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for mistakes.
Now the bandit toppled.
Harry had spent some time finding the campground, but it
wouldn't be possible to stay. He rolled off the table, pulled his
pants on. then his kidney belt. He paused to catch his breath and
to listen.
The bandit was still breathing, almost snoring. Harry looked
down at him. "I'll do you the best favor I can," he said. "I won't
check to make sure you're dead."
The wounded man said nothing. Ah, well.
Harry walked his bike to the bandit's motorcycle. There was
nearly a gallon of gasoline in it. Whistling, Harry disconnected the
fuel line and drained the gas into a pickle jar he fished out of the
trash. When he'd put the last drop into the Kawasaki, he went
through the bandit's possessions. There wasn't much.
Then he mounted the Kawasaki and rode away, groaning.
Harry was a firm believer in natural selection.
Jeri woke at dawn. Melissa was awake, but huddled in her sleeping
bag. "I never knew deserts could be cold," she said.
"I told you," Jeri said. "Now watch." The sleeping bags were
head to head, with the Sierra stove between. Jeri made two cups of
cocoa without poking more than her head and shoulders out of her
bag. In the half-hour they spent drinking cocoa and eating oatmeal,
the world warmed. Jeri put her hat on and made Melissa don hers.
They left their sleeping bags and rolled them with one eye each on
the highway below.
They had moved uphill, away from the car, into a clump of
bushes at the crest. With heads above the bushes, using
binoculars, they could see clearly for miles. The highway ran
straight as a bullet's flight, broken by a dish-shaped crater nine
miles to the west. The precision of that crater grew scarier the
more Jeri thought about it. It sat precisely on the intersection of
two highways.
They watched for traffic. Jeri's hand kept brushing the hard
lump in her purse, the .380 Walther automatic. If she saw a safe-
looking ride, she and Melissa could get down to the highway in time
to stick out their thumbs. She hadn't seen much yet. Traffic was
nearly nonexistent. A clump of four motorcycles had passed,
slowed to examine the stalled car, argue, then move on west. She
stayed hidden.
"What will we do?" Melissa asked.
"We'll think of something," Jeri told her. I may have to pay for
a lift. Hopefully with money. She prayed for a policeman, but there
weren't any. Someone ought to come look at the crater. Is it
radioactive? And why here? What could aliens possibly care about,
this far from anywhere?
From the west came a motorcycle. It slowed as it approached
the crater. Jeri wondered if it would turn back. It moved out into
the desert and circled the lip of the crater. Big cycle, big rider. He
had some trouble lifting it back onto the road. He rested afterward,
smoking, then started up again. They watched him come.
Ten minutes later Melissa lowered the binoculars and said, "It's
Harry."
Jeri snorted.
"It's Hairy Red, Mom. Let's go down."
"Unlikely," Jeri said wearily, but she took the glasses. The lone
biker's head was a wind-whipped froth of red hair and beard; that
was true enough. He kept the bike slow. He couldn't be a young
man, not with the trouble he'd had lifting the bike. The bike: it sure
looked like Harry's bike. Hell's bells, that was Harry Reddington!
"Go," Jeri said, "run!" She sprinted downhill. Melissa surged
past her, laughing. They reached the bottom well ahead of the
biker. Jeri puffed and got her wind back and screamed, "Harry!
Harreee!"
It didn't look like he would stop.
Harry saw the four bikers coming from a long way off. They were on
the wrong side, his side, of the dirt divider. He was seeing trouble
as he neared them ... but they veered across the divider and,
laughing, doffed their helmets to him as he passed. Harry would
have liked to return the gesture, but he had one hand on the
handlebars and one on the gun Carlotta hadn't taken ... because
Hairy Red sure wasn't in shape to defend himself with his fists. His
belly band was tightened to the last notch, and Harry felt like he
was leaking out from under it.
Beyond the bikers was a station wagon, presumed DOA.
Beyond the wagon, two figures running downhill. Harry made out a
woman and a little girl.
He didn't have time for emergencies or room for passengers,
They reached the road. They were yelling at him. The adult was
a good-looking woman, and it was with some regret that he twisted
the accelerator.
- "Harreee!"
Oh, shit. Harry's hands clamped the brakes. Jeri and Melissa
Wilson, standing in the road. Just what he needed.
Your word of honor on record, he thought. Dead or captured
by God knows what, Wes Dawson had left his life on Earth's
surface in Harry Reddington's care. Carlotta Dawson wasn't the
type to survive without help. Stuck out here with a dead station
wagon, what were the chances that Jeri Wilson and her daughter
would ever tell anyone that Hairy Red had driven past them? He
twisted harder, and stopped precisely alongside Melissa, and smiled
at the little girl. Shit.
Harry Reddington climbed from the bike as if afraid he'd break, and
straightened up slowly. "Jeri. Melissa. Why aren't you at the
Enclave?"
"I have to find my husband. Oh, Harry, thank God! Where are
you going?"
Harry answered slowly; he seemed to be doing everything
slowly. "I was staying at Congressman Dawson's house. Now his
wife is in Dighton, Kansas, and he sure can't do anything to take
care of her, so it's up to me."
"Well. Want some cocoa?"
"Sure, but - You've got a Sierra stove?"
"Up the hill."
"What's wrong with the car?"
"Out of gas."
"Let's get that cocoa." Harry accepted Jeri's hospitality
knowing full well what it implied, knowing that it was too late. Three
passengers on a motorcycle was going to kill his shock absorbers.
"Those bushes at the top? I'd better ride the bike up. I'd hate to
lose it."
Harry let the bike coast to a stop. It was hot as soon as they
stopped moving. Harry poured a little water onto his bandana and
mopped his face. Getting sunburn to go with the windburn. Bloody
hell.
"We're almost there," Jeri said. "Why are you stopping?"
"Got to," Harry said. "Everybody off."
Melissa leaped off from her perch on the gas tank in front of
Harry. Jeri climbed off the back. Every muscle complaining. Harry
slowly got off and set the stand. Then be tried to bend over.
"Back-rub time?" Jeri asked.
"Can't hurt," Harry said. He pointed to a stream that ran
beside the road. "Melissa, how about you go fill the canteens."
"Doesn't look very clean -"
"Clean enough," Harry said.
"Pour all the water we have into one canteen and just fill the
other from the stream," Jeri said. "Harry, you look like a letter S.
Here, bend over the bike and I'll work on that."
Harry waited until Melissa was gone. "I don't quite know how
to say this. Hate to be the one to do it, but somebody's got to.
We're almost there. Another ten, twelve miles -"
"Yes. Thank you. I know it was out of your way, and it can't be
comfortable, riding three on a bike -"
"It's not, but that isn't the problem," Harry said. "You got
across the Colorado River the day before the aliens came, didn't
you?"
"Yes -"
"And all you've seen since is a few towns, and that crater."
"Harry, what are you trying to say?"
"I looked on the map. That town you're headed for - there's a
dam just above it." He didn't say anything for a moment, to let that
sink in. "Jeri, I goddam near didn't get across the Colorado River.
There's nothing left of the town of Needles. Or Bullhead City. Or
anything along the Colorado. They hit Hoover Dam with something
big. When Lake Mead let go, it scoured out everything for two
hundred miles. I mean everything. Dams, bridges, houses, boats -
all gone. I had to get a National Guard helicopter to take me and
the motorcycle across."
"Oh."
"Yeah. So I don't know what we're going to find up ahead. You
got any idea of where Dave lived in that town?"
"No," Jeri said. "He never told me anything about it. Harry -
Harry, it's got to be all right." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]