Dinah also settled down to lick her paws clean. She had trotted dutifully by Diego's mount, her red coat barely visible under its ashen cover.
They slipped the saddle blankets and hackamores from the horses and fed them. They munched trail rations as they unstrapped the snowshoes that they hoped would give them better footing over the ash-covered mud and snow. While they made a final check of their packs, Steve Margolies called their position in to Adak. Bunny only hoped the transmission was better than the reception. All they could hear was a hiss and crackle a little louder than the wind, which was blowing steadily east.
"I hope they got all that," Steve told the others. "I didn't hear exactly what they said but, having done a personal on-the-spot review of conditions, I think they said this is a no-go area. There was also some gibberish about there being no one in command to give orders."
Clodagh gave a contemptuous sniff and, with a groan, once more began to spread herself flat on the ground. The others stood about for what seemed a very long time-at least the curly-coats had moved a good distance away in search of any grass the mud and ash hadn't buried-before she moved again.
She hauled herself up, mopped the ash from her face and neck, brushed it off the front of her clothes, and then pointed. 'That way."
"The volcano's that way," Steve protested, pointing elsewhere.
Clodagh moved her arm slightly toward the north. 'The volcano is that way." Then she dropped her snowshoes to the ground and stepped into them. Scooping up her pack and twitching her shoulders so that it settled on her back, she started off in the direction she had indicated.
Bunny looked at Diego and shrugged. Sinead jerked her head at the perplexed Steve, and very shortly, all were following her down into the valley, Dinah sticking right at Diego's heels. In several leaps, Nanook caught up and passed the humans. Clodagh took particular notice of where he put his paws. For all her bulk, she moved with unexpected agility as she followed the cat's tracks.
Chapter 16
Yana and Torkel dragged Giancarlo back to the uncertain safety of the boulder, the three of them hostage to the hot mud surrounding them. Yana bound up Giancarlo's pulped arm and leg, but the heat of the mud and flying rock had pretty well cauterized the wounds inflicted by the blast-or so she would have to hope, she thought ruefully. The colonel would be lucky to live long enough to get infections.
Torkel had taken a worse beating than she, for although her back was pretty well skinned, her hair hadn't been as badly singed and her scalp hadn't been peppered with ash because she'd had sense enough to protect her head. Torkel's face was scored and swollen where rock had hit it before she had pulled him down, and he was ravaged with grief besides.
She had had to prod him painfully to get him to move enough to help her with Giancarlo.
"Look, Torkel," she said in her best bracing tone. "If your dad survived the crash and the first blast, it's likely he survived I he second one, as well. At any rate, we can't do anything about it one way or the other unless we survive. Here, eat this so we do!" She thrust a battered ration pack at him, somewhat amazed that the wrapping was still intact. It seemed years ago that she had stuffed them in the front of her shirt.
She wasn't sure when she slept, but she knew that sometime within that interminable period, the searing heat from the mud dissipated and the sunless air grew cold again. She and Torkel Fiske put the unconscious Giancarlo between them and hunched over him, sharing their warmth with him. In her sleep she dreamed that she was holding Scan rather than Torkel, and he was bathing her wounds with water from the hot springs, telling her, "I'm here, Yana. Trust me. Nothing of this world means you harm. Listen to its voice. Remember now…"
The dream and others like it repeated as she slept or half dozed, shivering, clinging to the warmth and life in the two other bodies for more time than she could count or was conscious of.
Then, without knowing how or when it happened, she woke from the dream of Scan, feeling warm again. She smelled a freshening in the air and realized that her hand was touching something cool, hard, and smooth; and, rousing, she found that she was touching the once scalding mud.
Torkel was still sleeping, and Giancarlo moaned in a fever. Yana sat up and placed both palms against the mud. The sensation wasn't unpleasant. It still retained some warmth, but was otherwise hard and seemed stable. Standing, she tested other areas, pressing her fingers into the layer of ash overlying the previously steaming rivulet. It gave with a slight hiss and a hint of smokiness, but once the crust was broken, solid hard mud was only an inch or two down. She carefully hauled herself up on top of the flow and found that it held her weight.
The air was clearer. She could definitely smell and see the difference at this height. A strong wind whipped at her, blowing the ash back away from them and over to the north and east. Torkel sat up and blinked lashless eyes at the sudden change. Yana rubbed cautiously at her arms, avoiding the burn blisters but needing to increase blood circulation and reduce hypothermia. She was glad of the visibility, glad of the ability to travel again, if only they knew where they were going. Then she opened the remaining ration pack, twisted it into two more or less equal halves, and let him choose.
"We'll have to drag Giancarlo," she told Torkel when they had finished their scanty meal.
"He'll slow us down," Torkel said.
"You want to leave him?" she asked. She didn't like being directly responsible for anyone's death. On the other hand, if she was to be responsible for someone dying here, she wouldn't much mind if it was Giancarlo.
Torkel looked down at the colonel, then shruggedand bent to hoist him by the arms up the wall of mud, where Yana helped support the unconscious man.
"We'd better get him back to where a copter can land, I hen." Yana said.
But he shook his head stubbornly, unreasonably. "Dad may still be out here."
"You can come back afterward," she insisted.
But just then a fresh gust of wind from the west carried a raven toward them. The bird swooped, diving so low that its wing brushed Yana's hair.
Its cry was no doubt only the usual raucous caw, but to her, wounded, shocked, and probably a little delirious, it seemed to be saying " 'ana, 'ana," or maybe it was "Sean, Sean." Then it made an abrupt turn and flew back the way it came. Abruptly she recalled Sean's dream message.
"Okay, you win," she told Torkel. "But we spell each other dragging the son of a bitch and you get first shift."
She was pleased when the crow's west eventually turned out to be the right direction. Even so, both she and Torkel were at the end of their strength from dragging Giancarlo's heavy and unresponsive body when she caught the first gleam of open water. She hadn't realized how parched she was until that moment. Then her throat took over, reminding her that she was so dehydrated it didn't know if it would ever come unstuck. Up closer, Yana saw that the water was a little stream, running from one edge of the mud and on into the side of a hill. Yana fully expected the water to be milky with ash and mud and clogged with debris, but in fact it was so clear she could see the stones at the bottom. Somehow this stretch had escaped all of the ravages of the volcano. Where the stream emerged from the hill, she could make out a deep, cavelike opening, into which her crow guide disappeared as she watched.
Judging by the way the ash had drifted, Bunny thought that the wind had been westerly for some time, possibly the entire two and a half days it had taken them to make it this far. Nanook even began to touch down on the mud from time to time, and when the humans walked on it, they felt only a tolerable warmth through the soles of their boots. It certainly wasn't hot enough to damage the snowshoes, which were proving their worth through the heavier ash deposits.