Pete Turner and Henderson McGill, both missing. Believed killed. Their planned trip up to New England was the longest and the most dangerous. Mac’s loss was about the hardest of the crew to bear.
Seven dead or lost, and the survivors from the Aquila.
Himself.
Steve Romero and Kyle Lynch, going out together and returning together.
Jeff Thomas, beating the odds to return to Calico.
And Carrie, who’d been such a vital support for Jim through the past seven weeks.
Seven from twelve.
But they also had some additions.
His own daughter, Heather, sitting on the porch of what used to be the house of the town’s schoolteacher. She was playing a game with a handful of quartz pebbles with ever-smiling Sly Romero.
Jim turned his head to the north, where the ground rose steeply, close by the remains of an old mining railway. He’d felt the woman’s presence before he saw her, conscious of the intensity of her gaze.
The enigmatic Nanci Simms, immaculate in her khaki trouser suit and polished boots, was standing on the ridge and staring at him.
There were some questions there, but they could wait awhile.
There was no sign of Zelig. No sign of anyone moving for as far as the eye could see. Just the ocher expanse of the desert, stretching away, unchanged and eternal. Jim sighed. “What now?” he said.