Summer Of The Apocalypse Part 12

"What are you looking for?" he asked.

"Keys." She straightened and smiled, her face smudged and tired (but clear-skinned, he noticed). "We don't need to walk to Littleton."

Eric hooked his thumbs into his backpack straps and pulled them together in front of his chest. Despite the mid-day heat, he shivered. "I saw a cop shoot two looters yesterday. They were robbing bodies."

"Really?" She banged the door shut; the echo came back off a distant surface. "The National Guard took over police duties a couple of weeks ago, and my guess is most of the Guard are dead or home with their families. You sure he was legit?"

Eric thought of the ghost cop methodically pulling zippers closed on body bags, the liquid speed he'd demonstrated gunning down Beetle-Eyes and his girlfriend. "I don't know." He imagined the cop sitting on the edge of the Golden High School Knight's football field that was now a ma.s.s grave, his wife and daughter somewhere under the torn-up sod. "He believed he was. I haven't seen a car yet today. We'd attract attention."

"All right, we walk." She started down the road again, sniffed, then waved her hand in the direction they were headed. "Kind of creepy, don't you think? Like dry fog."

A reddish nimbus circled the sun above. He felt adrenalized by the brush with the copter, as if it had awakened him from a deep sleep. "Maybe. It's more somber than anything." He caught up to her and matched her pace. Her hands swung easily to her stride.

She turned and walked down an off-ramp to Wadsworth Boulevard. "Look, a Wal-Mart. We can get some stuff."

Resting on four cinder blocks, a rusty Pinto sat on the street side of the otherwise empty parking lot. Didn't she hear what I said about looting? he thought as they pa.s.sed the abandoned vehicle. The broad reach of blacktop made him feel like a bug on a slide, like G.o.d was looking down on him so in the open. He walked backwards for a few steps, scanning the street for traffic, but there was] nothing. No trucks. No cars. No copter. He c.o.c.ked his head and listened. Not even a bird. His left shoe squeaked. Her footsteps padded on the asphalt; her jeans swished lightly.

As if catching his thoughts, she said, "I'll leave money. We can find food. Clothes." She plucked at her shirttail. "Not much left of this one," she said, then rubbed the side of her index finger across her teeth. "I have to brush too."

Crunching over broken gla.s.s, Eric stepped through the shattered front door. Produce littered the floor, as if there had been a riot. He kicked aside an Oreo box, skittering black cookies across the tile. A whiff of old popcorn, the scent of b.u.t.ter soft as plush, lingered. Leda called into the dark store, smiled back, the flash of white startling in the gloom, and said, "Come on. They're having a sale." Last summer, he'd gone with Dad to a Wal-Mart to buy a lawn-mower. For hours, it seemed, Dad agonized over the merits of Briggs and Stratton versus Jacobson. Finally, Eric said, "They cut gra.s.s just the same," and Dad met his eyes in answer, leaving Eric speechless as always. After a frightening second, where something mute and dark bubbled between them, Eric dropped his gaze to the mower. "Gra.s.s is gra.s.s," he mumbled. Then he wandered over to the music department, and spent the rest of their time in the store deciding between a cla.s.sical music collection or the latest group he liked. Leda stepped through a mess of Saltines boxes and other crushed cookies and chips packages, heading to the back of the store. He grabbed a plastic bag of Zingers and tore it open as he followed her. It had that flavorless, pure sugar taste he liked. The farther they moved from the windows, the darker it became, and the cavernous echoes of their footsteps made him jump. "Flashlights?" he said, and she cut down an aisle toward hardware.

"Good thinking."

Another turn later, he could barely make out her silhouette. She tripped. "Can't see a thing."

