I was thinking about the language we were speaking. What I heard wasn’t exactly colloquial American English, but it wasn’t archaic, either—there were no thees and thous and may’t please yous. Nor was it the English English of all those IMAX fantasy films, where all the hobbits and elves and wizards sound like Members of Parliament. It was the sort of English you’d expect to read in a slightly modernized fairy tale.
Then there was me.
I had said I couldn’t give them my cart for I had far to go and my dog was old. If I’d been talking to someone in Sentry, I would have said because I have a long way to go. I had spoken of “the sign of the red shoe” instead of saying It’s a little house with a shoe sign in front. And I hadn’t called the pregnant woman ma’am, as I would have in my hometown; I had called her madam, and it had come out of my mouth sounding perfectly okay. I thought again of the funnel filling with stars. I thought I was one of those stars now.
I thought I was becoming part of the story.
I looked for Radar and she wasn’t there, which gave me a nasty jolt. I lowered the poles of the wagon to the road and looked behind me. She was twenty yards back, limping along as fast as she could with her tongue lolling from the side of her mouth.
“Jesus, girl, I’m sorry!”
I carried her to the cart, making sure to lace my hands under her belly and stay away from those painful back legs. I gave her another drink from her cup, tilting it so she could get as much as she wanted, then scratched behind her ears.
“Why didn’t you say something?”
Well, duh. It wasn’t that kind of fairy tale.
4
We walked on, hill and dale, dale and hill. We saw more refugees. Some shrank away, but two men walking together stopped and stood on their toes to peer into the cart and see what was there. Radar growled at them, but given her patchy fur and white muzzle, I doubt if she scared them much. The gun on my hip was different. They had shoes, so I didn’t give out my last token. I don’t think I would have suggested they stop at Dora’s even if they’d been barefoot. I didn’t give them any of my food, either. There were fields they could forage in if they were hungry enough.
“If it’s Seafront you’re going for, turn around, boy. The gray’s come there, too.”
“Thanks for the…” Info wouldn’t come out. “Thanks for telling me.” I picked up the cart’s poles but kept an eye on them to make sure they kept going.
Around noon we came to a marshy place that had overspread the road and turned it muddy. I bent my back and pulled the cart faster until we were through it, not wanting to get stuck. The cart wasn’t much heavier with Radar onboard, which told me more than I really wanted to know.
Once we were back on dry ground again, I pulled over in the shade of what looked like one of the oaks in Cavanaugh Park. There was fried rabbit meat in one of the little bundles Dora had packed and I shared it even-Steven with Radar… or tried to. She ate two chunks but dropped the third between her front paws and looked at me apologetically. Even in the shade I could see that her eyes were growing rheumy again. It crossed my mind that she had caught whatever was going around—the gray—but I rejected the idea. It was age, pure and simple. It was hard to tell how much time she had left, but I didn’t think it was a lot.
While we ate, more giant-sized rabbits went lolloping across the road. Then a couple of crickets that were about double the size of the ones I was used to, hopping nimbly along on their back legs. I was amazed at how much air they could get between jumps. A hawk—normal-sized—swooped down and tried to grab one of them, but the cricket took evasive action and was soon out of sight in the grass and weeds that bordered the forest. Radar watched this parade of wildlife with interest but without getting to her feet, let alone giving chase.
I drank some of the tea, which was sugary and delicious. I had to stop myself after a few swallows. God knew when there might be more.
“Come on, girl. Want to get to the uncle’s. The idea of camping out near those woods doesn’t thrill me.”
I picked her up, then paused. Written on the oak in fading red paint were two letters: AB. Knowing Mr. Bowditch had been here before me made me feel better. It was as if he wasn’t entirely gone.
5
Mid-afternoon. The day was warm enough for me to have worked up a good sweat. We hadn’t seen any refugees for awhile, but as we reached the foot of a rise—long, but with a slope too mild to actually be called a hill—I heard scrambling from behind me. Radar had come to the front of the cart. She was sitting with her paws on the front and her ears up. I stopped and heard something ahead that might have been faint chuffing laughter. I started forward again but stopped short of the crest, listening.