“Yes.”
Cam wouldn’t let it go. “If they’re warm enough, the plague could be breeding in them even if it doesn’t affect the way they act,” he said. “That means we’d better avoid everything. Kill everything.”
None of them spoke. Ingrid worked at her foot. Ruth opened her laptop and Cam glanced over the meadow, watching for yellow jackets.
“Jesus, I’m thirsty,” Bobbi said.
He might have had a hand in saving the insects and snakes. Maybe it was perverse, but the idea made him glad. This world needed every life-form it could find.
Long ago, in Grand Lake, Cam and Allison had participated in a widespread trap-and-release program to share the vaccine with as many animal species as possible. Mostly, they’d succeeded with rats. The elk, marmots, grouse, and birds that were native to this elevation had been hunted to extinction, but the rats thrived in the crowded refugee camps, and, once immunized, the rats did the rest of their work for them.
There were mountaintops where no people had gone. There were others where no one had survived for long. Some animals must have persisted in those lonely peaks. In time, they were attacked by the vaccinated rats. The rats bred uncontrolled beneath ten thousand feet, warring with the insects and invading the new outposts built by men. In the summer, the rats also returned to the mountains, where they took the young of the few remaining marmots and swarmed the old or injured elk. They stole the eggs of the grouse and other birds. But they also passed the vaccine to the animals they attacked but didn’t succeed in killing.
Were the yellow jackets now immune after an encounter with the rats? Cam hoped so.
We should come back here if we get the chance,
he thought.
We should come back and
do
everything we can to protect them, breed them.
The emotions in him were both lonely and good, because he knew the idea would have made Allison happy. It would have made her feel rich.
Just think what we could do with pollinators again,
he thought.
They lost sight of
the horizon as they edged into Willow Creek, a high mountain canyon within ten miles of Grand Lake. Cam would have stayed out of this valley altogether if he wasn’t sure the artillery unit was stationed inside it. Even so, he kept his group as far up the box canyon’s north side as possible, traversing east without losing any more elevation than necessary. He didn’t want to have to climb back out if it looked like the gun crews had fled or were infected.
The creek meandered through the canyon floor, running southwest toward the only low point, where eventually it jogged south and fell downslope alongside a small state highway. That road hit Highway 40, which wasn’t so far from Interstate 70, Loveland Pass, and roads leading into the Leadville crater. Cam knew the area well. During the war, his Ranger unit had picked their way cross-country from 40 to 70, skirting the fallout zone. Any number of civilian camps and small military garrisons had filled the region since then.
The first body was below them to the south. The man lay on his back, his face and naked chest much lighter than the rock and brush. Only the white skin drew Cam’s gaze. Then he realized the ground down there was burned and torn, concealing what had been a rutted dirt road.
“Look,” he said.
Ruth and Ingrid both knelt, merely using the opportunity to rest. Bobbi squinted in the direction he’d pointed. Her eyes must have been better than his. “Jesus,” she said. “How many people do you think are down there? Thirty?”
Once he understood what he was looking for, his eyes registered at least twenty bodies littered in an area as big as a football field. The mind plague must have driven some of the infected to follow the survivors into these mountains ... The artillery crews had walked their guns back and forth across the mouth of Willow Creek, dropping everyone who’d chased them. Cam was doubly glad he’d kept them out of the canyon. The battlefield was at least a mile away, but it was surely contagious.
“Bobbi,” he said suddenly. “Fire two shots.”
“What? Why? I’m almost empty.”
He was down to a few rounds himself, but touched his holster. “They’ll have spotters looking for anyone like us who comes over the mountains,” he said. “Then they’ll shell us if they don’t think we’re okay.”
Ruth was already struggling back to her feet. She unslung her carbine while Bobbi stared into the canyon as if looking for FOs, forward observers. Even ragged and dirty and hurt, Ruth processed situations faster than anyone else.
She was a fighter. She was what he needed.
Blam! Blam!
Ruth squeezed off two rounds into the air, startling someone above them. There was a clatter of gravel a hundred yards up the slope and Cam whirled, grabbing for his pistol again.
