Z for Zachariah

Chapter Twenty-one

August 4th (I think)

I am in terrible trouble. Mr Loomis shot me. I haven’t written in my journal for several weeks. I was too sick and too afraid. I had to keep moving. I am hiding now in thick woods high up on the west ridge near the gap at the south end of the valley. There is a hollow tree where I can keep my things and when it rains I get in the tree too. It is all a nightmare. Here is what happened.

For about ten days we had a sort of system. I would go down in the morning and milk, get the eggs, feed the chickens, work in the garden, pick the vegetables. Each day I divided the food evenly, and left his share on the back porch. When he needed drinking water he set out a can and I filled it at the brook. I brought groceries from the store; twice he came to the back door as I was leaving the eggs and asked for specific things—he had run out of salt; he needed cooking oil. The rest of the time I used my own judgment and he accepted what I brought.

There were inconveniences. I missed the kitchen, the stove, the laundry tubs. I looked at the ripening tomatoes and wondered how I was ever going to bottle them; I decided it could be done over an outdoor fire, perhaps near the barn so I could use my father’s work bench as shelf space for the jars, of which there were plenty in the store. I worried, too—ridiculously, I know—about the condition of the house, whether he swept the floors, and even about how he did his laundry, if indeed he did it. My own, such as it was, I did in the brook.

At sunset, after the second milking, I would go back to the cave, always by way of the road and the store. Once or twice I stopped off at the church, but that, like keeping up my notebook, I tended to neglect. It seemed strained. I do not know exactly why. Churches, I suppose, must be associated with normalcy. I did pray a bit, but only at odd times during the day. The Bible was out of reach in the house.

I saw little of Mr Loomis except from a distance. He seemed to have given up and accepted the new order of things; and yet he had not, as I now know, and as I think I really knew then. I lived—what else could I do?—as if it were going to continue this way. I even began to worry about the winter, about cutting firewood.

Each evening he would come out of the house just before dark, almost always with Faro. They would walk, and practise tracking, going a little farther (and Mr Loomis a little more briskly) each time. After the first few days he began trying a new method: he would let Faro off the leash but keep him close, either by talking to him or whistling softly, I could not hear which. Faro already recognized the command “close”, but only when there was a gun there.

Three or four more times he took the tractor out again. Once, towards the end of this period, he took it on a longer ride than just around the barn. He drove it up across the yard towards the house, and then out on the road. There, heading right, towards Burden Hill, he shifted it into high gear and revved the motor up. He ran it at top speed for about three hundred yards—he was obviously trying to see how fast it would go, though I did not know why. It can go at about fifteen or eighteen miles an hour—quite fast enough when you have no windscreen and no springs.

On the morning of the tenth day (or, as I said, it may have been the twelfth or even fourteenth), I got up, ate breakfast, and took my things to the cave. I looked down at the house just in time to see something new.

Mr Loomis came out of the door, walked quickly to the road, and then, looking definitely furtive, started towards the store. He did not stay on the tarmac but went along the edge, the side towards Burden Creek, walking where there were trees and bushes to hide him.

I got out the binoculars to see if I could tell what he was up to. As he walked he stared always straight ahead, up the road towards the store, as if looking for something. But looking for what? Then I realized—for me, of course. He wanted to see me when I first appeared, to see where I was coming from.

He stopped, finally, at a clump of trees where the road made a slight bend. From that point he could see the store itself in the distance.

That meant that if I took my usual route he would see me approaching the store from the pond, and would know at least which side of the valley I was living on. And I thought: why let him know that? Yet I did want to go down as usual, get my eggs and milk and do my work; I had planned that day to spread some more fertilizer on the wheat while it was still short enough and the weather cool.

The answer was simple enough: I used another approach. Staying up on the hillside, near the top of the ridge, I worked my way to the far end of the valley, almost to the gap and the steep cliff on the far side. On the way I passed just above the crabapple tree where I had once picked a bouquet; looking down on it I could see the young green apples hanging thickly on the branches.

I came down to the road far beyond his range of vision—I could not even see the store. I crossed the road and headed back, keeping to the trees that bordered the creek. They gave way to brush, and then the store came in sight.

