- - End of All Things, The (11 page)

Carly nodded. She couldn’t meet his eyes.

She didn’t want to talk about it, something he well understood. He wouldn’t pry; she’d tell him when she was ready. “Is it something you could have done differently, or changed?”

She shook her head.

“Then you have to let it go, Carly. If it wasn’t your fault, you shouldn’t carry a burden of guilt.” He patted her hand. “Maybe someday you can tell me about it, and then you’ll feel better about it. All right?”

“All right.” She gave him a watery smile and lay back down. Sam hopped up beside her and circled around a few times before he plopped down with a contented sigh. Justin headed back to his own bed, but it was a long while before he could fall back asleep. 

Carly drifted back to sleep, but it was filled with the images she’d seen on television. Troy Cramer talking until his voice was hoarse, filling them in on the
latest developments
in the Crisis, and every
development
was worse than the last. Bodies, always bodies everywhere. Violence and fear as society crumbled to ash.

She woke groggy and grumpy. Sam wasn’t in his place at the foot of her bed. Carly called for him and heard nothing but silence. She went to the doorway of Justin’s room, but he wasn’t in his bed, and when she checked, he wasn’t in his bathroom, either. 

Going to the window, she breathed a sigh of relief. Justin was sitting by a small fire built in the parking lot. Sam lay by his side and Shadowfax munched on some grass at the edge of the asphalt. As she watched, Justin picked up a metal coffee pot, after wrapping the handle in a cloth, and a plate covered in a napkin. Both animals followed him back to the room, and he had to dissuade Shadowfax from following him inside. 

“Morning, Carly.”

“Do I smell coffee?” she asked hopefully.

“Yes, and I have another surprise for you.” Justin pulled the cloth off the plate like a magician revealing a woman sawed in half. “Ta da!”

Carly could have wept. “Are those
eggs
?” 

He grinned. “Yep. Not fresh, I’m afraid, but pretty good, if I do say so myself.”

Carly took a bite and moaned in bliss. “Where did you get them?”

“They’re powdered.” She noticed Justin wasn’t admitting where he’d come by them, and she supposed it was probably better she didn’t know. She ate like a starving lumberjack. Justin seemed delighted by her appetite, even though Carly blushed a little when she handed him the empty plate. 

“Thank you, Justin. That was the best meal I’ve had since . . .” She’d been about to say something about her mother’s cooking, but she wasn’t ready to talk about that.

“I’m glad you liked it. I’ll get us loaded up while you get dressed. Remember, don’t use the water for brushing your teeth. Use one of our bottles, okay?”

“Okay.”

Carly pulled her hair back into a ponytail and dressed in one of her long-sleeve shirts with a T-shirt over it; it was bound to be cool this morning. She joined Justin outside. Shadowfax loped over to her and butted Carly with her massive head, and Sam did the same, both of them demanding attention at once. Carly giggled and distributed the requested pats, one hand for each animal. She wondered if they were competing with each other for her affection. Well, she wouldn’t play favorites.

They mounted their bikes and started out along the Klondike Highway, riding roughly northeast, as Justin had shown her on the map. “How far are we from the next town?” She hadn’t checked the scale.

“White Pass is fifteen miles, but it’s uphill. I doubt we’ll make it there tonight.”

Carly thought about what he’d said about experienced bikers being able to make up to eighty miles per day, and she set her jaw in determination. She’d impress him with her stamina, she vowed. 

But by lunchtime, Carly was already feeling the strain. Justin offered to start a fire and cook something, but Carly refused. The sooner they could get back on the road, the sooner they could make their destination and she could rest. She swallowed her share of the ravioli Justin gave her and climbed back onto the bike. Carly envied Sam, who trotted at their side with his tongue flopped out of the side of his mouth, enjoying the trip. Behind them, Shadowfax ambled along, comfortable with the pace. She slowed now and then for a nibble at something tasty along the way, but never let them get out of her sight.

“How much further?” Carly asked Justin when she was certain they had to be getting close.

