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VI. Doomsday Plus Eight 

I waited until after brunch—Lord God, how I learned to loathe noodles and tomato paste!—to dress for my trip to the garage to prepare the Lotus. Ern knew I would be packing heavy heat, the twelve-gauge, when I drove away as their escort. To conserve fuel I intended to drive behind them, catching up and then coasting until they were well ahead before I eased ahead again. But none of them left the tunnel to watch me collect my hardware and spare ammo. I made a second trip for the battery and the jerrycan with the remainder of my fuel.

Fully dressed in my Halloween outfit, I hauled the second load across my lawn in bright sunshine, through an ankle-deep layer of dead leaves, to the garage. Here and there I saw the fresh green of tender young weeds, prodded into unseasonal growth by irradiation. The twelve-gauge wouldn't fit under the Lotus's dash so I stashed it more or less out of sight in the foot well, where my left thigh would keep it company.

The fuel went in quickly; the battery, not so quickly. My damned rubber gloves and the fogging of my goggles made me a prize klutz.

I was afraid I'd have to push-start my little bolide, but eventually it coughed, cleared its throat in a healthy rasp, then began to purr. I let it idle and knelt with my tire gauge to see if pressures were okay. I'd been outside about ten minutes, two rems' worth, and figured on running back in another minute or so if the right rear tire was as healthy as the others. Kneeling with my head near the exhaust pipe, I heard muffled staccato reports and simultaneous metallic clangs, and I fell back on my keester. With the scarf over my ears I didn't interpret the sounds correctly; I thought the engine had munched a valve.

But my Lotus continued its quiet purr. I scrambled up, leaned over the doorsill, shut off the ignition. That's when I heard the throb of a big V-eight heading toward the house.

For the space of a heartbeat I felt the joy of unexpected good fortune; and then remembered that my gate had been locked, and reassessed the sounds I'd thought were engine trouble. Someone had used an automatic weapon on my gate.

I stepped near the window, I let my goggles hang at my throat, and picked up the mattock Devon had shouldered a week before. A mattock handle fits loosely into the steel head, unlike an ax. I slipped the hickory shaft from the head, watching through a crack in the old garage door while the pickup followed my gravel drive and stopped near the garage. The pickup had a Contra Costa County logo on the driver's door, but it also had several indented holes through the side panels. They were just about the size of rifle slugs. One headlight had been shattered.

Four men were crammed in the cab. The first to get out was obviously the man in charge, a big sturdy loafer wearing khakis that were too small for him and a shiny badge that looked wrong on him. He carried a pump shotgun in one hand and a long-barreled police .38 in a holster.

The man who emerged after him wore khakis and badge too; a tall, slow-moving fellow without a sidearm. The leader commanded, "Move it, Ellis, and this time remember not to point this thing until you're ready to use it." With that he handed the shotgun to Ellis. Both men swept my acreage with their eyes as the third man scrambled out. The driver stayed put. Someone had taped around the windows, and the three dudes who got out all wore gloves and sunglasses. No respirators or masks of any kind; if these guys were sheriff's deputies, I was a teenage werewolf.

The third man out wore slacks and pullover and carried one of the little vintage Air Force carbines. Not much of a threat at two hundred yards, but closer in on auto fire it could rattle you full of thirty-caliber holes. He glanced toward the Lotus, then said, "You want me for backup, Dennison?"

Dennison, the leader, waved an arm in my general direction. "Look for fuel, whatever you can boost in there. Then come to the door and give us a roust. Hell, you know the procedure, Riley; the smoke from the standpipe says there's somebody in the house. If we can make this sweep without wasting any ammo, that's ammo we won't have to replace later."

"Got it," said Riley, the carbine toter. He moved in my direction. In the cab the fourth man was rolling himself a cigarette. Not many jail-farm employees rolled their own—maybe because so many inmates did. 

I knew my clownish garb made a lot of noise when I moved, and there was no place to hide and no time to reach into the car for my artillery because I would have to do it in full view of the approaching Riley. I did the only thing I could, an ancient time-honored ploy: I stepped as quietly as possible to the near wall next to the open door and raised my hunk of hickory on high. If he glanced my way, it could be all over for ol' Uncle Harve.

