Read Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang for Free Online

They're evacuating Miami. People are falling dead, and they're just leaving them where they fall." She shivered violently. "Don't tell me anything else yet."
           The storm was over, and the night air was cool. They huddled under a blanket and sat without talking, drinking hot black coffee. When the cup began to tilt in Celia's hand, David took it from her and gently lowered her to the bed he had prepared. "I love you, Celia," he said softly. "I've always loved you."
           "I love you, too, David. Always." Her eyes were closed and her lashes were very black on her white cheeks. David leaned over and kissed her forehead, pulled the blanket higher about her, and watched her sleep for a long time before he lay down beside her and also slept.
           During the night she roused once, moaning, twisting about, and he held her until she quieted. She didn't wake up completely, and what words she said were not intelligible.
           The next morning they left the oak tree and started for the Sumner farm. She rode Mike until they got to the cart; by then she was trembling with exhaustion and her lips were blue again, although the day was already hot. There wasn't room for her to lie down in the cart, so he padded the back of the wooden seat with his bedroll and blanket, where she could at least put her head back and rest, when the road wasn't too bumpy and the cart didn't jounce too hard. She smiled faintly when he covered her legs with another shirt, the one he had been wearing.
           "It isn't cold, you know," she said matterof-factly. "That goddamn bug does something to the heart, I think. No one would tell us anything about it. My symptoms all involve the circulatory system."
           "How bad was it? When did you get it?"
           "Eighteen months ago, I think. Just before they made us leave Brazil. It swept Rio. That's where they took us when we got sick. Not many survived it. Hardly any of the later cases. It became more virulent as time went on."
           He nodded. "Same here. Something like sixty percent fatal, increasing up to eighty percent by now, I guess."
           There was a long silence then, and he thought that perhaps she had drifted off to sleep. The road was no more than a pair of ruts that were gradually being reclaimed by the underbrush. Already grass covered it almost totally, except where the rains had washed the dirt away and left only rocks. Mike walked deliberately and David didn't hurry him.
           "David, how many are up at the northern end of the valley?"
           "About one hundred ten now," he said. He thought, two out of three dead, but he didn't say it.
           "And the hospital? Was it built?"
           "It's there. Walt is running it."
           "David, while you're driving, now that you can't watch me for reactions or anything, just tell me about it here. What's been happening, who's alive, who's dead. Everything."
           When they stopped for lunch, hours later, she said, "David, will you make love to me now, before the rains start again?"
           They lay under a stand of yellow poplars, and the leaves rustled incessantly though no wind could be felt. Under the susurrous trees, their own voices became whispers. She was so thin and so pale, and inside she was so warm and alive; her body rose to meet his and her breasts seemed to lift, to seek his touch, his lips. Her fingers were in his hair, on his back, digging into his flanks, strong now, then relaxed and trembling, then clenched into fists that opened spasmodically; and he felt her nails distantly, aware that his back was being clawed, but distantly, distantly. And finally there were only the susurrant leaves and now and then a long, heaving sigh.
           "I've loved you for more than twenty years, did you realize that?" he said after a long time.
           She laughed. "Remember when I broke your arm?"
           Later,