Z for Zachariah: Chapters 21–26

Mr. Loomis came out the door, walked quickly to the road, and then, looking definitely furtive, started toward the store.

Under such circumstances I would ordinarily feel justified in having one of the older hens for dinner—but how could I clean it?

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 awhile, admiring the potato plants, which looked healthy, with leaves of a lustrous dark green.

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.

After five minutes of waiting I gathered my nerve, stepped onto the porch, knocked on the door, and quickly retreated.

I stood there staring after him, feeling bewildered, baffled, and stupid.

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 one.

I cut a sapling for a pole, found some worms under a log, and went fishing.

I found a vantage point behind a bush, set down my milk, crouched, and waited.

The tractor had come out of the trees and ran in plain view down the blacktop, covering the last half mile to the store. Mr. Loomis sat astride, steering with his left hand.

I stared, at first not comprehending at all.

He’s suffered a relapse, I thought; he is back in his delirium.

The point was, however, that Mr. Loomis was sure to know at a glance that I was not living there. That was why he had looked out the window. If I was not there, he was thinking, I must be somewhere in the vicinity.

In the waning light, without the binoculars, I could not see what it was; only that it was small and it was not the gun.

As I ate, I cheered up a little and thought possibly, just possibly, I had been too pessimistic about the padlocks.

I knew that he had a compulsion for taking charge of things, for saving things, for rationing them out in an orderly manner so they would last—like the V-belt, the gasoline, the fertilizer, and so on.

It seemed that the more I stayed away from him the more determined he was that I come back. Perhaps I could yield a little.

Faro, in the house, hearing the shots and the clanging, barked in a frenzy.

As wounds go, it was not serious; in fact while I sat there looking the bleeding virtually stopped.

He wanted to shoot me in the leg so I could not walk. He wanted to maim, not to kill me. So that he could catch me.

The gun barrel shone like a tube of blue glass; it was the small rifle, the .22; he did not want to shatter my leg, only cripple it, because after I was caught he intended it to mend again.

In front of the entrance in a black and smoldering pile were the remains of all my things.

My sleeping bag, my clothes, even the box I used as a table and the board I had for a bench, all were cinders.

I saw in the heap a part of the charred cover of Famous Short Stories of England and America.

Inside the cave I found one thing he missed. My half-chicken was still in its cranny.

Even worse than hunger has been the monotony of my days.

I have worried, of course, that Mr. Loomis might use Faro to lead him to my new hiding place and trap me here while I was sleeping. But the drone of the tractor has been reassuring.

I have worried, of course, that Mr. Loomis might use Faro to lead him to my new hiding place and trap me here while I was sleeping. But the drone of the tractor has been reassuring.

On a warm afternoon I had grown bored and decided, against my better judgment, to go to the east ridge of the valley to gather berries. They were plentiful and delicious and I ate almost as many as I picked, stooping behind the bushes to keep out of sight.

Faro was swimming in Burden Creek. He had found my scent but, instead of following my trail on the rocks, he had plunged into the water.

I have already taken the cart and my supplies out of the valley down the road toward Ogdentown. I have come back for one last confrontation with Mr. Loomis.

I lay awake for a long time, thinking of the plan and the dangers involved in putting it into action. I knew that the risks were grave, but there was no reason to wait any longer.

There I hid my things in the ravine beside the road and covered them with brush.

He might see through the ruse and refuse to leave the house.

I came in sight of the house. It was only a dark square in the half-light; there were no lights on, and to a casual traveler on the road, no sign of life.

I ran through the field and across the road to the wagon. It looked smaller than I had remembered, and the rain had caused the paint to warp and peel.

Everything I needed was there: the safe-suit, the packages of food, the air tank, even the Geiger counters. In a short time my life would depend on them; the wagon, and everything it held, would sustain me in a strange world.

I passed the house. Visions moved behind my eyes, and I saw the house as I had seen it as a child: climbing the front steps on the way to supper; sitting on the porch at night, watching the fireflies; my grandfather rocking me on the swing; sitting there listening to someone singing, or a phonograph; later sitting on the swing at night weaving long, romantic dreams about my life to come.

I passed the remnants of an old treehouse.

I heard Mr. Loomis calling after me, but the mask covered my ears so that his voice seemed garbled and far away and I could not understand.