“Come on, Mildred!” Krysty shouted up the stairs. “Be dark before we get going. In fact it’s getting dark already.”
“Only a little after two,” J.B. said, checking his wrist chron. “But it does seem gloomy.”
“I’ll take look,” Jak offered, getting up from the corner, where he’d been flicking through a book on handblasters.
He went out the front door, where the security light failed to snap on, then walked around the far, northern flank of the building. He stood there for several seconds, then returned briskly to the front door.
“Big storm on way,” he called, as soon as he was inside the house again.
“Snow?” J.B. asked.
“Probably. Sky like lead. Wind’s rising. Whole mess coming this way.”
Everyone except Mildred, who was still relaxing in the tub, rushed out to look.
Jak’s description had been accurate. The sky was dark, slate gray, with heavy clouds squatting over the mountaintops a few miles away.
“Moving this way,” J.B. said.
Krysty stamped her foot. “Gaia! Mebbe if we get out now we can outflank it. Looks from its path like it might not reach farther up the trail.”
Doc looked doubtful. “I do most earnestly comprehend your reasoning, my dearest Krysty. To be reunited with Ryan is the wish of all of us. But that” he pointed with the tip of his cane at the approaching storm, “to be exposed on the hillside in the teeth of that”
J.B. finished the sentence. “When we can sit it out in warmth and comfort and safety. Seems like close to suicide to run against that. It’s going to be a real triple-big blow, Krysty. Real big.”
Nonetheless, Krysty insisted that Mildred complete her bath and get dressed as quickly as she could.
“I’d finished soaking, anyway,” she replied, somewhat pettishly. “Though I don’t believe I had anywhere near as long as anyone else. Including you, Krysty.”
“We have to try and get going. Please. I’m getting more and more worried about what’s happening to Ryan.”
RYAN WAS FIFTEEN or twenty miles east of them, striding steadily toward the township of Leadville. He’d seen no further signs of human life, though the forest seemed to teem with activity. A pack of thirty or forty gaunt coyotes snarled at him until he unslung the rifle and shot the leader, sending the rest of the animals scattering. He also saw moose, and once a black bear lumbered quickly across the highway, about eighty yards ahead of him. And there were enough deer to keep a man going for years.
At a sharp turn in the road he looked back and down, wondering how far the others were behind him, or whether they might have passed by while he was at Brady’s school and be ahead of him.
Staring behind, Ryan was able to see the huge storm that looked as if it would cut the trail about ten miles below him. The silver lace of lightning crackled around the tops of the clouds, and he could see at the base that it was either snow or unimaginably heavy rain. “Hope they’re free of that,” he said aloud.
EVERYONE WAS PACKING and ready to go. The land around the house was almost invisible in the gloom, and they could all hear the rumblings of thunder.
“We can do it,” Krysty said, opening the front door, staggering a little in the wind as she looked out at the first whirling flakes of snow.
“No,” J.B. stated. “We can’t.” And closed the door again.
Chapter Twenty-Two
A little after midnight Krysty stood by the picture window of the isolated house, gazing out at the moonlit snow-smeared land.
“You were right, J.B.,” she said over her shoulder. “Must be four or five feet out there. Came down like out the back of a dump truck.”
“Trader used to say that the more you wanted something, the more your judgment and common sense flew out the door,” replied the Armorer, who was carefully placing a few more logs on the blazing fire.
“For once the old son of a bitch was probably right,” Krysty said, smiling.
“Often was.”
Doc had gone to bed, deciding an hour or so earlier that they weren’t going anywhere for a while. “I think I should attempt to stoke up my batteries while I can. Good night, gentles all.”