The sidewalks were less grown over, but their heaved or fractured slabs of concrete prevented passage. Here fewer buildings had fallen than on the peaty delta soil across the river. The buildings lining the sidewalks were more bent than collapsed. Walls leaned away from other walls. Where concrete blocks had separated Noor saw sinews of rusted rebar. Through glassless windows she sometimes saw the wet winter sky or the edges of sunken roofs. Weeds reached out through some of the openings. Through others blackberry vine spilled in a mass onto the sidewalk. From time to time she smelled smoke. Once she heard distant voices but saw no one.
Soon the trail swung sharply westward and became earth where it ran close to the fronts of a few more or less intact concrete apartment buildings. There was a pervasive stink of excrement. A man leaned out of a window and watched Noor pass a few feet below. He had no shirt, and his skin was as white as paper, but he wore a fluorescent green toque. His eyes were blank, and his mouth hung open a little. Behind him a baby wailed. Noor did not look up.
The trail swung northward again. Where it did so it merged with a trail that continued south, down to Fundy’s Bridge. Here Noor let Beauty rest. On her left rose a massive building several storeys tall. She heard, faintly, the laughter of men. She smelled meat cooking. Down the trail a little, on the shattered sidewalk beside the building, rested a cart not much different from the one she was pulling. It had a roof, however, and a padded seat, on which was tossed a pink quilt.
The drizzle eased off. She continued to follow Town Trail northward. Here the trail again ran down the middle of the old street. Every hundred yards or so someone leaned against a wall or sat in an empty window or on a slab of the broken sidewalk, watching her pass. Noor’s eyes were a little softer now. She examined each face, and recognized some of them from the market. If these watchers met her gaze she would acknowledge them with an upward nod of her chin, but they seldom returned the greeting. One old man standing in the obscurity of an interior behind a display window sheeted in plastic raised a hand and said something that might have been “Frost.”
The shops ran out. Noor stopped and set one of the buckets on the ground and untied the plastic covering and let Beauty drink. She looked southwest and saw that the clouds were broken by uneven swatches of blue.
At a point where one of the many overgrown streets intersected her route the trail took a slight jog and became earth. The going was easier now for Beauty. The only interruptions in the smooth path were the concrete walks that crossed it. These led from the street to steps and foundations and the occasional standing row of rusted metal studs. The scrappy growth of brush and bracken and grass was littered with asphalt shingles and grey patches of rotted and weedy gypsum from old drywall. In the enclosure of one foundation stood a white hot water heater, like a squat idol presiding over the desolation. As Noor studied the heater a crow landed on it. It watched her go by. When she was well past, it bobbed its head and shrugged its wings and it made its abrasive call.
Beauty plodded on, sweating a little in spite of the cold. Noor rocked on the broad back and was soothed by the motion and the horse smell and the rhythm of the hooves. Ahead, faintly, she heard sheep. The scrub thinned out. Among the foundations there were scattered stretches of short grass. Ahead, not far from the trail she saw the flock, spread wide among the brush, and she saw Bailey and one of his men and a dog.
When she came even with the flock she slid down and let Beauty rest. She laid her spear and her sword across the stuffed bags in the cart. The dog barked while Bailey picked his way among bushes and stepped over the low wall of a foundation and walked through the rectangular enclosure and stepped up onto the front porch and came down the three steps and along the walk. He had a long, hooded wool poncho over an ankle-length shift, and leather sandals and knitted socks. The wool, the leather, the beard, the man himself — it was all grey, grey as a winter storm cloud. He was badly bent but moved aggressively. The poncho bulged where it covered a sword. He had one eye, which darted like a bird’s.
He said “I hope you’re not headin’ downtown.”
Noor said “You better add a few more layers. You might catch cold.”
Bailey looked at her sharply. When a slight smile touched her eyes a trace of colour passed over the negligible region of Bailey’s cheeks that was visible above his beard. He shook his head, as if Noor’s joke were exactly what was to be expected from an insolent child. He said “You better go on back.”
Noor said “How’s life on Town Ranch?”
He nodded meaninglessly. Noor waited. Bailey said “Young Flower died. She got the pneumonia.”
“I’m sorry. She was Will’s age.”
“Yes, same age as Will.”
“She was your granddaughter.”
Bailey nodded.
Noor said “I’m sorry.”
Bailey nodded some more, not looking at her. He said “Now her mom is sick.”
“Can I send someone up to help?”
“No, it’s best your people stay away. So as not to catch it.” Bailey’s voice was as rough as the wool he wore. “There’s not many of us left now.”
Noor said “Times will get better.”
“You remember Langara? He run off. He got addicted somehow. Hemlock the Messenger saw him with a pack of them.”
“Addicts?”
Bailey nodded.
“They run in packs?”
He nodded again. “You better head on back, Noor. The skaggers are getting pushy. You never know who they’re making deals with.”
“Are your sheep safe?”
“Depends how hungry people get.”
“Then I would say you better put some more guards on.” She walked back to the horse.
Bailey said “I can spare some animals if you need them. I hear you got extra mouths to feed.”
Noor took two quick steps and vaulted onto Beauty’s back. Bailey handed her up the spear and the sword. Noor nodded a goodbye.
The trail began a long downward slope. On the opposite side of the old street the land was gouged by wide ragged ditches. Some of these merged like tributaries. From their mouths trivial but steady streams of water flowed onto the street. Before long the middle of the paved street had sunk into a narrow brush-filled depression. In a hundred yards this had deepened and broadened into a ragged, steep walled erosion gully that replaced the old road entirely. Warped sheets of torn asphalt lay where they had collapsed against the sides of the gully, along with shards and rectangles of sidewalk and sections of storm drain that had been weathered loose and rolled down.
The trail was lined with tree stumps. Most of them were rotted to brown punk, but some still showed the chewed surfaces left by whatever tools had been used to fell them. Their dead roots reached into the empty space of the gully. At a narrow point in the channel there was a jam of stumps, with their roots splayed out like a mass of stubby nerves.
The trail continued across old front yards. Gradually the foundations became bigger, farther apart, farther back from the trail, and the cart bumped across paved and overgrown driveways. Suddenly the gully widened. There was only a narrow space for the cart to pass between the steep fall-off and a foundation wall. Noor got down and led Beauty carefully through this space, watching that a wheel did not slip over the edge.
When the horse and the cart had passed safely through she glanced over the wall. There was a deep basement. It was full to half its depth with clear water. The body of a young woman was floating face down, naked, with the arms spread wide. Long dark hair floated out around the head. Noor scanned the bushes and the trail behind her and ahead. There was no one but her and the woman in the water. Then she noticed, on the far side of the foundation, a single rat, leaning as far over the edge as possible without falling in.