"And you take care of everybody now?"
"Yeah. I'm the oldest."
"What is it that you do?"
"I've got your old job. I run the mail to Albuquerque."
"Are you kidding?"
"No."
"I'll be damned! Is German still the supervisor?"
"He retired last year, on disability."
"I'll be damned! That's funny. Listen, down in Albuquerque do you ever go to a bar called Pedro's?"
"I've been there."
"Have they still got a little blonde girl plays the piano? Named Margaret?"
"No."
"Oh."
"They've got some guy now. Fat fellow. Wears a big ring on his left hand."
Tanner nodded and downshifted as he began the ascent of a steep hill.
"How's your head now?" he asked, when they'd reached the top and started down the opposite slope.
"Feels pretty good. I took a couple of your aspirins with that soda I had."
"Feel up to driving for awhile?"
"Sure, I could do that."
"Okay, then." Tanner leaned on the horn and braked the car. "Just follow the compass for a hundred miles or so and wake me up. All right?"
"Okay. Anything special I should watch out for?"
"The snakes. You'll probably see a few. Don't hit them, whatever you do."
"Right."
They changed seats, and Tanner reclined the one, lit a cigarette, smoked half of it, crushed it out and went to sleep.
VII When Greg awakened him, it was night. Tanner coughed and drank a mouthful of ice water and crawled back to the latrine. When he emerged, he took the driver's seat and checked the mileage and looked at the compass. He corrected their course and, "We'll be in Salt Lake City before morning," he said, "if we're lucky.—Did you run into any trouble?'*
"No, it was pretty easy. I saw some snakes and I let them go by. That was about it."
Tanner grunted and engaged the gears,
"What was that .guy's name that brought the news about the plague?" Tanner asked.
"Brady or Brody or something like that," said Greg."What was it that killed him? He might have brought the plague to L.A., you know."
Greg shook his head.
"No. His car had been damaged, and he was all broken up and he'd been exposed to radiation a lot of the way. They burned his body and his car, and anybody who'd been anywhere near him got shots of Hamkine."
"What's that?"
"That's the stuff we're carrying— Haffikine antiserum. It's the only preventative for the plague. Since we had a bout of it around twenty years ago, we've kept it on hand and maintained the facilities for making more in a hurry. Boston never did, and now they're hurting,"
"Seems kind of silly for the only other nation on the continent—maybe in the world—not to take better care of itself, when they knew we'd had a dose of it,"
Greg shrugged.
"Probably, but there it is. Did they give you any shots before they released you?"
"Yeah."
"That's what it was, then."
"I wonder where their driver crossed the Missus Hip? He didn't say, did he?"
"He hardly said anything at all. They got most of the story from the letter he carried."
"Must have been one hell of a driver, to run the Alley."
"Yeah. Nobody's ever done it before, have they?"
"Not that I know of."
"I'd like to have met the guy."
"Me too, at least I guess."
"It's a shame we can't radio across country, like in the old days."
"Why?"
"Then he wouldn't of had to do it, and we could find out along the way whether it's really worth making the run. They might all be dead by now, you know."
"You've got a point there, mister, and in a day or so we'll be to a place where going back will be harder than going ahead."
Tanner adjusted the screen as dark shapes passed.
"Look at that, will you!"
"I don't see anything."
"Put on your infras."
Greg did this and stared upward at the screen.Bats. Enormous bats cavorted overhead, swept by in dark clouds.
"There must be hundreds of them, maybe thousands. ..."
"Guess so. Seems there are more than there used to be when I came this way a few years back. They must be screwing their heads off in Carlsbad."
"We never see them in L.A. Maybe they're pretty much harmless."
"Last time I was up to Salt Lake, I heard talk that a lot of them were rabid. Some day someone's got to go —them or us."
"You're a cheerful guy to ride with, you know?"
Tanner chuckled and lit a cigarette, and. "Why don't you make us some coffee?" he said. "As for the bats, that's something our kids can worry about, if there are any."
Greg filled the coffee pot and plugged it into the dashboard. After a time, it began to grumble and hiss.
