. Nature is making a spectacle of herself on Adam’s side, but the landscape sketched in charcoal on my side speaks to how I feel. What remains of me?
Once the main thoroughfare, Haskell Road is cracked and marred by potholes big enough to swallow a vehicle. The driver steers the car around trees growing up through the tarmac until there is no going forward. The rest of the way is going to have to be traveled by foot. We thank our driver for the ride and bid a hasty farewell to Molly and her parents, who are to meet a caravan near Baldwin City, ten miles farther. We pull on our canvas helmets and jackets, grab our belongings, and wave at the retreating car.
To the east, the sky is beginning to darken. Instead of being dazzled by sunlight, we are now being stalked by a sobering gray.
We are ten or so blocks from downtown, and a good walk farther, we are told, to our final destination. Adam and I both assure Marcus we are up to the task. I haven’t coughed all day, and it might just be wishful thinking, but Adam’s legs don’t look nearly as bowed as they used to be. It’s our vision that’s the issue. Never having needed our eyes for long ranges, we are both nearsighted. Adam overcompensates by using the binoculars. I rely on memory.
“Was this the biggest city in America?” Adam asks.
“Kid, Lawrence had a population of eighty thousand. New York had close to eight million.”
Adam smarts, like he’s just run smack-dab into a force field. He grows more pensive the farther we walk, the more homes we pass. “Doesn’t anybody live here?” His disappointment goes echoing down the street ahead of us, as though it would like to rustle up, at the very least, a few ghosts.
Marcus explains that Lawrence has gone the way of most towns. Survivors migrated for all kinds of reasons—to volunteer in the rebuilding efforts, to look for work, to move their kids closer to treatment centers. To forget, is what he doesn’t say. Who would want to be reminded of such loss? Who could stand to look at the empty tire swing or the driveway into which that certain car will never pull? Who could look across the backyard fence when the much-loved or even much-despised neighbor is not there to look back? Who would want to listen to those church bells just hang there, plugging up your ears with silence?
We turn onto Eleventh Street. Trees encroach from both sides, turning what used to be a two-lane street into a narrow path. The trail is a bright green carpet of moss. The dog, which has been five paces ahead of us with his nose to the ground, stops and barks. Marcus bends down to see what caught his interest. Crossing the path and headed into a forest that used to be Hobbs Park’s baseball field are tire tracks. The mud is still wet.
“Don’t worry. If they come back this way, we’ll hear them in plenty of time to hide,” he says.
The dog resumes his loping stride. Adam picks up a gnarled stick. I take the shovel out of my backpack.
At the corner of Eleventh and Rhode Island Streets is a field of
nettles and bull thistle, what used to be a parking lot. Taking a shortcut across it, Marcus points out the giant nests on the second-floor windowsills of a building. “Bald eagles. A menace,” he remarks. Adam looks through his binoculars. He scans the surrounding area and points out a row of goalposts.
“You don’t want to tarry in a place like this.” Marcus urges us to move quickly. I do as I’m told. Adam, on the other hand, walks over to one of the goalposts. The dog looks reluctant to join him and tucks his tail between his legs. For the first time, Adam yells at him to come. The change in Adam frightens me. His enthusiasm has gone. In its place is this fretfulness. I reach Adam and see what has disturbed him so. Instead of a net, the basketball hoop is threaded with a noose. A sign welded to it reads,
SOCRATES CHOICE
.
“Executions?” I whisper to Marcus.
He shakes his head. “Assisted suicides.”
Adam has moved to a sign on the door of the building. “What is Young Men’s Christian Association?”
I shrug. “They used to do a lot of stuff with kids.”
That’s all it takes for Adam to throw open the door and dart inside.
“Adam, come back!”
The foyer has brown water marks on the ceiling. Every wall is streaked with rust stains. In places, plaster has fallen away like giant scabs, exposing the rotting substructure. In the corners, rubble is stacked like snowdrifts. The floor is ankle-deep in debris. I worry the ceiling is about to cave in on us but forge ahead after Adam. We pass an old classroom where desks are covered with a thick layer of gray chalk but are still in mostly neat rows, facing front. Where a blackboard should be is a gaping hole. Were students to take their seats they would stare straight into the lavatory, where porcelain basins lie on the floor along with broken wall tiles. At the hall, we step over the metal doors. Nothing is left of the gymnasium except a couple of risers and a pile of rubber that was once basketballs. The wooden floor is a carpet of splinters too treacherous to walk on.
“So, children were kept in places like this?” Adam asks.
Next door is a two-level, white-tiled hole in the ground, the deep end of which is full of shattered glass. Blotches of green mold bloom on the pool tiles, the metal lockers, and the ceiling. It blooms where only moments before was a bare wall. Lest we break out in lichen, I insist we leave, hurrying through the broken window onto Massachusetts Street.
