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One more rise. Over the top of that little ridge-
Jeri sat uncomfortably among the gear tied to the bike. She
couldn't stop crying. Wind-whipped, the tears ran tickling across
her temples and into her hair. Damn it, I don't know anything yet,
why am I crying? At least Melissa can't see.
What should I tell her? Warn her? But ...
The bike lumbered over the top of the ridge.
A sea of mud lay below. The reservoir had been ten miles long
and over a mile wide; now there was only a thick sluggish ripple at
its center, a tiny stream with obscenely swollen banks. A thick
stench rose from the mud. They rode slowly, feeling that hot wind
in their faces, smelling ancient lake bed mud.
There was no need to tell Melissa anything. She could see the
dead lake, and must be able to guess what was ahead. It used to
be we could protect children, spare them from horrible sights. They
always do that in the old novels.
They rode along the mud, banks toward the ruins of the dam
at the far end. Long before they reached the dam there were new
smells mingled with the smell of decayed mud and the hot summer.
Everywhere lay the smell of death.
The town below the dam was gone. In the center the
destruction was complete, as if a bulldozer had come through and
removed all the buildings, then another came along to spread mud
over the foundations. Farther away from the stream bed was a thin
line of partially destroyed houses and debris. One house had been
torn neatly in half, leaving three-walled rooms to stare out over the
wreckage below.
Above the debris line nothing was touched. People moved
among the debris, but few ventured down into the muddy bottom
area.
They've given up looking for survivors. She could feel Harry's
chest and back tighten as they got closer to the ruined town.
A sheriff's car stood beside a National Guard jeep to block the
road. Harry let the bike coast to a stop. He had his letter ready to
show, but it wasn't needed.
"I am Mrs. David Wilson," Jeri said. "My husband lives here, at
2467 Spring Valley Lane -"
The young man in sheriff's uniform looked away. So did the
Guard officer.
She knew before the sergeant spoke.
"You can see where Spring Valley Lane was, just down there,
about a mile," the sergeant said. He pointed at the center of the
mud flat.
"Maybe he wasn't home," Melissa said. "Maybe -"
"It happened about two in the morning," the sergeant said.
"Maybe five minutes after they blasted the Russian space station."
"Warning didn't help anyway," the deputy sheriff said. "They
did something that knocked out the phone system at the same
time. The only way we could warn anybody downstream was to try
to drive faster than the water. That wasn't good enough."
"How bad was it?" Harry asked.
"Bad," the Guard officer said. "The whole Great Plains reservoir
system, everything along the Arkansas River, is gone. There's
flooding all the way to Little Rock and beyond." He drew Harry
aside, but Jeri could make out what he was saying.
"There's a temporary morgue in the schoolhouse three miles
east of here," the officer was telling Harry. "Some bodies still there.
The best-looking ones. We've had to bury a couple of hundred.
Maybe more. They've got a list of all they could identify."
"Thanks. I guess we better go there. Anyplace I can get some
gas?"
The officer laughed.
The wallet held two pictures of Jeri and one of Melissa. Jeri stared at
her own face distorted by the tears that kept welling in her eyes.
My pictures. I think he would have been glad to see me. The
driver's license was soaked, but the name was readable. "That's
his," Jeri said.
The thinly bearded young man in dirty whites made notes on a
clipboard. "David J. Wilson, of Reseda, California," he said. "Next of
kin, Mrs. Geraldine Wilson -"
He went on interminably. He took David's wallet and went
through that; noting down everything inside it. Finally he handed
her a shoe box. It contained the wallet, a wristwatch, and a
wedding ring. "Sign here, please."
She carried the box out into the bright Colorado sunshine. My
God, what am I going to do now? There was no sign of Harry or
Melissa. She sat down on a bench by the school.
What do they want? Why are they doing this? Why?
"Mom -"
Jeri didn't want to look at her daughter.
"Harry told me, Mom." Melissa sat beside her on the bench.
After a moment Jeri opened her arms, and they held each other.
"We have to go," Melissa said.
"Go?"
"With Harry."
"Are we - where are we going with Harry?"
"Dighton, Kansas," Harry said from behind her. "And we got to
be starting right now, Miz W. We're on the wrong side of the river,
and there aren't any bridges downstream at least as far as Dodge
City. We have to go upstream and cross above where the reservoir
was. It's maybe two hundred miles the way we've got to go. We
need to get started,"
Jeri shook her head. "What - I don't know anyone in Kansas."
"No, ma'am, and I don't either, except Mrs. Dawson." Harry
snorted. It was easy to tell what he was thinking. Harry Red had no
woman of his own, just other people's widows ...
"Harry, you don't want us on your bike."
"I sure don't," he said. "What's that got to do with anything?"
Melissa stood and pulled her by the hand. "Come on, Mom, we
don't want to stay here."
I might meet David's friends. Find out how he spent his last
months -
That's morbid, and you'll more likely meet his New Cookie. Or
was she with him? Did the Earth move for you, sweetheart? "All
right, let's go, then. Harry, I thought you were out of gas."
"He used his letter," Melissa said. "Talked the highway
patrolman into a full tank for the motorcycle."
"Should get us there," Harry said. He led the way around the
corner. The bike stood there. It didn't look in very good shape. It
looked overloaded even with no one on it.
"Even loaded down with three?"
"Should." Harry climbed aboard, groaning slightly. He looked a
little better; the monstrous belly was tighter, and his back wasn't
quite so thoroughly bent. "Anyplace you want to go first?" he
asked.
Jeri shook her head. "They ..."- she took Melissa's hand -
"they buried over a hundred in a common grave. I don't want to
see that -"
"Me, neither, Mom." Melissa hopped onto the bike in front of
Harry.
The young are so damned - resilient. I guess they have to be.
Especially now. Jeri crammed the shoe box into the saddlebag and
climbed on behind Harry. "All right. I'm ready."
She didn't look back as they drove out of the town.
15 THE WHEAT FIELDS
When even lovers find their peace at last,
And Earth is but a star, that once had shone.
-- James Elroy Flecker, Prologue to The Golden Journey to
Samarkand
COUNTDOWN: H PLUS 60 HOURS
They were through the last of the foothills and into the rolling
prairies of Kansas, a land of straight roads and small towns. Wheat
and cornfields made the landscape monotonous. Whenever they
stopped, the hot winds and bright sunshine drove them back into
motion again.
Conversation was impossible over the noise of the motorcycle.
The radio had nothing to say. Harry drove mindlessly, trying not to
think of his back and the cramps in his legs. Fantasies came easily.
Jeri's a right pretty woman, and she's all alone. Don't know
what she'll do in Kansas. Maybe there wouldn't be enough rooms.
They'd have to share a room and a bed, and the first night he could
just hold her, and -
Part of his mind knew better, but the thoughts were more
pleasant than his back pains.
===
Dighton, Kansas, was forty miles ahead. The engine sputtered, and
Harry switched to the reserve tank. They'd just make it, with a
dozen miles to spare. Good enough, thought Harry. Good enough.
There was a smaller city four miles away. Logan, Kansas. Nothing to
stop there for -
There was a bright flash ahead and to the left. "Holy shit!"
Harry shouted. He clamped the brakes, skidding the bike to a halt.
"Off! Off and down!" He'd heard George and Vicki's lectures too.
Jeri and Melissa threw themselves into the ditch alongside the
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