Earth Abides

Ish used the momentary delay to pick up the rifle and check that the magazine was full. This was pure routine, but Ish himself was the one who insisted on it. There was only a very small chance of meeting a rambunctious bull or a she-bear with cubs, but you took the rifle along for insurance. Ish, at times when he woke up in the night, still -remembered very vividly the occasion when the dogs had trailed him.

Bob came back, and at once handed the hammer to his father. As Ish gripped the handle, he felt a strange little sense of security. The familiar weight of the dangling four-pound head brought him comfort. It was the same old hammer that he had picked up long ago, just before the rattlesnake bit him. The handle had been weathered and cracked then, and it still was. He had often thought of choosing a new handle in some hardware store and fitting it to the head. As a matter of fact he could just as well have picked out a whole new tool. Actually, however, he had very little use for the hammer. By tradition he took it along every New Years Day when he cut the numerals into the rock, but that was about its only practical value, and even for that purpose a lighter one might have been better.

So now he stuck the hammer into the wagon by his feet, and felt comfortable. “All ready?” he called to Dick and Bob, and just then, something caught his eye.

A small boy was standing, half-hidden in the bushes, looking out at the wagons. Ish recognized the slight figure. “Oh, Joey!” he called on impulse. “Want to go along?”

Joey stepped out from the bushes, but hung back.

“I have to help digging the well,” he said.

“Oh, never mind, they’ll get the well dug without you or” [he added to himself] “they more likely won’t get it either with or without you.”

Joey took no more urging. Obviously this was what he really been hoping. He ran to Ish’s wagon, and climbed snugly at his father’s feet where he could just find room. He held the hammer in his lap.

Then the dogs were off with a furious rush and an outburst of barking, as they always liked to start out. The two other teams followed, with the excited boys yelling and their dogs barking too. The dogs around the houses barked back. It made a fair imitation of a riot. As always, hunched in the little wagon behind six dogs, Ish felt ridiculous, as if he were acting in some silly pageant.

Once the dogs had started, they stopped wasting breath barking, and settled to a slower pace. Ish collected thoughts, and went over his plans.

He made his first stop at what had once been a station. The door was open. Inside the little office, though it was walled in glass, the sunlight filtered through in subdued yellow. Twenty-one years of fly-specks and blown dust had coated the windows thickly.

He saw the old telephone directory hanging from its book beside the long-dead telephone. As he took the book and opened it, bits of brittle yellowed paper broke off from the pages and went fluttering to the floor. He found the address of what had once been the local agency for jeeps. Yes, with the roads in the condition they were, a jeep would be the thing.

Half an hour later, when they came to the proper streetcorner, Ish looked through the dirty display-window, and his heart jumped with boyish excitement at seeing a jeep actually standing there.

The boys tied up the teams, and the dogs, well-trained, lay down in orderly fashion without snarling the tram. Dick tried the door; it was locked.

“Here,” said Ish, “take the hammer, and smash the lock.”

“Oh, here’s a brick!” said Dick, and then went running off down the street toward the remains of a chimney that had fallen in the earthquake. Bob went with him.

Ish had a feeling of irritation. What was wrong with those boys? At best a brick was not as good as the hammer for smashing a door in. He ought to know; he had smashed a lot of them.

He stepped three strides across the sidewalk, and swinging with the hammer on the rhythm of his last stride, he sent the door crashing inwards. That would show them! After a, there had been sense in bringing the hammer!

The jeep that was standing there in the display-room had four flat tires, and showed a thick layer of dust, but under the dust the red paint was shiny. The speedometer showed a total of nine miles. Ish shook his head.

“No,” he said, “this one’s too new. I mean, she was too new! One that was better broken in will be easier for us.”

In the garage behind the display-room, there were several others. All their tires were flat, extremely flat. One had its hood up and various of its parts were scattered around. It must have been in for a repair-job. Ish passed that one by.

There seemed little to choose between the others. The speedometer of one of them stood at six thousand, and Ish decided to try that one.

The boys looked at him expectantly, and Ish felt that he was putting himself to the test.