Downtown Lawrence used to pride itself on its historic buildings. Now without caretakers, the landmarks of Massachusetts Street have been left to fend for themselves. In the war against the elements, they are taking a beating. Mangled elm and twisted sycamore trees have the courthouse in a chokehold. The clock in the tower puts the time of death at two fifteen. The red stone building that used to be the county museum has itself become a relic. Liberty Hall has only three letters on its marquee:
SOS
. The storefronts—those that are visible through the broomstick trees—are dilapidated. All that remains of Restaurant Row are wire spokes where awnings used to be and old menus taped to windows. Adam pauses to read one of them. “Did people spend all their time eating?”
On the corner of Massachusetts and Ninth is Weaver’s, the city’s first department store. Mannequins lie in a heap in the display window, and behind them are scores of empty clothes racks. Adam says a hardware store with three floors he can understand, but not one this big just for clothes. “Why would anyone need more than two outfits?”
Across the street is Farmers Bank, another multistory structure. Adam asks how much gold a building this big could have held, and I explain that banks in a small town like this didn’t keep gold or much money, for that matter. “They mostly kept track of numbers.”
Adam wants to look inside, but we all stop dead in our tracks when Oracle starts barking madly.
Marcus looks down the street, and says, “Oh hell.”
Roaring toward us from the south end of town is a three-wheeler. Marcus doesn’t have to tell us to run. We charge down Ninth Street. I
wonder if it’s possible the biker hasn’t seen us, until I hear the bike slow down just enough to bank the corner. Marcus has found the entrance to Weaver’s basement, but Adam and I both shake our heads. Anything but going down below. We dart into the back alley. A pile of bricks makes the access too narrow for the three-wheeler. It skids to a halt. For a brief moment, we stare at the driver. He’s wearing a wet suit, a vest with a tangle of hoses, and the kind of mask that scuba divers wear. Oracle stands in front of Adam, looking rabid.
As soon as the biker backs out into the street, we take off in the opposite direction. He is going around the block to cut us off at the pass. Marcus has anticipated this and is trying each back door we pass. For a ghost town with broken windows, it makes no sense that these doors should all be locked. He tries putting his shoulder against one of them; it budges not one inch. The three-wheeler gains access to the alley two blocks down. Left to us is only one way out: the fire escape.
We bolt up the stairs. It sways and scrapes against the bricks as we scramble to the top. It is a wonder the whole thing doesn’t collapse with the weight of us all. I reach behind me to give Adam a hand over the parapet, only to find he is not there.
“Adam!”
Marcus and I run in opposite directions, each of us peering over the edge to see where he might be. Despite the revving of the three-wheeler’s engine and its squealing tires, I hear Adam call for me. Marcus and I rush to the side of the roof that fronts the main drag just in time to see Adam dart into the hair salon next door. The three-wheeler pauses and then makes another loop. When Adam pops back out into the alley, the driver has already blocked one side of the alley with a sheet of corrugated iron. At the other end, he dismounts his bike and stalks Adam.
“Leave him alone!” I scream. The wind gobbles up my words.
Marcus is already backing down the staircase. He’s not going to reach Adam in time.
The biker is directly below me. He is negotiating with Adam. He doesn’t want a fight, he wants Adam to surrender; take the easy way, kid, I hear him say. If the self-preservation instinct played a role in
getting me through all those years of being a captive, there is not one tiny vestige of it left. My only concern is to launch myself in such a way that I land on the biker. I step up on the parapet. I shuffle a few paces to the left. The biker is only about ten or twelve feet from Adam. Every joint becomes spring-loaded.
The biker hesitates.
The moment presents.
Just as I am about to jump, a streak of fury flashes out from the side ally. Adam’s dog sails across the air and hits its target squarely on the chest. The biker goes down. Shrieking turns to wailing. Adam is frozen in place. We all watch the dog go for the man’s throat. It doesn’t take long for flailing legs to still, for arms to slacken. By the time Marcus reaches the scene, the bloodied dog has loosened its grip and returned to Adam’s side to have his head petted.
Marcus stubs the figure with his foot. By the time I reach the bottom of the ladder, he has both boy and dog packed up on the back of the ATV. “Hop on,” he says. “There’s bound to be another headhunter on the way.”
I have the backpack but not Adam’s suitcase. “Our stuff.”
Oracle’s ears prick, and he yaps a short warning bark. We all think the same thing—they are coming.
That’s when we hear another engine.
“There’s no time.” Marcus cranks the kick-starter with his foot, but the engine sputters, whines, and quits. “You can do better than that.” He tries again. Still nothing. He has us get off, and then jumps down on the lever several times.
A voice comes over a bullhorn. “Surrender, nobody gets hurt.”
“Hurry! Hurry!” I tell Marcus. We can’t see them, but the noise is getting louder. They have to be seconds away.
Marcus strokes the gas tank. “Come on, baby, show me some love.” He twists the throttle and thrusts down on the lever again. This time, the bike jerks to life. I scoop up Oracle and we all pile on. The ATV swerves out of the alley and shoots down Vermont Street. Behind us, the voice on a bullhorn is calling for us to stop.