“Ooh,” said Ledger, wincing, “that is one tough philosophical question.”
“No,” said Tom, “it’s not. You’re asking if mercy is wrong if the person who receives it goes out and does something wrong again.”
“I guess I am,” said Rags. “I’ve been sitting here thinking about it and wondering if I did something stupid or wrong.”
The men gave it serious thought. They all did, and Ledger surprised her by being the first to answer. “No,” he said. “If mercy’s the wrong choice, then how screwed are we as a species?”
“But you’d have killed them,” said Rags.
“Yes, I would have,” he admitted. “And I still wish I had.”
“But—”
“But that doesn’t make me right. And showing mercy to a monster doesn’t make you wrong.”
She shook her head. “I don’t really understand it.”
Tom smiled for the first time. A sad and wistful smile. “Who ever does?” He leaned over and patted Rags on the knee. “But I have to tell you, the difference between what I would have done, and what Joe would have done, and what you did, is simple. And it’s important. Maybe more important than anything. Maybe more important than mercy itself.”
She studied his dark eyes, waiting.
“What you did was based on hope.”
“Hope,” she echoed.
“If we give up hope, then this world really will belong to the monsters and the dead.” He smiled again. “And I thank you for that.”
Ledger looked thoughtfully at Tom, then nodded to Rags. “Yeah. That says it. Hope.” He grinned and shook his head. “In this day and age, who’d have thought there was any of that left?”
“Hope,” Rags said again.
They watched the moon rise.
“You didn’t answer my question,” said Tom. “About coming back with us to Mountainside.”
“I . . . don’t know.”
“What’s your alternative?” asked Ledger.
She rose and walked to the window. “Does anyone know what’s happening out there? In the rest of the world, I mean?”
“The plague is everywhere,” said Ledger.
“That doesn’t mean everyone’s dead,” said Rags. “We’re not.”
“No,” a
greed Tom. “We’re not.”
“I . . . ,” she began, then faltered. She drew in a breath. “I think I want to go find out. I think I want to go and see what’s out there. There has to be something. Who knows, maybe someone’s trying to put it all back together. I need to find out. I want to find out.”
“Alone?” said Tom, alarmed. “It’s too dangerous.”
Ledger leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “She won’t be alone.”
“You’re going with her?”
“Maybe I will,” said the ranger. “Me, and a couple of flea-bitten mutts I happen to know.”