Chapter Five #5
she didn’t even have an axe, much less a chain saw. “We’ll be needing firewood ourselves,” she said quietly, not expecting
anyone other than Carol and maybe Olivia to hear her, because of the noise of the growing exodus. She was wrong.
“Don’t worry about firewood, Miss Sela,” said a man behind her. She turned and recognized one of her customers, Trey Foster.
“You were good enough to give me gas and some groceries on credit when I was between jobs, so the least I can do is cut you
enough wood to get you through the winter.”
Tears stung her eyes at his kindness. “Thank you, Trey. You paid me every penny owed, all I did was wait a little while.”
“Still. I can’t tell you how much difference it made to me and my family. If you hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have had gas
to get to work when I found a job.”
She didn’t know what else to do but extend her hand, and solemnly they shook. Her firewood was taken care of.
Despite Carol’s call for volunteers, most people were still leaving. Some of them, of course, had to begin making preparations
for the huge cookout they were having the next day, and would actually get started on that night. Ted Parsons made a disgusted
face at the departing crowd, scowled, then said, “I’ll help do whatever you think needs doing. I don’t have a chain saw or
anything like that, but I’m willing to do the labor.”
Sela hid her surprise. Carol said, “Thank you, Mr. Parsons, your help is appreciated.” She looked around. “Does anyone have
a notebook and a pen?”
No one did, at least no one among the small group of perhaps ten people who had stayed to volunteer. “Then we’ll meet . . .
Sela, is it okay if we meet at the store? Everyone knows where it is.”
“Of course.”
“Then . . . Never mind. We’ll all be busy in the morning. Everyone be thinking of things that will need doing, making a list,
and tomorrow at the cookout we’ll start getting organized.”
It was a relief leaving the overheated lunchroom, which had been getting too dark for them to accomplish much more of anything
anyway. The cooling air washed over Sela’s bare arms, a sensation as pleasurable as a light touch. Twilight had deepened,
edging into night. Everyone called their goodbyes, then split up to walk to their various homes. Their little group, consisting
of the three of them, Mike Kilgore and his wife, and a couple of other neighbors, trooped down the school road to the highway
and turned left. The others walked at a faster pace and gradually the three of them fell behind.
“Let’s walk in the middle of the road,” Sela suggested, both because the smooth walking would be easier and because . . .
well . . . they could. There was no traffic at all. Walking in the middle of the usually busy highway felt both daring and
freeing, and the fact that they could was one more example of how drastically their world had changed in a single day.
“Damn it,” Carol muttered when they were alone, making Sela think their leisurely speed was more by design than nature. “Why
did you let me volunteer for a job like that?” she peevishly asked Sela. “Do you know what an aggravation this is going to
be? How much time it’s going to take up?”
“There was no stopping you, once you got the bit in your teeth about Mr. Parsons,” Sela replied in amusement. She turned on
her flashlight to light their way, the beam both reassuring and somehow feeble, as if it were nothing more than a whisper
in the night. Normally the valley would be lit by lights in the homes, by headlights of traffic, the occasional security light,
the gas station outposts of glowing light. Now there was only a growing darkness, and a silence she hadn’t heard in her lifetime.
Nightbirds called, insects buzzed, frogs croaked, and the trees rustled from a faint breeze, so the silence wasn’t absolute,
just—different.
“He made me mad, bulling toward Geneva Whitcomb the way he did.”
“I’m proud of you, Gran,” Olivia put in from beside Sela, who was walking in the middle because she had the flashlight.
“So am I. And you are a good person for the job,” Sela added. “I didn’t know the woman’s name.”
Carol sighed. “I guess. Still—I’m going to rely on you to help me think of things. You see things I don’t, think things through
where I’d plow ahead without seeing the pitfalls. Look how organized you were about getting us as ready as possible for this.”
“We all had good ideas to contribute.”
Carol patted her arm. “Sela, honey, don’t sell yourself short. You bring more to the table than ninety percent of everyone
else out there, me included. You just don’t trust your strengths.”
“That’s true,” Olivia chimed in.
Ruefully Sela wondered how much of a wuss she’d been that even a fifteen-year-old had noticed it. That had to change. She
would change. She didn’t want to be the breakable link in their small family chain, she wanted to be as strong and dependable as
they needed. She was the one in her prime, physically stronger than Carol, more experienced than Olivia. She had to be their
fulcrum, no matter how much against her nature it was.
There didn’t seem to be much to add, so they continued in silence until they reached their neighborhood road and turned in.
Now that true night had fallen, they could see faint, flickering lights inside each house, as either battery-powered or oil
lamps took the place of electric ones. This must have been how the valley had looked a hundred and fifty years ago, when people
had traveled by foot or by horse. Now that it was after sundown, the way the world had changed was striking.
They reached Carol’s house and she saw them in, said goodnight to them and Barb, then continued alone down the narrow road
to her own house. She walked faster, aware that the bears foraged at night, and this was the time of year when the animals
were actively looking for anything they could find. She swept the flashlight beam back and forth, looking for the gleam of
eyes or the black bulk of an ursine body, resisting the urge to run back to Carol’s house and spend the night there.
This was how their lives were now; they couldn’t rely on their cars to go everywhere, nor were there security lights chasing
away the shadows.
This wouldn’t be the last time she walked a night road alone.