"Here, let me," he said and helped her up. Her arm felt warm and firm, and she came up so easily he realized he must outweigh her by thirty or forty pounds. "I've been living in a cave. This is almost home." But it isn't, he thought. He slid his feet cautiously, holding her hand, waving his other hand in front of him. The cave was never home, not like Littleton. He thought of his own room, the posters thumb-tacked to the wall, speakers perched on their pedestals. How he used to lay in bed with his hands locked behind his head, staring at the ceiling, letting the steady thrum of rock-and-roll wash over him hour after hour. Some days he'd pretend to be sick so he'd miss school, and while his parents were at work, he'd crank the sound up, shut his eyes and feel the vibration of the ba.s.s in his lungs. As his eyes adjusted, he realized that the dark was far from complete. A gray wash of light illuminated the high, suspended florescents, and the corners of the displays were just visible. Many of the shelves were empty, or their goods were knocked about. Something frantic had happened here.

"Where are we?" she whispered, her raspy voice loud in the silence.

"Households." He let go of her hand and picked a box off the floor. He shook it. "You want a blender?" he asked.

She snickered.

"I'll bet I can get you a good one. Ten speeds."

"Will it slice and dice?"

He put the box down. "Sure," he said, and reached back for her. She took his hand again, and her fingers felt good against his, not like holding his mom's hand, where he wanted to hold her. More like he wanted her to hold him.

"I'm seeing a little better now," she said, and Eric let go reluctantly, suddenly embarra.s.sed. "Thanks," she added.

He still moved carefully. Goods lying on the floor were indistinguishable from shadows, and both looked more like holes he was about to step into rather than things to step over.

"Think we can go back to sporting equipment?" he asked. Hammers hung to his right next to saws. On the next aisle, camping gear blocked his path. He rummaged through the pile, searching by feel for a small pack for Leda. Finally he found one that might work, though he couldn't tell if he'd grabbed a day-pack or a duffel bag. Padded straps gave him hope it was what he wanted.

"No guns in any of the stores, if that's what you're thinking. The guard and police cleared 'em out weeks ago. First thing people went for when they got scared."

Eric shook his head, then realized she couldn't see him. "Shot for the slingshot," he said. "If they've got it, and a slingshot too for you. I don't like guns."

"Here's what we want," she said triumphantly. He heard a click. "I'm glad they sell these with batteries in them now."

Squeezing his eyes shut, Eric turned away. "Great, I'm blind." "Sorry. Here's another." She handed him a flashlight. "I'm going over to clothes. Do you need anything?"

"No. Take this," he said and handed her the pack. He shone his light on her, and she blinked at the brightness. Curls of her dark hair fell across her face, and her eyes glittered behind them.

"Um," she said, and she shifted her weight from foot to foot. "Maybe it'd be a good idea if you looked for something new to wear too."

"What? Why?"

"Well, I mean, something fresh." She blushed. Eric stared at I her. He'd never seen anyone blush so brightly. Even beneath the grime of a half-day's walk and everything that happened before, in the sharp cone of flashlight her skin glowed all the way to her hairline.

He sniffed. "Oh, jeeze. Do you think they have a shower? An employees locker room?" Shielding her eyes, she said, "Not that I ought to be talking. If the water's still running . . ." She hooked her thumb toward the back of the store. ". . . It'd be there."

Through a pair of swinging doors, Eric entered the employee area. By flashlight he read notices on the bulletin board. One in bright orange said, "STAY FREE FROM DISEASE: WASH YOUR, HANDS." And another read, "BE A PART OF THE WAL-MART: CULTURE: WE'RE FAMILY." Styrofoam cups, dried coffee in their bottoms, littered a round table in the center of the room. He ran his hand across a plastic-backed chair's top. Another swinging door led to a small lock area and a shower. Since the door didn't have a latch, and feeling slightly absurd, Eric propped his pack against it. He showered in the cold water by the light of his flash he'd placed on the floor. While the water pounded down, and he lifted his face in the cold stream, he marveled at himself: how mundane everything seemed. Even now, the world as dead as dead could be, his father gone (maybe needing rescue!), he could still take a shower, raise his hands above his head and stretch. Palms on the wall, head down now, the water ran off his back. He could almost feel layers of dirt peeling away, and it was normal. He remembered a friend of his telling him once, after going to his grandmother's funeral, how everything seemed so weird. He'd said something like, "They're putting her in the ground, and my mom's crying and stuff, and all I could think about was how nice it was they covered the grave dirt with artificial gra.s.s. My grandma's dead, and I don't feel a thing. I just looked at that astroturf like nothing special is going on. You know what I mean?" Eric hadn't then, but now it made more sense. When he finished, he turned the water off. Shivering so hard his teeth ached, he rubbed vigorously with a towel he'd plucked off a pile in a canvas hamper. "Shoot," he said explosively. "Nothing to wear." His kicked his dirty clothes aside and rummaged through the lockers. In one he found a clean pair of overalls. A draft caught him, and he shivered hard again, but this time it wasn't cold. The room suddenly felt spooky. He rubbed his hands down his legs, and he wondered about who the clothes belonged to. Who'd worn these before? Would he mind? He picked up the light and shined it around the room: lockers, shower, changing bench, towels, and door. Something wasn't right. Something was different. Backing to the wall he looked again. What had changed? Then he saw it: his pack. It had fallen over and was a foot from the door. Slowly he approached it. Shadows bent and moved with the light. Falling over, I believe, he thought, but then it slid a foot? No way.

