Wolf and Iron

CHAPTER 15

In the next five days it took them to find the experimental seed farm, Merry never came within six feet of Jeebee. On his part, he was careful to make no move that would seem as if he was trying to intrude into that zone of privacy she had established around herself. In all other ways she acted as if the moment with Jeebee had never taken place. She ignored it so successfully and completely that Jeebee found himself at times almost doubting that it had happened. Only the continuing space between them testified to the fact that it had.

They avoided the small town of Wayne itself, when they came close at last to their destination, just as they had avoided all other dwellings or evidence of human habitation on the rest of the trip. Jeebee’s map included enough landscape features to plot a point-to-point course that intersected the major east-west highway through Wayne several miles west of the town. Merry had wondered why they hadn’t headed directly for Wayne, and Jeebee explained that since they were most likely to miss it in any event, it would save time if they knew for certain whether they’d erred to the east or to the west. Comfortably west of the town and its possible inhabitants, they could circle north and zigzag until they hit the seed farm.

They circled the invisible location of Wayne accordingly, and their zigzagging eventually brought them to the seed farm. They almost walked through a corner of its land without realizing it. Only the fact that it was open territory made them stop and look more closely. Some young bushes and immature saplings masked even this openness to a certain extent; but when they checked, it became clear that between and around this heavier vegetation were what had been organized plantings.

Working around it, they came to identify plots that had been planted with one kind of seed or another—areas in which the rowed stalks of plants even now towered above the weeds of late spring. The plots varied from something like ten to eighty acres in size and were separated one from another by open areas where only weeds flourished.

“I was told these were buffer zones,” Jeebee explained to Merry. “They marked off one experimental area from another, and they also acted as roads, in effect, on which harvesting and other machinery could get at the plots.”

Eventually they came to what seemed to be the only building on the property. It had been visible from some distance, because it was not a small structure. But like Wolf, like all people nowadays, they made any approach to a strange structure cautiously.

It was a large building of iron, with a corrugated metal roof and metal siding. It was about a hundred and fifty feet long and as high as the average barn. From a distance it looked untouched; and after examining it through their binoculars with as much wariness as Wolf, himself, might have shown, they decided to wait a night. It would be wise to see if there was any light or movement around it after dark.

So they camped in some trees at the edge of the open land, and during the night hours took turns keeping a watch on it. But nothing showed to indicate that anyone was there, so with the first predawn light to aid them, they went up to it and found it deserted. The heavy metal doors of a loading dock stood slightly ajar, indicating that the place had been left alone for some time; leaves and other windblown trash had piled up at the bottom of the opening.

The doors had evidently not been moved in some time and were hard to move. But they got them apart enough so that they could squeeze through to the inside.

Windows high in the wall, most of them still unbroken, let light into the interior.

It was a dusty, dusky sort of light. But as their eyes adjusted, it became as useful as full daylight for their purposes. They found sacks full of seed stacked near the further end of the building, which held another loading dock. Before this, inside, was a large hopper through which Jeebee remembered the already-gathered seed had been moved to be winnowed and cleaned. The sacks bore tags with dates in late August of the previous year. But the only identification of the seed itself seemed to be a letter followed by four numbers, followed by a date of the previous year.

One-year-old seed could be used; but how to tell which kind to take?

Jeebee and Merry looked about some more. There was a large, empty area in front of huge metal doors on rollers at one end of the building. Jeebee thought he remembered large machinery having been parked there, harvesters and planters. But there were no machines here now. Possibly they had been taken away somewhere back when the world had first started to fall apart. Maybe they had never been kept here on a regular basis.

There was also one dusty room, a cubicle built into a corner near the docks. It contained a couple of large metal desks, four filing cabinets, and a number of shelves with labeled glass specimen cases of seeds upon them and arranged in no particular order. The labels were marked in some form of symbols that neither Merry nor Jeebee could interpret. But on one wall there was a large map showing an area divided into rectangular sections, which drew Jeebee’s attention immediately.

As he stepped closer to it he saw that the map was actually a paper or plastic sheet about eight feet long and four feet from top to bottom. Over it there was a pane of glass, on which lines had been drawn and notations had been made, possibly by some type of crayon. Like the letter and number on the tags, they were indecipherable.

“I think the best thing we can do,” Jeebee said at last, “is head out into the fields themselves and simply go looking for a plot or field of healthy volunteers.” “Volunteers?” Merry echoed.

“That’s what I was told they call domesticated plants like these that’re left alone and simply reseed themselves, and come up in a second crop without any human attention.”

Accordingly, they went out and began their search. Jeebee was grateful for the horses, because they had a good deal of area to cover. Luckily the markers about the seed farm were still in place, not only those identifying the various fields of a certain experimental type of plant, but the ones marking the corridors of ground that spaced these fields apart. They started with corridor number one and went progressively through the rest, beginning at the end where the building was and going to the very edge of the farm itself.

