Page 37 of So Far Gone
Grandpa Rhys had been gone only a few hours and Leah was ready to strangle Asher, her little brother rising to unheard-of
levels of obnoxiousness.
After lunch, Asher sat at the counter, chomping carrot sticks as he grilled Joanie about Brian’s Native American heritage.
burned the Indian villages and shot all their horses .
“Did Brian have a horse?” That battle happened way before Brian’s time, but I do think his family had an old swayback nag when he was growing up .
“What’s a swayback nag?” It’s an old horse.
“But it didn’t get shot, though?” No, no, this was many years later.
) At one point, Joanie happened to mention that Brian was learning Spokane Salish, the dialect that had been lost to his family
after his grandparents were punished for speaking it at boarding school, and Asher (after asking what a boarding school was)
asked what the language sounded like. “Well,” Joanie said, “in Salish, you would be, let’s see, x?x?n?ut years old”—her voice seeming to come from inside her throat.
“I’m six-nut!” Asher said excitedly to Leah. Then, turning back to Joanie: “How old will I be on my next birthday?”
“Let’s see, you’ll be ?upn? .”
“Next year, I’ll be open! And how old was I last year?”
“Eight? Let’s see. That’s he?én?m? ”
“Hey-enim! Cool! How old is Leah?”
“Afraid I can count only to ten,” Joanie said. “You’ll have to ask Brian when he gets home. He can go a lot higher.”
“And how would you say my name?”
“Your name... is your name. So... Asher.”
He held up a carrot. “What about carrot stick?”
In Joanie’s answer, Leah heard a small measure of her own fatigue: “Asher, I really have no idea. Like I said, I can only
speak a few words.”
“Do you think there was a Salish word for chess? Or Tyrannosaurus rex ?”
“Asher!” Leah smiled at Joanie. “I’m sorry. He gets wound up.”
As often happened, Asher seemed to misunderstand what the problem was with his question. “I’m not saying Native Americans
lived when there were dinosaurs. I know they didn’t. I just wonder if they knew about dinosaurs back then, like we do now, from fossils and stuff?”
“Yeah, I don’t know that, either, I’m afraid.”
“Some people at our church don’t believe in fossils, but I do—”
“Asher,” Leah interrupted. “You really need to give Joanie a break. Why don’t you go play with Billy.”
Asher looked over at the sleeping German shepherd, whose coat was a swirl of colors that Leah had decided could be called
pulling taffy.
“He’s asleep,” Asher said.
Joanie took a dog biscuit from a tin, a sound that caused Billy’s ears to perk up. “Give him this.”
Asher reached for the dog biscuit. “How do you say—”
Joanie cut him off. “I really have no idea.”
Asher marched over in his boots and crouched his little legs in front of the dog, who lifted his head with an exasperated groan—his animal instincts no doubt drawing a bead on how irritating this small human was about to be.
He accepted the dog biscuit without enthusiasm, crunched it, and licked up the pieces that fell onto his dog bed.
“Take him outside if you want to,” Joanie said, “he probably needs to drain the old doggy vein anyways.”
“Drain what?”
“He probably needs to pee’s what I’m saying. And if you want to play with him, there’s a rope with a knot out there. You can
throw it to him, or maybe he’ll play tug-of-war with you.”
“Oh. Cool.”
Leah rolled her eyes. Asher was still trying out that word, cool , which, coming from him, sounded like the least cool word in the English language. He opened the door and went out with Billy.
“Come on, boy!”
Leah noticed that when the door closed, the wall of the trailer shook a little.
Joanie exhaled heavily. “Boy’s got a few questions, don’t he?”
“It’s okay to tell him to be quiet. We do it all the time.”
“And does that work?”
“No. Not really.” Leah had noticed an old Dell laptop (color: cave entrance ) that was cantilevered on an alphabetized bookshelf where authors and subjects were blended together (a style of shelving
that she’d never seen before). The computer was shoved into the M ’s, pushing back a line of western paperbacks by authors named McMurtry and Portis, and between them, several books about
macramé. (One was called The Macramé Bible , Leah recalling a sermon by Pastor Gallen that, among other violations of scripture, chastised people who called various things
“the Bible” of this or that.)
“Joanie? Can I use your computer? I need to check my school homework.”
“Oh. Sure.” Joanie grabbed the laptop, flipped it open, and handed it to Leah at the counter.
“Can you—”
“Oh, of course,” Joanie said, and she tapped a few keys, put in the password, and opened an Internet browser. She handed the
laptop back, just as outside, there was a scuffling sound.
Leah and Joanie looked up at the same time, to see Asher, still holding the knotted rope, being dragged down the stairs by
the dog.
“Uh-oh,” Joanie said, and she went outside to check on him.
