that they were looking to figure out what he might need, not looking for a reason to find him
unsuitable or suspect him. Naturally, this made him the more suspicious.
He was told that he was by virtue of birth a citizen of the Commonwealth of New England, that
he would be enrolled in the Legion of Patriots, with accompanying Rights and Privileges, when he was
settled on a homestead. They did not tell him what a homestead was, nor how he would get settled
into one. But he had a status now. That was something.
The men on the bus were cheerful now, loquacious and serene. Life was good. The possibility of
life having goodness, having light and food and pleasure and open air and beer and sausages came
home to them and they were thirsty for it. Joe thought it was good to see, considering how sullen and
silent they had all been, as only prisoners can be, on the bus. But he was not sharing it. He had no
interest in it.
He was leaving. He started walking. If anyone noticed him leaving, they said nothing. He walked
past the bus and to the highway and then across it and down the ditch where the sewer water flowed.
He walked up another slope until he got to a copse of evergreens and then he looked back. No one was
following him. The lights were still on but no sound from them came.
He decided Carter was an honest man, for a G-Man. Too bad. Joe had served his time. He
walked into the copse of trees and through the brush and let the wildlife skitter away from him. He
kept his eyes on the shadows and tried to avoid branches and he walked through the deep country
dark and nothing touched him. Nothing noticed him. He walked until the dark enveloped him and he
could no longer be certain he was going in a straight direction and then he sat down. Pretty soon he lay
down and then after that the noise and the memories swirled around him and he very quietly cried
himself to sleep.
He woke up around the time that the work bell would have roused him in the Pit. But there was
no bell and not much other noise. Only the sound of birds from no particular place above him