“Acadia,” Mildred said. “You’re right on the mark, John. Ace on the line. Southern Maine. Not all that far from Stephen King country.”
“Who’s he?” Abe asked. “Local baron?”
“Sort of.” Mildred grinned. “Maybe even more famous than that, back in predark times.”
Doc’s face had become angered. “By the three Kennedys! If all of the faceless politicians and bureaucrats of what was once this fair and decent land of ours had but a single throat, then I would be the first in line to volunteer to slit it open.”
“Why, Doc?” Krysty asked. “Because of skydark and the long winters?”
“That and ten thousand crimes more. Here we stand in one of the most beautiful places in the world. I visited it long before it became a national park in 1919. When I was a mere sprat I was honored to meet the immortal Ralph Waldo Emerson. He once said that ‘Nature is a mutable cloud, which is always and never the same.’ He could have been thinking of Acadia.”
“Still looks beautiful,” Dean said. “Don’t really understand you, Doc.”
“When the politics of the old prenuking world began to deteriorate at the very end of the twentieth century, the United States was one of the countries to realize that Gotterdammerung could be just around the corner.”
“What the fuck’s that?” Trader asked.
Doc bowed toward him. “I am delighted at your fascination at my pronouncements, my dear fellow, but I confess to finding that your phrasing is becoming both tedious and repetitive.”
“How’s that?” Trader hefted the Armalite.
Doc ignored him. “Gotterdammerung. The twilight of the gods. The end of the world, perhaps, Trader, would be more easily understood by you. Shorter words, eh?”
“Be real careful how you go, Doc,” Trader warned with serious anger and menace in his voice. “Nobody loves a smartass, and I love them less than most folks.”
“Of course, of course.”
He turned to Dean. “I shall finish swiftly. The government, in its dubious wisdom, decided on its policy, under the Totality Concept, to build a number of these ultrasecret hideouts. These redoubts. And they chose the most beautiful and isolated parts of the country to site them.” His voice boomed with rage. “And the running mongrels picked some of our finest national parks!”
“Like this?” Dean asked.
“Indeed. Acadia. Jewel of the Northeast, set in the silver sea.”
“Still looks good, though,” Mildred said.
“That is not the point, madam, as well you know. Something perfect has been marred forever.”
“Nature finds its own way of getting back, doesn’t it, Doc?” Trader shook his head slowly as he stared across the scenic vista.
Doc was taken aback. “Well, I suppose you could say Yes, my dear Trader, I believe it has those powers of healing and regeneration. Shrewdly observed, my dear fellow, very shrewdly observed.”
“Thanks,” Trader said dryly.
“We talked enough, Dad?” Dean asked impatiently. “Only it looks a real dude kind of morning and we should get moving down the mountain.”
“So wise, so young” Doc said, then he stopped, looking embarrassed. “I disremember the rest of the quote. But the lad is right, is he not, Master Cawdor?”
“Yeah, he is. Let’s go see what New England’s looking like today.”
AS THEY WOUND THEIR WAY down the hillside, it seemed like New England was looking particularly good.
The upper granite slopes of what they believed was Mount Cadillac were fairly bare of vegetation, with patches of scrubby heather and lichen here and there. But the lower they descended, the richer the land became.
“Look at the forest,” Mildred said as they paused at one of the snakeback turns in the blacktop. “This must be what the land looked like before the white man came storming in with his alcohol and his smallpox and loggers and strip miners. One of the rare moments I’m glad to be in Deathlands rather than back in my old life. Least I can taste fresh air and smell the woods. It’s a good-to-be-alive sort of day.”
“What’s that?” Abe asked, pointing to a large, blue-tinted bird with an enormous wingspan that had risen from a glacial lake behind a bluff. It flapped its serene way toward a larger body of water to the north.
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