The Scarlet Plague

Content Warning: This section discusses a pandemic, death and murder, suicide, gun violence, domestic violence, and hunting. The source text includes ableist and racist language, which this guide reproduces only in quotations. 

An old man and a boy travel along a former railroad now fallen into disuse. They are James Howard Smith, whom his grandchildren call “Granser,” and his grandson Edwin, who herds goats with his brothers. They are both clad in animal skins, and Edwin listens intently to the surrounding environment with senses sharpened by life in the wilderness. Smith, by contrast, remembers a bygone civilization that he frequently talks about. After they encounter a large bear that disappears into the brush, Smith recalls the days when thousands of tourists from San Francisco would come to this very spot for pleasure seeking. The only bears then were in cages in the zoo, and people paid money to see them.

The mention of money (an unfamiliar concept to Edwin) leads Edwin to reach into his pouch and pull out a “battered and tarnished silver dollar” (20). Smith looks at the coin and discovers that it is from 2012—60 years ago. He recalls that as the year when “Morgan the Fifth was appointed President of the United States by the Board of Magnates” (20); it was also the year before the arrival of the