strongly toward these cattle.”
“Get to the fuckin’ point, Doc. I’m freezin’ my fuckin’ tits off,” moaned Okie,
huddling against the chill.
“My apologies, madam, though I hardly feel that my style of discourse merits
such foul language from such pretty lips. I will proceed. The wind eventually
blew with such ferocity that the entire group of cows were lifted from their
feet and whisked away over the horizon. They became known forever after as the
herd shot round the world.”
It was obviously the punchline, so everyone laughed appreciatively. As they
climbed into their buggies, Krysty tugged at Ryan’s sleeve. “You get that joke
of Doc’s, lover?”
He grinned at her. “No. Couldn’t understand it.” Once everyone was aboard, they
set off toward the city of Anchorage.
Chapter Twelve
THE NARODNIKI WERE on the right road. They knew that because the mutie woman had
told them before they used and abused her, finally spilling her tripe in the
snow with the curved blade of the bayonet of a Kalashnikov.
“Ank Ridge?” had been the question from Uchi-tel. “Stoppile and Ank Ridge.”
She’d responded to the latter name, gesturing to the south. Her mouth was so
misshapen, with only a residual tongue, that she could do no more than nod and
point.
So they moved on: a long line of people, heavily furred against the bitter
nuclear winter, heeling their ponies and horses toward the rising sun, rifles
slung across shoulders, food and ammo weighing down the pack animals. Their eyes
were cold as ice, and many of them wore clothes splattered with dried blood.
So far they had seen no signs of the legendary dangers that had for so long
prevented anyone from the Russian side crossing the frozen strait. There had
been no sign of flaming hot spots or of giant muties fifty feet tall with eyes
of fire and claws of steel. Nor was the land utterly barren. Here and there were
patches of earth free of snow, pocked and dappled with dark green mosses and
stubbly grass.
They had met little opposition to their plans to drive inland. Apart from the
loss of Nul, and Stena’s unfortunate shoulder wound, there had been few
casualties on this trip, and they had lost only two men, both to a single
rifleman a day back. The sniper had ridden on a slope overlooking the hamlet
they were ravaging and had shot down both men from cover. Then, as the angry
guerrillas charged him, he had put a bullet through his own skull.
Two dead, three if he counted the absent Nul, Uchitel thought. Only one injured,
two if he allowed for the three toes that Britva had self-amputated.
Their journey to Stoppile was taking much longer than Uchitel had been led to
expect. After a two-week southeasterly trek across the Alaskan interior, they’d
encountered an impossible mountain range. Changing their course to the
northeast, they’d eventually found a trail that led south through the mountains.
Unknown to the Narodniki, they were traveling along the earthquake-riven remains
of what had once been the main highway linking Anchorage and Fairbanks.
Now that they were finally drawing close to Ank Ridge and Stoppile, Uchitel was
well pleased with himself, and as they rode along, he sang an old, old ballad
about the stars being the sentinels for mankind. He liked the verse about the
importance of order over chaos. It appealed to his sense of the rightness of
things.
Far off to the left he glimpsed the skulking shapes of a pack of mutie wolves,
their bellies flat to the tundra, shadowing the party. They must be
disappointed, thought Uchitel, that there were no weak stragglers in his band as
there might be in a herd of caribou—stragglers that they could drag down and
rend apart.
There were no weak stragglers in the Narodniki.
Toward evening the ground shook with one of the worst quakes since they’d
crossed into Alaska. Rocks on a slope of ice-bound boulders ahead of them broke
free and cascaded down noisily, nearly blocking the trail. The horses were
frightened, and several riders, including the massive Bizabraznia, were
unseated. Angered by the mocking laughter, she grabbed her animal’s bridle and