Mac signaled a right turn and pulled it off 1-15 at the sign for Calico.
“Yeah, honey,” he said. “I remember that.”
At times he remembered too much.
Just before they reached Calico, all three vehicles stopped on the narrow road leading to the town. Mac and Paul stood side by side, looking at the tangled pile of torn and rusting metal, parts held together with what seemed to be baling wire.
“Reckon someone had gathered it after a crash or an explosion and was trying to transport it away. The road bends sharply here. Could be they decided to dump it.”
Mac nodded. “Could be, Paul. Think it was an old Chinook. Wonder if it has some connection with the meeting here.”
They moved on and found the ghost town totally abandoned. It was obvious that someone had made a hurried attempt to burn it down, but for some reason had abandoned the idea. Two-thirds of the buildings were intact, but there was no sign of any message from Jim or the others.
Once he was confident there was no threat, Mac allowed everyone, including Jocelyn and Sukie, to scout around, making sure every single remaining hut or store was checked.
“Only leaves the half dozen this side. I’ll take the—”
“Saloon,” called Angel, making everyone laugh. “If Jim Hilton’s left you a message, it’ll be in that saloon, Mac.”
It was.
He found it tucked into a pint beer glass behind the scarred bar.
Jim unfolded it, half watching himself in the cracked and fly-blown mirror. He recognized the writing immediately, feeling a pang of mixed emotions. Part of him wished that he’d stayed with Jim instead of going off to New England to join his families. But thinking about the deaths they had sustained, part of him was also aware that those deaths would probably have been so much worse if he hadn’t been there.
Hi, Mac. Hope it went well. Hope you got some of your own squids with you. The more the merrier. We had some trouble here. Way it looks is that Zelig runs Operation Tempest and they have a base code-named Aurora some place north. There are some black-hats called Hunters of the Sun who don’t love Zelig and don’t seem to love us. So watch your ass against them. We’re going to split up and cover as much of the ‘north’ as we can. I’ve set a rendezvous for us all to meet at Muir Woods, near Corte Madera, north of San Francisco. December 5. Be there or be square, like they used to say. All good luck, Mac. Your friend, Jim Hilton. Ex-commander Aquila.
Holding the note, Henderson McGill left the dusty building and walked out into the chilly morning, finding that the cold easterly was making his eyes water. He climbed to a point where he could see way out north toward the high peaks of the Sierras, shrouded with swirls of winter snow.
Everyone was bone weary from being on the road for so long, from the tension and the long hours and the concentration and the ever-present miasma of death. And from simple fear.
They had to rest a day, check the vehicles, and fieldstrip all the armaments, organize the remaining food and top up the water, maybe on the day after.
That would make it December 2.
Could they reasonably expect to get from east of Los Angeles up to north of San Francisco in three to four days?
“No,” he said to himself.
After having survived nearly a quarter of a year since the landing of the Aquila, Mac knew certain truths about the blighted land. One of the greatest of these concerned traveling. Main highways were the most likely to be blocked, particularly around the major conurbations where the population had made last, despairing efforts to escape.
To get from Calico up to Muir Woods didn’t offer them a lot of options. Mac went to discuss it with the others.
“There’s 99 through Fresno. Or 5, but that’ll be impossible.”
Mac nodded. “Right, Paul. Maybe Barstow and then north up 395. All the main passes are likely snowed up now. We’d have to go a hell of a way beyond San Francisco, inland. And then cut back west and south. Go around Sacramento and—” his finger traced the various options on the Rand McNally. “—down the Napa Valley.”