"Say, you're not really a hundred and eight, are you?" Ralph asked, remembering something she had said that morning as they set out on the hog-slaughtering expedition.
"You wait right there," Abagail said. "I've got something to show you, Mister Man." She went into the bedroom and got her framed letter from President Reagan out of the top drawer of her bureau. She brought it back to Ralph and put it in his lap. "Read that, sonny," she said pridefully.
Ralph read it. "... occasion of your one hundredth birthday... one of seventy-two proven centenarians in the United States of America... fifth oldest registered Republican in the United States of America... greetings and congratulations from President Ronald Reagan, January 14, 1982." He looked up at her with wide eyes. "Well, I'll be dipped in sh - " He stopped, blushing and in confusion. "Pardon me, ma'am."
"All the things you must have seen!" Olivia marveled.
"None of it's very much compared to what I've seen in the last month or so." She sighed. "Or what I expect to see."
The door opened and Nick came in - conversation broke off as if they had all been marking time, waiting for him. She could see in his face that he had made his decision, and she thought she knew what it was. He handed her a note that he had written out on the porch, standing by Tom. She held the note at arm's length to read it.
"We'd better start for Boulder tomorrow," Nick had written.
She looked from the note to Nick's face and nodded slowly. She passed the note on to June Brinkmeyer, who passed it to Olivia. "I guess we had," Abagail said. "I don't want to any more than you, but I guess we had better. What made up your mind?"
He shrugged almost angrily and pointed at her.
"So be it," Abagail said. "My faith's in the Lord."
Nick thought: I wish mine was.
The next morning, July 26, after a brief conference, Dick and Ralph set off for Columbus in Ralph's truck. "I hate to trade her in," Ralph said, "but if it's the way you say it is, Nick, okay."
Nick wrote, "Be back as soon as you can."
Ralph uttered a short laugh and looked around the yard. June and Olivia were washing clothes in a large tub with a scrub board stuck in one end. Tom was in the corn, scaring crows - an occupation he seemed to find endlessly diverting. Gina was playing with his Corgi cars and his garage. The old woman sat dozing in her rocker, dozing and snoring.
"You're in one tearin hurry to stick your head in the lion's mouth, Nicky."
Nick wrote: "Have we got anyplace better to go to?"
"That's true. It's no good just wandering around. It makes you feel kind of worthless. A person don't hardly feel right unless he's lookin forward, you ever notice that?"
Nick nodded.
"Okay." Ralph clapped Nick on the shoulder and turned away. "Dick, you ready to take a ride?"
Tom Cullen came running out of the corn, silk clinging to his shirt and pants and long blond hair. "Me too! Tom Cullen wants to go on the ride, too! Laws, yes!"
"Come on, then," Ralph said. "Here, lookit you, cornsilk from top to bottom and fore to aft. And you ain't caught a crow yet! Better let me brush you off."
Grinning vacantly, Tom allowed Ralph to brush off his shirt and pants. For Tom, Nick reflected, these last two weeks had probably been the happiest of his life. He was with people who accepted and wanted him. Why shouldn't they? He might be feeble, but he was still a comparative rarity in this new world, a living human being.
"See you, Nicky," Ralph said, and climbed up behind the wheel of the Chevy.
"See you, Nicky," Tom Cullen echoed, still grinning.
Nick watched the truck out of sight, then went into the shed and found an old crate and a can of paint. He broke out one of the crate's panels and nailed a long piece of picket fence to it. He took the sign and the paint out into the yard and carefully daubed on it while Gina looked over his shoulder with interest.
"What does it say?" she asked.
"It says, 'We have gone to Boulder, Colorado. We are taking secondary roads to avoid traffic jams. Citizen's Band Channel 14,'" Olivia read.
"What does that mean?" June asked, coming over. She picked Gina up and they both watched as Nick carefully planted the sign so that it faced the area where the dirt road became Mother Abagail's driveway. He buried the bottom three feet of the picket. Nothing but a big wind would knock it over now. Of course there were big winds out in this part of the world; he thought of the one which had almost carried him and Tom away, and of the scare they'd had in the cellar.
He wrote a note and handed it to June.
"One of the things Dick and Ralph are supposed to get in Columbus is a CB radio. Someone will have to monitor Channel 14 all the time."
"Oh," Olivia said. "Smart."
Nick tapped his forehead gravely, then smiled.
The two women went back to hang their clothes. Gina returned to the toy cars, hopping nimbly on one leg. Nick walked across the yard, mounted the porch steps, and sat down next to the dozing old woman. He looked out over the corn and wondered what was going to become of them.