“Thanks a lot, Doc. Look, I’m sorry, but this really can’t be Kansas.”
Outside it had been precisely the way Doc Tanner had described it.
The redoubt was hidden in the side of an enormous bluff, a couple of hundred feet high, almost completely buried. Some combination of weather and an earth shift had brought down hundreds of thousands of tons of rock and dirt, exposing a narrow gap at the side of the main sec doors that had guarded the place successfully for the best part of a century.
As they made their way out, blinking in the bright sunshine of late morning, the air tasted like nectar. There was no more sign of any of the muties.
“Guess they’ll starve within a few days,” Ryan said to his son, who’d asked him what would happen to the cannies.
“But they must’ve got along okay for a long time before they found the human bodies.”
“Sure. But it looked like they’d been munching their way contentedly through the shelves for some weeks. From what we saw they had triple-small brains, even by the low standards of muties. Probably gotten used to easy meat. I wouldn’t be surprised if they hung around until even they can’t stomach the rotted flesh. Eat each other for a few days. Then die.”
The argument had begun the moment that the Armorer checked his tiny pocket sextant and announced that as far as he could tell they were smack in the heart of Kansas, somewhere, he thought, between Wichita and Topeka.
But Mildred chose to disagree.
“I know what Kansas is supposed to look like. I come from Nebraska, remember. When I started shooting in serious competition I often came south. Kansas City, Topeka, Dodge City, Hutchinson and Wichita.” Her voice was growing louder as she became more angry. “And I tell you that it didn’t look like this.”
Doc coughed. “For once I find myself having to agree with the good lady.”
“I’m not your goddamned good lady, Doc!”
He sailed on, ignoring her outburst. “The landscape that offers itself to us is wonderfully reminiscent of Oregon or parts of northern Montana. No prairies here.” He shaded his eyes and posed. “Lo, the poor Indian would get lost in the trackless forests we see here.”
It was a slight exaggeration.
From their elevated position, it was possible to see that the forests were far from trackless.
But the predominant color of the plains wasn’t golden. It was a dark, dusty green. The conifers had advanced to the foot of the slope below the seven watchers, a mix of larches, ponderosas and lodge-poles, with a scattering of beeches and live oaks to lighten the palette.
There was the unmistakable line of an old highway, running arrow-straight from the left to right, from southwest toward the hazy distance of the northeast. And there were several other minor tracks and trails cutting raggedly through the limitless swath of the forest.
“I don’t much remember coming this way with the Trader,” J.B. said.
“Me, neither.” Ryan stared out across the rolling land. “Way I recall it, there were plenty of nuke hot spots around the old Midwest. Big places for siting our missiles, which made it a real big place for those sites getting severely swatted. Not a good region, even in the war wags.”
“Think Abe found Trader?” Krysty was gazing blankly out into the day, eyes turned northwest. “I keep getting feelings thatreal faint.” She smiled. “One thing you have to watch with ‘feelings’ is not imposing what you want on what you feel. Could be I just hope that Trader is alive someplace, and that Abe gets to him.”
“Hoping doesn’t butter any parsnips,” Doc said mournfully. “Speaking of whichdoes anyone else among our number share my feeling that something to nourish the inner man would not come amiss?”
“Do you mean am I hungry, Doc?” Dean grinned from ear to ear. “Double hot pipe! Yeah.”
“I saw what looked like deer down there.” J.B. put away his folding spyglass. “And there could be a ville beyond the trees. Past the highway. Where you can see the sparkle of the sun off water.”
Everyone looked where he was pointing. Most could make out the silvery glint of what might be a small lake, but nobody could swear to seeing a ville.