A Town Called America (16 page)

“You know, this actually has been really nice, Rick.”

“What’s that?” Rick asked Chris.

“We haven’t had any real issues or people to deal with lately, and I’m happy about that.”

Rick silently looked at Chris and smiled.

After the three had crossed the bridge, they continued to walk for a short time before they decided to ride again. Just past the bridge, they came upon a sign that read,
RURAL ROUTE
3.

Billy brought his horse to a stop. He told them the house where he had lived was only a few minutes up the road, and he had a good feeling it would still be there and in good shape.

The three traveled through the forest with its incredible array of moonlight breaking through the tree line every few feet. Chris soon found herself staring at the shadows as the horses slowly made their way down the old country road. The more she stared, the more they seemed to have a life of their own. Chris watched as each shadow danced with the wind while the leaves blew across the ground and the bases of the trees that lined the road. She wasn’t superstitious, but she couldn’t help wonder whether the shadows were, in some odd way, trying to speak to her, to…pull her in.

After shaking the thought out of her mind, she didn’t speak a single word about it to Rick or Billy.

Soon they came upon a small single-story house that sat in the middle of a two-acre field. There was no trash, no garbage, and no disarray. It was the first house they’d seen in a very long time that didn’t appear to have been damaged by drifters. This was Billy’s house, and if they didn’t know any better, they would have thought it was occupied.

When they approached the house, they immediately noticed a sign outside the front door, a small wooden plaque that read,
BILLY GRAHAM
. Rick and Chris looked at each other and laughed.

“Saved anyone’s soul lately, Billy Graham?” Chris said, barely able to contain herself.

“I’ve sent a few to their maker recently, so unless you two fools want to be next…” Both Rick and Chris continued to laugh to the point of almost tearing up. “You know what? To hell with both of you.”

“Now that’s just what we’d expect a preacher to say,” Chris said with no hesitation.

Billy dismounted his horse and walked toward the house. He’d heard these kinds of jokes all his life, but he couldn’t help smile when he looked back at his two friends. Billy wasn’t a preacher of any kind, and truthfully the jokes didn’t bother him in the least, because he was, to an extent, a man of faith and admired anyone who stood up for what they believed.

Rick and Chris, outside tended to their horses and after hour had passed Billy finally returned seemingly empty-handed.

“Well?” Rick asked.

“I found it.”

“Well, what is it?” Chris inquired.

Billy pulled a square piece of cloth out of his backpack. Sitting himself down on the covered porch next to Chris, he told Rick not to say a word. Rick and Chris sat in anticipation as Billy unfolded the cloth to reveal a small book bound in worn tan leather.

“It’s a book,” Chris said.

“Yes, it’s a book, a special book. It’s my stamp collection.”

“What the hell did you just say, Billy?” Rick asked

“I told you…it’s a stamp collection.”

“A stamp collection? You brought us all the way out here for a stamp collection?” Rick asked, confused.

“Yeah, well…the world has gone to shit, and it’s not like we had anything else going on,” Billy said.

“I’ll give you that, but it’s still a stamp collection,” Rick said, trying not to crack up.

Chris then looked at Rick, and again they both laughed. Billy again told them to go to hell. He stood up and went to his horse, where he carefully placed the book in his saddlebag.

Walking in the faded red front door Rick and Chris noticed immediately that the inside of Billy’s house was nearly empty. A sofa, two empty bookshelves and an aged metal trunk was all the furnishing in the home. They walked across the squeaky wood floor into the adjacent living room trying to maintain their composure.

That night in Billy’s house, they laughed drinking liquor and play card games. They hadn’t had such an enjoyable night in a very long time.

TWENTY FIVE

A
fter Robbie found his beloved Jamie lifeless, he was never the same. He took her body near the shore of the lake where only a day prior he had asked for her hand in marriage. He dug a deep hole and placed Jamie’s body in it, with her feet facing the water so she could forever look out over the lake. Robbie then filled in her final resting place with dirt, placed rocks over it, and spent the rest of the day sitting next to her grave and a small wooden cross.

