In eastern Arizona they passed an abandoned ranch with horses running loose in a large pen out back; wagons rested in a supply yard by the barn. The ranch house stood silent, and as they rolled the handcar into the dawn light, ready to stop for the day, Todd kept staring at the horses. Uma knew what was on his mind.
With a wagon and team of horses, they could make better time without killing themselves from the effort. By now, Uma himself felt ready to drop from aching muscles, and Todd and Henrietta were worse off. Their pace had decreased over the last two days.
They stopped and went to the ranchhouse, hoping to replenish their supplies and at least have a good rest inside a real house on real mattresses, possibly even wash. Todd called out as they walked around the ranch yard. He saw no one moving, only the horses in the back meadows. Uma went to the ranch house, finding it unlocked. No one answered their shouts, and all three entered the darkened home.
The air smelled heavy and musty, as if no one had moved there for months. Everything was reasonably neat, unmolested by scavengers. Underlying it all hung a sour, rancid stench that was oppressive in the thick heat of the house.
They went into the kitchen, where morning light spilled through a broad window onto ceramic tiles and countertops. Uma opened the sealed refrigerator, and a strong gust of rotten meat drifted out. He did find some cans of soda and beer, which they took with them.
“Look at this,” Henrietta said. She reached to one of the door shelves and pulled out a cardboard box that contained five glass bottles. Prescription labels marked it as insulin. In another package, glistening needles lay surrounded by globs of translucent mucus—the remains of plastic hypodermic syringes.
In the big reading room and study, they found the corpse.
The man had been there for probably two months. The dry desert heat had preserved him somewhat, but not enough. He lay blackened and swollen in a big, overstuffed leather chair. His eyes were closed. His hair and fingernails had continued to grow.
Todd stumbled and sat down heavily in a chair, hanging his head in his hands. “Just like I found Alex,” he said. Uma didn’t know what he was talking about.
The study had tall French windows, covered with sheer curtains. Books lined the oak shelves along two walls, and a large fireplace sat black and cold, mounded with white ashes…
That afternoon, they buried the man out back.
They spent the rest of the evening gathering supplies. The isolated ranch apparently held many months of stores. All the meat in the freezer had turned rotten, but a large cache of canned goods, as well as dried and smoked meats, remained.
Todd seemed to enjoy rounding up three of the horses and hitching the wagon. Together, they strained to load the ten solar satellites into the bed of the wagon. Uma, Todd, and Henrietta washed with tepid water from the emergency tank by the barn; Uma took the time to shave his entire head with the straight razor. They stayed the night, getting a good rest on comfortable beds, then set out the following morning.
Uma drove the horses as they turned away from the railroad tracks and headed toward New Mexico. They made good time, and Uma began to feel a numbed contentment at seeing the landscape roll by beneath them. Doing something. He did not think about his past.
While he doubted he would ever be happy again, for the first time in many months Uma did not feel miserable. He thought of himself as Casey Jones….
And now, in an incredible, vengeful coincidence, they encountered Connor Brooks, like a great kick in the crotch.
Uma hunched down and kept silent under his rag turban while guiding the horses. Perhaps Brooks just wasn’t bright enough to recognize him, but Uma could never forget the face of the maniac that had caused the wreck of the Oilstar Zoroaster.
Throughout the day, Brooks rode in the back of the wagon, acting charming and talking with Henrietta Soo. She extolled the importance of the solar satellites, talked about where they were going, and how their mission could bring about a renaissance of civilization.
The young woman, Heather Dixon, latched onto Todd. She sat beside him in front asking questions about himself, appearing demure but not sure if she was going about it the right way. Todd was overwhelmed by the attention. He avoided Heather’s eyes but glanced at her whenever he thought she wasn’t looking.
On the other hand, Heather and Connor Brooks seemed to resent each other a great deal. Uma saw it all.
As the miles passed, he just sat on the buckboard guiding the horses. A storm raged within him, and he didn’t know what to do.
Todd looked up from his conversation with Heather when Casey Jones stopped the wagon. By sunset, they had reached the wooded foothills of a low line of mountains. It amazed him how fast the afternoon had gone by.
Heather chuckled. High thin shreds of cloud started to turn amber in the slanting light. Just a short walk away, he could see a slash of green through the hills that marked a small stream. Casey Jones jumped down from the buckboard and unhitched the horses, hobbling them so they could graze on the thick scrub.
The big dark man had been unusually reticent since noon, but Todd was preoccupied talking with Heather. Her companion Clyde climbed out of the back of the wagon and helped Henrietta down, smiling graciously at her.
“I noticed you had decent supplies in there,” Clyde said. “It would be great to have an nice dinner for a change.”
Todd kept looking at the green line of the stream. At the abandoned ranch in Arizona he had taken a couple of bamboo fishing poles and lures, hoping to find a chance to use them. “I think I’d rather try for some fresh food,” he said, pointing toward the stream. “Why don’t you fix up what meal you want. I’m going to try my hand at catching some trout over there.”
“If you’ve got two poles, I’ll come along and help,” Heather said, startling Todd. As soon as she spoke, he realized that was exactly what he hoped she would say.
In his former life, working around oil fields and dirty rigs, he never considered himself an expert in the social graces. Heather seemed a bit too eager to go off alone with him, and he felt a stab of guilt thinking about Iris—who was now about fifteen hundred miles away.
Todd remembered his awkward courtship of Iris, a few telephone calls, the long horseback ride from Alex Kramer’s home down to Stanford to pick her up, and the enjoyable times they’d had in the Altamont commune. But he never understood why a woman like Iris Shikozu would be remotely attracted to an old cowboy like himself. Was it just a relationship of convenience? Someone to team up with during the crisis of the spreading petroplague?
Todd’s head hurt. He wasn’t used to thinking like this. Things happened or they didn’t, and bumbling with psychological explanations, trying to second-guess what had occurred or what might have been—all that kind of garbage was for people who didn’t have anything else to do with their lives… people who wanted a ready excuse for anything.
He recalled the last thing Iris had said to him before he left. She had called him stupid and laughed at his personal quest to deliver the satellites. Despite all the time he had spent missing Iris, her callousness rekindled his anger. She could stay there in the Altamont and play her rock music for all he cared.
“Sure,” Todd said to Heather. “I’ve got two fishing poles.”
The tough blond guy looked at them with a barely concealed sneer as Todd and Heather took the fishing gear and headed off.
The stream had cut itself a deep channel through the loose soil. Water ran shallow but fast over boulders covered with streamers of algae. Todd scrambled down to the bank, slipping with his cowboy boots but trying not to look too clumsy. He helped Heather down, but she seemed perfectly capable of taking care of herself. Her jeans were worn and dirty, but her legs were long and slim. He watched the way she moved down the hillside. Squatting on a rock by the water, she flicked her reddish hair over her shoulder and smiled at him before she dipped her hands in the stream and splashed water on her face.