Then he thought, did I actually leave it against the door? I might have thought about putting it there, then didn't. That's more likely.

But why was he so sure there wasn't someone else in the store? It was a big place. A natural safe haven. Plenty of food, albeit mostly candies and cookies, and there was that normality he'd thought about in the shower. The world might be falling apart, and all of your friends could be dead, but at the Wal-Mart you could still find queen-sized comforters and camcorders and bicycle tires and Sam's Cola. Sure, a person might come here to save his sanity, he thought. He could sleep on a brand new mattress every night. He picked up the pack, then cautiously pushed the door open, the flashlight gripped like a club. Grit scrunched under his bare feet; the floor needed sweeping. Nothing. The employee lounge looked the same. Past the double doors, he saw Leda's light. Moving quietly, light peering around every corner, he found her in the clothes section. She'd draped a blouse over her arm, and was stuffing a pair of jeans into the backpack.

"Doesn't hurt to have a spare," she said, then pointed her light at him. "Nice overalls, but do you think something that long will be good to hike in?"

"There might be somebody else in the store," he said. "Did you hear anything?" She shrugged. "Was there a noise?"

He didn't want to tell her about the pack now. It seemed childish. The feeling he'd done it himself came back even stronger. I'll bet I moved it without thinking. "No. I guess not."

"Then don't worry. It's a big place. Bound to make someone nervous. I didn't want to say anything, but there's no way anyone is in here. They'd be crazy to go into a store." Eric's jaw dropped. "What?"

She smiled, "They shoot looters. Didn't you know that? Now, be a pal and find me some toothpaste and a toothbrush. I'll go shower."

While he wandered through each department, his light showed the odd interests of the last "shoppers." All the electronics were gone, even the display models that had been anch.o.r.ed to their shelves by stout plastic-coated wire. The neatly snipped pieces showed someone with foresight enough to bring wire clippers had been there. In sporting goods, as Leda had predicted, there were no guns. He doubted anyone had waited five days for a government check-up on their fitness to be gun owners before walking out of the store with these weapons. Anything else that might shoot was gone also. No bows, or slingshots. No shot either. A pair of gla.s.s cases, their lids shattered, were all that remained of the knife displays. He sighed. A heavy duty knife might have been good to carry.

He pirouetted. Was someone behind him? In the aisle he'd just come down, fishing poles criss-crossed the path like long toothpicks. No one could walk through them without making noise unless he had a light to direct his steps. Broken display case gla.s.s on the tile all around made it seem unlikely that he could be approached soundlessly. He thought, I'm just getting the creeps.

