His most valuable deposit, he remembered, was the first one he made behind his old home near White Oaks at the start of the revolution. But he knew that area had been razed and the landscape so changed that he’d never be able to find it. It was now part of a featureless, white margin that surrounded the city. The other caches, along the highway, he was confident of finding. He spent the rest of the day leaning back with his eyes closed, trying hard to remember every detail of their whereabouts and exactly what he had put in them.
He distinctly recalled several notebooks and pens in one of them. All three locations were to the north of the road, along one of its most desolate stretches. To smooth the way for this plan he began to berate his companions for enjoying their lazy mode of conveyance. They’d be passing through some of the most interesting scenery in America and he was loath to have them experience it from a window. After they passed the Great Lakes he’d procure them horses, and they would learn to ride them and live off the land, as he’d done when he was young.
"You've already ridden burros," he told them. "We'll pack up saddle bags and travel through the forests, sleeping in tents. Think of what you'll learn."
His followers looked somewhat puzzled but seemed to agree that it was the right thing to do.
"Nothing easier than to detour a bunch of empty-headed youngsters," he thought. "I could have steered them to the North Pole and back without their uttering a complaint."
But the fact was that these youths, with Jonathan's help, were approaching an adult independence. Almost the whole length of the trip Jonathan noticed that Paul was paying an inordinate degree of attention to the slightest variables of Mary's comfort and convenience. If one bunk or seat was a little softer than another, she had it, while he seemed overjoyed to take the worst. If a meal needed to be fetched or an errand run, she sat while Paul ran. Her tea was poured, her pillow fluffed, in a way that Paul acted out towards all his fellow travelers, but intended, all too obviously, for her alone.
Jonathan watched this interesting drama without interference. It also didn't meet with any meddling on Simon's part, who only wanted to corner Jonathan's attention. On the journey west he’d sit beside his master hour after hour and plague him with questions. In the midst of these, Jonathan dreamed of pairing off and marrying off all three sets of his disciples, so long as it didn't interfere with their training and harmony. Mary was at least two years younger than Paul and the others, perhaps sixteen. But she was old enough to notice his attentions with girlish smiles.
The more Jonathan thought on it, Paul would make a fine match for Mary. He was a sensitive and fine-hearted youth, and though Jonathan felt a protective and even fatherly emotion towards Mary, he could readily see expanding that care to include the both of them. He remembered that both Sarah and Eve had visibly flirted with Peter back at the camp, Peter being the tallest and most handsome of the group. No telling what they were up to now, in his absence. That half-blind and half-deaf old priest was hardly one to catch them at their games.
Simon was the problematic one. He was always full of talk and hardly minded the others. He was of middle stature, thin, but with finely chiseled features. Jonathan had just spent the last remaining days in White York taking him to one of the few existing eye doctors and had him fitted with a set of spectacles, which not one in a thousand people owned these days, though one in three needed them.
But the hard question was whom to choose for him. Both Sarah and Eve towered over him physically and neither showed any tendency to appreciate his sharp intellect. The only reason he’d been chosen at the sporting event was for his performance and unmistakable luck in the pole vault competition. The others were selected from harder contests that showed real stamina. Simon was an oddball. Perhaps he’d give both the girls to Peter to keep happy. Simon could live on ideas, just as he’d done all his life.
The next day Jonathan decided to let nature take its course, whatever the outcome. To be the arbitrator of marriages, he thought, was far beyond human powers.
"They can do as they choose and be unhappy without my involvement." But later on he thought, "no, I'll even make Eve wed Simon, despite the both of them. I'll order it, and if they bicker, at least I'll be free of Simon's questions for awhile. I wish I had an Eve when I was young. Whatever the result, it’s got to be better than a life like mine."
They continued their trip west at a quick pace, stopping each night at one of the stations along the way. It was now mid-winter and they heard reports of snow blocking the highway further west. For this reason they stopped in the new city of White Go for three weeks, as the special guests of one of Jonathan's old scouts, who’d now risen to the post of garrison commander there. He was overjoyed to see Jonathan again and had his men perform some of the drills that Jonathan had long ago invented.
Jonathan asked his host if he’d done much exploration in these parts or met with other people.
"There are tribes to the north, and others in the hills further west," he replied. "But we only find their camps and have orders not to pursue them. We're only here to defend. We’d hardly have anything to do but drill, except that the city is always giving us tasks, mostly demolition work. It's not like the early days when you were training us."
"Well those were dangerous times," Jonathan replied, "and we'd not be alive today if they had lasted. Better to be at peace. This is a big country. There's room for all."
Jonathan also asked about the other city further west, and whether it had been rebuilt. But nothing was done. Even this city had only three thousand inhabitants and in the twenty years since it was repopulated there were still buildings coming down and streets being whitened for the first time. Apparently the paint was not easy to transport this far. It had to come by barges along a narrow canal to the lakes, and then by tanker to their port. And now they’d just been informed that their supply would be reduced for a time, due to some sort of repair work.
Before leaving, Jonathan spoke with his old scout confidentially, bidding him get ready for the worst, because the paint supplies would soon cease altogether and the Church might break apart. He told him to remember that the seat of the Church was far away and that he had the guns, and that this town could well survive on its own again with the glasshouses restored. He even went so far as to suggest that if the priests were recalled back east to not stand in the way, the fewer that were left behind, the smoother things would run and he might begin to consider how he would manage the city himself, without priests.
Though they’d been treated with the greatest kindness in this friendly town, shown all the sights and entertained at many tables, they were impatient to go. The winter was mild and Jonathan felt sure that they could get from station to station on horseback, if not by carriage. From here on out there were only forts, and the great, wide west. After one more week of station-hopping they sent back their carriage and driver and set out on horseback, along the road, and taking it easy as they learned how to ride.
In a few more weeks they’d reached the area where Jonathan planned to leave from the highway. The first signs of Spring were here and they had three good tents and camp equipment, and three rifles for hunting. It was time to learn new skills and for this they’d have to leave the road. So he turned to the north one morning, just out of sight of the small stockade where they’d spent the night and led them straight into a maze of forested hills.
As Jonathan's recollections after so many years were a bit muddy, he had to zigzag back and forth quite a bit to catch his bearings. This took several days. He would pass the time by giving his followers lectures on the wilds, stopping to name the plants, and show them edible berries and roots. He tried to show them how to shoot, but Mary and Simon displayed a great aversion to aiming at small animals, and Paul showed only a lukewarm interest, not to upset Mary. So Jonathan did the hunting each evening while the others set up camp. After a hard ride, they showed no aversion to eating the meat that he skinned and cooked.
They covered a long stretch of hills north of the highway and finally came to a secluded valley one afternoon, about five miles distant from the road. There had been a small town here, still marked by several houses and one brick building. The others were uneasy beside this gray structure, but Jonathan was off his horse and digging a hole behind the thing in no time. They watched him curiously for a long while until Jonathan remembered them and had Paul take over the one folding shovel and continue the hole. Finally, after dusk and several holes, Paul struck the edge of a coffin. Jonathan told him to stop there. Camp was set up a few yards away.
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