From the map, they were thirty miles inland. Yet already, they had ventured below what was now the level of high tide. From the condition of the sand it appeared to have receded only recently. It would return, Charlie said, in six hours at the most. The roadway they were standing on would then be under the Gulf.
They had two choices: either turn around yet again and go back to Alice, which would mean finding a way to San Saucillo via a long detour inland; or they could make a dash south now, while the highway was above water, and hope for a way inland before it was submerged again. Buff and Luke wanted to turn back. Even Mitch seemed subdued, and for once Alicia couldn’t raise the spirit to dispute him. It was Cavan, amazingly still unflagging and indefatigable, who provided the spur.
“Six hours? We could make the Mexican border in half that time,” he told them. “There have to be a dozen ways back across to 281 in that distance. You’ve seen what kind of a mess it is once you get into those back roads. We’d still be blundering around there when it gets dark, and then lose another night.” Keene watched him, cutting an almost jaunty figure in Army fatigues and a combat smock, for some unknown reason still carrying his submachine gun slung across a shoulder. Cavan waved an arm to indicate the direction ahead. “Did we come this far from California to be stopped now? The people who are depending on us are that way, and so is our only way out. We don’t have time for any more excursions around Texas. In any case, speaking personally, I’ve seen enough of this bloody state. The more we stand here talking, the more time we’re giving the tide to turn. So let’s shut up and get on with it.”
“Leo is right,” Alicia told the others. “I’ve seen enough of Texas too. We have to give it a try, yes?”
Buff and Luke shook their heads at each other but said nothing. Mitch nodded his assent to the troops. Charlie, Colby, and Cynthia turned away without commenting and went back around to the rear of the truck. They all climbed wearily back aboard. Soon, Keene found himself looking out once again at the stretch of road from Corpus Christi to Kingsville that he had driven so many times. But he had never seen it like this. The road was thick with flotsam and trash as well as fallen rubble, making progress slow. There were upturned cars, downed trees—even wrecked boats carried from the coast. Through the outskirts of Kingsville, the remnants of houses demolished by impacts had been broken up by the water and dispersed. The whole area looked like a shantytown in the wake of a hurricane, extending for miles.
They were ten miles or so past Kingsville, anxiously watching east for the first signs of the wave front, when Keene saw the figures ahead, standing across the roadway. They were holding automatic weapons trained on the cab of the truck. Two standing ahead were waving it down. Farther back in the haze was what looked like a barricade on the road. Keene took the radio from the shelf below the dash panel and buzzed Mitch in the trailer three times. At the same time, he felt for the automatic in the holster at his belt. “Forget all the stuff you’ve seen in movies,” he muttered to Buff. “They could cut this tin box to ribbons in seconds with those things. You’d better pull over.”
48
Keene counted eight of them, muffled in a variety of coats with hoods or hats, a couple wearing poncholike capes. Their faces were all dark, although whether this was their complexion or due to the effects of smoke, dust, and dirt was impossible to tell. They looked exhausted and desperate.
“Okay, stop it right there,” one of the two who had come forward ordered. He had a thick beard and was wearing a torn gray jacket with a hood that revealed tangled hair protruding around the edge. With six rifles trained from fifty feet farther back, there was no question of accelerating through the line. Buff halted the truck and looked down from the window. The leader had a lean, high-cheeked face with narrow, yellow eyes. He motioned with his rifle for them to get out of the cab. “Let’s see what we got here. You’re going the wrong way, doncha know? Now we’ve got us a ride going the right way. Come on, everybody out!”