Jeebee had half counted on his memory to point him toward the fields of wheat where genetic experiments were being tried out. It did not.

“Are you sure they actually were still experimenting with disease-resistant winter wheat?” Merry asked, after they had been up and down between the fields for several hours.

“I can’t be sure, of course,” said Jeebee, “but it doesn’t seem to make sense that they’d give up on it.” He waved his hand at the field on their left that they were just passing. It was a field of thin, green stalks, already at some height, but powdered with what looked like a gray dust. “That’s what we don’t want to get,” he told her, “powdery mildew. If we can just find a stand of healthy, green volunteers, we’ll know we’re home free. It’s too bad we aren’t here a little later in the year when we could actually harvest some of the seeds ourselves. But there’s a good chance, if we find a healthy field that’s reseeded itself and doing well, we’ll just take its code number. Any sacks back there in the building with the same code on their tags ought to be good bets to hold healthy, genetically resistant seeds.”

It was well past noon when at last they found a field of thick-standing green wheat stalks about knee-high.

Jeebee reined in at a corner of the field. The stalks were feathery, green, and almost happy looking in comparison to the stunted gray-dusted stems they had found until now.

“Look at that!” Jeebee waved at the healthy young plants. “That’s what we’ve been looking for. Now, if we can just find the signboard for this field and get the code number off it.”

“That shouldn’t be too much trouble, as long as the sign’s still standing,” said Merry. “We just have to ride around the edge until we come to it.”

And so they did; and so, finally, they located the signboard.

“G-4370A,” Jeebee read off the sign. “I think I can remember that. Do you think we ought to write it down?”

“I am,” Merry answered. Jeebee looked over at her and saw her using a pencil in a small, pocket notebook. “Let’s get back to that building and start looking for the sacks with matching tags.”

They went. Once back in the building, the hunt through the sacks, through the dust and the dimmed light, was almost as frustrating as their hunt had been through the fields. But eventually Merry found what they were after.

“G-4370A!” she said. “Jeebee, they’re here!”

He had been examining the tags on sacks about fifteen feet away. He hurried to her side and studied the tag.

“Looks beautiful, doesn’t it?” Merry said with a grin.

Jeebee grinned back.

“All we have to do now,” he said, “is load the packhorses and head back. Not all of this grain will sprout, probably. It’s a full year old. But most ought to do very well for whoever plants it.”

So they did. They had six packhorses to load; and when the job was done, they were dusty and itchy, as well as worn out from their work. But they were infinitely cheerful—and more than this had happened to them. The distance Merry had been maintaining from Jeebee had evaporated. They had worked closer and closer, until effectively all barriers had dissolved between them.

The first three nights out they both slept like the dead, each in their separate sleeping bags. The fourth night Jeebee found himself slow to fall asleep, although Merry had dropped right off. He found himself lying by the fire and watching her unmoving sleeping bag molded by her figure within it. A great deal of understanding had made itself manifest in him these last few days. He realized that more than the work had brought them together. Tacitly they had both acknowledged what they shared. He knew that now if he went over to Merry in her sleeping bag, she would not push him away.

That much of the battle was over. They were both ready to belong to each other and they both knew it. Nonetheless he lay still where he was. Because she had been right.

It was the time of iron years that had descended upon the world, binding people to paths they must follow whether or not they wished to do so. Just as Wolf had been bound by the instinctive part of him, which had told him not to go down into an unknown place like the root cellar. Come what might, they must be what they were. They must do what they had to do. And what must be borne must be borne whether they liked it or not. The only control they had over the situation was the manner in which they bore it.

Merry had been right. Jeebee must leave and she must go on. Theoretically, there was no reason why they could not meet again next year. But practically, the chances were slim. In this different world, two people who parted had much less chance of coming back together again than formerly. Many things could happen to either one of them or both to prevent their meeting again.

The situation came down at last to their making what they had to bear as easy as possible. Better they stayed apart, forgot each other, and looked elsewhere. Things would be easiest in the long run if they had a minimum of memories to forget.

So, he would stay here. He would fall asleep here, as she had fallen asleep over there; and they would go back to the wagon, separate but apart, knowing that there was no help for it, no way of having it any different. Like Wolf, they had choice only within limits.

In some strange way their silent mutual understanding that they both wanted each other and could not have each other had brought them closer together than Jeebee could remember being with anyone else in his life. In those days in which they rode back to the wagon with the collected seed, they rode side by side in silence for most of the time, simply because there was no need to talk. It was as if some invisible current flowed back and forth between them and they were joined by that beyond the need for words.

They reached the wagon at last just at twilight and were welcomed by both Paul and Nick, standing just outside it to watch them ride up.

Wolf, who had not been visible to them all day, came trotting in almost on their heels. The dogs of the wagon came out to meet Wolf, and for the first time Jeebee saw him acting almost apologetic toward them, with his ears back and his tail low.

