Chapter Three

 

 

 

The paper was handmade, with a crinkled, deckle edge. Written with a dark blue ink, the lettering was hasty and smudged.

 

 

 

Ryan, lover, if you read this then you're alive and made it back. With Dean, I hope. Had some times of "seeing," but it was so dark, cold and wet I feared for you.

 

 

Dean was reading over his father's shoulder, puzzling at some of the less legible parts but sticking with it.

 

"She's a real doomie, isn't she?"

 

"No. Doomies are double rare. They see the future. Krysty can't generally do that. She just has these 'feelings' that give clues. But she's right about cold, wet and dark."

 

The letter continued.

 

 

First things first. In Gaia's name, lover, don't drink the water. Not a drop. Even if your life depends on it. You'll have seen the meat in the smokehouse. Never mind what the water looks like, it's deadly poisoned. Wish had time to tell all, but we have to leave this place of blood. Job to do first. If time, will leave further note.

 

 

"Where've they gone?" Dean said, falling behind as Ryan turned over the piece of paper to read the other side.

 

"Hasn't said yet."

 

 

 

Remember, don't drink or eat anything until you're away beyond the gorge to the north. We've gone there. Follow us soonest, lover.

 

Krysty

 

 

"North?" the boy repeated, hand resting on the butt of his blaster.

 

"What she says."

 

Dean reached and swung the bucket in toward himself, balancing it on the rough stone rim of the old well. He stared at its limpid contents, shaking his head, blue eyes turning questioningly toward his father.

 

"Looks okay, Dad."

 

"Krysty couldn't have put it more strongly. You know her and you know she won't"

 

"But we could mebbe try it and"

 

"For fuck's sake, Dean, cut it out!" He couldn't hide the anger and the tiredness.

 

To relieve the moment of tension, he pushed at the bucket, sending it falling to the well. The windlass spun fast as the rope uncoiled again, and there was the hollow splash as the bucket struck the surface of the water.

 

The boy took three clumsy steps backward, nearly tripping over a length of burned wood. "I only thought we"

 

Ryan shook his head. "No, no, son. You didn't think. That's the whole point."

 

"Sorry."

 

"Never apologize, Dean. It's a sign of weakness."

 

"We've got to have some water."

 

"Sure. Krysty says the gorge north. That's about six miles. Five, mebbee."

 

The boy sighed. "It's so hot."

 

Ryan looked around. There was a small patch of shade behind the last remaining chunk of the barn wall. Overhead, the sun was blazingly high, turning the gray sand to an oven.

 

"Rest up until dusk, then go for the gorge. Could catch up with the others by this time tomorrow."

 

"Truth?"

 

"Sure."

 

 

 

THE SUN WAS STILL well up over the western hills, but its cruel heat had diminished. Beyond a bank of high cloud they could see the vivid beginnings of a spectacular chem storm. Great streaks of pink and purple lightning were stripping layers off the sky, exploding into star bursts of nameless colors from beyond deep space.

 

"She say another note?"

 

"If she could."

 

"What do you figure happened, Dad?"

 

"Something bad enough for the bodies to be removed. Yet it looks like Krysty and the others had a few minutes to prepare departure."

 

"Who was it came in on the wags?"

 

"Questions, Dean. Too many fireblasted questions. Give it a few hours and we might start finding out some of the answers."

 

The terrain was rough, and twice they stopped when they heard the lonesome howling of a pack of coyotes. The animal still retained some of its old skulking, cowardly habits from before sky dark, but Ryan had known them to run in hunting packs like timber wolves. They were huge mutie creatures with jaws that could go clean through a man's thighbone.

 

But the sound was a long way off and faded into the evening stillness.

 

"Clouds coming," Dean observed as a patch of darkness spread like spilled blood over the eastern horizon.

 

Ryan looked around in the fading light. "No cover. Just have to take it."

 

It was a short and brutally savage downpour. Rods of water fell vertically from the lowering sky, stinging Ryan and Dean through their coats. It bounced off the rocks, soaking into the dusty earth. Within minutes the land had absorbed all it could and the rain began to run off, first in thin, hesitant trickles, then gathering momentum and becoming full-blown streams.

 

Ryan had taken care not to get them caught in a steep-sided canyon where a flash flood could have devastating and murderous consequences. They were wringing wet in seconds, but that was the worst that was going to happen to them.

 

The storm lasted less than twenty minutes, but it left the desert sodden, foaming torrents coursing down every inclinewashing away any signs of tracks that Krysty and the others might have left.

 

The one bonus was that the downpour had given father and son a chance to quench a little of their thirst. Standing bareheaded, faces up, eyes closed, mouths open, they managed to swallow the liberal bounty, sometimes coughing as it splashed into nostrils.

 

Dean stood there, water still trickling from his pants and his lank hair, grinning at Ryan, his teeth white in the gloom.

 

"Feel better," he said.

 

Ryan nodded. "Yeah."

 

 

 

THEY REACHED THE RIVER that surged through the gorge a couple of hours before midnight. With the passing of the rain the wind had fallen, leaving the night humid and oppressive, the sky heavy and overcast. "What's that smell?" Dean asked.

 

Ryan had also noticed it, seeping from somewhere among the maze of jagged boulders in the ravine.

 

"What do you think?"

 

"I think it smells like death."

 

The one-eyed man couldn't agree more. With darkness settling in and the gorge a hiding place for all manner of animal and reptile life, Ryan decided that it was far too dangerous to risk any sort of exploration.

 

They found a high place where they could sleep, beneath a massive overhang of sandstone lined with the frail silver lace of quartz. One end was blocked with a fall of rock, so that they could be approached up a steep and narrow path from only one direction. The track was covered with tiny pebbles that rattled at even the most careful footstep.

 

It was as safe as you could get.

 

"Want to take watch and watch around?" Dean asked in the tone of voice that failed to hide the fact that he hoped his father would say no.

 

"No."

 

"Sure?"

 

"Get some shut-eye and I'll sit up awhile. If I feel any danger I'll wake you later."

 

"Thanks. Good night, Dad."

 

"Good night, Dean."

 

Ryan lay down but didn't sleep for some time, turning over in his mind all of the disparate clues they'd found at the ruined farm. The spent bullets and the use of gasoline; Krysty's explicit warning about the water being contaminated; the total destruction of the buildings and the vanished livestock; the wags of the strangers being burned to ashes.

 

Though he tried hard, Ryan couldn't construct a scenario that would accommodate all of these facts. It was a puzzle shrouded in a mystery.

 

Eventually he dozed off into a deep and dreamless sleep.

 

 

 

WHEN THEY WOKE together at dawn the smell was worsethe unmistakable stench of decay and corruption. It was all too easy to track down the pile of rotting corpses. But it simply made the enigma more bewildering.