"What the hell's that?" said Tanner, and he hit the brakes. The other car halted, several hundred yards behind his own, and he turned on his microphone and said, "Car three! What's that look like to you?" and waited.
He watched them: towering, tapered tops that spun between the ground and the sky, wobbling from side to side, sweeping back and forth, about a mile ahead. It seemed there were fourteen or fifteen of the things. Now they stood like pillars, now they danced. They bored into the ground and sucked up yellow dust. There was a haze all about them. The stars were dim or absent above or behind them.
Greg stared ahead and said, "I've heard of whirlwinds, tornadoes—big, spinning things. I've never seen one, but that's the way they were described to me."
And then the radio crackled, and the muffled voice of the man called Marlowe came through:
"Giant dust devils," he said. "Big, rotary sand storms. I think they're sucking stuff up into the dead belt, because I don't see anything coming down—"
"You ever see one before?"
"No, but my partner says he did- He says the best thing might be to shoot our anchoring columns and stay put."Tanner did not answer immediately. He stared ahead, and the tornadoes seemed to grow larger.
"They're coming this way," he finally said. "I'm not about to park here and be a target. I want to be able to maneuver. I'm going ahead through them."
"I don't think you should."
"Nobody asked you, mister, but if you've got any brains you'll do the same thing."
"I've got rockets aimed at your tail. Hell."
"You won't fire them—not for a thing like this, where I could be right and you could be wrong—and not with Greg in here, too."
There was silence within the static, then, "Okay, you win. Hell. Go ahead, and we'll watch. If you make it, we'll follow. If you don't, we'll stay put."
"I'll shoot a flare when I get to the other side," Tanner said. "When you see it, you do the same. Okay?"
Tanner broke the connection and looked ahead, studying the great black columns, swollen at their tops. There fell a few layers of light from the storm which they supported, and the air was foggy between the blacknesses of their revolving trunks. "Here goes," said Tanner, switching his lights as bright as they would beam. "Strap yourself in, boy," and Greg obeyed him as the vehicle crunched forward.
Tanner buckled his own safety belt as they slowly edged ahead.
The columns grew and swayed as he advanced, and he could now bear a rushing, singing sound, as of a chorus of the winds.
He skirted the first by three hundred yards and continued to the left to avoid the one which stood before him and grew and grew. As he got by it, there was another, and he moved farther to the left. Then there was an open area of perhaps a quarter of a mile leading ahead and toward his right.
He swiftly sped across it and passed between two of the towers that stood like ebony pillars a hundred yards apart. As he passed them, the wheel was almost torn from his grip, and he seemed to inhabit the center of an eternal thunderclap. He swerved to the right then an
d skirted another, speeding.
Then he saw seven more and cut between two and passed about another. As he did, the one behind himmoved rapidly, crossing the path he had just taken. He exhaled heavily and turned to the left.
He was surrounded by the final four, and he braked so that he was thrown forward and the straps cut into his shoulder, as two of the whirlwinds shook violently and moved in terrible spurts of speed. One passed before him, and the front end of his car was raised off the ground.
Then he floored the gas pedal and shot between the final two, and they were all behind him.
He continued on for about a quarter for a mile, turned the car about, mounted a small rise and parked.
He released the flare.
It hovered, like a dying star, for about half a minute.
He lit a cigarette as he stared back, and he waited.
He finished the cigarette.
Then, "Nothing," he said. "Maybe they couldn't spot it through the storm. Or maybe we couldn't see theirs."
"I hope so," said Greg.
"How long do you want to wait?"
"Let's have that coffee."
An hour passed, then two. The pillars began to collapse until there were only three of the slimmer ones. They moved off toward the east and were gone from sight.
Tanner released another flare, and still there was no response.
"We'd better go back and look for them," said Greg.
"Okay."
And they did.
There was nothing there, though, nothing to indicate the fate of car three.
Dawn occurred in the east before they had finished with their searching, and Tanner turned the car around, checked the compass, and moved north.
"When do you think we'll hit Salt Lake?" Greg asked him, after a long silence.
"Maybe two hours."
"Were you scared, back when you ran those things?"
"No. Afterward, though, I didn't feel so good."
Greg nodded. '
"You want me to drive again?"
