The Scarlet Plague

Smith sheltered for two days in a grove, where he “recuperated” along with the pony. On the third day, he took the canned provisions and continued his “lonely” journey. The countryside was deserted of people, but food was abundant; Smith gathered vegetables and fruits, as well as eggs and chickens from deserted farms. The animals—chickens, ducks, pigs, cats, and dogs—were going wild and preying on one another. In time, this led to mutations in the animals, which are visible to the grandsons in the present. At the same time, land that humans had carefully cultivated before the plague was now growing wild and uncontrolled. 

Smith adopted a pair of collie dogs and traveled with them to assuage his loneliness. He also found a horse that carried him across the San Joaquin Valley and Yosemite, where he gathered more provisions from the local hotel. Smith continued his wanderings for three years and, although “going crazy” from the lack of human companionship, clung to the “possibility that others had survived” (100). 

Arriving at Lake Temescal, Smith finally found a camp of human beings—at first, he thought it was a hallucination and was “overcome.” A “large man” in the camp addressed him. The man was Bill, “the Chauffeur,” who would later become Smith’s brother-in-law and the children’s other grandfather.