“Well, you never can tell,” Schurz shouted back. The Humvee kicked up its share of dust and then some. He pulled a surgical-style mask out of his shirt pocket and put it on with one hand. The Smokey Bear hat went into his lap for a second, no more. He extracted another mask and offered it to Kelly. “Your own air filter.”
“Thanks.” She put it on. When she turned around to look at the machine gunner-Edwards-she discovered he’d also donned one. The less volcanic crap you put in your lungs, the better. A lot could kill you pretty fast. Even a little wasn’t good news. Twenty, thirty, fifty years from now, she expected mesothelioma cases to shoot through the roof. Not much of what the supervolcano belched into the air was asbestos fibers, but when you were talking about several hundred cubic miles of material there’d be plenty to go around.
A Missoula policeman with a shotgun stood guard at the edge of town. He was also wearing a mask. He waved to the Humvee as it got on US 12 heading south-Orofino evidently wasn’t on the Interstate. Chief Schurz gravely waved back.
“Well, you never can tell,” Schurz repeated. With the mask and shades, his face was almost completely unreadable. But the way he fidgeted in the hard, uncomfortable bucket seat told Kelly he realized he needed to say more: “People are starting to run low on all kinds of stuff. They’re putting armed escorts on food and fuel convoys. We haven’t had a lot of trouble yet, and nobody wants it to start, y’know?”
“I guess,” Kelly said. How many folks couldn’t get to a Safeway or a Mobil station so easily these days? How many couldn’t get their hands on ground chuck or gasoline even when they did? How many of those folks had guns? In this part of the country, quite a few. And what would they do when they got hungry or otherwise desperate? If you had to take what you needed or starve, who wouldn’t think about turning robber?
“I’ve got some jerrycans of gas in the vehicle here,” Chief Schurz went on, as if she hadn’t spoken. “That’s one of the reasons I brought Edwards along. Nothing like a soldier on a. 50-caliber to keep people honest.”
“God, you sound like Colin!” Kelly blurted, all at once missing him more than ever now that she was actually heading toward him, not stuck in Missoula.
The Orofino (would that be Fine Gold in Spanish?) police chief chuckled. “Wouldn’t be surprised if we rubbed off on each other some. You ride in the same patrol car a few years, that’ll happen. Almost like being married, only without benefits.”
Not knowing what to say to that, Kelly didn’t say anything. They climbed toward the hills, which were covered with a light coating of ash, a little too dark and a little too brown to look like dirty snow. Most of the clouds in the sky were just clouds. It was a gloomy, chilly, lowering day. Her heart soared like a skylark anyhow. She was out, out, out of Missoula!
Hardly anybody shared the road with the Humvee. She didn’t know how many people used US 12 on an average day, but this had to be way down from that. Just across the Idaho line, Schurz pulled onto the shoulder. Some grass showed through the ash here; they were right at the western edge of the throw line.
“Is the, uh, Humvee okay?” Kelly asked.
“As okay as it ever is,” he replied. “Gotta throw in some fuel. It can do more than a jeep can, but Christ, it’s a gas hog.” He and the silent Edwards emptied two camo-painted jerrycans into the vehicle. Then he got behind the wheel again, fired up the machine, and drove on towards Orofino.
XIII
Things in Kansas were better than they had been in Colorado. Vanessa was convinced of it, even though she breathed through three masks worn one on top of the next and kept swimming-pool goggles on even when she slept. Her eyes itched all the time anyhow; she hadn’t got the goggles soon enough. She couldn’t take them off to rub or use Visine or anything. The air was still too full of fine dust.
Pickles was even less happy than she was. He couldn’t wear a mask or goggles, poor thing. She didn’t know what to do about him. She couldn’t keep him in the carrier all the time, but she couldn’t let him out, either. She still had nasty scratches from when she’d extracted him from under the Toyota’s front seat. She had to get someplace where he’d be able to move around more-and where she would, too. width="1em"›She carried a snub-nosed. 38 revolver in her purse. Her father had taught her how to handle firearms when she was twelve. She’d never used what she’d learned; she always worried more about a moment of rage or stupidity or black depression than about blowing away a burglar. But the times, they were a-changin’.
She’d got the gun in Pueblo. Another hundred miles and a little bit away from the supervolcano, it hadn’t been hit as hard as Denver. She stopped for gas and a fresh air filter. She paid ten bucks a gallon plus another fifty for the filter, and she didn’t say boo. She could count the cost later. Now was a time for doing what she had to do.
The guy who took her money was already wearing goggles. “Where did you get those?” she demanded enviously.
He pointed across the street. “Walgreens is still open.” She could barely see the sign through swirls of dust, but she stopped there as soon as he finished with her car. He used a mask, too, and had probably also got his hands on it at the drugstore.
Volcanic ash came in every time the automatic door opened, and would keep coming in as long as it kept working. Still, like the air inside her car, the air inside the Walgreens improved on the general run of things. There was a display of goggles with bright plastic straps.
Only three boxes of masks were left. “One box to a customer, ma’am,” the clerk said when Vanessa tried to buy them all. “We want to spread ’em around as much as we can.”
She could see the logic in that, even if she didn’t like it. Unlike the man at the gas station, the Walgreens clerk didn’t gouge her for what she bought. “How long will you stay here?” she asked him as she put on the goggles.
“I don’t know. A while longer. I’ll see if it looks like it’s getting worse or better,” he answered.
“It won’t get better.” Vanessa spoke with great conviction.
“Well, you may be right,” he replied, which had to mean I ain’t paying any attention to you, lady.
She put on one of the masks before she went outside again, too. Either it made a difference or her imagination was working overtime. That was when she noticed the gun shop between the Walgreens and a tropical-fish store. The fish place was dark, but a light burned in the gun shop. Out in the middle of-this-having a real weapon looked like a terrific idea. She went inside.
The man behind the counter looked like a shop teacher. He was leafing through-surprise! — a hunting magazine, but he put it down. “What can I do for you?” he said.
“I made it down from Denver,” Vanessa answered. “I want to keep going. In case my car doesn’t, I may need to take some chances. A pistol could come in handy.”
He nodded. “If you know how to use one.”
“My dad’s a cop in California.”
“Then you probably do,” he allowed. “You’ll have to fill out about five pounds of forms.”
“As long as there’s no waiting period,” Vanessa said. “I’m not going to wait.”
“Not in this state,” he assured her. “I do have to perform a background check, though. Right now, the phones are out, and so is the Net.” He rubbed his chin. “Turn around, please.”
“Huh?” Mystified, Vanessa did.
“I liked your foreground,” the man explained. “Your background will definitely do, too. I’ll sell to you, and we’ll sort everything else out later-if there is a later.”
“Thank you,” Vanessa said, more sincerely than she was in the habit of doing. She handed him her Visa card. “Here.”
He took it, but he didn’t do anything with it for a few seconds. Was he going to ask her for a blowjob, too, or something? If he did, she’d… She didn’t quite know what she’d do. In normal times, she would have told him to go fuck himself. In normal times, though, she wouldn’t have been standing here in a Pueblo, Colorado, gun shop. She needed a piece. If he decided he needed one, too…