I walked carefully so as to keep it between me and the spot where he was watching. And when finally I reached it, I stepped quickly out from behind it and on to the road. I wanted to make it look as if I had appeared from nowhere. At least he could have no clue as to what direction I had come from.

I went on towards the house. As I came to the trees where I had seen him I had another thought: suppose he was not just watching at all. I approached cautiously, ready to turn and run—but he was not there, and when I came in sight of the house I saw him on the porch just going through the front door. So he had retreated when I came in sight, none the wiser for spying.

I went about my work as usual. When I had gathered the eggs I took them to the back porch and saw that he had set out the milk pail as usual, and also one of the water cans. The milk pail reminded me that in my concern over choosing a new route I had forgotten to bring my own pail, and also to bring anything to carry my eggs in. So I gave him all of the milk; two of the eggs I left in the hen house, thinking I would pick them up when I left and carry them back in my hand. And tomorrow, remember to bring both sack and pail.

Another small problem: a brood hen had hatched out six more chicks. That meant there were now fourteen babies coming on—and two more hens were sitting. Under such circumstances I would ordinarily feel justified in having one of the older hens for dinner—but how could I clean it? Where and with what? I could not go into the kitchen. My only knife, except my pocketknife, was in the cave.

There was an obvious solution to both problems. I took his water can and set out for the pond, carrying it in full view so that if he was watching from the window he would see I was merely going to get him some water.

At the pond, out of his sight, I put down the can and ran up the hill, staying safely in the woods on the far side of the stream. I got the knife and also, while I was there, picked up the milk pail. I was back rilling the water can in four or five minutes, somewhat out of breath. At the house I deposited his can of water on the porch beside his milk and eggs, confident that I had escaped suspicion. As it turned out, I was wrong.

I cleaned the hen in the barn on my father’s workbench, cut it up into frying-size pieces and divided it evenly into two piles, one for him, one for me. Being a rather old hen it would have been better if roasted, but I could not help that; he would find it edible if a bit tough.

Having deposited his half of the chicken with the other food, I went to the garden to hoe around the tomato plants. They were now, with the benefit of the manure, growing tall and leafy and showing hard little green tomatoes. Most of them, in fact, were ready to be staked. The stakes were in the tack-room of the barn, as was the tying-twine, so when I finished hoeing I tied them up. There were 28 in all. If I could solve the bottling problem there would be enough stewed tomatoes to last all winter. It seemed ironic, having finally got myself a stove, not to be able to use it.

I would give him half and store the other half in the cave, where it would not freeze. I thought about all this as I ate my lunch (two cornmeal cakes from my pocket); I sat leaning against the garden fence, and when I had finished I rested a while, admiring the potato plants, which looked healthy, with leaves of a lustrous dark green. Potatoes, too, would keep well in the cave. After resting, I remembered the wheat. I got up and went to the barn to get the tractor.

And then my serious trouble began, for though the tractor was in its usual place, the ignition key was gone.

I searched on the floor, my first thought being that Mr Loomis, after he had used the tractor last night, had accidentally dropped it. The floor was of wide, heavy planks, almost black in colour and unlittered, so that if the key were there it would have been instantly visible. It was not.

I remembered something. We had always left the key in the tractor, and to make sure it did not get lost my father had tied it loosely to the steering column with a piece of wire: one forgets things like that when they are always there. So Mr Loomis could not have dropped it accidentally. He must have taken it with him, and quite deliberately, since it would have required time and effort to unfasten the wire. But why? All I could think of was that in his desire to conserve petrol, he wanted me to ask him each time I used it, and let him know what for. That reason was incorrect, but I was not smart enough, or wary enough, to know it at the time.

There was another ignition key; I even knew where it was kept, but it did me no good. It was on my father’s key chain, in his pocket somewhere out in the deadness.

I thought: there was nothing for it; I would go up and ask him for they key. It was, after all, his wheat as well as mine that needed the fertilizer.

I walked to the house, round to the front, and stood in the road as before, in plain view of the windows. There was no response immediately; there was smoke coming up from the chimney, so I guessed he was in the kitchen cooking his chicken. After five minutes of waiting I gathered my nerve, stepped on to the porch, knocked on the door, and quickly retreated. Faro set up a barking inside, and a minute later Mr Loomis appeared. I suspected he had seen me go to the tractor shed, and so knew why I had come, but he pretended not to.