Then a soft pop, no louder than the snap of a fingernail, spanged from the cooling guts of the Lotus. I saw the man's shadow jerk and shorten as he crouched, intent on my car, peering hard into the gloom of my garage.

Another snap of cooling metal. He kept the carbine aimed into the shadow one-handed and knelt to feel my exhaust pipe, and he must have heard the rustle of my clothes because he began to swing the little carbine toward me as I connected with the mattock handle against his receiver mechanism with an impact that bashed the weapon completely from his grasp and knocked it clattering against a wall.

I took three fast steps. The first brought my right foot into range of his belly; the second was a kick just under his sternum to paralyze his hollering apparatus; and the third was a hop to regain my balance as I crossed the doorway in full view of anyone who might be looking toward the garage. He had time to declaim one wordless syllable, ending in a plosive grunt.

Riley, knees drawn up, clutched his belly and rolled to face me, mouth gaping like a carp. I squatted low and menaced him with the mattock handle while risking a peek outside. Dennison and Ellis were approaching my seldom-used front door as coolly and confidently as if on official business. The driver addressed a paperback, still in the pickup. I grabbed the hapless Riley by one ankle and jerked him into shadow so hard his head bumped concrete.

A solid kick to the solar plexus can render a professional athlete helpless for a half-minute. While Riley groveled and gasped, I circled around the front of the Lotus, keeping in shadow, and slung my twelve-gauge on my back by its sling before returning to stand over the man who now lay on his back, eyes rolling at me.

I gave him a quick pat-down and found the five-inch switchblade thrust down the inside of his high-top boot. I let the blade flick open. "Nice and quiet," I growled, placing the flat of the blade under his jaw. "I won't even have to pull a trigger if you try anything louder than a whisper, Master Riley. Now: down on your face if you want to live. Arms and legs spread."

He needed help to roll over, uttering croupy wheezes as his diaphragm muscles began to unkink. Ever since the ice-pick routine years ago, I've had a loathing for knives. I wasn't about to let Riley know that because then he might make me shoot him. And my twelve-gauge announces itself like a multiple boiler explosion, and I didn't want to alert those two on my front porch. Now, I wish I had.

Spread-eagled on his face, he couldn't help but feel the prick of his own stiletto near his carotid artery. I asked it softly: "What is Dennison after?"

"Food. Guns. Booze. Jewelry," he wheezed. Then, "Broads. He's a deputy sheriff. If you're smart you'll let me—"

I raised his head by the hair and whacked it lightly against concrete. "Try again, Riley. He's a scuffler from the rock-hockey farm. If I'm really smart, I'll just slit your throat and take out your buddy in the pickup and drive away whistling. Or just wait for your pals. Each lie earns you a fresh headache. Now: what's Dennison's procedure here? Quickly," I added, grasping him by his hair again.

A long breath, a short curse. "Dennison and Ellis go in—very polite, asking—who needs help. Then they say—they're searching for escapees—from the county farm. Sorry, citizen, but that's—how it is, and—whoever looks like trouble—gets asked to lead the way—to search the rest of the house. And then down comes the sap—on the back of his head, and strapping tape—to hogtie him while we—shake the place down. Anybody gets antsy, we—mention we've got a hostage."

Slick; too slick by a damned sight. But he'd left a loose end, and it dangled in the back of my mind. "Why did he want you to give him a roust?"

Pause; sigh. "So I can call him Deputy Dennison. It's supposed to make everybody—sure we're legit."

I took a chance. "Didn't work too well last night, did it?"

Riley stiffened, then shrugged. "Not very. Are you The Man?" If he thought I was a cop, he probably figured I knew something about what his bunch had already done. Which, I suspected, included homicide within a half-mile of my place.

I said I was The Man, all right. "Sit up, facing away from me, and strip out your bootlaces. If I have to speed you up, I'll brain you and do it myself." Still working just to breathe, he tugged the heavy laces from his boots. I leaned the mattock handle against the wall without taking my gaze from Riley.

"Your driver's name," I prompted when I had the laces.

"Oliver."

