“Eleanor,” said Wylie calmly, his eyes bending up to meet hers now. “I think maybe it’s a little too soon to jump to conclusions.” His damp blue eyes, holding hers, somehow took the edge off her panic. “I think, well, I don’t know, but there must be, there’s probably some purpose.”
“Do you? Oh, do you, Wylie?” She grasped at this, and found it held her. “Do you think so?” She paused. He smiled faintly. “Wylie, let us hope so! I don’t know what I’d do if … if I … stopped …” She couldn’t pronounce it.
“I feel pretty sure you’ll get a message soon,” her husband said. “You’ll receive a clarification soon enough.” He reached across the table and patted her slender hands.
And, true enough! Wylie was right! They went into the living room together. She sat on the sofa, Wylie in the easy chair. Through all the houses and furnishings they had passed, through all their trials and uprootings, always there seemed to be this situation: she on the sofa, he in an easy chair in front of her and slightly to her left, somewhat shadowed. They did not turn on the television. Loosed by her return from panic, her mind floated free. Images from her long life bubbled up and disappeared. Ten thousand years must elapse, how many had she known? Quietly they sat, Wylie glancing over at her from time to time. Her mind drew lots and passed through ageless epochs. Distantly came the street sounds, an occasional shout, radios, a car racing. And then, suddenly, she started up out of the sofa, grasped her journal, locked herself in the bedroom, and emerged about fifteen minutes later with the message.
Wylie was waiting for her in his armchair. He looked up at her questioningly. She nodded. She was exhausted, and her face felt damp with perspiration. He smiled, pushed the glasses up on his nose, and followed her into the kitchen, where she read the message to him:
“Do you hear? Do you see? Do you think? Then, why do you doubt still? Elan has lost discipline and moves darkly among alien forms. Cling in recollection to the abiding universals! Seek my light without seeking, guileless and true, do not resist! Domiron hails Womwom for his superior insight: all praise to him who shall be called a Saint! Let it be guarded in memories that false portents are sprung from too hasty knowledges. Time is for all events, all passages are brought to light. Cosmic purposes of enormous importance are to be illumined soon. Further direct contact between worldsouls and higher aspected beings may be anticipated to transpire very near future. Elan is to confront with courage and inward serenity the history that is to come and to comprehend with grace the bitter obligement of suffering. Levity has intruded upon your meditations and vanity distorts your actions! Awake! Beneath you, the earth has leapt in protest. Proceed henceforth in resolute accord with the duty of your enlightenment! You will comprehend more intensely soon. Domiron bids you!”
Wylie sat very heavily in his chair. He peered up at his wife over his spectacles. “Eleanor,” he began softly, “don’t you think perhaps …?” But then he stopped. He stared down at his square practical hands. He scratched some clay off one finger. After a moment, he looked up at her and smiled. “That‘s fine,” he said.
Her Ma led them all in prayer. They sang “Beulah Land,” “The Old Rugged Cross,” “The Ninety and Nine” …
— Sick and helpless, and ready to die;
Sick and helpless, and ready to die!
The words made them cry. The cinders bit into their knees, and the cold air stung their wet faces. Elaine Collins wept shamelessly and prayed amen to all her Ma said, prayed to save poor Eddie Wilson in the hospital, and to be tonight with Tessie Lawson, who had lost her belovéd Bill, and Mary Harlowe, who’d lost her Hank. But Elaine wasn’t afraid now. Her Ma was here, they had run out here together, and she could tell from the look on her Ma’s face that her Pa was okay, that he was alive and would come back to them….
— Rejoice, for the Lord brings back His own!
Rejoice, for the Lord brings back His own.
The air worsened. They all noticed it. They knew the answer, but had been putting it off. They had to build a better brattice. Strelchuk and Juliano led them. They scouted around and discovered a room inside what looked to be about seventh south that was relatively clean and not hard to brattice off. They lifted Collins in there and set about the task of barricading themselves in. They erected temporary stoppings to hold the gases back as long as possible, collected all the tools and canvas and boards they could find. Collins, the veteran, came to from time to time and instructed them in short choppy gasps how to short-circuit the return vent system, and also reminded them to leave a bucket or something outside with a sign on it. Minicucci volunteered his undershirt and they wrote on it with a ballpoint pen: COME AND GET US! drew an arrow, and signed their names. It cheered them to pass the shirt around, yet there was the disconcerting quality of a tombstone about it. They tacked it up on a timber about a hundred yards away, chalked some large arrows on the roof and walls.
They had few boards, had to make do with coal and slate, but Collins said that was the best thing anyhow. He hauled himself up against a wall, he seemed improved, and pulled out a scrap of paper he had in his pocket. He tried to write something on it with a stub of pencil, but his old freckled hand was shaking terribly.
While Strelchuk was hunting for chunks of loose coal and whatever else he could find, his headlamp flashed over a body. “Jesus!” he squeaked. He was afraid to beam it that way again, but his head twitched back in a kind of reflex, and his lamp had to follow. He could hardly believe what he saw. “Bruno!” he cried. “Bruno, you sonuvabitch! How the hell did you get here?”
Bruno didn’t answer. He was stretched out on a sort of ledge or groove in a recess. His eyes were big as saucers and his white lips were pulled back, showing his clenched teeth. Dried blood on his face. Twitching all over. He reminded Strelchuk of rabbits he had shot and wounded, just before he finished them off.
“Hey, it’s okay, Bruno! It’s me, Strelchuk!”
But nothing; the guy just stared at Strelchuk with those buggy eyes. He was trembling like he might have a fever or something.
Strelchuk ran back and told the others, and they all went to have a look, but they couldn’t budge him either.
“Maybe we ought to drag him in here,” said Pontormo. Jinx enunciated with a peculiar precision, a careful thickening of the consonants that betrayed a shift of language somewhere in his past.
“Aw, let him be,” said Lee Cravens. His soft voice always took the edge off things. “He ain’t doin’ us no harm there, and he sure ain’t no kinder help.”
Together, the five of them built two walls, a couple inches apart, and filled the space between with shovelloads of fine stuff. They pissed to make clay and plastered up the chinks in the inner wall. They worked a long time. And when they were all done and feeling suddenly very beat down, they noticed two things: one, that they were all out of water, and two, that old Ely Collins was dead.
3
Tiger Miller on a Saturday night. Out at a coalmine, no place to be. Physically exhausted, otherwise restless. He’d planned, knowing he’d need to unwind after the disaster pressure, to make the usual roadhouse circuit tonight, but now he didn’t know. Three days and only about half the bodies recovered. The official toll was now ninety-eight dead or trapped, almost surely dead. Yet hope, the forgivable madness, kept the friends and families out here, doggedly waiting; kept the tired frightened rescue workers digging away.