Gary was startled. “You think this might last a whole year?”
“Not surprising.” Oliver tightened his line quickly, watching it intently for a moment before relaxing. “Quite possible as a matter of fact. Keep us quarantined as long as there remains a shred of doubt — and that can be a long time.” He shifted his feet on the sandy bottom and turned to allow the sun to warm his chest and stomach. “I'm not too impatient. Now if I were in their place — headquarters that is — I'd send patrols across all the bridges periodically to take samples and make tests. Send them far inland.”
“What for?” Gary asked. “What tests?”
“Water, soil, grain, cattle if any are still to be found. Sample the swamps and the mountain ridges. Take specimens of paint peeling from buildings, almost any substance capable of concealing a foreign body.”
“Sometimes you sound like a schoolteacher.”
“Sometimes I do, yes. The patrols would gather up residue and test it for contamination; when the tested matter no longer revealed a danger, the crisis would be over except for mopping up the stragglers.”
“Except for—” Gary jerked away from the girl. “Like us?” he asked flatly.
“Like us,” Oliver nodded. “Latent carriers, Typhoid Marys, apparently immune but spreading the death by merely breathing.”
“That's a hell of a note! Either they shoot us for crossing the bridge, or they shoot us for staying alive over here. What's the damned country coming to?” He jerked his line savagely through the water.
Sally left him to wade nearer the other man.
“May not be that bad at all,” Oliver pointed out mildly, apparently unworried about his future. “Not by the time they get around to us. All depends on the prevailing mood of high brass and the state of medicine on the day the bridges are reopened. If the stragglers can be cleansed and cured by some revolutionary medical means — welcome back to the United States. If not — why then, we're blocking reconstruction.”
“Yeah, fine! I can see me blocking reconstruction. Haven't they got anything to cure us?”
“Who can say? Science makes wonderful strides in some respects and yet stands still in others. We thought the atomic bomb would make the land uninhabitable for thousands of years, yet you can move right back in a short while after an airburst. When I was teaching school there were no known cleansing agents for the likes of you and me — and Sally.”
“What about that stuff I read in the library?”
“Oh, vaccines exist, yes, but they are intended as a preventive measure, not an antidote to be administered a year or more after the poison takes effect.” He was gazing at the point where the sea met the horizon. “Seem to recall there were vaccines for one or two types of toxin of botulism, but antitoxins are useless at this late date. And as for the pneumonic plague! Perhaps, just perhaps, sulfadiazine and streptomycin could help if you were treated immediately.”
Sally spoke up. “Is it bad, Jay?”
“About as bad as it can get, Sally. Our only hope is that medicine will find something new in the next year, something based perhaps on the existing vaccines.”
“But what about those tests?” Gary demanded. “How can the patrols come over on our side and then get back without catching hell?” He had forgotten his line and was watching Oliver.
“Would use airtight suits. Something like those atomic radiation suits the bomb cleanup squads are supposed to wear. Set up a decontamination chamber on one end of the bridge and work from there; send out the patrols dressed in the suits to gather samples for laboratory tests, bring them back through the chamber and burn the suits if necessary. Easily done — standard laboratory measures. A series of such patrols would definitely establish when the danger was ended. If it ended.”
They returned to their fishing. Sally moved up close to Oliver and held onto his arm, watching the beginning of a small swell roll in and splash against her legs.
Neither of the fishermen had luck. After a while Gary worked away from the two and moved down the beach, slowly trolling and recasting his line but without success. Standing almost hip-deep in water he heard an automobile careening along the highway and was instantly alert, straining his ears to follow its passage. It was the first passing car they had noticed in almost a month. The car did not slow and presently the sound of it was lost to him as it sped rapidly westward. He turned and walked back to the couple, dragging the line carelessly behind.
“You know,” he suggested as he approached, “there might be a way to get across the Mississippi.”
“Think so?”
“Sure. I saw something when we were hanging around those bridges — some of them at least. Did you notice the little signs down near the waterline? They were put there for the boats to read. The signs said not to drop anchor there, it was a cable crossing. Those cables follow along the bottom of the river and come up somewhere on the other side. I could get me a breathing mask and crawl along a cable.”
Oliver didn't answer, still watching the sea.
“I could get across that way,” Gary persisted.
“Assuming that you evaded the sentries waiting on the other side, how long would you stay alive over there? How long could you remain free and undetected?”
“I can get lost damned quick!”
“You couldn't get lost — no matter how hard you tried. Dammit, corporal, didn't you listen to what I said? You'd leave a trail a blind man could follow.”
“Nuts. I'm immune.”
“Immunity isn't what you seem to think it is. And the people across the creek aren't immune. Your immunity wouldn't protect them, wouldn't save them from dying just because you walked by. Your immunity means that you and you alone are not subject to the diseases — at the present time. Just as Sally and I are temporarily protected. That's why the three of us are still alive. But Gary — your immunity may last you a lifetime, it usually does in common cases, and then again it may not. I hope to God you don't go across the creek, or under it. You'd only start this all over again.”
“All right… forget it.” He knew the wisest thing to do would be to turn the subject. “Forget that I ever mentioned it. Let's knock off, they're not biting.”
“Wait a second,” Oliver said, and raised a hand to shade his eyes against the sun.
“What is it?” Gary followed his glance to see.
“Thought it was a sail. Couldn't be sure but for the last couple of hours I thought I could see a sail out there.”
Sally looked at him in surprise. “There is.”
“Where? I wish I had a moonshiner's sharp eyes.”
“Over there.” She pointed to the southeast. “It was there" — she indicated the west—”and it went all the way across.”
“From New Orleans or Mobile, most likely,” Oliver guessed. “Steering for some point down the peninsula.”
Gary couldn't see it and said nothing, dropping his eyes instead to watch the sea swirling about Sally's legs. The water rushed in with little waves to dash against her skin and form eddies about the parted legs, kicking up foam. He continued to watch with a quiet contemplation, letting the motion of the water and foam stir dream images in his mind.
“Oh, well,” Oliver said after a while, “let's eat.”
Gary glanced up, startled from his reverie, to find Sally watching him with a patient knowledge.
They observed what they believed to be Christmas Day by going swimming in moderately cold water, and then spending the remainder of the afternoon on the warm beach sand. Sally lay between them, entranced as usual by the sound of the sea and the fantasy cloud-castles floating overhead. The routine was nothing out of the ordinary but there was no new thing to do, no new way to celebrate a holiday. Gary gave the girl a wooden link chain he had carved and saved for weeks, saved for the day, while Oliver contented himself by stretching out on the sands and resting his eyes on her body. He suspected Sally was gaining weight.