“Look at that!” he shouted.
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Krysty glanced at him. “Terrific, lover. But what’ll you do for an encore?”
“You’re envious. But that’s-”
“Envious! Ryan Cawdor, you’ve got-” She broke off, seeing he was pointing around the long bend of the Hud-son, far ahead of them.
The river narrowed a little, breaking over the massive piles of the bridge. Rusting girders dangled high above, with a network of thick metal rods holding crumbling chunks of stone.
A bent piece of metal, which looked as if it might once have been painted green, had the remains of some white lettering on it. Whi e PI ins was all that could be read.
It took all their strength, using the crudely cut branches, to steer the raft around the obstacles. They pushed at the stone piers and shoved away from the maze of fallen metal where the water pitched and foamed, creating strong ed-dies and currents.
Once they were past the toppled bridge, they were able to relax once more, allowing the slow-moving river to carry them along. Krysty stood at the front of the raft, balancing herself easily against the rhythmic pitching and rolling.
“Doc?”
“What is it?”
The wind tugged at her long hair so that it wrapped it-self around her fac e. She paused, freeing herself, before she spoke again.
“I heard that these parts were filled with people before the big chilling.”
“That’s so, my dear. Thicker than bugs on a bumper was a current expression. Why do you ask now?” Al-most immediately the old man answered his own ques-tion. “Ah. Because there is so little sign of human
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habitation on either bank of the Hudson. Is that not what prompted your question?”
“Yeah. That bridge.. .and a few ruins on the cliffs. That’s ’bout all we’ve seen for hours. No people. Not since the stickies.”
Doc clambered to his feet, helped by a steadying hand from Lori. His knee joints cracked like miniature blast-ers. He rested an arm across Krysty’s shoulders, gazing rheumily at both sides of the river.
“You cannot possibly imagine the devastation wrought here. Nor, fortunately, can I. If one could have seen the megadeath scenario, then one would have gone stark mad upon the instant.”
For the last mile or so, perched high on the cliffs to the east, they had been able to see a few ruined buildings. They were eyeless wrecks, almost covered by the en-croaching vegetation. Most were roofless, walls bleached to an unhealthy white by a hundred years of chem storms. One or two still showed traces of blackening and scorch marks along the upper edges of many of the empty win-dows.
Ryan joined Doc and Krysty and they glanced behind them, over the high ground to the west of the Hudson. The sun was already out of sight, and dark purple clouds were boiling up, showing the menace of ugly thunder-heads at their crests.
“Time to put in for the night. How far from Newyork, Doc?”
“From that sky, there is menace from the west. Per-chance we should find shelter. I cannot recall the lie of the land hereabouts, Ryan, but I think we must be closing in on the metropolis. Yonkers is a name that seeps into my mind, though what it was I cannot recall.”
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“What ’bout Newyork?” called Jak, who had been dozing near the stern.
Doc hesitated before replying. “The wreckage from that toll bridge back yonder could have overturned our frail barque. The farther south we go along the Hudson, the more problems we shall encounter of that type. Be-fore we reach New York we may need to desert the water for the land.”
J.B. also stood up, pushing his fedora back. “Maps show us around fifty miles to go. How far from there to Front Royal? You know, Ryan?”
“Always heard as a kid that Newyork was close to two fifty from the ville.”
The Armorer whistled softly, barely audible over the murmur of water bubbling around the front of the raft. “Two fifty. Need us a wag to get there. Never make that distance on foot.”
Ryan nodded. It was true. A small party of six people, however well armed and brave, would stand no chance at all in the Deathlands covering a great distance without transport. The Trader had traveled in a convoy of ar-mored war wags, and even then they’d been ambushed and taken losses.