The afternoon looked to be clear and bright at least until sunset. There was little breeze and almost no clouds at all—none on the horizon. The day before it had rained; but except for that, they had had nearly a full week of dry weather now, and spring was rushing the growth of new vegetation. Already, the fresh young grass was a good six inches high among the dead brown stalks left over from the year before.
So far, since his arrival half an hour before, there had been no sign of traffic on the interstate. It stretched, a gray double-ruler line before him, from right horizon to left horizon. Nothing moving was to be seen in either direction at the moment. This small hill with its clump of trees was only one of many such for some miles; but it was the one closest to the road, so that other clumps of vegetation did not cut off his further view of the concrete strips in both directions.
Former interstates like this were not ordinarily traveled even at night, let alone in daytime as it was now. Anyone so doing could be seen coming clearly from some distance. Any such travelers would appear while still far enough off for Jeebee to make up his mind about them.
If the individual or group traveling looked dangerous, he could lie quiet until they had passed. Or, if they sent someone to scout the woods before they passed, he should be able to see the scout coming in time to fade back off the crest and put a safe distance between himself and them.
Most of those who came by in daytime were much more likely to be in groups, to risk such visibility. Only a complete fool would travel alone under such conditions and risk attracting the attention of any looters or marauders in the vicinity. His plan was to give his afternoons to watch for traffic. Mornings, as he had today, Jeebee could give to the other necessary duties of finding food and staying alive.
But today the first requirement had been pretty well taken care of by his very lucky find of that root cellar. He had looked for that sort of underground storage at every clump of abandoned farm buildings he had investigated ever since he had left Michigan. Undoubtedly, it was now clear, he had passed some by without knowing they were there. If it had not been for Wolf’s curiosity, he would have missed this one.
Of course, there still remained the problem of finding some kind of bag or container he could put up in the tree and fill with as many of the cans as possible. Wolf, he had found, was wary of anything unknown. The trick would be to keep it unknown. So Jeebee’s trips to the root cellar for loads of cans had better be at times when Wolf had gone off on his own business—hunting or otherwise—as he had just a while ago.
Of course, there was no certainty Wolf might not show up unexpectedly at any time. His most routine appearances were at dawn and twilight. But he had also shown up without warning at all other hours. Jeebee would just have to take his chances of getting to the root cellar and back without encountering him.
Meanwhile, Jeebee’s belly was full now, and there was the highway to watch.
The most dangerous possibility in the way of daytime travelers would be a gang all armed and mounted. A raiding group. These were literally latter-day horse nomads, who lived continually on the move and sometimes numbered enough to threaten even small settlements.
That sort of gang would also be the most likely to send scouts ahead to explore the only cover in sight—in this case, his woods. Moreover, on horseback, they could easily run him down if they caught sight of him. They would be interested not only in everything he had, but in everything he could tell them about things they might want. That meant that as a matter of course, they would torture him to get whatever answers he might be able to give them; after which they would kill him.
In such a situation he could look for no help from Wolf. Not only would his companion be timid of any strangers—strange how an animal so potentially lethal and so armed by nature could also be so cautious and ready to run under unfamiliar situations—but, even if he did, a single bullet would take care of him, probably a shot on first sight by anyone taking Jeebee prisoner.
So Jeebee would be wisest to start leaving the minute he identified any such group moving down the highway. Even a couple of rifle-armed men on horseback were potentially dangerous… unless they were careless, drunk, or drugged enough to ride by these trees without thinking of the danger of being shot from ambush. Jeebee wondered, if it came to that, whether he actually could bring himself to shoot down two such men, merely for what they possessed.
He had shot before at an armed man aiming his rifle at Wolf. But if his shot had killed the man, it had been done in hot blood. Could he do the same in cold?
He thought again about the depth of his hunger and his sudden complete readiness to turn on Wolf, himself, back at the root cellar. The sudden, deep, instinctive emotion of that moment touched him again in raw memory. Yes, if a parallel need occurred with humans in front of him, he could kill his own kind, too, if that was the only way to survive.
But deeply he still hoped and believed what he wanted could be got without killing. It must be a matter of just picking the right traveler, or travelers.
Ideal would be a family with women and children and only one person armed. Probably too ideal. A group like that would have sense enough to travel at night, and as much out of sight as possible.
Whoever it ended up being, he must pick a group with which there was some reason to believe he could risk showing himself and trying to parley. Also a group that had what he needed to trade for or buy.
His mind drifted as he lay in the warmth of the sun. It had now sent fingers of light among the trees to uncover him from shadow. It was hard, even now, for him to realize how much he had changed since he had fled from Stoketon—
The even current of his thoughts, almost drowsy in the warming noontime, was broken abruptly as he caught sight of movement at the far end of the nearest strip of highway to his left. It was not possible yet to tell who or what was causing it. But it was undoubtedly movement, and it was toward him.
He waited, watching patiently, as it got closer, and the movement resolved itself into a gaggle of adults on foot, moving forward more as a loose mob than anything else.
As they came closer Jeebee studied them carefully. They were not a prepossessing bunch. Some of them had rifles, some showed no weapons at all, and in between there was everything from kitchen knives stuck through belts to axes in hands. They were rather a tatterdemalion bunch. One large man, surprisingly clean shaven in a time when most men had simply let their beards grow, marched at the front and seemed to be as much in charge of the others as anybody else was. He was flanked by two slightly smaller, bearded individuals, who could be subleaders of some sort.
Jeebee thought he had not a great deal to fear from them. They clearly were not sending out scouts to protect their flanks, apparently depending simply on their numbers for protection. There must have been between forty and fifty of them, equally divided between men and women. The latter were hardly distinguishable from the men, wearing roughly the same assortments of clothing—pants, shirts, jackets, and hats—and in most cases had their hair cut short. In addition, the layers of clothes nearly everybody wore nowadays, including Jeebee himself, disguised bodily differences.
There was something famished looking about the whole group. Jeebee felt a touch of coldness at the thought of being discovered and captured by them; but if in any strange case they did pay attention to his hillside, he could simply head back off the crest and into the folds of the land. He was pretty sure that he could outrun them. At least he could keep away from them for long enough so that it would not be worth their while to keep chasing him. Otherwise, if he could string them out in chase until there were only two or three of them dangerously near, then firing from the ground with a steady rest for the rifle, the .30/06, he should be able to take care of them.