I had walked this road. I began to walk it now, backtracking. After a while, Wright began to follow me in the car. He didn’t turn his lights on but seemed to have no trouble seeing me. I began to jog, always looking around, knowing that at some point it would be time for me to turn off onto a side road and go down into the woods.
I jogged for several minutes, then, on impulse, began to run. Wright followed until finally I spotted the side road that led to the ruin. I turned but he didn’t.
When he didn’t follow, I stopped and waited for him to realize he’d lost me. It seemed to take a surprisingly long time. Finally, the car came back, lights on now, driving slowly. Then he spotted me, and I beckoned to him to turn. Once he had turned, I went to the car and got in.
“I didn’t even see this road,” he said. “I had no idea where you’d gone. Do you know you were running about fifteen miles an hour?”
“I don’t know what that means,” I said.
“I suspect it means you should try out for the Olympic Games. Are you tired?”
“I’m not. It was a good run, though. What are the Olympic Games?”
“Never mind. Probably too public for you. For someone your size, though, that was a fantastic run.”
“It was easier than running down a deer.”
“Where are we going? Don’t let me pass the place.”
“I won’t.” I not only watched, I opened my window and smelled the air. “Here,” I said. “This little road coming up.”
“Private road,” Wright said. “Open the gate for me, would you?”
I did, but the gate made me think for a moment. I had not opened a gate going out. I had climbed over it. It wasn’t a real barrier. Anyone could climb it or walk around it or open it and drive through.
Wright drove through, and I closed the gate and got back into the car. Just a few moments later, we were as close to the ruin as it was safe to drive. There were places where rubble from the houses lay in the road, and Wright said he wanted to be careful with his tires.
“This was a whole community,” he said. “Plus a lot of land.”
I led him around, showing him the place, choosing the easiest paths I could find, but I discovered that he couldn’t see very well. The moon wasn’t up yet, and it was too dark for him. He kept stumbling over the rubble, over stones, over the unevenness of the ground. He would have fallen several times had I not steadied him. He wasn’t happy with my doing that.
“You’re a hell of a lot stronger than you have any right to be,” he said.
“I couldn’t carry you,” I said. “You’re too big. So I need to keep you from getting hurt.”
He looked down at me and smiled. “Somehow, I suspect you would find a way to carry me if you had to.”
I laughed in spite of myself.
“You’re pretty sure this was your home, then?”
I looked around. “I’m not sure, but I think it was. I don’t remember. It’s just a feeling.” Then I stopped. I’d caught a scent that I hadn’t noticed before, one that I didn’t understand.
“Someone’s been here,” I said. “Someone …” I took a deep breath, then several small, sampling breaths. Then I looked up at Wright. “I don’t know for sure, but I think it may have been someone like me.”
“How can you tell?”
“I smell him. It’s a different scent—more like me than like you even though he’s male.”
“You know he’s male? You can tell that from a smell?”
“Yes. Males smell male. It isn’t something I could miss. You smell male.”
He looked uncomfortable. “Is that good or bad?”
I smiled. “I enjoy your scent. It reminds me of all sorts of good feelings.”
He gave me a long, hungry look. “Go have the rest of your look-around on your own. You’ll finish faster without me. Suddenly I want to get out of here. I’m eager to get back home.”
“All right,” I said. “We can go as soon as I find out about our visitor.”
“This other guy, yeah.” Suddenly, he sounded less happy.
“He may be able to tell me about myself, Wright. He may be my relative.”
He nodded slowly. “Okay. When was he here?”
“Not that long ago. Last night I think. I need to know where he came from and where he went. Stay here. I won’t go far, but I need to follow the scent.”
“I think I’ll come with you after all.”