That close?
he thought. Then he caught a glimpse of a slinking little shape. A chipmunk? Rats? Maybe these mountains really were coming back to life. Maybe there would be more snakes or lizards or even wolves or bees in rare places, helping each other in unexpected pairings.
Allison was right,
he thought, feeling that lonely goodness again.
Ruth’s shots were still echoing in the canyon when two more answered them.
Crack-ack!
“One more,” Cam said. Ruth obeyed. Within a few seconds, the signal was repeated again exactly, and Cam said, “Okay. They’re expecting us.”
The survivors were situated
on a flat area like a peninsula, surrounded on three sides by a bend in the creek, which they’d used to maximize their defenses. It separated them from Cam’s group, even if the water didn’t look more than shin-deep, and there were two catwalks built across it.
They had tried to erect barricades on the canyon floor. Cam saw four pickups and a jeep set nose-to-tail across the dirt road. There were no trees available. Everything had been clear-cut for fuel during the long winters, so they’d dug a few pits with shovels and possibly high explosives, too, reducing the canyon to distinct fields of fire. As far as he could tell without binoculars, less than half a dozen infected people had made it anywhere near their encampment. The closest body sprawled two hundred yards away. Their artillery had caught most of the infected at the other end of Willow Creek. Then snipers dropped the rest.
Their base consisted of ten long greenhouses, two smaller barracks, two 155mm howitzer emplacements, and a few trucks and Humvees they’d kept back to avoid contaminating the vehicles. The government had been using this canyon for a major farming operation. It was shielded from the weather and high enough to escape most of the bugs, and they’d already had some of the necessary assets in place. That was why the guns were here—to protect the crops from raiders. Maybe now they were housing people inside the plastic, too. He couldn’t tell.
Cam stopped his group within shouting distance of a fighting hole on the canyon’s northern slope. He saw at least one soldier. The man’s head was obvious. He wore an M40 biochem mask with oval plastic eyes and a shoulder-length hood, but the gear was desert camouflage. Its tan and beige patches were too light for this environment.
“Hands up,” Cam said to the women. “Let them see us.”
“Identify yourselves!” the man yelled.
“Corporal Najarro with the Seventy-Fifth! I have three civilians with me!”
It probably wouldn’t have mattered what he said. They just wanted to verify that he was thinking and talking. The man stood up and waved for them to come forward. “Okay!” he said, lifting a walkie-talkie to his hood.
When they were within a hundred yards, Cam saw two more soldiers with their weapons leveled. Even closer, he helped Ruth and then Ingrid over an uneven wall of earth and rock as Bobbi climbed over herself. The soldiers themselves stayed back.
“We need water,” Cam said. “Do you have bottled water?”
None of them directed him to the creek. Either they’d reached the same conclusion about watersheds or they’d seen someone infected by drinking from it. “There are storage tanks,” the first man said, pointing back at the greenhouses. “We’ll get you inside in a minute. The lieutenant wants to talk to you.”
“We’ve been hiking all night.”
“The lieutenant’s gonna talk to you first.”
Another soldier was already striding across the nearest catwalk. That she was a woman was evident despite her old-fashioned gas mask, jacket, and the rifle slung over one shoulder. She was slim, with no breasts to speak of, but her walk was female and her dark hair fell in a mane very much unlike the rest of her. Her uniform was perfect to the button—dirty, but perfect—whereas her hair suggested a rebellious streak. It spilled from the back of her mask like a flag.
There was something familiar about her, Cam thought, and when she spoke, he knew, even though her voice was distorted inside the rubber mask. “Najarro,” she said, glancing from him to Ruth. “I just had to see it myself, you fuckin’ traitors.”
It was Sarah Foshtomi.
Ingrid went for her M16. Foshtomi’s tone was bitter, even hateful, and the older woman wasn’t so exhausted that she missed the threat. “No!” Cam shouted, but Ingrid stepped in front of Ruth with her assault rifle, growling, “You can’t hurt her!”