I could see the two men on my front porch, and at that point I probably could still have averted a tragedy. Then I saw Shar inviting them in, and the moment passed into the oblivion reserved for wasted chances. I wondered how long it would be before Shar called to me, canceling my hope of surprise.

I unslung my terrible hole card and held it ready. To Riley I said, "Your life depends on suckering Oliver in here without making a fuss. I'm just itching to blow you away and I've got as many rounds of double-ought buck here as you had in that carbine. Turn around and see for yourself."

He did, gulping as he saw the fat magazine and stubby barrel of my weapon. "What the fuck is that?"

"Enough death to go around, little man. Now stand up and call Oliver in here. Bear in mind that if you can't get him in here or if you take one step toward the outside, you get your ticket canceled."

I could see his arms and legs trembling as he stood. I stepped up next to the mattock handle with my back to the wall near the open door; gestured with my gun barrel for him to move near the Lotus.

He nearly fell, but leaned against the rear fender; licked his lips; gave a low hoarse call. No response. He called again.

I heard a door open. A bored tenor called a sullen, "Yeah?"

The briefest of pauses. I clicked the safety. Riley called urgently, "I never seen a stash like this in my life! You wanta take your cut now, before Dennison hogs it?" Riley was trying to keep from glancing my way; trying so hard his eyelids fluttered.

The door slammed. I didn't risk a glance as I heard footsteps approach. I used the gun barrel to urge Riley away from my car and he stumbled back, both arms jerking as he started to raise them and then thought better of it.

A few yards away, approaching: "What the hell's with you, man? You on a bad trip?" And then Riley essayed the sickest smile I ever witnessed and a silent, palms-out gesture of helplessness, and Oliver stepped into view, frowning intently at Riley. He took two more steps into the garage before he saw me, and for all I know he didn't even notice the twelve-gauge in the hands of what must've seemed like a towering bogeyman in the shadows.

"Sweetshit," Oliver screamed, leaping sideways to rebound from a fender.

"No no no," Riley begged me, arms thrust high as he squeezed his eyes shut in anticipation of death. It saved his life. I snatched up the mattock handle and brought it humming in a sidearm swoop as Oliver whirled, and it took him flush across the bridge of his nose and swept on over his forehead as his head snapped back. Another second and he would've been outside, and I would've been obliged to bisect him instead of just giving him the great-grandsire of all concussions. He fell on his back, legs twitching, blood beginning to rivulet from his nostrils.

"Like you said, Riley," I breathed. "No. Keep this up and you may get a reduced sentence." That was bullshit, of course, but I wanted him to see a carrot as well as a stick.

Riley spread-eagled himself again while I trussed Oliver's ankles and wrists with bootlaces, bound behind him so that he lay on his side out of sight. He bled a lot and breathed in snorts. I took a long-barreled revolver from his belt and snapped the blade off his sheath knife between the jaws of my blacksmith's vise. I could claim I hoped I hadn't killed Oliver, but I wasn't even thinking about him. I was furiously considering my next move.

I retrieved the little carbine, pocketed all its ammo, jacked out the chambered round, and reinserted the empty clip. Then I took the second full clip from Riley's hip pocket and gave him another frisk to make sure he hadn't hidden a singleton round on him. I'd heard about a hit man who used to carry one round each of twenty-two long, parabellum, and forty-five ACP in his change pocket, just in case. Riley wasn't that farsighted. He accepted the carbine, blinking nervously.

"That's just window dressing," I told him. "Keep it in view. You'll have an alarm signal—maybe several. Shots? What? And while you're wondering if you should lie about it, think about this: if anybody in that house gets hurt, you get the same."

He licked dry lips. "The horn. One toot for an alert. Two means stay put. Three means haul ass. That was Oliver's job." Enough scorn leaked into that last phrase to make me believe him.

I nodded, considering an assault past the root cellar stairs, which meant bulling through the book barrier. But I wouldn't be able to see into there and I'd be impossible to miss by anyone standing in the cellar. Or I could just wait behind the pickup, or go into the house with Riley. Better still, behind Riley.

