Chapter Nineteen
“I still feel bad about Steve.”
“It was just real bad luck, Carrie. Could’ve been any of us.”
“I know, Kyle. But to leave his body out there… I don’t think I’d feel so bad if we could just have buried him decently.”
It was November 27, 2040.
They were near Devil’s Gate Pass, over seven and a half thousand feet up in the Sweetwater Mountains, camped a quarter mile off the side of Highway 395, with a light snow falling around them. Kyle had lit a bright fire of pinon branches, and they had erected their three one-man tents under the flank of a steep granite cliff, giving them some shelter from the blizzard.
Sly Romero was sleeping peacefully, clutching a small wooden manikin that Kyle had whittled for him, naming it “Steve.”
They’d explained to the boy that his father had gone away on a really long journey but he’d taken with him a special pair of glasses that allowed him to always keep a watch over Sly and what he was doing.
To all their surprise, the story had been accepted. Sly’s only question had been whether “Me speak and Dad hear?” Carrie had told him that he should whisper what had happened during the day, and Steve would be able to hear it all, though he couldn’t speak back to his son.
That evening, as in the other nights since his father’s death by electrocution, the teenager had infallibly remembered to do as they’d suggested.
They’d eaten their supper of beans and stew, scavenged from an isolated cabin they’d found the previous day. And Sly had climbed cheerfully into his sleeping bag, leaving the flap on his tent wide open so that he could watch the dancing flames of the scented fire.
“And me see feathers from the sky. Dad tell me they feathers from great big bird.”
Carrie and Kyle sat close together, huddled inside their parkas against the Sierra cold, listening to the mumbled diary of what had happened to them that day, filtered through Sly’s occasional confusion.
“Dad hello Dad. Me had a good time. Pickup went well and me saw lots of not-sleeping dead ones today. Still good gas in cans and me had beans again. That’s two times two times today.” He giggled. “Me farted lots… and Carrie and Kyle. Not Jim and…can’t remember the little girl. They gone off and me see them soon. Me saw wolfs today. Cold, Dad.” A note of excitement crept into his voice. “And feathers, Dad. Like you told me. Me saw them. They really called snow. Me know that. But feathers is pretty, Dad, today. Now lay me to sleep and pray me soul to keep. If me die before wake, then pray soul to take. Goodnight, Dad. Miss you.”
Carrie looked across at Kyle, the firelight glittering off the tears that streaked her cheeks. “Son of a bitch always gets me every night.”
“Yeah. He’s holding up well.”
“You’ve never regretted us looking after him? When we split from Heather and the captain?”
“Not for a moment. Honestly. Wonder where they’ve reached.”
“Depends on what kind of transport they found, I guess.”
Once they’d made their getaway from the mysterious hydroponics establishment, leaving Steve Romero’s charred corpse behind in the scorched brush, the three adults had sat together in urgent discussion.
They had agreed that they should split up to try to increase their chances of locating Zelig and the almost-mythical base Aurora.
The division had been unarguable. Jim would obviously care for his own daughter, but whoever looked after Sly would need some assistance, which meant it had to be Kyle and Carrie.
They’d stayed together for a half day until they reached a fork in the road. One highway carried on roughly northward, while the other struck out toward the west and the ocean. That was the route that Jim Hilton had selected for himself and Heather.
They parted with the agreement that they’d all come together in Muir Woods on December 5.
“There or thereabouts,” Jim had said, getting a smile from Carrie and from the tall, muscular black. It had been one of his favorite sayings on board the old Aquila.