Cam grabbed the barrel of Ingrid’s weapon and jerked it skyward. At the same time, Foshtomi’s men snapped up their own rifles. One of them caught Bobbi’s arm. Everyone froze—and then Foshtomi laughed.
“Put ‘em down,” she said. “Let’s talk.”
The greenhouse reeked of
bell peppers and onions. It was a good smell, and Cam had never been happier to remove his headgear. His bare skin reacted to the warm air as if he’d entered a sauna, soaking in the pungent scent of the crops.
Foshtomi led them through alternating rows of bushy green pepper plants and the onions’ short stalks. The hundred-gallon tank in back had been pumped full three days ago, so it was safe. Foshtomi’s unit had opened the plumbing at the base of the tank, using a spigot to fill their canteens and cooking pots. The floor was damp with it. Cam only managed to let the women drink first by sheer force of will, shrugging out of his jacket as Ruth and Bobbi splashed water from their hands into their mouths and faces. Ruth coughed but didn’t stop. Ingrid drank more slowly from one of the cups left beside the tank.
“You’re wounded,” Foshtomi said, staring at his bloody side. “Let me see what we can do about that.”
“Ingrid’s hurt, too. Her foot.”
She took her walkie-talkie from her belt. “This is Foshtomi. I need a medic in Building Six.”
“Roger that,” the ‘talkie answered.
“Cam,” Ruth said. “Drink.” Curly wet bangs hung over her clean face, which was full of contradiction. Her brown eyes were both soft and penetrating. For an instant, she refused to look away from him, even though he could see that she was afraid of what he might say. They hadn’t been this close and unguarded since before Allison’s death, not even when they made love, hidden in the starlight.
They were bound so deeply together. Cam didn’t want to be angry with her and he tried to show it. He touched her arm as he moved past. Then he bent and gulped more water than he should have in five huge uncontrolled swallows. His stomach flip-flopped. He nearly threw up. But it was good. It was so good to be alive and lost in the sensation of the water’s cool liquid perfection.
“If you have to pee, just go on the plants,” Foshtomi said, as blunt as ever. “They can use the nitrogen. Or there’s honey-pots in the back. We’ll get you some food and stitch you up and then I’ve got to figure out what the hell we’re gonna do with you.”
“Thank you,” Cam said.
“Yeah, well, I don’t have to like it.” She looked at Ruth as she said the last part. “Are you responsible for this new shit?”
“She’s trying to stop it,” Ingrid said, and Ruth shot her a grateful look.
“So it was some other fuckin’ genius this time,” Foshtomi said. Her dark, oval face was unforgiving. “You’re conscripts, all of you. Is that understood?”
“Yes,” Cam said.
“You follow orders. You’re all privates—even you,” she said, pointing at Ruth. “Legally, I have that power under the new Constitution. We’re still under martial law.”
They used to be squadmates. Sarah Foshtomi had been a member of his Ranger unit, a corporal like himself and the only woman in the group. That was why she talked so tough, overcompensating for her size and gender. Apparently her style had seen some success. Foshtomi must have continued to serve with local forces, that much was clear. She’d even made lieutenant. Had she been stationed here or had she run to Willow Creek with other survivors? It didn’t matter. Cam knew she could be a powerful ally.
Suddenly that good feeling gave way to woozy-headed nausea. He slumped to the floor beside the tank. Satisfying his thirst only made him more aware of his tired muscles, his aching feet, and his hunger. He could have slept. He said, “Are you in contact with anyone?”
Foshtomi shook her head. “There are no landlines out of here and the atmosphere’s totally fucked. I’ve got some guys trying to patch into a satellite.”
“Okay.”
The women settled down around Cam, except Foshtomi, who wasn’t good at sitting still. She stayed on her feet, glancing toward the greenhouse door as if that might hurry her medic. In fact, she was probably glad to have Ruth to rally around, because until now her troops had lacked any purpose except to hold on and wait.
“How much fuel do you have?” he asked.
Foshtomi stared at him. “You came on foot out of the mountains, right? So maybe you don’t know what it’s like in the cities.”