But too many things could go wrong, and those badged bastards thought in terms of hostages. Besides, they might spot me coming across the yard from a window while they separated Ern from the others. I wondered if I could make use of the unconscious Oliver, then noticed that his hair was nearly black. Scrunched down while I—literally!—rode shotgun, my head might look like his from the back. That was important, because now I decided to draw those bogus lawmen from the house toward me. My place was infected, and I sought to draw the pus to the surface.

The county pickup was parked so that with a ten-yard sprint, I could put it between me and the house. I gave Riley his orders and made sure he knew I'd be only a pace behind, then whacked his shoulder. He scuttled for the passenger's side, the harmless carbine in one hand, and piled into the pickup while I squatted, my twelve-gauge at ready, and let him slide behind the steering wheel. Only then did I ease into the cab with him, sliding down, stuffing my rain hat in my belt. "Okay, Riley," I said. "Roll down your window, give one toot, and start the engine."

He did it, no longer shaking as he stripped tape from the side window, his face impassive. I liked him shaky so I said, "Did I mention that this thing is semiauto? With sixteen rounds?" He blinked, whispered something to himself, shook his head. "Now give one toot again." He did. I thought I saw movement at one of the upstairs windows. "Aim the carbine up the slope toward the garden," I said.

He did it. I heard him mutter, "Bang bang; this ain't gonna fool anybody."

"Hand me the carbine slowly and burn rubber for the gate," I replied, "and give three toots on the way." I snatched the little weapon as he swung it into the cab, wondering if he entertained ideas of using it as a club. But he did a fine job of spewing gravel as I braced myself, leaning against the far door, aiming my persuader at his middle while we accelerated away.

I called for three more toots and got them, then told Riley to stop at the gate. "No panic braking! You don't want me to panic, do you?"

The pickup stopped. I made Riley give another three toots, had him gun the engine a few times. Nothing—at least nothing I had hoped to see.

I opened my door and eased out, keeping the cab between me and my house. My adrenal pump insisted that hours were whistling past me in a gale of confusion, so I spoke with deliberation. "Don't open your door but lean out and wave and shout," I told Riley. "As if a posse were coming from up the hill. I'm going to fire for effect."

Mine was a delicate problem in personnel management; if Riley thought I was shooting at him without provocation, sure as hell he'd panic. As Riley waved and hollered, I reached in and shifted the gear lever to neutral, then took the revolver from my raincoat and squeezed off three rounds toward my garden plot three hundred yards distant.

Almost immediately the lank Ellis appeared on my porch, swiveling his head and his scattergun, seeking the source of Riley's excitement. "Get 'em here on the double," I snarled.

"They're coming," Riley shouted, waving and pointing. "Let's go, let's go!" He pounded on the side of his door and gunned the engine, darting a glance at me, getting my nod. I should've expected that, in doing a little more than the minimum, the little scuffler was conning me, awaiting a lapse on my part. "Let's go," he repeated.

Ellis shouted something in reply, ducked into my house, and reappeared a moment later with Dennison right behind him. My heart pounded against my throat as I saw what Dennison dragged with him.

Naturally he would choose the hostage who seemed most likely to be manageable, but Dennison had made a mistake. He held Lance McKay by the hair with one hand, his sidearm drawn in the other. Both men began to run toward me crabwise, searching behind them, scanning for enemies as they came. Half-squatting, I thrust the revolver into my belt as Ellis came into range of my twelve-gauge. Dennison lagged behind, wrenching my nephew's head, Lance stumbling behind him as a shield against an imagined enemy. Squalling and cursing, Lance was anything but tractable.

I suppose Riley was waiting until he knew my attention was focused on Ellis, for without warning he gunned the pickup hard and let the clutch pedal thump upward. But Riley hadn't seen me snick the gear lever into neutral and of course the pickup didn't budge. I did, in a half-pivot toward Riley, who tumbled out the other side of the cab and hit running.

"Get 'im, Ellis, he's behind the cab!" Riley sang it over his shoulder as he loped down my access road toward distant blacktop. Ellis stared at him in astonishment, then caught sight of me as I peered over the side of the pickup. He made a stutter-step sideways, heading for a sycamore ten paces from me, and brought up his pumpgun.