When the door closed, Leah worked quickly, signing in to her top secret Gmail account. There were two emails right on top
from Davy.J.Gallen. She started with the first one, from yesterday, which was about his biblical studies class at his Christian
college in Tacoma.
Hey Leah. Today in BS we went over Letter to the Ephesians, 4:1–16, where Paul tells Christians to stop fighting and get along.
To “live a life worthy of the calling you have received.” (Uh, hello, Dad !) The whole time I was thinking about your novel, and that maybe you could name the settlements that the young couple visit
after the epistolary books of the Bible. Ephesia, Corinth, Galatia, etc.... Then, in the end, your heroes could come back
to their own town and kick butt and take names. Like in Fury Road , but with less violence. Oh, and remember that hilarious guy I was telling you about, Marsh? The prof asked him what he got
out of Ephesians, and Marsh was like, “Uh, that Christians need to stop beefing?” That guy is so funny. The prof was all,
“You mean that we must remain united in our faith in Christ, virgin-born and God incarnate, whose redemption through the substitutionary
shedding of his blood promises us our own bodily resurrection?” And Marsh is like, “Yup.” Classic!
Hey, I’m not sure if you’ll be at Bible Study on Saturday afternoon, or at church Sunday, but I have no classes the rest of the week and my parents are bugging me to come home for some reason so if you’re around—
Joanie came back in then and Leah turned the screen slightly, so that she wouldn’t see the open email.
“You get it all figured out, hon?”
“Yes,” Leah said. “Just reading over this assignment. It’s... confusing.”
Joanie opened a drawer and took out a tin of Band-Aids. “You must go through a lot of these at your house.”
“Oh yeah,” Leah said. “Tons.”
Joanie went back out as Leah opened the second email, sent only two hours earlier.
Leah,
Are you OK? My mom says there was some trouble at the Rampart? And that your mother is missing and you and your brother got
taken away by your grandfather? And something about a crazy cop getting shot? What’s going on there?!?! I hate those militia
dudes my dad has hanging around all the time. He’s freaking out (more than usual!) and thinks the FBI is going to raid the
Rampart. Both of my parents are acting so weird these days. Where are you? I haven’t heard from you in days. I’m driving home
now. Please write and tell me what’s going on!
Davy
She typed quickly.
Davy,
I am fine except my family is seriously imploding. Mom ran off and Shane went to find her. I’m stuck in a trailer in a little
town called Ford. My Grandpa Rhys went to get Mom, who’s in Canada with my real dad. It’s so crazy. Shane thinks she’s in
Oregon and so he’s down there trying to find her and Asher is being a total pain and I can’t believe I don’t even have a phone!
I would call you, but you know my mom’s stupid rules. I hope I can see you when you’re—
She heard footsteps on the porch and looked up. Joanie and Asher were coming back inside. Leah hit send, even though she hadn’t
finished the email, as Joanie ushered Asher in the door. He had a bandage on his forehead, just above his left eyebrow, where
he always seemed to need a bandage. Leah closed her Gmail.
“That dog is strong!” Asher told Leah. He turned to Joanie. “Are all German shepherds that strong, do you think?”
“Hard to say,” Joanie answered. She turned to Leah. “Are you getting your homework all squared away, hon?”
“What home—” Asher started to say, but Leah pointed at him and shot him eye-daggers. Don’t. You. Dare.
“Yes, thanks, Joanie,” Leah said. “Getting all caught up.” She narrowed her eyes again and mouthed to her brother: Be quiet.
“We’re gonna walk to the creek and see if we can see any frogs,” Joanie said. “It’s just up the road a piece. You want to
come?”
“No, that’s okay,” Leah said. “I think I’ll finish this up.”
“Sure,” Joanie said. She walked into the back bedroom.
“What homework?” Asher whispered. “Mom left us reading assignments is all.”
“Asher. Don’t say a word about it. It’s none of your business.”
He looked suspicious, but when Joanie came out of the bedroom with a leash, Asher turned his attention back to the dog. “Ooh, can I hold the leash?”
Joanie glanced over at Leah, who shook her head slightly.
“Why don’t I hold the leash for now? Maybe you can on the way back, when Billy’s more tuckered out.”
“What’s tuckered out mean?”
“Tired.”
“Is that a Salish word?”
“No, it’s American.”
“What’s doe?”
“What?”
“Doe? Your sign says, Doe lies. And Midnight mine and Dawn something.”
“Oh, not doe. DOE. Department of Energy. You know what, I’ll tell you about it on our walk.”
It seemed to take an hour for them to leave: Asher used the bathroom, Joanie switched her sweater for a jacket, then changed
her shoes, then went back to the sweater. Asher used the bathroom again, and finally, the trailer door opened, but before