Toothpaste looked like an item no one had been interested in. He grabbed a couple of different brands and a pair of toothbrushes. As far as he could tell, not one roll of toilet paper remained, and almost all the drugs were gone. In a corner, behind a bag of cotton swabs, he found a box of aspirin. It was the only pain killer left. All the cold remedies were missing. He grinned sadly. How pathetic that people would try to treat the symptoms of the virus that killed the world with Nyquil or Sudafed. Antiseptics were gone; so were bandages and tape. He wrinkled his nose; a strong smell of bad meat told him what to expect behind the prescription drug counter where he found the long dead pharmacist, still in her blue smock, on her back, a messy wound on her neck. Not a single bottle graced the shelves. Eric took another route back to the employee area. The garden area seemed untouched. Droopy-leafed plants hung forlornly above bags of fertilizer. Neat displays of garden hoses cast odd shadows. Some boxes blocked the path in the toy section, but generally most of the goods still crowded the shelves. He looked at a red fire truck whose ad said "REAL EMERGENCY SOUNDS. TRY ME," and an arrow pointed to a row of b.u.t.tons below the cab. He pressed one. The red lights on top flashed and a tiny voice announced, "We have a hot one boys! Start her up."

Back in the employee area, he heard the shower water. He sat in one of the chairs and turned off his light. Leda hummed a song. He couldn't identify the melody. Water sounds came to him unevenly, the sounds made when someone is moving under a shower. She's nice, he thought. Not half bad for an adult. Dad probably would like her. She's independent. He imagined her in the shower, water cascading, cleaning her arms, bending over to get behind her knees, hair hanging nearly to the floor, and he found himself standing at the door into the locker room, listening. He didn't consciously remember making a decision to stand up. Pressing his ear gently to the door frame, he heard water hitting skin. She still hummed. It's cold, he thought. She won't stay in there long. He thought of the way she walked, how her shirt dropped away from her belly when she bent to look in the car window earlier, and he imagined himself pushing the door open. Her flashlight must be on the floor, he thought, pointing in on her like his had been when he showered. She would never know the door had opened. She'd never know I was standing there.

He remembered necking with his pimpled girlfriend in high school. Lips together, she'd breathed on his cheek, evenly. It wasn't like he'd thought it would be. No real pa.s.sion, but he'd been so aware of where his hands were: one around her shoulder, the other on her waist, and he thought of what other guys had told him, what he'd seen in movies, what he'd imagined. It would have been so easy to slip his hand up, across the shirt.

He stood, listening. Leda hummed. Water splashed on the floor. His stomach ached with tightness. His hand rested on the door. But is it right? he thought. Is it right to look at her, and he found his mind tumbling. What did he think of her? Who was she? A friend? A woman? A sister? A mom? What would it say about him if he did look? His other hand hurt, and he realized it was clenched. Painfully, he straightened his fingers and made them relax against his thigh.

When he'd kissed his girlfriend, he'd put his hand on the back of her neck and caressed the fine little hairs there. Just when he thought he might slide that other hand up, she'd put her hand on it, stopping any chance for motion. It was then he'd opened his lips, reached out with the tip of his tongue. Pulling back, she'd said, "Don't, that's gross." But he hadn't really heard it that way. No, not that way at all. For weeks after, and even now, he heard it as, "Don't, you're gross." What did Leda think of him? He had saved her life, and she had saved his. They'd talked for hours in that bas.e.m.e.nt, not sure if they would live or die. But he had cried in her arms earlier today. She'd let go of his hand in the darkened store. Don't, he thought, you're gross.

The water still fell. He could almost hear soap sliding on skin, around curves, up and down. He wiped sweat off his forehead. Why is she staying in there so long? She must be G.o.dd.a.m.ned frozen by now!

Through the crack in the door, he could see the light on the floor. It was pointed toward the shower. The tile glistened where some water had splashed out, or maybe it had fallen off him when he'd dried. She must know I'm out here, he thought. Why else would she stay in so long. She must want me to look! He breathed hard. Oh G.o.d. He pressed his hand against the door, trying to remember if it squeaked, then deciding it wouldn't matter since she couldn't possibly hear it. He swallowed and pushed harder. It moved a half inch, then stopped. Something was against the door. Dropping to his knees, he looked under the door. A shadow a foot or so wide blocked the light. He reached under with his fingers and felt slick nylon.