My first round of double-ought buck took Ellis just above the belt buckle at a range of ten yards and jerked him backward like a marionette. Recoil aimed my second round higher, partly deflected by the airborne pumpgun, but the rest of the big pellets left him with no skull above the eyebrows. Ellis was already dead as he slid across the carpet of sycamore leaves.

Dennison had struggled within extreme range of my scattergun by now, but the twin thunderclaps of my twelve-gauge and Ellis's rag-doll collapse sent him scurrying behind the largest of my nearby sycamores. I had no confidence in a handgun I'd never sighted in and no time to cram the full clip into the carbine that lay on the floor of the pickup. Lacking pinpoint accuracy, I couldn't risk a shot while Lance screeched and flailed against his tormentor; at twenty-five yards a sawed-off shotgun's pattern is much too broad for precision shooting.

Dennison tried to quell Lance by shouting at him. I knew I had the bastard stopped if I could only get a moment to ransom his freedom for Lance's. "Lance!" I put every decibel I had behind it, making the same mistake as Dennison. "Lance, it's Uncle Harve! Calm down; you'll be okay!"

"Come beat him up! Owww, you better—" replied my nephew before Dennison whacked him with his pistol barrel. Lance heard me, all right; it was his tragedy that he never truly believed in ultimate control or ultimate punishment. But he believed in that pistol barrel and grabbed his head in both hands while screaming his head off.

Dennison's arms were possible targets. So was Lance. Then my nephew slumped, still squalling. From behind the tree came Dennison's voice, harsh with command: "You try for me and the kid gets it!" His muscular forearm clamped under Lance's chin, the pistol held to the boy's head.

"Stop it, Lance," I shouted and added, "Dennison, you won't outlive him by five seconds."

"Settle him down, then," the man responded, and it was as much a plea as demand. I felt an instant of hope, realizing that Dennison wanted to negotiate.

But only for that instant. Maybe Lance saw his father leap from my front porch, silver shreds of duct tape flapping at his ankles, jacking the slide of my big .45 Colt as he ran for the cover of a walnut tree. Or maybe Lance was only getting his second wind. I'll say this, with a lump in my throat: the little bugger never gave up. I think he bit down on Dennison's wrist.

The man snarled and jerked his left arm up, and then Lance was on all fours, slipping on leaves, and whether Dennison intended to merely wing my nephew or not, he fired from a range of ten feet. Shot through the back, Lance fell heavily and lay still.

I needed a clear shot, but as I stepped away from the safety of the pickup, Dennison backpedaled fast, keeping the sycamore between us, angling for a middle-size oak farther from me. There was a sizable chance that he'd make it until he heard the heavy bark of the Colt in Ern's hands.

Dennison turned toward the sound—a very long shot for a handgun; no wonder Ern missed—and I pulled my trigger again. It didn't nail Dennison but it sent him sprinting away. Ern advanced firing two-handed, each blast of the Colt a second after the last.

Dennison knew his weapons, all right. He managed to get thirty yards from my scattergun and then made a desperate lunge for the top of my eight-foot fence, snapping a shot at Ern before tossing his revolver aside. Ern did not flinch but raced forward. He had already fired five rounds without a strike, but number six caught Dennison just at the base of his neck as he struggled at the top of my fence. Dennison jerked, fell, then hung facing us with one sleeve caught on the top of the wire. Ern, eyes wide in a face whitened by rage, ran without hesitation to point-blank range and put his last round squarely into Dennison's heart.

By this time I had Lance in my arms, and as I ran to the house, I called, "Leave that garbage, Ern! Lance may not be hurt too badly."

My twelve-gauge slapping my back as I ran, I got Lance to the house, where Shar met me wailing. I relinquished her son to her and stood aside for Ern, who ran several paces behind me, sobbing.

Kate stood ashen-faced, my little target pistol in her hand, just inside my front door. The added weapon made me think of Riley, whose defection might not last. "Kate, we'll have to get Lance to a doctor," I said, breathing hard. "Can you tear down the book barrier double-quick?"

"I can try. Is Lance hurt badly?"

"Moaning and breathing. That's all I know," I said and wheeled back toward the pickup, checking the target pistol as I ran. I fairly clanked with my arsenal, but weapons weren't the items of hardware that concerned me most. I wanted that pickup.