"No. I won't be able to sleep if I stop now. We'll take in more gas in Salt Lake, and we can get somethingto eat while a mechanic checks over the car. Then I'll put us on the right road, and you can take over while I sack out."
The sky was purple again and the black bands had widened. Tanner cursed and drove faster. He fired his ventral flame at two bats who decided to survey the car. They fell back, and he accepted the mug of coffee Greg offered him.
VIII The sky was as dark as evening when they pulled into Salt Lake City. John Brady—that was his name—had passed that way but days before, and the city was ready for the responding vehicle. Most of its ten thousand inhabitants appeared along the street, and before Hell and Greg had jumped down from the cab after pulling into the first garage they saw, the hood of car number two was opened and three mechanics were peering at the engine.
They abandoned the idea of eating in the little diner across the street. Too many people hit them with too many questions as soon as they set foot outside the garage. They retreated and s^ent someone after eggs, bacon and toast.
There was cheering as they rolled forth onto the street and sped away into the east.
"Could have used a beer," said Tanner. "Damn it!"
And they rushed along beside the remains of what had once been U.S. Route 40.
Tanner relinquished the driver's seat and stretched out on the passenger side of the cab. The sky continued to darken above them, taking upon it the appearance it had had in L.A. the day before.
"Maybe we can outrun it," Greg said.
"Hope so."
The blue pulse began in the north, flared into a brilliant aurora. The sky was almost black directly overhead.
"Runi" cried Tanner. "Run! Those are bills up ahead! Maybe we can find an overhang or a cavel"
But it broke upon them before they reached the hills. First came the hail, then the flak. The big stones followed, and the scanner on the right went dead. The sandsblasted them, and they rode beneath a celestial waterfall that caused the engine to sputter and cough.
They reached the shelter of the hills, though, and found a place within a rocky valley where the walls jutted steeply forward and broke the main force of the wind/sand/dust/rock/water storm. They sat there as the winds screamed and boomed about them. They smoked and they listened.
"We won't make it," said Greg. "You were right. I thought we had a chance. We don't. Everything's against us, even the weather."
"We've got a chance," said Tanner. "Maybe not a real good one. But we've been lucky so far. Remember that."
Greg spat into the waste container.
"Why the sudden optimism? From you?"
"I was mad before and shooting off my mouth. Well, I'm still mad—but I got me a feeling now: I feel lucky.
That's all."
Greg laughed. "The hell with luck. Look out there," he said.
"I see it," said Tanner. "This buggy is built to take it, and it's doing it. Also, we're only getting about ten percent of its full strength."
"Okay, but what difference does it make? It could last for a couple days."
"So we wait it out."
"Wait too long, and even that ten percent can smash us. Wait too long, and even if it doesn't there'll be no reason left to go ahead. Try driving, though, and it'll flatten us."
"It'll take me ten or fifteen minutes to fix that scanner. We've got spare 'eyes.' If the storm lasts more than six hours, we'll start out anyway."
"Says who?"
"Me."
"Why? You're the one who was so hot on saving his own neck. How come all of a sudden you're willing to risk it, not to mention mine too?"
Tanner smoked awhile, then said, "I've been thinking," and then he didn't say anything else.
"About what?" Greg' asked him.
"Those folks in Boston," Tanner said. "Maybe it is worth it. I don't know. They never did anything for me.But hell, I like action and I'd hate to see the whole world get dead. I think I'd like to see Boston, too, just to see what it's like. It might even be fun being a hero, just to see what that's like. Don't get me wrong. I don't give a damn about anybody up there. It's just that I don't like the idea of everything being like the Alley here—all burned-out and screwed up and full of crap. When we lost the other car back in those tornadoes, it made me start thinking. ... I'd hate to see everybody go that way —everything. I might still cop out if I get a real good chance, but I'm just telling you how I feel now. That's all."
Greg looked away and laughed, a little more heartily than usual.
"I never suspected you contained such philosophic depths."
"Me neither. I'm tired. Tell me about your brothers and sisters, huh?"
"Okay."
