'I don't like this,' he muttered, turning back to the abyss.
McCandless grunted as he got to his feet.
'They must've been blown off the road. The wind just lifted the whole pack of 'em, threw 'em down.'
'Steam trucks?' Kurt raised an eyebrow.
'Sure,' snapped McCandless. 'It happens.'
'All six of 'em?'
'It happens!' The big man scowled at the rusty wrecks far below. Then he glanced at Kurt warily. 'How come you know so much about what kinda traction those guys had?'
'I remember when Dolfo Kaler went out. It was only a couple of decades back. I was a kid, but I remember it.'
'Yeah?' McCandless's voice was thick with suspicion.
'Sure. So what?'
'So nothing,' growled McCandless, his eyes flicking back to the scene below. 'See any stiffs?'
'Well, I guess they'd be picked bones by now.' Kurt stared up at the towering peaks that soared above them, black and ominous. He gazed down again, noting the smoothness of the cliff face below, pierced here and there by tough-looking bushes that sprouted from unseen cracks and crevices.
'The acids would eat 'em up,' Rogan put in, staring moodily downward.
'Ain't no acids round here,' sneered McCandless. 'Look at the rock, stupe. All round ya. Ain't eaten away. Smooth. Look at the road. Acids would tear all that up, dissolve the surface cover.' He spat contemptuously into the sullen void below.
Kurt hitched his pack to loosen the straps. McCandless turned away from the brink of the precipice.
'Let's go. We gotta deal of trekkin' to do before we reach the top.'
Rogan snarled at Kurt. 'Don't you go pointin' that piece at me again, blaster. You hear me?'
Kurt did not bother to reply. He checked his gun, checked above, checked behind. He watched Reacher head toward the next bend, then moved on up the road himself, the ozone smell very strong in his nostrils now, an ugly, steely stink. He thought about the trucks and knew it would need a fantastic blast of wind to hurl them all over, all at once.
No wind, however fierce, had hurled them over into the abyss.
'McCandless!'
Kurt's head jerked up. Reacher was now at the bend, looking beyond it. His voice was not a yell but a hiss of alarm, incomprehension. There was tension there. Kurt began running. He passed both McCandless and Rogan, his gun held in both hands, his boots thudding on the road's hard surface. He reached the senser. He stared up beyond him at what lay ahead.
Fog.
A thick, sullen wall of it, gray-white, impenetrable. And huge. It blotted out the sky above them, loomed hideously high like an immense barrier across the road — a barrier that seemed to be alive, for it quivered and heaved gently. Thick tendrils stirred and inched out along the road's surface at its lower edge, like questing fingers, then retreated into the main mass. A dull, eerie glow emanated from its heart, blue tinged, somberly highlighting the immediate area.
Kurt gazed at it, his mouth suddenly dry. His eyes automatically took in the fact that it only extended to just beyond the edge of the precipice; there it seemed to fade away to become tattered shreds of whiteness hanging in the air. That somehow made it all the more unnatural, all the more terrifying. It seemed to Kurt to be not at all atmospherically created; not at all strange and random, in the way that much of the weather in the Deathlands seemed bizarrely random, in the way that here and now there was snow, heat, wild winds, periods of sullen stillness.
He whispered, 'The fog...'
A hand grasped his shoulder and tugged at it. He half turned to face McCandless's glaring eyes.
'What the hell is this, Kurt? What the hell d'you know about this?'
'I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know anything.'
'The fog, the fog'!' mimicked the big man savagely. 'Ya knew this was waitin' for us. Ya knew it. How come, huh? How come ya know so much about this? What else ya got up ya sleeve, blaster?'
Kurt pulled himself away from the leader's grasp. He snarled, 'I tell you I don't know anything. Dolfo Kaler talked about the fog, that's all.'
'Dolfo Kaler was shot to shreds while he was still crawlin' into town. Even I know that, Kurt.'
McCandless's .45 automatic was in the big man's hands, pointing at Kurt's face. McCandless held it two fisted, unwaveringly, his face behind the gun a mad, glaring mask. Kurt's own gun was held right-handed; he knew he didn't have a hope of jerking it up in time to blow McCandless away before the big man had sent a magful into him.
'McCandless, I told you, I was a kid at the time. I was the kid that found him.' The words came tumbling out of his mouth. 'He was mumbling something about a fog. That's it. That's all. It didn't make sense then, doesn't make sense now. Except there it is, the fog. All we have to do is walk through it.'
McCandless's eyes narrowed. Sweat coursed down his face. He lowered the automatic slowly, almost grudgingly. Kurt breathed out hard.
'That's it,' he repeated, his voice hoarse.
'Don't look like no fog I ever saw,' muttered Rogan. He shot a scowl at Kurt. 'He knows somethin' else, boss, you bet.'
'Shut it,' snapped McCandless.
The big man moved slowly up the road toward the eddying wall. Above, lightning flickered fitfully.
'Don't smell like fog,' sniffed McCandless. 'Rogan, take a walk.'
The tall, craggy man took a step forward, then hesitated and stayed where he was. He stared at the rippling, gray-white wall, his mouth open.
He said, 'Hell, boss, send the blaster. Or the mutie.'
'The blaster I need, the mutie I need. Get in there.'
Rogan backed away. 'I ain't goin' in there. You go.'
McCandless exploded, 'Ya piece of nukeshit, Rogan,
Rogan was beside Reacher now. He suddenly grabbed the mutie senser and pushed him, flung him toward the fog. Reacher stumbled. He hit the road and rolled to one side, yelling. McCandless jumped at Rogan, huge gloved hands outstretched, but the tall man evaded him, swinging his rifle and savagely clubbing McCandless's face. The barrel's sight ripped at the big man's right eye, tearing into flesh. McCandless screamed and reeled away. He clutched his head.
Kurt thought, this is it.
He swung his ancient Armalite up but Rogan had danced away toward the senser, who was scrambling to his feet. Rogan's rifle roared twice, on single shot, the bullets slamming into Reacher as a freak gust of wind suddenly roared up the pass. Reacher was bowled over by the impact of the rounds hitting him. Muzzle-flash sparked from Rogan's piece again and with a wail of pain and terror, Reacher jackknifed and sailed backward over the edge of the abyss. His shriek died in the wind's howl.
Laughing crazily, Rogan backed away from Kurt, covering him. He backed toward the fog, seemingly oblivious of its presence. He backed toward a tendril that shimmied out to him like a groping finger.
It touched him.
There was a spark, a flash of angry blue light, and Rogan pitched forward into a somersault, yelling as he spun. He smacked into the road, whinnying in terror.
But he still held his gun.
Kurt sent a shot at him, the Armalite bucking in his hands, but the round ricocheted off rock into the howling, lightning-lit darkness. Before he could center on the tall man again, muzzle-flash flared and an invisible fist pounded at Kurt's shoulder, jolting him backward, cracking his head against the cliff face.
He could feel nothing except the chill of the wind, a sudden cold wetness on his face. He opened his eyes and saw huge snowflakes whirling down again, driven by the wind. His shoulder throbbed and he stared at it, seeing nothing in the thick fur but knowing he had a bullet somewhere in his upper arm or chest. He found he'd lost his
