The shadows were very long when he finally felt the difference in the water beneath the boat. He began to move faster now; each dip of his paddle made the boat glide forward in a more natural response, not impeded by the rough, grasping stems that had held him back all day. The grasses parted, thinned out, then disappeared, and there was turbulent, freely moving water before him. He knew he was too tired to fight yet another current, and he let it take him downstream, to land on the shore of Delaware Bay.
The next morning he saw fish. Moving carefully, he opened his pack and found the net he had made the previous winter, to the amusement of the other children. The net was five feet square, and although he had practiced throwing it in the river in the valley, he knew he was inexpert with it, that his first throw would probably be the only chance he would have. He knelt in the canoe, which had begun to drift as soon as he stopped paddling, and waited until the fish swam closer. Closer, he whispered at them, closer. Then he threw, and for a moment the canoe rocked dangerously. He felt the heaviness of the weighted net increase, and jerked and tugged hard and began to pull it in. He gasped when he saw his catch: three large, silvery fish.
He sat back on his heels and studied the fish flopping about, and for a time his mind was a blank about what to do with them. Slowly he began to remember what he had read about cleaning them, how to sun-dry them, or roast them over an open fire . . .
On shore he cleaned the three fish and spread them in the sun on flat rocks to dry. He sat looking at the water and wondered if there were shellfish here also. He took the canoe out again, this time keeping very close to shore. He came to a half-submerged rock where he found a bed of oysters, and on the bottom of the sandy bay there were clams, which disappeared when he disturbed the water. By late afternoon he had gathered many of the oysters and dug pounds and pounds of clams. His fish were not dry, and he knew they would spoil if he didn’t do something else. He pondered, staring at the bay, and he realized the ice floes were the answer.
Once more he went out into the water, and this time he maneuvered close enough to one of the larger slabs of ice to get his rope around it and tow it back to shore. He wove a shallow basket of pine branches, put the clams on the bottom, then the oysters, and on top of them the fish. He put the basket on the flat ice, hacked off pieces of the ice with his knife, and put them over everything. Then he relaxed. He had used up almost the whole day in gathering the food, making sure it would not spoil before he could eat it. But he didn’t care. Later when he ate roasted fish and wild asparagus, he knew he had never eaten any food half as good.
From where he camped, the Delaware was a black hole in the dark forest. Now and then the blackness was broken by a pale shadow that moved without a sound, as if floating in air. Ice. The river was very high; on the banks some trees were standing in water; there might be others invisible until too late, or rocks, or other perils. Mark considered the hazards of that black river and felt only contentment, and the next morning he entered it and headed for Philadelphia.
It was the cities that depressed him, he thought, staring at the gray ruins on either side of the Schuylkill River. As far as he could see in any direction there was the same vista of gray ruins. The city had burned, but not to the ground as Baltimore had. Some buildings seemed almost intact here, but everywhere the same grayness persisted, the same ugliness of destruction. Trees had started to grow here, but even they were ugly, stunted, sickly-looking.
Mark felt here the same fear that others spoke of feeling in the forest. There was a presence here, and it was malign. He found himself looking back over his shoulder again and again, and determinedly paddled ahead. Soon he would stop and make some sketches of the buildings he could see from the river. Probably he should make some token explorations on foot, he thought reluctantly. He paddled more slowly and examined a grove of trees. They were so badly formed it was hard to determine what kind of trees they were. Aspens, he decided. He tried to imagine their roots searching in the concrete and metal beneath the streets for sustenance, finding only more concrete and metal.
But there had been trees in Washington, he thought, paddling harder to avoid a large, ragged chunk of ice. Those trees had been normal-looking, but these . . . They were less than half full size, misshapen, their branches few and grotesquely twisted. Abruptly Mark pulled up. Radiation, he thought with a chill. This is what radiation poisoning did. Before his mind’s eye appeared descriptions and photographs of various kinds of animal and vegetable life deformed by radioactivity.
He turned the canoe and raced back downriver to the juncture with the Delaware. He still had several hours before darkness forced him to stop. For a moment he hesitated, then turned northward once more, this time keeping a wary eye open for deformed plant growth, as well as for chunks of ice, which had become more numerous.
He passed one more place with badly deformed plant life. He kept to the far side of the river and continued to paddle.
Philadelphia went on and on, the ruins more or less uniform. Occasionally there were blocks of buildings that seemed virtually untouched, but now he suspected that was because those areas had been blocked off when they became radioactive. He didn’t investigate any of them. Most of the immense buildings were skeletons, but there were still many standing, enough to make a full-scale expedition worthwhile, if the buildings were not contaminated. He knew that problem would have to be solved by Barry or his younger brothers. He continued on. The forests were taking over again, and the trees were well developed here, thick, luxuriant; in some places where the river narrowed, the canopies met overhead, and it was like passing through a tunnel where only his paddle in the water made a sound and the rest of the world held its breath in the twilight stillness.
There was another puzzle here, he thought, studying the banks of the river. The flow was very swift, but the water was low and the banks in places rose several feet to the land above. The river could have been partially dammed; he knew he would have to find out before he returned to Washington.
Daily the weather had become colder, and that night there was frost. The next day he went through Trenton, and as in Philadelphia, the ruins were ubiquitous, the growth stunted and malformed.
Although it took him several miles out of his way, he went through the city in his canoe, and didn’t leave it until the woods looked normal again. Then he carried the boat to high ground and secured it and headed north on foot. The Delaware turned west here, and he was bound for New York. That afternoon the rains started. Mark blazed a trail now; he didn’t want to have to make a search for the canoe when he returned. He traveled steadily through the heavy rain, protected by his great poncho, which covered him from crown to feet.
He could find no dry wood for a fire that night, and he chewed his cold beef and wished he had another of the succulent fish instead.
The rain was undiminished the next day, and now he knew that to continue was foolish, that he might lose his direction completely in a world whose boundaries had been erased, with no sky, no sun to plot his course. He searched for a spruce grove and crept under the largest of the trees and huddled in his poncho, dozing, waking, dozing again throughout the day and night. The sighing of the trees wakened him and he knew the rain was over; the trees were shaking off the water, murmuring together about the terrible weather, wondering about the boy who slept among them. He had to find a sunny place, dry out his pack, the poncho, his clothes, dry and oil his moccasins . . . He crawled out from under the spruce, whispered a thank you, and began to search for a good place to dry out everything, make a fire, have a good meal.