It took an extra second for Philip to come up with a retort. “What, a guy can’t talk to a girl?”
Graham smiled. “Boy, I hope you’re less obvious with her than you are with me.”
Minutes of silence had passed before they saw someone at the base of the hill.
They saw him through the tree trunks first, hints of light brown and tan flashing every other second through that tangle of bark. Each of them stiffened, breath held, as they waited to see if a figure would emerge or if they had imagined it, if it was some trick of light.
The figure turned the corner and looked up the hill, saw the town in the distance. Between him and the town stood Philip and Graham, though he seemed not to notice them.
“You see that, too, right?” Philip asked.
“I see it.”
The figure started walking toward them.
“Read the sign,” Graham quietly commanded the stranger. “Read the sign.”
Indeed, after a couple of seconds, the figure reached the sign and stopped. Stopped for an unusually long time, as if he could barely read and there were one too many big words written there. Then the man looked up at them. Graham made sure his rifle was visible, standing up beside him, his hand under the barrel so that it was pointing away from him.
Philip hadn’t looked at the sign in days yet he had memorized what it said.
QUARANTINE ABSOLUTELY NO ENTRY ALLOWED! On Account of the Outbreak of INFLUENZA This Town Under Strict QUARANTINE. This Area Under Constant Watch of ARMED Guards. Neither STRANGER Nor FRIEND May Pass Beyond This Marker. May God Protect You.
After reading the sign the man had some sort of brief spasm, one of his hands reaching to his face. Then he stepped up to the fallen tree and started climbing over it. It was an impressive tree, and it took him a moment to ascend its thick trunk. Then he was past it and walking toward them again.
“He’s still coming,” Philip said helplessly, trying not to panic. He hurriedly rolled up the sleeves of Graham’s coat, wondering why he felt fidgety and nervous when Graham seemed to become even more still than usual.
The man walked with a slight limp, wincing when he moved his right leg. It made his progress slower but somehow more definite. His clothes suggested a uniform of some kind, with stripes on one sleeve. As the man approached, Philip and Graham saw the back end of a rifle poking up over his right shoulder.
He’s a soldier, Philip thought, confused.
He was nearly halfway to them. No more than eighty yards away.
“Stop right there!” Graham shouted. “This town is under quarantine! You can’t come any closer!”
The man did as he was told. He had dark and uncombed hair that appeared somewhat longer than a typical soldier’s. He looked like he hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, and there was a piece of cloth tied around his right thigh, colored black from what might have been dried blood. His uniform was dirty all over the legs and was smeared with mud across parts of the chest.
Then the soldier sneezed.
“Please!” The man needed to raise his voice in order to be heard over the distance, but the effort of doing so seemed almost too much for him. “I’m starving. I just need a little something to eat…”
What’s a soldier doing out here, Philip wanted to ask, but he kept the thought to himself.
“You can’t come up here, buddy,” Graham replied. “The sign said, we’re under a quarantine. We can’t let anyone in.”
“I don’t care if I get sick.” The man shook his head at them. He was young, closer in age to Philip than to Graham. He had some sort of an accent, not foreign but from some other part of the country. New England, or maybe New York—Philip wasn’t sure. The man’s jaw was hard and his face bony and angular, the type of face Philip’s mother would have told him you couldn’t trust, though Philip never knew why.
“I’m starving—I need something to eat. I’ve been out in the woods two days now. There was an accident—”
“It’s not you getting sick we’re worried about.” Graham’s voice was still strong, almost bullying. “We’re the only town around here that isn’t sick yet, and we aim to keep it that way. Now head on back down that road.”
The soldier looked behind him halfheartedly, then back at Graham. “How far’s the next town?”
“‘Bout fifteen miles,” Graham replied. Commonwealth was not on the way to or from any other town—the road led to Commonwealth and ended there. So where had the soldier come from?
“Fifteen miles? I haven’t eaten in two days. It’ll be dark in a few hours.”
He coughed. Loudly, thickly. How far does breath travel? Philip wondered.
Then the soldier started limping toward them again.
Philip was rigid with a new mixture of fear, apprehension, and a sense of duty, the knowledge that he had a job to do. Although his job had seemed perfectly clear and understandable earlier in the day, he was realizing how completely unsure he was as to how it should be carried out.
Graham exhibited no such confusion: he picked up his rifle and held it ready.
Philip reluctantly did the same.
“Stop!” Graham commanded. “You’ve come close enough!”
It wouldn’t be until later that evening, when he was trying to fall asleep, that Philip would realize he could have volunteered to fetch some food from town and thrown it down the hill for the soldier. Surely there could have been some way to help the man without letting him come any closer.
The soldier stopped again. He was about forty yards away.
“I don’t have the flu,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m healthy, all right? I’m not going to get anybody sick. Please, just let me sleep in a barn or something.”
“For a healthy man, you sure are sneezing and coughing a lot,” Graham said.
The man took another step as he opened his mouth to respond, but Graham froze him in place by raising his gun slightly. “I said that’s close enough!”
The soldier looked at Philip imploringly. “I’m coughing and sneezing because my ship capsized and I’ve been in the forest for two days.” He sounded almost angry, but not quite—he seemed to know better than to raise his voice with two armed men. It was more exasperation, fatigue. “I’m telling you, I do not have any flu. I’m not going to get anyone sick.”
“You can’t control that. If you could, I’d trust you, but you can’t. So I don’t.”
“I’m an American soldier, for God’s sake.” He eyed Graham accusingly. “I’m asking you to help me.”
“And I’m telling you that I would if I could, but I can’t.”