The engine was still bumbling along, waiting for whoever got there first. I backed it furiously past two deaders, wondering how much radiation I'd taken during the attack.

When I ripped the plastic cover from my root cellar doors, I found Kate and Devon toppling a bookcase. Devon claimed he could shoot, so I stationed him in the pickup two paces from the root cellar entrance with the carbine, its full clip, and orders to fire one warning round if he saw anything suspicious. Then I hotfooted through my tunnel to the basement and to the keening little group of McKays surrounding my waterbed.

Lance lay on his back, breathing but glassy-eyed with shock. Midway up his naked breast on the right was a small purplish crater, trickling crimson, which Cammie kept wiping away with facial tissue while Shar tore at a roll of adhesive tape. It was good to know that the bullet wasn't lodged in Lance's body. It was very bad that the exit wound was bubbling as he breathed.

* * *

Lance's punctured lung canceled any thoughts I'd had of sealing my place up. In fifteen minutes we had all dressed as thoroughly as possible with our food in slender blanket rolls and a few other necessaries thrown into my old backpack. At my request, Kate scribbled directions to her place at Yountville, which I pocketed knowing I might never get that far.

The pickup had room for all the McKays, Devon, and the bikes as well. Devon kept the carbine in sight for the edification of any lurking 'jackers. Before backing the Lotus out I cut the bonds of Oliver, who lay still unconscious on my garage floor. Maybe I should've dumped him into the pickup, but on my list of priorities he was as expendable as a hangnail.

Kate didn't like sharing my passenger seat with two shovels, a backpack, and a hundred pounds of Spot—but then neither did he. I led the way past my gate, Ern driving the pickup while Shar cradled Lance in the cab. Poor kid was coughing some blood. Our plan, or more accurately Shar's decision, was for me to lead the way to Kaiser Hospital in Antioch in the forlorn hope that we would find it open. If not, Martinez also had a Kaiser Hospital. Wherever we found medical help, Shar would stay there with Lance while Ern and the rest of us headed for Yountville.

But those plans proved fruitless. I wasted five minutes trying to find a route to the hospital in Antioch, and it seemed to me that the number of wrecks and abandoned vehicles increased as we got within a mile of the place, as if they were deliberately aligned as roadblocks. It would look that way, of course, after fifty thousand people converged on the same point with life-threatening emergencies.

I might've got to the hospital by some judicious hops in the Lotus, but not with Lance and Shar both. And since I couldn't raise Kaiser/Antioch on the phone, we didn't know whether it still offered any hope.

We lit out for Martinez, using sidewalks and road shoulders when necessary and trying steadily to get the Martinez hospital on the phone. Kate said all she got was interference. Then we tried emergency numbers and got multiple busy signals. Ditto with police numbers. That was strange because we saw nobody on the streets, and it seemed unlikely that police circuits would be overloaded in a dead township. We finally got through to an emergency fire number, an exchange now manned by army engineers.

"Kaiser/Martinez was evacuated to Petaluma yesterday," said the sergeant, ready to break the connection.

I tried to picture that in my head; it would've been a big operation. "What route did they take, sergeant?"

"Staging area in Martinez just south of the railroad bridge. We ran a bunch of boxcars in and hauled everything movable in one load. There's another train scheduled late today into Concord, but with all those burn cases it's gonna be late. Don't expect to find any medical staff; we had to forcibly evacuate some. Can't risk losing trained people to fallout residuals."

I said, "We're in a pickup. Can we get across at Martinez? Ferry boat? Anything?"

"Not a chance. We're clearing the traffic bridges with 'dozers and wheel-loaders, just dumping vehicles into the bay, and with all that heavy equipment thrashing around, we can't allow any foot traffic. You get conscripted to a work detail for trying." His brusque rumble lowered slightly. "Off the record, I hear they're allowing foot traffic and bikes over the railroad bridge except when there's rolling stock on it. But if you try that with a car you'll wind up on a work detail. Just 'cause you don't see a sentry don't mean he don't see you. Signing off," he said, and the line went dead.

I waved Ern to a stop and told him what I'd learned. We could get to the railroad tracks near the bridge, but Lance would have to be my solitary passenger as I wave-hopped across Suisun Bay in the Lotus. Assuming I made it across, I would await the rest of the group on the Vallejo side, then take Shar and Lance to Napa at all possible speed.