Sitting back in the employee chair, his flashlight still off, Eric looked at the light under the door, at the shadow. The shower turned off. Silence replaced the throb of falling water. He heard her walk. He heard a towel rubbing briskly. It's her backpack, he thought. She leaned her backpack against the door, and a thought came to him very clearly, like a wave crashing on a beach: sometime while I was showering, or maybe even when I was toweling off, Leda pushed open that door and looked at me. That's why my pack was moved. She looked at me, then went back to the clothes section so I would never know. I stood naked in the water, and she watched me.

He didn't know what to think of the thought.

But it made him happy.

Chapter Fifteen.

BACK ROADS.

Eric was unhappy. Dodge and Rabbit stood in front of him in a gully removed from the road. Farther down, just out of earshot, Teach argued with Ripple, his gestures wide and sweeping. She stood defiantly, arms across her chest, chin thrust out. High and bright, the sun glared off tiny mica specks in the surrounding rocks, while a fresh breeze swept the bitter smell of cordite away. Federal's blockade was out of sight, but only the curve of the canyon hid them from it.

Eric shaded his eyes and said, "This has to be my last word, boys. As long as we were just hiking, you could come along, but men with guns are too dangerous. Go back to Highwater with Ripple. Teach says she knows a safe way. He and I will go on alone."

"Grandpa, you'll need our help," said Dodge. He jammed his fists on his hips and glared. Eric could see Troy in him, clear as if his son were there. He wanted to hold him, and for a moment, tears quivered beneath the surface. Dodge was younger than Troy was before the disastrous deer hunt that changed everything between them. Troy had never read with him again, had never said again, "I love you, Dad." He cupped the side of Dodge's face; the skin felt smooth and warm. His eyes glistened. The brown orbs reflected back the sun. "You will be helping," said Eric. "I'll travel better knowing you are safe." Dodge's lips set grimly, and his ten-year-old expression looked tragic and adult. He nodded, then turned away. Eric almost ran after him. The thought that Dodge might grow to hate him the same way Troy did made him queasy. Rabbit picked up their backpacks and followed. When Ripple finished her argument with Teach, she joined the boys, and the three of them climbed over a ridge above the road and disappeared.

Teach's voice rumbled quietly behind him. "They'll be off the road." He clasped Eric's shoulder. "Of course, she's like a shadow, that one. I don't expect Federal's men could catch her in these mountains if she didn't want to be caught, and from what I've seen of Rabbit, he could hold his own too. About the only mortal there is your grandson, and he's got a touch of quickness himself." Eric grunted uncomfortably. "They're just kids. I'm responsible to the boy's father."

"Hah," Teach chuckled. "All you had to do was lie like a rock and Federal's gunners walked right by." He pointed after the children. "Keep your eyes to your hind side. My guess is they'll double back and trail us anyway. We're gonna have to catch them, then send them on their way." Eric thought for a second. The breeze rustled in the pines on the other side of the road, carrying the smell of water rolling past sun-hot rocks. "You're right. They probably will." His spirits lightened. He thought, you can't crush a ten-year-old's spirit. Dodge wouldn't hate him. Only a teenager can truly hate his parent. "Don't know what I was thinking. Of course they'll do that. So, let's take off. How far do we have to go to get there?"

Teach scratched his chin. "Only a dozen miles if you were a crow. Crow wouldn't fly as much up and down as we'll have to walk though."

Teach took him up the road away from the blockade, then pushed through a screen of creek-willow. Wet ground sucked at Eric's boots for a few steps until the path climbed steeply up and turned into a series of rock handholds. Within a few yards, it was all Eric could do to keep moving. "Not much . .." he gasped, "of this, is there?"

Teach grunted and heaved himself out of sight. He helped Eric to the top, where a long gra.s.sy trail paralleled a stretch of man-high rusted iron conduit that reached in both directions around the curve on the mountain.

"Part of old Boulder's water supply," said Teach. "The intake is in Barker Reservoir upstream." A shower of red flakes fell from the pipe when Eric rubbed it. He wiped the red stain onto his pants.

"Does it still work?"