“Back again?” he said, very pleasant. “A surprise! I must thank you for the chicken. I was just frying it. If you would like to come in…”

“Thank you,” I said. “I’ve had my lunch.”

“Too bad,” he said. “Still, you have your half, don’t you? But where will you cook it?” He had been wondering where I cooked—no doubt looking for signs of smoke or fire. I ignored the question.

“I came because I couldn’t find the key to the tractor.”

“The key?” he said, mildly surprised. “Oh, yes. I have driven the tractor a few times, in the evening, just to learn how. Perhaps you know? And now I have decided to keep the key in the house. It will be safer here.”

I said: “But I need it. I was going to put fertilizer on the wheat.”

He came forward and sat down on the porch steps, as one does to chat with a passing neighbour. I noticed that although he held on to the rail he sat down without any sign of effort. His legs were getting back to normal; the stick had been abandoned.

“I have to think about that,” he said. “I have not yet made up my mind.” His pleasant manner vanished abruptly. “You see, if you are going to continue this stupidity, this staying away, there are things you are going to have to do without.”

“But the wheat—"

“For example, the stove, I suppose you should have that, too, after you worked so hard to move it. And there are other things you will miss. More and more as time goes on.” I did not yet understand all he meant by that. I do now. I said: “It was your idea to plant the wheat, and I agreed that it was right. Now surely you want it to grow.”

“I said I have not made up my mind. I will think about it, but not now. I left the chicken cooking—your cookbook says fifteen minutes on each side. It’s time to turn it over.” He stood up—again, quite easily. “Possibly I will fertilize the wheat myself.”

He walked to the door. As he was going in he said: “It was thoughtful of you to bring your knife along with the milk pail. But then, how else could you have cleaned the chicken?” He shut the door behind him.

I stood there staring after him, feeling bewildered and baffled and stupid. Baffled because I did not know what to do; bewildered because I could not understand why he would not let me use the tractor. And stupid because from what he said last I knew I had made a thoughtless mistake. After thinking I had been clever—taking his water can to the pond, running to the cave and back—I had returned visibly carrying the knife and the milk can. Of course he had watched me both going and coming, and so knew I had gone to fetch them at wherever I was staying—and that it must not be more than a few minutes from the pond. I was only lucky he could not see the pond from the house; I had not given away the whole show—only half of it.

Mainly I did not know what to do, my plans for the afternoon having been cancelled. I walked to the barn and sat a few minutes, leaning my back against the rear wall, looking out into the pasture and thinking. Why had he taken the key? Did he really intend to do the fertilizing himself? He could, of course; the spreader was simple to operate.

A new thought came to my mind; it seemed very obvious and clear. He had taken the key because he was afraid I would steal the tractor. The more I thought about that the more I believed it. It was part of a pattern, like the safe-suit, like tying up Faro. He had made plans involving the tractor; therefore it suddenly became valuable; therefore I might not have it.

I had, as it turned out, guessed correctly this time. I learned soon enough what he wanted the tractor for.

Meanwhile, having nothing to do—ordinarily, at such a time, I would have had plenty of housework, but that was cut off from me now—I collected my two eggs, my half chicken and my knife and walked slowly down the road to the store. My milk can I left at the barn; I would come back at four to milk the cow again and would fill it then.

As I walked I kept looking back to see if he was following, and when I reached the bend—a little beyond it—I stopped and waited to see if he would come back to his grove of trees again. He did not, though I was sure he had watched me out of sight through the window.

There were several things I wanted from the store, and I took this opportunity to gather them up: more clothes, for one thing, so I could wash mine at the brook; some soap, some more tinned food. As an afterthought I took some fishhooks and fishing line. Mr Klein did not sell rods and reels, and mine was in the house, but I could fish well enough without it.

My goods assembled and stowed in a brown bag, I debated whether or not to go directly up the hill to the cave or take the long route. Though he had not appeared at the grove while I waited, he might have come to it since. Eventually I compromised, and walked half a mile in the wrong direction towards the gap, keeping the store between me and his line of sight. Then I turned left, was quickly in the trees, and worked my way back to the cave.

I cut a sapling for a pole, found some worms under a log and went fishing. I would have chicken for dinner and, with luck, fish for breakfast.