Before leaving my place, I had buckled Spot's heavy ID collar on him, more as a mark of his domesticity than anything else. I didn't want him shot as a zoo runaway. Now I saw that the collar would come in handy, because Spot might not take kindly to seeing me drive away without him. True enough, Spot was a watchcat, not an attack cat. But if Cammie's soothing hands and voice weren't enough, he might put clawmarks on somebody when he saw me drive away. I gave that a lot of thought while seeking the nearest approach to the railroad bridge, that great greasy black steel span running parallel to the freeway bridge out of Martinez.

Our little convoy stopped about a mile short of the bridge near a welter of abandoned cars, clothing, even bedding and kitchenware. We saw not one human form—only a few rats, seemingly unaffected by fallout. No doubt they lived far down in sewers; theirs was a holocaust lifestyle. Ern judged that the place looked like the aftermath of a railroad staging area but intended to keep going as near as possible to the railroad bridge before abandoning the pickup.

While Cammie and Shar placed Lance into my passenger seat, I borrowed belts from Devon and Ern, passing them through Spot's collar and looping them through tie-downs on the pickup. I didn't want to use my own belt because my pants would've been at half-mast in an instant. That's how much weight I'd lost in nine days.

I said, "Cammie, try and keep him calm, but if he gets out of control, stand away until I'm out of sight. Ern, you start off for the bridge first. Spot might not get antsy if he's the one who's moving instead of me."

Kate, darkly: "And what if he won't follow us over the bridge?"

"Just don't leave him tied up," I sighed. "I can't ask you to waste a second worrying about him." I wasn't prepared for the lingering hug she gave me; I was too intent on leaving. My sister's eyes were wet but steady on me as I slipped into the car.

"I love you, bubba," she said, her chin quivering as she nodded toward her son. "Get him across for me; okay?"

I gave her our old childhood horsewink because I didn't want to cry, then waved her away. I watched my rearview as Ern steered, jouncing, over tracks and headed toward the bridge. Cammie knelt near Spot, scratching him and talking, and though he yipped and watched me with what may have been yearning, he didn't try to break free. I had underestimated his liking for Cammie—or maybe I'd just underrated my quadruped pal.

With a look at Lance, I squirted the Lotus away in search of boat ramps. My nephew drooled bloody spit into a towel, and his normally ruddy color had faded to pallor. I tried to minimize bumps without using the fans; a Cellular's fans are notoriously short-lived if used for more than momentary jumping, and I'd already made one open-water crossing on them.

From Waterfront Road I turned toward the bay at my first chance, resolved to find a ramp westward, to my left. To my right lay the Naval Weapons Station, and new signs warned that I could expect to be shot if I continued in that direction. Would the sentries be adequately protected against radiation? I doubted it. Would they be at their posts? That I did not doubt. But I saw no one in the open. Martinez lay silent and dusty and dead around me.

A mile of fruitless driving took me past warehouses and loading docks, but finally, almost in the shadow of the railroad bridge, I found a small boat ramp. The fans eased us up and shrilled a song of short life as I studied the opposite shore.

The ramp I aimed for was clogged by a deep-keeled sloop which had somehow rolled off its trailer and now lay like a beached whale, mast thrusting into the water. I continued to within a few yards of shore—if the fans packed up now, I could tow Lance to dry land—and scooted toward the little state park where I'd gone skimming with Kate a week, and an era, before. The keening of fans and wail of my little engine masked the distant bang-clatter of Caterpillar diesels high overhead, and I never thought to look up as I skimmed under the high bridges. Until, of course, the Pontiac hurtled into the bay fifty yards in front of me.

The Army Corps of Engineers was as good as its word, using huge log-fork-equipped behemoths to toss everything off the bridge. No, I didn't wallop the damned sedan, but I passed it two seconds after it struck and its splash nearly swamped us. By some miracle my fans digested the spray without complaint and then I could see the park to my right, and three minutes later I plopped the Lotus down on dry land, grateful for the chance to disengage the fans.