"You're looking at the longest unbroken section, I think," said Teach. "Machinery's all rusted or busted at the high end, and it's got dozens of ruptures. Whole piece a few hundred yards long is gone a couple of turns from here."

They began walking. The service path, a pair of ruts at first, grown over with thin mountain gra.s.s, deteriorated, and soon they were pushing through thick, pungent brambles. Eric swore and pulled a long thorn from the fleshy pad at the base of his thumb.

Making a path in front of him, Teach continued, "We can follow this to Ka.s.sler Lake, about six miles from here. Then we'll take the maintenance road under the Bear Canyon power line to The National Center for Atmospheric Research. That'll put us on Boulder's southwest corner. Unless Federal's drummed up a whole h.e.l.l of a lot of men, we shouldn't have any trouble getting into town. If he's got all the roads covered, I'd be surprised. Must be fifty of them."

"How far total did you say?" asked Eric. A mile of this and he'd be done for the day. He was leg-weary. But it was more than that, he knew. It was age. Plain old age. The first few days were fine, but lately, any path uphill strained in his chest and sent creepy tingles into his arms. He'd caught himself walking a couple of times today, lost. Not just where he was, but who he was and why he was there. For a few seconds, the effect had dizzied him. Boulder was gone. His son was gone. It was like he'd been dropped into the world, a blank slate, and it took a shaking of the head, a look at his own wrinkled and liver-spotted hands to bring himself back. It occurred to him, while he watched Teach pushing aside a bush to make his way easier, that he might not finish this trip. He could drop any moment. No one would blame him. His seventy-five years felt like a long, dry desert road. Behind him it reached, fine and distinct, but the wind was blowing fierce and he couldn't see much before him. Just dunes.

Leda had said something to him once about dunes. They'd been walking away from the Wal-Mart where they had found fresh clothes. The street was hot, and his new shirt collar rubbed a sunburn he hadn't realized he'd had (following a few feet behind her, watching her walk, he was thinking about the sound of water, hearing the water fall in the shower, soft then loud, a sudden splash as she must have moved beneath it). She said, "Have you ever been to the Great Sand Dunes National Monument?" A moment of shame stopped him from answering. It didn't feel right to be thinking of her in the shower. It seemed like a tiny betrayal. "Yes," he said, finally, and she didn't comment on his pause. "The park ranger there said the dunes marched. I thought it a funny word, 'marched,' since they looked so solid, but he said they did and he said they swallowed everything in their way. Then he read us a poem." She looked back, shyly Eric thought, the color high in her cheeks. "It's the only poem I've ever memorized. Do you want to hear it?" He said, "Sure," and she recited the poem. Later he had looked it up and memorized it himself. Steeply, the hillside sloped away from them, and to keep from falling, Eric braced his hand in the dirt, careful to avoid the spiny milk-weeds that sprang up everywhere. In places, the aqueduct's footings hung suspended above the ground that had once held them st.u.r.dy. He breathed unevenly, and the poem came back to him, all of it. He hadn't really thought about it in years. Her hair had dried in shiny dark ringlets that fell to her shoulders, and as he half slid, half walked behind Teach, he remembered her low-throated voice.

I met a traveler from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those pa.s.sions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.

"Sh.e.l.ley," she'd said, and waved her hand at the city where smoke rose in the distance, and the silence sounded like the end of an epitaph.

"Eric," said Teach, and Eric gasped. His next step would take him over a ledge and a sixty foot drop. Pine tops fell smoothly away to the bottom of the valley, where a glitter revealed an otherwise hidden stream.

"Sorry," he said, disoriented. Leda's voice echoed in his head. "I wandered." He backed away and leaned against a hip-high, gray boulder sticking from the hillside, gnarled as an old knuckle.

"This might be a place to catch the kids," said Teach. "They're clever, but the only way through is right here. No cover. We hide ourselves up in those trees and wait awhile, then we can send them home." He's taking this rest for me, thought Eric, and the knowledge didn't make him angry. He sighed thankfully. If I could get off my feet for a few minutes, I'll feel better. A half hour maybe, and I'll be strong until sunset.

