“Every fault line on the continent might be letting go,” Newcombe said. “That’s my guess. Anyone see another †ash?”
They shook their heads.
“You guys all lived here,” Newcombe said. “Are we near any faults?”
“It’s California,” Mike said. “Yes.”
“The ‚rst quake was the bomb. Maybe the second one, too. I don’t know. Christ. Let’s hope it’s done.”
“Behind you,” Cam said.
In the east, morning had become night again. Ruth believed the vast distortion in the atmosphere was slowing down, but now a poisonous black stain crawled up from the farthest edge of the horizon, undulating after the shock wave. It rippled and popped, a thin, growing band of darkness.
It was fallout — pulverized debris that had brie†y turned hotter than the sun.
* * * *
Everyone drank, even Samantha, as they shouldered their packs and tucked away their knives and a few precious keepsakes. Hiroki had a shiny old quarter that he showed to Mike, then pressed into his hand as a gift. Brandon repeated the sudden gesture with his Giants hat, offering it to Alex.
Before they divided, the Scouts clutched at each other and shouted and cried. D Mac spontaneously turned to Cam and hugged him, too, and suddenly the children enveloped Ruth as well. Mike hurt her arm. Alex kissed her cheek.
It was the perfect farewell against the roiling sky. Ruth would not forget them or their courage, and she hoped that she would see them again. But as she started downhill after Cam, running east, Ruth clenched her ‚sts and wondered how far west the fallout might come toward them against the wind.
15
“Wait.” Cam moved quickly to his right, leading Ruth sideways over a log. The ropy brown snakes he’d seen probably weren’t rattlers. Gopher snakes looked very similar and had been more common before the plague, but he couldn’t chance it. Even nonvenomous bites would inject them with the plague and leave wounds that were vulnerable to more — and fresh blood might excite the bugs.
He helped her get her boots down. Then he kept his glove on her hip, looking for her eyes. Ruth was breathing hard inside her mask, but she kept her face down and all he saw was goggles and hood. His own gear seemed especially ‚lthy after the night on the mountain, feeling the cold on his naked skin.
Newcombe climbed over the log behind them. Cam turned away and hurried in front again, moving east, always east, using himself to sound their trail through the forest. He was totally recommitted to her now. Any thoughts of sending Ruth away on a plane had been a fantasy. The idea that he could stay here with the Scouts, slowly beginning to rebuild, ignored the need and desperation of the rest of the world. He should have known better. Of course Leadville’s enemies would attack. They’d only waited for the opportunity.
His guess was that it was the rebels. They’d taken out Leadville to end the competition to get Ruth. That was a good thing if they’d succeeded. He had to act as if they hadn’t. If help came, great. If not, leading her safely through this valley to the next mountaintop was all that was important. In twenty minutes they’d avoided a cloud of grasshoppers, more snakes, and two furious sprouts of ants bearing white eggs out of the ground. Black †ies continued to lose and ‚nd them among the pine trees. Cam hoped the Scouts hadn’t turned back. The quakes alone were bad enough and had yet to quit shuddering through the valley, agitating the reptiles and insects everywhere.
Newcombe was right. The bomb had acted like a hammer, triggering the worst fault lines. As those landmasses fell and clashed, they must have shoved against other regions and set off any weaknesses there. Once the chain reaction was done, California might be unusually stable for years, but for now the mountains rumbled and twitched. Cam was glad they’d escaped the lowlands. More of the failing dams and levees would collapse, adding to the destruction, and there must have been tidal waves along the coast and inside the Bay.
“Stay with me,” he said.
Ahead, another huge tree had fallen. Cam angled laterally across the slope instead of risking a way through. There were snake holes in the earth and that made him nervous. He kicked his boot into the pine needles and dirt, showering the fallen branches with debris to scare anything curled up out of sight.
But the movement he expected was overhead. The trees stiffened. Daylight winked.
It was as if God had touched the sky. A new current shushed through the forest from the east, countering the breeze, and in that moment Cam felt himself lose hope. Everything he’d accomplished before today had been set against the vast, lethal reaches of the plague, a few small men and women surrounded by empty miles or dead cities, but he had always had a chance to in†uence his fate.
I think I just saw another bomb, he tried to say, before Newcombe grabbed at them both and dragged Ruth to the ground. “Down!” Newcombe yelled.
Then another invisible front shoved through the trees, far more violent than the ‚rst warm puff of air. The forest moaned, lashed with dust and bugs and †ecks of wood and leaves. Cam rolled down and covered his face with his arms, choking despite his mask.
Just as swiftly the wind was gone. He stayed on the ground until his own paralysis scared him. He’d seen too many people give up, and that wasn’t how he wanted to die. He moved. He moved even though there didn’t seem to be much point, wincing at the abrasive grit in his eyes. He was caked in grime that he assumed was radioactive. The sun itself had dimmed, obscured by the sandstorm. Ruth and Newcombe hadn’t fared any better, although there were clean patches on her side where Newcombe had covered her body with his own. Otherwise they were brown like Cam with ‚lth in every crease in their jackets and hoods. It also stuck to the trees, discoloring the bark.
How long did they have left? Cam supposed it depended on how near the bomb had been. It might be days before the poison reduced them to bleeding invalids, but his next thought was the radio. He wondered if they could wire the extra batteries and rig it to broadcast for hours and hours after they were dead. Maybe there would be a survey plane. Maybe an evacuation out of Leadville’s forward base would †y close enough to hear. Somebody might ‚nd them, bad guys or good, and he’d rather have anyone secure the vaccine than let it be lost forever in this narrow mountain valley.
Cam took off his goggles and clapped them against his leg, straining through the dust. “You okay?” he croaked, kneeling at Ruth’s side. She nodded distantly.
Her goggles had failed, too, and were coated with grit on the inside. Cam eased the strap off the back of her hood. Then he pulled off his gloves and used his ugly, clean hands to brush at her cheek. He savored the small intimacy. Ruth was obviously stunned, but he could see that his attention helped her focus again. Her brown eyes went to his face. She might have tried to smile.
She glanced at Newcombe. “What happened?”
“Blast wave,” Newcombe said, wheezing. He slapped at his hood. “Christ. I didn’t think it would come this far.”
“You mean from the bomb in Colorado? I—”
“What kind of radiation did we just get?” Cam asked with sudden urgency. Newcombe was too calm. The soldier didn’t think they’d been hit again, and his demeanor set off the torrent of emotion that Cam had suppressed. He brought his hands back against his own body to hide his shaking. He was only beginning to dare to think he wouldn’t have to shoot her and then himself before the vomiting and pain got too bad.
There wasn’t a second bomb, he thought. There wasn’t.
“This isn’t fallout from another strike,” Newcombe said, showing them one brown glove. “It was just hot air, mostly. From the ‚rst bomb. It took this long to get here. The radiation might be about the same dose we’ve been getting in ultraviolet every day. Not enough to kill us, if that’s what you mean. Not at this distance.” He looked at his watch. “Fifty-eight minutes. Christ. That nuke must have been gigantic.”