The war wag bumped over a particularly deep rut, making the scalpels rattle in their shallow dishes. Doc adjusted his ancient hat, which he insisted on wearing despite being inside the war wag.
"Upon my soul, but these roads are not what they once were."
Ryan's eye opened wider. "How in the big fire d'you know what they were like before the nuke-outs?"
"Slip of the tongue," said Doc hastily. "I have read of these great roads, that is all." He rubbed his eyes with the stained cuff of his frock coat. "In the Darks, there was a dreadful fog!" His voice rose to an eldritch shriek that made Krysty jump, looking around her in concern.
"Mistake," he rambled on. "Escaped. Heads rolled. Fog like... like Cerberus."
"What the fuck's that?"
"A frightful hound of many ravening heads that guards the very mouth of Hades. Oh, yes, Cerberus. That was the name of the project. Once. Then it changed. Changed. A fog, Mr. Cawdor."
"A fog, in the Darks?"
"A fog. With claws and teeth. Such claws and teeth."
Even in that peaceful, desolate land, with not a single human being seen in three whole days, there was still the presence of death.
They had been forced into a swinging detour about one of the few hot spots in the region, around what had allegedly once been a town of seventy thousand souls called Grand Falls. It had been hit by Soviet missiles for its special industrial importance and power plants, and it was still a place to avoid, its ruins toxic.
Toward evening of the following day, Ryan received the message that the Trader wanted to speak to him. It was Krysty who conveyed it to him. With every day that passed the girl looked in better and better shape, all the horrors now behind her. She was wearing pale green overalls, with a bandolier of ammunition for her pistol that was crossed over with a broad leather belt that carried three leaf-bladed throwing knives. A larger knife hung on her right hip with a counter-draw holster for the automatic on the left side of the belt. The fiery hair was bright and lustrous, tumbling nearly to her narrow waist. The top of the overall was unbuttoned, showing the shadow of her breasts.
Ryan Cawdor found it increasingly difficult to conceal his desire for her. Asking himself whether it was desire or whether it was lust. The word lovenever entered his mind.
He followed her through the war wag, conscious of the click of the heels of her polished high boots and the movement of her buttocks against her outfit.
Doc was leaning against a wall near the Trader's cabin, his eyes hooded and far away. As Ryan squeezed by him, Doc spoke quietly.
"After the missiles had fallen, and the forty-fourth President was up in the 767, how did he begin his message to the States?"
Ryan pursed his lips. What went on under that craggy brow? Madness, or hidden intelligence?
"How did he begin his speech, Doc?"
"My fellow American! You understand it, Mr. Cawdor? In the singular. My fellow American!"
The cackling laughter followed him as Ryan stooped to enter the Trader's cramped room. He was met with the sour smell of illness. By the side of the bunk was a porcelain bowl splattered with blood and spittle. Torn rags, also stained crimson, lay on the floor. The Trader had always been a man of the fiercest pride, and now all that was done as his race neared its ending.
"Close the door, Ryan. I figure another two days at the most and we'll be in the Darks. I can taste the thin air. You know what to do?"
They had discussed the options, with J.B. sitting in, over the past three days, trying to cover every eventuality. Now there was no more planning or talking to do.
"It's in hand," replied Ryan.
The Trader's face was like a frail old man's, the skin taut as parchment over the cheekbones. The rad cancer was racing through him, devouring living tissue, eating up the hours.
"If there's anythin' after, then I'll be seein' ol' Marsh Folsom real soon, Ryan."
"I know it. We all do."
Trader nodded slowly. "Hear you told your name. Ryan Cawdor. Anyone recognize it?"
"No. Though Doc said he might have heard it. But he can't recall anything for more than a minute or so."
"Wish I had the time to chew over past days with him. Won't happen." Ryan thought the Trader was going to be overwhelmed by one of his coughing fits, but the moment passed. "Look 'round here, Ryan. What d'you see?"
"Spare clothes. Your Armalite. Handgun. Knives. Ammo. Grenades. Couple o' maps. Food you haven't eaten. Pack of cigars."
"That all?"
"Sure. What else should I see?"
"Get me a mouthful of water. Thanks. Nothin'. That's what else you should see. You listed it all, Ryan. It don't add up to much for better'n fifty years of livin'. Nothin' to add up to the pain of the mother that birthed me."
"What you've done isn't here, Trader. It's out yonder. Outside. You kept a lot of folks breathin' that would surely have been chilled."
"I chilled me some."
"Sure. They needed chilling. What you've done is to bring a little light to this pile of shit. Deathlands! If it hadn't been for you, then I'd have been dead. So would J.B., and everyone else in this war wag. You know it, Trader."
The two men remained silent, each locked into old memories. After some minutes the Trader reached out with a wasted, birdlike hand, and Ryan took it. Feeling the bones beneath the delicate skin, he held it gently, like a fledgling. As the war wag rumbled steadily northwest, the two old friends sat together in silence.
They were interrupted by the voice of Hunaker, crackling over the intercom. "Ryan. Ryan and J.B. Come to the driving console. Something you should see."
Chapter Fourteen
As he moved forward, Ryan felt the war wag judder to a halt, the engine out of gear, ticking over gently. On every side men and women had moved fast to their firefight positions, standing ready by the ob slits and weapon ports. But from the lack of urgency in Hun's voice, there clearly was no immediate emergency.
"What is it, Hun?"
"Look out front. Never seen nothin' like it. How 'bout you, J.B.?"
They squeezed in either side of her, peering through the forward screen. Ryan rested his hand on Hun's shoulder, conscious of the musky scent of her perspiration. He blinked his eye to rid himself of the sudden and unbidden image of Krysty, naked, moving beneath him.
"What is it? "he asked.
J.B., not one to waste words, simply shook his head. Hun pointed to the left, to the great jagged peaks of the Rockies jutting in toward them.
"Saw them first on this side. One or two. Feathers. Then this spooky kind of stuff."
Ryan was puzzled. Not many men had been this far into the Darks. The recently lamented Kurt was one of only a handful who had penetrated deep into the rugged fastness and survived. So who had put up all the decorations?
They were made out of branches of trees that Ryan believed were called aspens. "Quakers" they'd named them. Poles had been hewn from the silvery-green wood, with its criss-crossing black scars, then tied into shapes like the tepees that some of the double-poor of Deathlands lived in.
There were three of them, stretched across the crumbling relic of a road. The one nearest the edge was covered in a sprouting bunch of feathers. Red and yellow and golden-brown; hundreds of them. And topping it was a narrow-bladed knife of rusting iron, its haft wrapped in strips of what looked like dried leather or skin.
The right-hand tripod was leaning to the front, set close against a cliff of moss-streaked stone. Melt from a glacier, farther up the mountain, came cascading across the road in milky turquoise torrents. Tufted pink flowers decorated the poles, some of the flowers dead, drooping and falling on the damp earth.