Later in the afternoon, when he was able to find the willpower to get himself up, he used a chisel and carved an epitaph into the large stone at the head of the grave:

FOREVER YOU AND I WILL REMAIN TOGETHER
.
YOU
’
LL ALWAYS BE MY SOUL MATE
.
HERE LIES MY BELOVED JAMIE
,
MY FRIEND
,
LOVER
,
AND WIFE
.

By evening, Robbie had lain down under the stars and fallen asleep next to Jamie for the last time.

As he woke up from his dream about his lover, it took a moment for him to realize where he was. Still in the canoe, he awoke to a sound he hadn’t heard in a very long time. It was without a doubt the sound of horses. Robbie sat up, listening intently for a moment, then paddled toward the shore.

Once he was on dry ground, he carefully made his way up to his little house through the darkness and sat down on the porch swing with his revolver drawn and on his lap. Robbie wasn’t going to take any chances.

Not long after taking his seat, three horses came trotting up past the barn, stopping ten feet from the porch where Robbie sat. He looked at the riders carefully but didn’t recognize any of them. “Take what you want. I don’t need any of it anymore,” he said in a somber voice.

“Well, boy, I’m Billy, and we aren’t here to take anything from you. As a matter of a fact, I’m a friend of your daddy’s. Is he around here?”

“I don’t know you, and no, it’s just me here.”

“Well, this here is Ricky and Chris. It’s been a few years since I’ve been around here, and the last time I was, you were about half the size you are now. You’re Robin, right?”

“Yeah, I’m Robin, but folks call me Robbie. Now what is it you want?” he asked, seeming only to half care.

“Billy, let me talk to him,” Chris said, as she dismounted her horse. “Your name is Robbie?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said.”

“We’ve been riding for a long time, and if it’s not too much to ask, we’d like to stay here and recoup for a day or two or until your daddy gets back. I’m sure he won’t mind, as Mr. Billy said he and your daddy are old friends.”

“Do what you please,” he replied.

“Robbie, where’s your daddy?” Billy asked.

Robbie stood up, set his pistol on the porch railing, and walked past the three horses and their riders toward the lake without saying a word. The three watched as he walked to the water then climbed into the canoe and paddled far off into the lake.

“That’s a very odd kid,” Rick told the others.

Billy dismounted his horse first, followed by Rick. The three of them went inside the house and lit an oil lantern that was on the coffee table in the family room. A few minutes later, Billy came from the kitchen with coffee he had heated up and served it to his two friends.
It was a wonderful treat none of them had expected. Hot coffee on a cold night was always a blessing.

For a while the three of them sat playing Monopoly, which they’d found on a bookshelf. For the rest of the night, they forgot what the world had become; the only thing that mattered was that they were there and were alive and healthy. Other than Rick lightheartedly accusing Billy of cheating, the three had a great time.

“Rick, can I ask you something?” Chris said.

“Sure.”

“If you could live forever, would you want to?”

“Where’s that coming from? But I don’t think so, so no not really.”

“But if you could live forever with me?”

“Chris,” Rick said, “I think you’ve had too much coffee, but when you find the Fountain of Youth, let me know.”

“I know where to find the Fountain of Youth,” Billy said.

“Oh, yeah? Do tell. Where does a seventy-year-old man keep it?” Rick asked.

The room was silent until Billy laughed and said, “I’m not seventy, you asshole.”

For the rest of the night and into the next, they didn’t see Robbie. The three of them had walked to the lake twice but didn’t see any sign of him or his canoe.

Chris, however, did find Jamie’s grave, and she knew by the date on the headstone that they’d either shown up at exactly at the right time or at the worst possible time, considering that she had died so recently. She showed the grave to the other two, and they all agreed they needed to find Robbie as soon as possible before he did something terrible. Chris volunteered to look for him at the lake. Rick would stay at the house, and Billy would ride along the roads.

Chris packed her backpack with water and a change of clothes, pulled her hair out of her ponytail so that it fell freely over her shoulders. She put on her army jacket and boots and started walking. The idea was that she’d walk around the entire lake then come back to the house. The lake was big enough that, starting so late in the evening, she’d return just before morning.

