Hopping about with excitement, Angus was handing Jonnie bits of clothing to rush him on. He pushed Jonnie out the door and they walked toward the spring at the village edge.
Angus stopped him. He triggered the remote.
WHAM!
There was a flash and thud of breathe-gas exploding.
The parson, awakened by the commotion, joined them. Angus did it again for his benefit.
A sudden chill came over Jonnie, and not from the morning cold. That flash was right alongside the path where the villagers went two and three times a day for water. And more. As a little boy he had been a mutineer on a subject of what work he would do. He was a man, he had said-illogically since he had begun this soon after he could walk– and he would hunt, but he would not sweep floors or bring water. And he never had fetched water from that spring. He had even watered his horses at another spring way up the slope. The chill came from his certainty that he himself was not immune to radiation. He had simply never gone to that spring. By a fluke he had escaped contamination. All because hide buckets slopped on him.
But the villagers, particularly the children and women and older people who did draw water, were daily being hit with radiation. He felt a deeper chill for his people.
Angus wanted to dash up and dig under the snow. Jonnie, aided by the parson, held him back.
“We've no protective shields,” said Jonnie. “We need lead, lead glass, something. But let's mark this out so it becomes a prohibited zone, and then let's look further.”
They found by cautious sallies that the radiation from that spot extended, with enough force to explode breathe-gas, about thirty feet in all directions. Angus apparently had hit it dead center. They marked the ring with ashes taken from an abandoned cabin hearth, and with an axe Jonnie collected some stakes and drove them in to form a circle. Jonnie took some plaited rope and wound it around the stakes.
Jimson, along with some others attracted by the explosions, wanted to know what they were doing. Jonnie left it to the parson. As he worked he heard fragments of the parson's explanation. Something about spirits. But whatever it was Jimson shortly began to route people around the spot in a businesslike way. Jonnie was sure it would become taboo to walk within that circle. It was only a few steps further to avoid it altogether.
Dawn was there. They had to work fast to be out of there before midday, and there might be other spots. The recon drone passed near here and lately was overflying around noon. He wanted no pictures of this operation on Terl's screens. A circle of rope was nothing; it would look like a stock corral. Tracks were nothing. People and horses and dogs wandered around. But the plane up the canyon and three differently garbed people were something else.
While they chewed some breakfast Aunt Ellen brought them, Jonnie looked out across the expansive meadow. What a lot of ground to cover!
He made up his mind. It was a risk, but very brief exposures, according to toxicology texts, could be tolerated.
He got an air mask and bottles out of the gear Angus had brought. He filled his pockets with breathe-gas flasks. He got a bucket of ashes. He got on one of their horses.
“I am going to crisscross this meadow at a dead run,” he told Angus and the parson. “Back and forth and back and forth on paths thirty feet apart. I’ll be holding a breathe-gas vial in my hand, turned slightly on. Every time it flashes, I’ll throw down a handful of ashes and then hold up my arm. Now, parson, I want you to stand on that knoll and make a sketch of this valley, and you, Angus, tell him each time I hold up my hand. Got it?”
They got it. The parson went up to the knoll with a pad and pen and Angus following him.
The three young men who had voted to move wanted to know whether they could help. Jonnie told them yes, they could have fresh horses ready.
Jonnie looked around. All was ready. The red-gold sun made the snow glisten. He made sure his air mask was tight, opened the breathe-gas vial, and put a heel to the horse.
Only a minute later the vial in his hand flashed. He threw down ashes, raised his arm, and sped on at a dead run. Angus's yell floated to him on the still air. The parson was marking it on his sketch.
Back and forth, back and forth across the meadow. A flash, a handful of ashes, a raised hand, the echo of Angus's yell and the thud of the flying hoofs.
He took a new horse, opened a new bottle, and was off again.
Villagers gazed dully on the scene. Jonnie Goodboy had often done strange things. Yes, he was quite a horseman. Everybody knew that. It was a bit of a mystery why he kept lighting a torch every now and then. But old Jimson had some explanation from the clergyman who had come with Jonnie-a real clergyman from some village named Scotland. They hadn't known there was any nearby village. Oh, yes, there had been. It was a long time ago. It was a couple of ridges over. Well, in all this snow one didn't get a chance to get about much. But Jonnie Goodboy sure could ride couldn't he? Look at the snow fly!
Two hours, four lathered horses, sixteen vials of breathe-gas, and a tired Jonnie later, they got ready to take their leave. They were a bit pressed for time, too pressed to evaluate the map.
They had decided to leave the horses as a gift and would have to walk to the plane.
The parson was explaining to Jimson that people must stay well away from those ash marks, and Jimson respectfully said he would see to it even if Brown Limper was skeptical.
Aunt Ellen was looking frightened. “You're leaving again, Jonnie." She was trying to work out how to tell him that he was the only family she had.
“Would you like to come with me?” said Jonnie.
Well no. This was their home, Jonnie. He should come back. Going to wild places was in his blood, she guessed.
He promised to try to come back and then gave her some gifts he had saved until last: a great big stainless steel kettle and three knives and a fur robe with sleeves in it!
She pretended to like that very much, but she was crying when he turned back at the edge of the upper path and waved. She had a horrible feeling she would never see him again.
Chapter 6
It was an intense hum of intent men in the room of the old mining town near the lode. Several groups were hard at work.
It had amused the Scots very much to take over the offices of the “Empire Dauntless Mining Corporation.” The building had been almost intact and when cleaned up made an acceptable operations room.
Jonnie half-suspected that somebody had rebuilt the town after the lead lode mine had played out. It was too unlike other towns. He tried to figure out why anyone would reconstruct a town after its ore was gone, but evidence certainly showed someone had. Next door was a place called the “Bucket of Blood Saloon” that the parson had gravely put “off limits.” It still had its glasses and mirrors intact, and paintings of nearly nude dancing girls and cupids could dimly be made out. Across the street was an office labeled “Wells Fargo” and another one labeled “Jail.”
They all lived in the “London Palace Elite Hotel,” which had labeled suites named after men who must have been famous in mining. Three of the old widows queened it over a coal-burning galley Angus had explained to them. It had running water– luxury!