Four hours later when the storm slackened and the rocks became dust and the rain fog. Tanner replaced the right scanner, and they moved on out, passing later through Rocky Mountain National Park. The dust and the fog combined to limit visibility, throughout the day. That evening they skirted the ruin that was Denver, and Tanner took over as they headed toward the place that had once been called Kansas.
He drove all night, and in the morning the sky was clearer than it bad been in days. He let Greg snore on and sorted through his thoughts while he sipped his coffee.
It was a strange feeling that came over him as he sat there with his pardon in his pocket and his hands upon the wheel. The dust fumed at his back. The sky was the color of rosebuds, and the dark trails had shrunken once again. He recalled the stories of the days when the missiles came down, burning everything but the northeast and the southwest; the days when the winds arose and the clouds vanished and the sky had lost its blue; the days when the Panama Canal had been shattered and radios had ceased to function; the days when the planes could no longer fly. He regretted this, for he had always wanted to fly, high, birdlike, swooping and soaring. He felt slightly cold, andthe screens now seemed to possess a crystal clarity, like pools of tinted water. Somewhere ahead, far, f
ar ahead lay what might be the only other sizeable pocket of humanity that remained on the shoulders of the world. He might be able to save it, if he could reach it in time. He looked about him at the rocks and the sand and the side of a broken garage that had somehow come to occupy the slope of a mountain. It remained within his mind long after he had passed it. Shattered, fallen down, half covered with debris, it took on a stark and monstrous form, like a decaying skull which had once occupied the shoulders of a giant; and he pressed down hard on the accelerator, although it could go no further. He began to tremble. The sky brightened, but he did not touch the screen controls. Why did he have to be the one? He saw a mass of smoke ahead and to the right. As he drew nearer, he saw that it rose from a mountain which had lost its top and now held a nest of fires in its place. He cut to the left, going miles, many miles, out of the way he bad intended. Occasionally, the ground shook beneath his wheels. Ashes fell about him, but now the smouldering cone was far to the rear of the right-hand screen. He wondered after the days that had gone before and the few things that he actually knew about them. If he made it through, be decided he'd leam more about history. He threaded his way through painted canyons and forded a shallow river. Nobody had ever asked him to do anything important before, and he hoped that nobody ever would again. Now, though, he was taken by the feeling that he could do it. He wanted to do it. Damnation Alley lay all about him, burning, fuming, shaking, and if he could not run it then half the world would die, and the chances would be doubled that one day all the world would be part of the Alley. His tattoo stood stark on his whitened knuckles, saying "Hell," and he knew that it was true. Greg still slept, the sleep of exhaustion, and Tanner narrowed his eyes and chewed his beard and never touched the brake, not even when he saw the rockslide beginning. He made it by and sighed. That pass was closed to him forever, but he had shot through without a scratch. His mind was an expanding bubble, its surfaces like the view-screens, registering everything about him. He felt the flow of the air within the cab and the upward pressure of the pedal upon his foot His throat seemed dry, but it didn't matter. His eyes felt gooey attheir inside comers, but he didn't wipe them. He roared across the pocked plains of Kansas, and he knew now that he had been sucked into the role completely and that he wanted it that way. Damn-his-eyes Denton had been right It had to be done. He halted when he came to the lip of a chasm and headed north. Thirty miles later it ended, and he turned again to the south. Greg muttered in his sleep. It sounded like a curse. Tanner repeated it softly a couple times and turned toward the east as soon as a level stretch occurred. The sun stood in high heaven, and Tanner felt as though be were drifting bodiless beneath it, above the brown ground flaked with green spikes of growth. He clenched his teeth and his mind went back to Denny, doubtless now in a hospital. Better than being where the others had gone. He hoped the money he'd told him about was still there. Then he felt the ache begin, in the places between his neck and his shoulders. It spread down into his arms, and be realized how tightly he was gripping the wheeL He blinked and took a deep breath and realized that his eyeballs hurt. He lit a cigarette and it tasted foul, but he kept puffing at it. He drank some water and he dimmed the rear view-screen as the sun fell behind him. Then he heard a sound like a distant rumble of thunder and was fully alert once more. He sat up straight and took his foot off the accelerator.
The Last Defender Of Camelot Page 17
