Rare in the wastes of Deathlands, there was a profusion of natural life, with no visible evidence of any mutations from radiation.
Ryan was no expert, but he recognized great stands of hemlock, fir and pine around the rim of the huge crater. Guessing, he figured the lake must be close to five miles across, with a circumference of thirty miles. A couple of islands broke the surface of the lake. One, on the far side, was small and shaped like a ship. The other was closer and larger, with a miniature volcanic cone at its center. Ryan thought for a moment he saw some isolated movement on that island.
“Look. Big fire,” Lori said, pointing away to the west. A distant forest was divided by a great swath of blackened stumps where a lightning strike had triggered a fire that had raced across half the face of one of the surrounding peaks.
It was hard to believe the evidence of their own eyes at the living creatures that moved around them, seemingly oblivious to the presence of humans.
Marmots lolled in the clearings, bellies splashed yellow. Their brave indifference to Ryan and his friends was a clear sign that this wasn’t an area where man was a hunter.
In the high branches of the trees that shaded them, squirrels chattered at one another. Ryan saw a badger snuffle for roots as it lumbered across a sun-splashed glade. A bobcat, lean and tawny, padded by within twenty paces of them, not even bothering to turn its head in their direction.
Bright jays darted and scolded in the bushes that grew thickly from the top of the slope down to the dark water.
Jak pointed above them, his keen eyes spotting a golden eagle circling majestically on a thermal over the lake.
It was unlike anyplace any of them had ever known; it seemed close to a mythic idyll of peace and serene happiness. Krysty lay on her back, one foot crossed over the other, staring around her, relaxing on a soft couch of deep green moss.
“What you said, Doc, about how it used to be Was it really like this?”
“Oh, indeed, it was, my dear lady. I swear it was like this. Of course there were cities. Great wens that soured the land and skies around themselves, blighting the environment. That was the buzz word. Environment. But there were limitless billions of acres of unspoiled wilderness.”
They were silent for a moment, locked into their own thoughts. Ryan lay next to Krysty, and he felt her hand rest on his, warm and loving.
“Why keep moving, lover?”
“What?”
They kept their voices quiet, private.
“Why keep on moving all the time, Ryan? Why not stop? Stop here?”
Ryan breathed in, deep and slow, trying to find words that would be an answer, not coming up with anything that sounded right or tasted good.
“I guessI don’t know,” he said finally.
“Up here the air’s likelike nectar. I recall that from an old vid I once saw. Like nectar. Means sweet and fresh. There’s valleys all round here,” she said, indicating them with a sweep of her hand. “Fresh water and good timber. We could build us a home.”
“Us? Who’s that, Krysty?”
“You. Me,” she said, hesitating. “All of us. We get on well. Got the skills. We could settle, like they used to on the old frontier. Mebbe try and farm some. Run the ridges of this green land, Ryan. Raise us a family one day.”
It was out, the words lying in the air between them. Words that both of them had thought about ever since they’d first met. Words that neither of them had said before, not even whispered during their lovemaking, or after.
“One day, Krysty,” Ryan said finally.
“One day, lover?”
“Yeah, one day.”
But not yet.
THEY CAMPED FOR THE NIGHT on the rim and built themselves a small fire from the abundance of fallen branches, lighting it with a pyrotab from J.B.’s capacious pockets. As the light faded, they watched small brown deer come cautiously from the woods to feed, their hooves crunching delicately on the loose pumice that lay everywhere along the slopes, a legacy from the original eruption of Mount Mazama, seven thousand years ago.