The others had all grown in proportion.
John was now a strapping man, bearded, as was Paul, both with their father’s muscular build. Pamela had shifted from girl to woman, with Jeanne’s dark hair and coloring and solemn brown eyes.
There was so much catching up, and Mac didn’t feel ready for it. Not immediately. Not until after supper on the fourth day. It was eleven o’clock, and the children had left him sitting by the fire with his two wives.
There was a snifter of brandy at his elbow. Beyond the reinforced shutters that covered the barred window the wind howled and the snow piled higher. The guns stood ready in every room.
But McGill felt safe.
“Now,” he said. “Now I want to hear all about it. How come everyone’s lived through Earthblood and how you got food and all.”
The women looked at each other, both smiling. Angel answered.
“Long story, Mac. But I guess we have the time for it.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
It was also snowing up in Colorado.
Fine and powdery snow filled in the hollows of the Rockies and spilled down into the valleys, drifting in the driving wind, piling against the flanks of the houses on the edges of Aspen. The white stuff formed a soft barrier across what had once been state Highway 82.
Kyle stopped and looked through the curtain of whiteness. “Wish I had my grandfather’s old Leica camera with me.”
“Arty-farty photographs of the grandeur of nature,” Steve said with a grin.
“There speaks the one-time veggie and practitioner of transcendental meditation. The man with a sawed-off 12 gauge at his hip, a sixteen-inch bowie knife in his belt and a dozen rabbit corpses dotting the land between here and Stevenson base.”
Steve nodded. “You got an ace on the line there, Kyle. Man changes. Have to. Try and live as a strict vegetarian after Earthblood and you die quicker rather than slower.”
“Best get moving before this snow starts blocking the trails. How far?”
“To the last address I had for Sly?”
“Yeah.”
“Another mile and a quarter.”
They found the sign a quarter mile farther into the township.
Here, too, the sign prepared them, showing a world with a changed face. Aspen. Keep Out If You Don’t Belong. Death For Strangers.
“Friendliest little place in the west,” said Steve Romero.
The warning sign offered the threat of vigilante patrols. Kyle and Steve had already witnessed that all too often, particularly around the smaller towns. Fortunately the weather was sufficiently bad to keep the gun carriers indoors.
“Alison’s place is along here. Overlook Avenue. Lot of new houses. Lives up here with Sly and her new man.”
Kyle stopped and brushed snow from his stubbled beard. “What’s he do?”
“Who?”
“Alison’s husband.”
“Not a lot. You want to know?”
“Yeah. You’ve never really talked about your family. All the years I’ve known you. I know she’s married twice after you. You feel bitter. And your kid… Sly. All I know about him is that he’s eighteen.”
Steve coughed. “This bastard snow gets in everywhere.”
“What does Sly do? What school is he at? Sorry, I mean what school was he at?”
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t talk about my family. About Sly. I just want to find him and maybe bring him with us.”
“Alison’s husband?”
“Name’s Randy.” He laughed bitterly. “Met him once, and he’s just what you’d expect. Built like a brick shit-house with brains to match. He runs a ski-lift operation on the far side of Aspen.”
“What if Sly wants to come and they want him to stay? You thought that one through, Steve?”
“I’ll just take him.”
Kyle slapped him on the back. “Look, the kid’s eighteen. Got a mind of his own, right?”
“Sure, sure. Let’s get on and cut the talk. I’m frozen.”
When they stopped before a house, Kyle looked at Steve questioningly. “This it?”
“Yeah.”
“Looks like something out of a child’s fairy story. All that snow and the fancy woodwork.”
“Wicked witch’s castle maybe,” said Steve with sudden bitterness.
“How do we play this?”
“Just walk in,” offered Steve, patting the walnut stock of the shotgun.
“Want me to go around the back…get ready to give you a little support if you want it? Or, if you need it…”