The dogs swarmed all over him. For a moment, as Jeebee and Merry came finally up to Nick and Paul, Jeebee thought that the dogs were likewise being welcoming. They were, but almost in a negative sense. They were swarming around Wolf in a generally antagonistic manner, none of them seemingly giving him a direct challenge, but all of them barking at him and nipping at him from the side or behind. Surprisingly, Greta also joined in this.

Wolf endured this more than objected to it. Only when one or two got too obtrusive did he show any sign of threatening back. Eventually the dogs slowed down their unwelcome attentions, and one by one dropped out of the group that were effectively, it seemed, punishing Wolf for having been away for such a length of time, without touching base with the rest of them.

Later on, quiet was established, the packhorses were unloaded, and the seed grain tucked into storage spaces that had already been made for it, clearly by Paul and Nick rearranging what was already kept in the storeroom.

Both Paul and Nick examined the grain, found it good, and listened with interest through dinner and into the twilight to the story of the going, the coming, and the gathering of the grain.

“I think by next year,” Paul said thoughtfully, “we can simply swing that far north and load directly into the wagon.”

Merry had done most of the relating, Jeebee only coming in when it got to be a matter of explaining the business of the difference between hybrid and genetic grains and the reason behind the various patterning of the plots and the experimental farms as a whole.

Merry seemed content to let him do this and was quite warm to him in front of her father and Nick; at the same time Jeebee thought that she showed a certain amount of relief at being back at the wagon, with her familiar environment around her. The next day they all, including Jeebee, fell automatically back into their old routines.

The wagon itself moved on, while Jeebee took his turn to be in charge of the horses. Merry, with Nick, worked in the wagon to separate the grain from the chaff with which it had been sacked. Jeebee felt himself caught in a timeless moment in which he could not think about either the future or the past, and right now did not_ particularly want to think about either.

Eventually, after they had stopped briefly for lunch, which as usual when they were in transit consisted of sandwiches and coffee, Merry took over with the horses and Jeebee went up to take his turn at handling the wagon, while Paul took advantage of the one luxury he allowed himself, which was a brief midday nap while the wagon moved.

Following this nap, Paul came forward and sat down beside Jeebee. However, he made no immediate move to take the reins back out of Jeebee’s hands. After a moment he spoke.

“Tomorrow,” he said, “we’ll turn south. You’ll be leaving us then.”

“Yes,” said Jeebee. There was nothing much else to say.

“We’ll stop a little early tonight and have a sort of going-away party,” Paul said. “I’ll pay you off, and I think you’ll be pretty well supplied with what I can give you. Also, we’ve each one of us got a small, personal gift for you. You’ll get those while we’re sitting around the fire after dinner, this evening.”

Jeebee was startled into glancing at the older man for a moment. Only for a moment, because he could not take his eyes off the road and the horses for longer than that, but his glance was a sharp and questioning one.

“Gifts?” he said. “I haven’t been with you… ” His voice trailed off.

“You’ve been with us long enough,” said Paul. “Anyway, we can do what we want, can’t we?”

“Oh. Of course,” said Jeebee. “It’s just, I wasn’t expecting gifts.”

“Well,” said Paul, producing his pipe, packing it, and lighting it up, “you’ll be getting them.” He struck a wooden match and held the flame to the tobacco in his pipe, drawing long and hard until the packed shreds were alight.

After a second he spoke again.

“I see you and Merry worked things out,” he said.

Jeebee glanced at him again, this time only out of the corner of his eyes, and saw that Paul’s gaze was fixed ahead on the horses pulling the wagon.

“Yes,” Jeebee said after a moment, unable to think of what else to say.

“I hoped as much,” Paul said, still to all appearances talking to the team ahead. “That’s one reason I wanted her to go with you.”

This time Jeebee didn’t glance at him.

“I thought there was no choice,” he said. “You couldn’t leave the wagon, and Nick—”

“Oh, I could have left.” Paul took his pipe out of his mouth, blew a jet of smoke, and glanced up at the few clouds dotting the blue sky ahead of them. “It wouldn’t have been as smart as you two going. But Merry could have handled this wagon by herself if she’d ended up having to. She knows all there is to know about it. She still can’t handle customers like I can, but most of them know her, and she knows how she ought to deal with them. Nick would work for her. No, if I’d thought it was really best, I could have been the one to go with you. I just thought it was better she did.”

Jeebee drove in silence for a few seconds, letting these last words sink into him. Plainly, the silent understanding he and Merry had come to was obvious; at least to her father, and probably to Nick as well.

Jeebee decided to accept the fact.

“It wasn’t easy,” he said.

“Didn’t figure it would be,” Paul said, puffing on his pipe. “Most important things aren’t.” Jeebee laughed unhappily.

“You’re right about that.” He glanced ahead and up at the clouds, himself. They seemed to be moving, following the way ajking with the wagon, although he knew that this was only an illusion. Still, for the moment, seeing them seem to move, it was as if the wagon was holding its place while the earth turned underneath it, so that once he left it and those riding it, the rotating world itself would carry him away from them.