She set out on her trek around the lake. She walked by the shore but saw no sign of Robbie or anyone else. After a few hours, she eventually found the canoe tied to a tree near the far end of the lake. As she looked around, she saw nothing that showed where he might have gone.

As Chris walked she thought about the lake near Rick’s cabin and how they’d spent so much time there together before they were forced to move. She hadn’t been much older than Robbie was when the world fell apart.
How could everything have changed so fast?
she wondered.

Chris decided to take a chance and go straight from the canoe into the wood line and see whether she could find any trace of Robbie, anything at all that might help her. She pushed her way into the thick of the forest, stepping over broken branches, logs, and enormous mudholes. When she looked into the ravine below, she saw what appeared to be a body and prayed it wasn’t Robbie’s. The body lay under a log, curled up.

“Robbie!” Chris yelled. “Answer me. It’s Chris.”

She dropped her bag and shotgun and moved down the ravine as fast as she could through the thickets. She lost her footing more than once, causing her to slide down through mud and rocks. She made her way down the steep embankment twenty feet before she reached the bottom. As soon as she landed, she knew it wasn’t Robbie under the log. It was a dead animal that looked to have once been a wild pig; the smell was overwhelming and made her sick to her stomach.

Angry and frustrated, Chris stood up, and—
whoosh
—in a flash she was gone. A millisecond later she was standing at the top of the ravine again, her entire body covered in mud. She pulled dirt and twigs from her hair and clothes before picking up the things she had left on the ground.

“You know, if I was going to kill myself, I wouldn’t lie down under a log. I’ve lived here long enough and know this place well enough that I wouldn’t fall in a ravine either.”

As soon as Chris heard Robbie’s voice, she turned in his direction. She ran straight through the bushes and branches until she was able to grab the young man and wrap her arms around him. She held him as tightly as she could and said, “Thank God.”

Although it was awkward for Robbie, he didn’t resist. He stood there and let her hug him until she had her fill.

Chris then followed him up an embankment to a narrow path, which they took until they reached a small house that looked very similar to Robbie’s house by the lake.

“What is this place?” she asked.

“It was built a while back for my grandparents,” Robbie told her. “My dad and I were going to clear the land around here and put in a road, but as you can see, that never happened.”

Chris and Robbie went into the house. Robbie lit an oil lamp and put coffee on the wood stove, which he had lit before he’d left. After Chris went into the bathroom to clean herself up, Robbie stepped outside to attempt to start a small generator. It came to life with a sputtering sound that soon turned into a steady hum. Then he sat down on a log about fifteen feet from the house and lit a cigarette. He inhaled deeply, blowing the smoke through his nose and repeating the process.

When he looked up, he saw through the large bay window into the bedroom where Chris was standing. She didn’t seem to notice him, so he sat and watched. Chris took off her army jacket after setting her bag and weapons against the wall. She undid her belt and pulled it from the loops on her waist. With her back to the window, Robbie watched as she pulled her shirt over her head to reveal her bare back just before she unsnapped her pants and let them drop to the floor. Chris was standing there in only her black panties. She had a remarkable body that Robbie had been unaware of until that moment.

He saw the tattoos on her arms and the scars on her back and legs. Her brown hair flowed nearly to the middle of her back. To him she looked like she was straight out of a magazine. Chris turned her head slightly over her shoulder. Looking out the window, she smiled.

Seeing this, Robbie fell backward off the slippery log.
Oh, my God, did she see me?
he asked himself.

Quickly he threw his cigarette butt on the ground and ran to the front of the house. Trying to maintain his composure, he went into the kitchen to check on the coffee.

Sometime later, after bathing, Chris returned, fully dressed, to the family room. She sensed a slight bit of tension from Robbie, which she found cute, as Robbie was nearly the age she’d been when she’d first met Rick.

The two sat and drank coffee and talked for hours. It was well into the night when Chris said it would be better if they waited to return the next night after sleeping. Robbie found Chris friendly and easygoing, and because of that, he felt very comfortable speaking to her.