Chapter 70
They reached the river in the late afternoon, and Charlotte noticed the bridge before she saw the water, or what remained of it.
The center span was missing, and the road ended abruptly at a jagged edge where rebar jutted from broken concrete like exposed bone.
Beyond the gap, the western portion of the bridge still stood, connected to intact approaches that led nowhere.
The river carried debris through the space where the span had once been.
The eastern approach was more crowded than Charlotte had imagined.
Hundreds of people filled the area, families with children and elderly individuals being assisted by relatives or strangers.
Vehicles that had made it that far sat abandoned at the broken bridge, while people unpacked their belongings, knowing they wouldn’t be able to drive across.
They had organized themselves out of necessity.
Tents were set up along the tree line, and campfires burned in clearings.
What struck Charlotte was not panic, but the calm murmurs of people already working to address the problem of being stranded.
A man directed traffic at the narrowing approach, wearing a reflective vest that had likely come from a construction site.
He waved vehicles toward parking areas with the authority of someone who had taken it upon himself to maintain order, finding that no one was inclined to argue with him.
Charlotte dismounted a safe distance from the crowd, helped Mason down, adjusted his mask, and led the horses toward the tree line, where the camp noise became manageable.
The dog remained close to Mason’s leg. She rummaged through the pouch and found sixteen messages.
She had already memorized the addresses, names, and routes.
One of the messages was for a family in Shepherdstown.
The town lay on the western shore, across the broken bridge, but the letter’s author had included a contact on the eastern side who might still be reachable.
She found the message, noting that the address was for a road branching north from the bridge approach, which followed the riverbank toward higher ground.
Charlotte secured the horses in a clearing where several other animals had already been tethered, including three more horses, a mule, and several dogs. She then left Mason with the dog, giving him strict instructions to keep the dog within sight.
“Don’t take the mask off,” she said. “Not even for a minute. There are too many people here. Too many breaths in too small a space.”
Charlotte walked toward the northern road.
The camp thinned into scattered dwellings.
She found the address on the third mailbox: a two-story house set back from the road, its porch lights powered by a generator.
A man answered the door with a rifle at the low ready.
He was in his sixties, weathered, and he studied Charlotte’s hazmat suit with the focus of someone deciding whether she was a threat.
“I have a message,” Charlotte said. She held out the envelope. “From your brother, James.”
“James is in Shepherdstown,” he said.
“Was. The letter was written before. He evacuated south, according to the message. He’s alive. The house is standing. The cellar has food.”
She didn’t elaborate. The letter likely said more, with details about routes, about neighbors who hadn’t made it, and about a world that existed in the past tense, but those were his to read, not hers to summarize.
The man took the envelope, opened it on the porch step, and read it, his rifle leaning against the doorframe.
When he finished, he folded the letter along its crease and put it in his shirt pocket.
He looked at Charlotte. “You need to cross,” he said.
“Yes. With a child. Toward West Virginia.”
“The bridge is gone. Every crossing from Point of Rocks to Harpers Ferry is either destroyed or being watched. The SNA has observation posts on the high ground west of the river. They’re using the remaining structures as bait.”
“Is there another way?”
The man was quiet for a moment. His gaze moved past Charlotte to the camp visible through the trees, to the hundreds of people stranded at the bridge approach, with nowhere to go and limited options to get there.
“There’s a crossing,” he said. “North of here. About three miles upriver. It’s not a bridge.
It’s not on any map the SNA would have. It’s a crossing that’s been used by locals for generations.
The water’s shallow there in late summer, especially with the drought we’ve had.
You can walk horses across if you’re careful about the current. ”
He looked at Charlotte’s hazmat suit, at the mask sealed against her face, at the visible evidence of someone who had come from the contamination zone and was still moving.
“I can show you,” he said. “Not tonight. In the morning, before first light. The SNA patrols the river at dawn. If we move before then, we have a chance.”
The offer hung between them, and what she heard in it wasn’t generosity, though generosity was present, but something closer to reciprocation. She had delivered his brother’s words. He would deliver her to the far shore. The economy was clean in a way that barter rarely was.
“Thank you,” she said.
The man nodded. “Be ready at 0400. I’ll find you at the camp.”
He picked up his rifle and went inside, and Charlotte walked back toward the horses with the particular weight of having exchanged one form of delivery for another. The river waited in the darkness beyond the trees, and on its far side was West Virginia and whatever came after.