“You got a name, mister?” Jim holstered the revolver but kept his hand hovering above it.
“Sure. Dorian Langford. Retired editor. Textbooks. School stuff. Widower.”
“I’m Jim Hilton. Got my daughter here and a couple of other friends.”
“Good to meet you.”
“Come on ahead out of the fog, Mr. Langford.”
There was a chuckle. “If I was a gambling man, Jim, which I might tell you I used to be, I’d probably lay odds of around seven to two that you’re a decent man.”
“Fair odds. Prefer two to one.”
Again the chuckle. Now Jim could just make the man out, standing on a rise in the ground about thirty yards away, like a half-glimpsed statue in a misty park.
“Since that bloody plant cancer tipped everything downside up, I’ve been mainly on the move. Got a cabin a few miles away, but I don’t live there. Stay in one place in this benighted land, and you get to be dead, Jim. You noticed that?”
“Sure have, Mr. Langford. You know these parts well, then? We’re aiming to head northward.”
“On foot? As much chance as me becoming Pope. That big trembler did some serious harm. Sea broke in a way north of Eureka. Backed up rivers. Flooded thousands of miles of lowland.”
“How do we get around it, then?” asked Carrie Princip. “Are there boats in Eureka?”
“Sure. And food. Gas. Drugs. Women. Men. Little children. These days you can find most anything you might want in Eureka. And a lot of firearms, lady.”
Jim looked at the others. It seemed as if their hopeful plans for a meeting at the nearby town were in ruins.
“How do they greet strangers, Mr. Langford?”
“Name’s Dorian, Jim. How do they greet strangers? Like this.” He imitated the click of a gun being cocked, followed by the sound of the explosion and the whistle of a ricochet. “Just like that.”
“Sure you won’t come in for the night, Dorian? We don’t have much, but what we got you’re welcome to share.”
“Perhaps two to one would be better odds, Jim.” The voice was friendly and warm. “But I’ll go on a spell.”
“Sure. Good luck, Dorian.”
“Thanks.” Something that could have been a hand waved at them from out of the darkening mist. “Hey, one other thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Been hearing about a place up toward Seattle way. Called Aurora.”
Sly opened his mouth, then closed it again as Heather hastily put her finger to her lips.
“Think I’ve heard the name,” replied Jim after a moment’s hesitation.
Another warm, friendly chuckle drifted toward them. “You aren’t so hot when it comes to being economical with the truth. But I’m a nosy old bugger, and your business is your business.”
“You hear where it was?”
“No, Jim. Sorry. But I hear enough to make me think it could be a good place.” A coughing fit interrupted his words. “Might seek it out myself some time.”
“Sure.”
“Oh, and I heard some other folks asking around for Aurora. Way I hear it, the odds against them being nice folks might be in the region of a thousand to one. Or even longer than that. So, y’all take care.”
“Will do, You, too.”
The figure was gone, and all they could hear was the fading sound of boots striding away toward the east.
The rest was silence.
THE BLIZZARD’S CENTER was less than forty miles away from where Jim Hilton camped for that night before making the last push through toward Eureka.
But it trapped the McGills, Nanci and Jeff in its whiteout heart.
They were there for the evening and night of the eighteenth, right through the nineteenth into the twentieth. Almost the only good thing that had come out of the Earthblood plague was the astounding amount of dead wood that lay everywhere. At times it seemed as if the whole land was one gigantic tangle of brittle, broken branches, perfect for burning.
“Normal times and we could have found ourselves in a rather parlous situation.” Nanci sat close to the fire, her boots tucked behind her to avoid the heat damaging them. “At least we shall not be required to pay attendance at the deathly court of King Hypothermia.”