Teach cleared an area under a crooked pine for them, then dragged a heavily limbed dead-fall in front for cover. His back against the tree, Eric had a perfect view of the way they had come. The conduit curved around the side of the mountain, more clinging to it than resting on it. Below, the mountain steepened into a short cliff, and a face of unbroken rock set at a steep angle rose above. If Troy, Rabbit and Ripple were following them, there would be no place here to hide. Sunlight stretched shadows up the valley. Eric guessed they had only a couple of hours left before they'd need to bed down.

"How far from Ka.s.sler Lake now?" said Eric.

Sitting cross-legged on the ground beside him, tightening his boot's leather lace, Teach answered without looking up. "Another four miles or so. We've got a little dirt road to cross in about a mile." The lace snapped. He dug into his pack, found another length of leather, and began restringing the boot. "Don't believe we'll make the lake today at this rate," he said without rancor. "Not many miles, but it's all slow going."

"I'm sorry," Eric said, and he was about to say something more about brittle bones, but Teach interrupted.

"I like the pace." Pushing the stiff string through worn holes, Teach kept his head down, then said, "You're almost a legend, you know. My boys are half convinced you're part G.o.d or ghost. You're of cities, television, cars .. . that stuff."

Not knowing what to say, Eric rested his head against the pine's trunk.

After many minutes of silence, a clatter of rocks in the valley startled Eric out of a near doze. I am tired, he thought. He crawled to the edge a few feet away. A line of deer ran up the stream, their hooves striking rocks as they went.

Teach said, "I heard that during the Gone Time you couldn't see animals unless you went to a zoo." Eric grinned. He liked the big, friendly man. "I'll bet you believe a lot of half-truths. Where I come from, I'm constantly straightening people out about it."

"Now's a good time. Educate me. Like, start by telling me about being there, things I haven't heard before." Teach ruffled his beard, knocking dust into the air.

"I don't know what you've heard."

"Start with yourself. Gone Time's a long time gone now. Doesn't it seem almost like a fairy tale to you?" Teach asked.

Eric thought about Leda's poem. For a moment, it was if he could have lifted up his hand and touched her, her freshly washed face, her half-smile as she recited the words. "No, not like that," he said. "In some ways I feel more there now then I did then. Does that make sense?"

"Some," said Teach. The clatter of deer hooves had faded. Eric strained to hear, but all that was there was the water music of the stream.

"I miss odd parts of the Gone Time," said Eric. "Contrails, for example." Teach looked up, interested.

"Jets, 30,000 feet up or even higher left cloud tracks called contrails. On a clear, blue day, the jets wrote their path across the sky. You'd hear them, humming away, and when I was a kid I'd look for where the sound was. Jets were so fast their sound couldn't keep up, but they'd leave those contrails so you could find them, a tiny pin of silver reflection pulling that long cloud. I miss that."

"Yeah," Teach said. "That would be something."

"Chocolate bars." Eric shifted, felt beneath him and found a pine cone under his thigh. Its rough surface was tacky with sap on one side. He flicked it away. "I remember walking into a store and standing in the candy aisle, the smell of chocolate heavy as a quilt. You'd peel away the aluminum, and there it was, dull, dark and delicious. Umm, the thought's enough."

"My dad complained he missed cigarettes."

Eric hardly heard him. He half closed his eyes. "On Christmas, they used to string all the trees on Littleton Boulevard with tiny, white lights. When it snowed and those lights were on, it was like a postcard." He remembered walking down the street one bitter night when he was five or six, holding the little finger on his dad's glove. Snow squeaked underfoot, and lights filled the trees. Breath froze in his nose.

"That doesn't sound bad," said Teach. "Ripple's hard on the Gone Time. I hope her version of it isn't the one that survives."

"Maybe it will be like memories," said Eric. "We'll remember the good stuff and forget the bad. I'm not an apologist for the evils Ripple talked about. She's right in some ways, but I think we're losing more by throwing technology and science and knowledge away than we gain by becoming . . . becoming . . . barbarians."