I needed the fans again to jump a fence and a jam of cars before finding a route through Benicia's waterfront to the railroad tracks. Then I drove slowly back toward the bridge and shut my engine down a few yards from the tracks. My nephew's breath sounded rattly to me but I didn't know what to do about it. Cradling my twelve-gauge, staring down the tracks, I could barely make out the bobbing of tiny figures nearly a mile away. Nearer, on the freeway bridge, I could see a white-clad man in the enclosed cab of an enormous D-10 bulldozer, maneuvering a semi trailer over the rail with his front blade. He was the first stranger I'd seen who spelled "help" instead of "trouble."

Ern needed a car and I had ten minutes to kill, so I spent it inspecting the dozen vehicles nearby. Three of them still had keys in the ignition but none would run. Someone had drained their tanks, just as I would've done. I pondered transferring a gallon of my fuel to a VW transporter that was surely old enough to vote. Then I squinted toward the bridge again and waved a circled thumb and forefinger. My brother-in-law stumbled as he thrust his bike over the cinders, but filling his cargo basket was a hefty fuel can he'd taken from the pickup. What I'd forgotten, Ern had remembered, and vice versa. Spot heard my hail and briefly proved that he was the world's fastest sprinter.

I hugged the fool, ran toward my struggling little group, grabbed the fuel can from the exhausted Ern, and hoofed it toward that old transporter, cursing Spot as he gamboled beside me. Lucky for us, the old VW had no siphon-proof inlet pipe; the fuel thief hadn't needed to cut its fuel line. I got a gallon of fuel into it before the others arrived panting, Devon far in arrears. Ern got it running while I tossed backpack and shovels from the Lotus.

We were breathless from our labors but: "There'll be message centers in Napa and Yountville," Ern husked, pouring the rest of his fuel into the transporter. His eyes flicked toward Shar, who tenderly eased into the Lotus with Lance. "We'll be in touch."

Cammie urged Spot into the VW as I slid into my car. We wasted no time in farewells, and a moment later I chirped rubber heading north. I patted my sis on the knee after circling one barricade. "We'll get there," I reassured her over the engine's snarl, and saw her nod before I drifted the Lotus through a curve. That was the extent of our conversation en route to Napa; if I was quick enough with the Lotus, maybe we wouldn't lose my nephew.

 

Life is hard, but death is easy. For bullheaded, valiant little Lance it was as easy as slipping away from us in a game of permanent hookey from the school of hard knocks. He was still with us when the police shunted me to Napa State Hospital, a facility near the town now crammed with thousands of trauma cases and not enough medical staff.

Lance seemed to rally, they said, after a third-year med student drained all that blood from his lung cavity and rigged Shar for a whole-blood transfusion. But Dennison's slug had ruptured too much lung tissue; shocked his system too hard; and we had no thoracic surgeon on call. The hospital had no remaining supply of oxygen or adrenalin and goddammit, the kid never had a chance. . . .

My sis and I wept quietly that afternoon, holding each other as we had when mom died, in a basement hall filled with others whose own miseries insulated them from ours. Eventually I left Shar long enough to send a brief message from the emergency comm center to Napa's message center. I agonized over the content of that message but finally spoke for my allotted twenty seconds. Past the lump in my larynx I said, "They're doing all they can here at Napa State Hospital but it doesn't look good, Ern. Shar is coping." Then I added, "No great hurry; he can't have visitors." That way Ern might prepare himself for what I already knew without his hearing it all at once. And maybe he wouldn't take crazy chances driving to us if he knew he couldn't literally race to Lance's side.

After midnight Ern arrived with Cammie, already suspecting the truth. They let me handle the burial arrangements through a massive graves registration system—one of those horrendous details the Surgeon General's Office had worked out long before as a public health measure.

While waiting in line I learned that the almost negligible radiation in Napa was marginally rising, no thanks to vagrant winds that swept up and borrowed fallout particles from San Rafael. I calculated that we had spent less than two hours between my place and Napa and hoped that the gradual rise in background count would not extend to Yountville. Kate and Devon waited for us there with Spot, working their buns off to get the Gallo house ready for long-term occupation. By "long-term" I was thinking about several weeks. I missed it by a bunch.

 

 

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