He thought he saw movement in one of the housing complexes they passed, a series of ruined duplexes that had once been identical and now were collapsed in somewhat disparate ways. Another flat, empty space, perhaps an old sports field. He could see it in his mind, green as it had been, rather than the slightly concave rectangle of dirt it was now. Things were coming back to him, though slowly, and not the important things. Or was it simply his imagination making an educated guess about what had been there?
A huge gouge in the ground 30 feet wide and 150 long, either a long-interrupted construction site or the result of some instrument of devastation. Farther on, in the dust, to one side of an intersection, was a metal signpost, bent over and crushed, the sign itself buried in the dust. Qatik stopped and dragged it up, straightening it until they could see at the end of it the octagonal shape of a stop sign, the word STOP faded but still faintly visible on it.
“What does it say?” asked Qatik.
“Have you never seen a stop sign?” asked Horkai.
Qatik shook his head.
“Can’t you read?”
Within his hood, Qatik shook his head again. “Neither of us read. But I can recognize letters.”
Beneath him, he felt Qanik nod. “It’s not important for everyone to read,” said Qanik. “Some read and some do other things. We all have our purpose.”
“Who told you that?” asked Horkai. “Someone who can read, I bet.”
Not detecting the irony in his tone, Qanik nodded. “Our leader,” he said. “Rasmus.”
“Should we stop?” asked Qatik. “As the sign instructs?”
“It isn’t meant for us,” Horkai said. “And besides, we’ve already stopped. Now we can go on.”
Qatik let the sign fall. They walked on, Qanik stopping every once in a while to reposition Horkai on his shoulders. A collapsed strip mall, beside it a building mostly intact.
A Mormon ward house, little left of it beyond a weathered spire and a flattened roof. The houses became sparser, thinning out, and then they thickened momentarily again before thinning out further still.
They came to a large intersection, the road crossing it almost as big as the one they were traveling, and the mules stopped.
“Which way?” asked Qatik.
Horkai shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said.
“Which way?” asked Qatik again, as if he hadn’t heard. Not knowing what else to do, Horkai pushed on the back of Qanik’s head until he moved out into the intersection. From there, he looked to either side. To the east, the road ran quickly south, trailing up a high ridge. To the west, it moved straight ahead, climbing very slowly. In front of them, it continued roughly north, coming still closer to the mountains.
The map Rasmus had given them followed a path between the mountains and the lake. For now, thought Horkai, they would stay close to the mountains and wait for the lake to appear. He pushed on the back of Qanik’s head again, and they started forward and through the intersection. Qatik hesitated a moment and then followed as well.
THEY WALKED IN SILENCE for another mile or nearly so, the mountain building up to one side. The wind and dust were making him cough. An old, severely damaged electric substation, transformers crumpled or fallen over in the dust. And then the road split again, one strand of it following a slow curve westward and uphill, toward the lake, the other threading down and into the mouth of a dust-clogged canyon, immediately curving out of sight.
“Which way?” asked Qatik again.
“Maybe the canyon,” said Qanik.
“Not the canyon,” said Horkai, on impulse.
“Why not?” said Qanik from below him. “The canyon. It goes north, we’re going north. We should take the canyon.”
“I don’t think it goes where we’re going,” said Horkai.
“Why not?”
“I don’t know,” said Horkai. “It’s just what I feel.”
Qatik came around in front of the other mule until their faceplates were nearly touching. They stared at each other for a long time, perhaps moving their lips as well, perhaps even reading each others’ lips—it was impossible for Horkai to say, since from above he couldn’t see their faces. And then, finally, Qatik backed up, looked at him.
“All right,” he said. “We will do as you say.”
THEY MOVED ON, the two mules relentless, never stopping to rest. They went up a hill and then hit level ground, crossing again through the remains of neighborhoods, another town, perhaps, or maybe the same one, everything seeming at once familiar and utterly foreign.
They passed an anemic stream, its water bloodred. The mules kept as much distance from it as they could. The sun was high overhead now, perhaps just approaching its apex, perhaps just starting its downward arc. He was thirsty, his mouth dry from the dust in the air, his skin grainy with it and raw from the wind. They passed a ruined school, unless it was something else just as large, maybe a hospital. On the other side was another hospital, unless it was a school. The mules stopped and eyed the latter building for a moment, speaking to each other in muffled voices, their speakers half-covered with their gloves, then shook their heads, continued on.
The road began to slope downward. He could see the lake again now, glowering in the distance two or three or more miles away, looking much larger than it had seemed initially at the other end of town, if they were still in the same town. The water was an odd color, a bloodred tinge to it, though not quite as red as the stream had been. A sort of dead marsh lay beside the lake, sickly gray from this distance. Between them and the marsh, he could see a much larger road: the freeway.
Horkai patted Qanik on the head. “There,” he said. “Do you see? That’s the freeway. That’s what we need.”
The mule paused, then nodded. They picked their way toward it, and started north when they finally reached it.
FOR LONG STRETCHES, the freeway was intact and then would suddenly dissolve into a crater or buckle into peaks so that they had to either go around it or clamber up and down it. It took a long slow curve northeast, following the banks of the lake at a distance, and for an hour or two or maybe three, Horkai thought it was the wrong road. Once or twice he almost said something to the mules, but he didn’t know exactly what to say, nor did he know what other road they could take. The lake had been on the map, so maybe they were on the right road after all. How many freeways could there be?
And then, at last, the road curved north a little and began to climb. He could see, in the distance, the point where it crested the low side of the mountain, miles away. It was okay, he told himself. It was the right road.
9
BARE LAND ON ONE SIDE, ruins on the other, then ruins on both. It had started to seem all the same to him. “Any chance of a drink?” Horkai asked. “And what about food?”
“Not yet,” said Qatik. “Not here.”
“My tongue feels like it’s made of wool,” he said.
“Your tongue is not made of wool,” reasoned Qanik. “No tongues are made of wool.”
