Doc shook his head. “I fear that there is likely to be but little remaining of that once great city. I have seen histories, copied from the verbal memories of the scant survivors, which claim that the nuclear holocaust actually began here in the seat of government, demiparadise. There can be little doubt that the whole metropolis was blown away in the first treacherous salvo of the Third-and last-World War.”
“True,” the Armorer agreed. “All the years that Ryan and me rode with the Trader, I don’t think we ever once came that close to this place. Supposed to be one big crater where the city used to be. Now they call it Washington Hole. Just shantytown gaudies and stuff like that.”
A little to their left, beyond the crumbling ruins of the redoubt, there towered a rain-shrouded mountain, looking to be close to five thousand feet high. Mildred stared up at it with bemused fascination. “I have to turn to you, Doc, much as I regret it.”
“How may I aid you, Dr. Wyeth?”
“I visited Washington a couple of times, for presidential receptions for the Olympic team. I saw Lincoln and the White House and the Monument. They were pulling down the old Watergate Hotel.” She looked at the others, seeing only blank faces. “Before your time, I suppose. And way after your time, Doc. Anyway, point is, I don’t remember there being a bastard great mountain anywhere around. Right, Doc?”
“Correct. Spot on. Ace on the line. Bull’s-eye. Exactly right. Nothing much over four thousand feet, within five hundred miles of here, even all the way down the Blue Ridge west into Virginia. Mount Pleasant was just a few feet over that mark, to the north of Lynchburg.”
“Volcano.” Jak coughed, rubbing at the bandage around his injured right calf.
Mildred lifted a hand against the driving rain. “A volcano! In Washington, D.C.? My sweet Lord, but you’re right. I can see the plume of steam and smoke from its top. An active volcano, here! Mercy me!”
“Changes in climate. Changes in altitude.” Doc stared into the sky, hands clasped together like a preacher at a river-crossing meeting. “Changes in pulchritude. Changes in attitude. Changes in latitude. Changes in lassitude. Where is the bone that Lassie chewed? Lassitude. Get it? Got it. Bought the T-shirt.”
“Doc,” Ryan said.
“Yes?”
“Shut it.”
“Ah, right.”
“Rotten stink, Dad.”
Ryan sniffed. “Not so bad as back at our last stopping place, Dean.”
“Not so farting. But still.like sitting next to someone in a drinker who hasn’t changed their clothes for about five years. Know what I mean?”
Jak grinned. “Smells like home, Dean. Louisiana bayou sorta smell.”
Ryan also smiled. “That’s it all right. Except to see Spanish moss drooping from all of the trees. Not that I can see any trees around here.”
J.B. busily wiped his glasses. “Guess that you can’t just turn a million people into a land of watery, bloody steam without something unpleasant lingering on. Even a hundred years later.”
“So where’s the city?” Dean put a muddy hand over his eyes in an exaggerated pose of exploration. “Or where the city used to be?”
The Armorer shook his head. “Can’t tell you, Dean. First off, my sextant isn’t accurate to more than a few miles. Second off, I’ve never been around here long enough to know the region. And thirdly, it’s pissing down so hard that the city could be around the next corner and we still wouldn’t know.”
“Maybe we ought to go back inside the redoubt and stay dry,” Mildred suggested. “Wait until the weather clears up before we explore.”
“A little rain never did anyone any harm.” Doc snorted. “I never mistook you for a namby-pamby indoor woman, Dr. Wyeth. Worried by a little heavenly dew.”
“Heavenly dew! You silly old fool, it’s coming down cats and dogs.”
Ryan interrupted the budding argument. “Never been one for going back on my own trail,” he said. “Have to agree with Doc. We’re all wet now, anyway, so why not keep going? Look of the light, evening can’t be all that far off. Let’s move on some and take a look around. Find somewhere nearby to camp out and start a fire. How’s that sound?”