“About six miles or so.”

Carly wanted to cry.

“We’re going to stop soon,” he said and gave her a little encouraging smile.

Carly gritted her teeth. “Not yet.”

“Carly, you’re wiped out.”

“No, I’m not!”

“You’re also a terrible liar.”

“I want to keep going.”

“Carly, come on. You did good for your first day, especially since we’re going up an eleven percent grade.”

“At this rate, we won’t even make it out of Alaska by wintertime.”

“We’re not always going to be going at this rate,” Justin said patiently. “Carly, listen to me. I know what I’m talking about here. You don’t want to exhaust yourself. You need to take it slow and easy until you build up your stamina because you’ve been half-starved for three months. You’re not as strong as you once were.”

“I can go more, honest!”

“I know you could, but there’s no need. Tell me something, are your calf muscles aching?”

Carly didn’t answer.

“I’ll bet when you used the Stairmaster at the gym, they told you to do it only for a few minutes at first, even though you felt like you could do more. Right?”

“Yeah.”

“They didn’t want you to tear up your muscles needlessly. Besides, we need to think about Sam, too.”

“Sam? What about him?”

“He’s not used to walking long distances on asphalt. His paws are probably sore.”

Carly hadn’t even thought about poor Sam. And Shadowfax, too . . . she might be sore or tired from walking such a long distance. Carly started wondering if she could get the horse to let her check her feet without being stepped on or kicked from annoyance.

“I’ll pick the next good campsite,” Justin said, and she wondered why he sounded a little smug about it.

Carly had never slept in a tent before, and she’d certainly had never put one together. But for some reason, Justin insisted Carly help him with the bewildering tangle of nylon and metal tubing. She watched him connect the posts and tried to do the same, but she realized she’d done it opposite the way he had, and she had to take the whole darn thing apart again. But the smile he gave her when she got it assembled made it all worth it, and Carly liked feeling that she had at least something to contribute instead of simply standing around and letting Justin take care of her.

Next, Justin showed her how to build a fire. It turned out to be yet another of one of those things she thought would be easy but was much more complicated in reality.

He started by scraping a patch of earth bare and building a ring of rocks around its perimeter. “You don’t want to wake up and find you’ve started a forest fire,” he explained. He then built a small pyramid of twigs, with bits of paper from a McDonald’s bag lying beside the road and leaves between them. “You have to start with things that catch fire easily. Start as small as you can. You can use paper if you have it, shredded fiber, bits of cloth, though you want to use natural fibers like cotton or wool.”

“Synthetics don’t burn as well?”

Justin smiled at Carly. “Right.”

He showed her how to pull little shreds from a piece of soft wood to make it easier to light. “Now, what are you going to do if you don’t have a cigarette lighter or matches?”

“Rub two sticks together? I saw that movie where the guy is shipwrecked on an island and has to start a fire that way. It took forever, but he finally got it to work.”

“Do you remember how he did it?”

“Yeah. He had a flat piece of wood with a groove in the middle, and he rubbed the stick in there.”

“Anything else?”

Carly thought for a moment. “He had the fluffy stuff at the top of the groove.”

“Tinder,” Justin said. He gestured to his little pyramid. “Now, there’s something we have the guy in the movie didn’t. My knife.” Justin took the knife out of its scabbard and pulled something from the end—a little gray rectangle he laid in Carly’s hand. “Flint and steel.” He pointed to a small rough patch on the blade of his knife up near the handle. “Strike it hard and fast, like you would a match.”

She struck the corner of the flint against it and was surprised at how many sparks it produced.

“It’s another sort-of-slow method. You have to catch your sparks against very light tinder. Paper won’t do it unless you have it shredded very fine. Since I’m feeling sort of lazy tonight, I’m not going to demonstrate the whole process. We’ll save that for another night.” Out of his pocket he took a Zippo lighter and ran the flame around his little pyramid. Once it was blazing, he slowly added larger pieces of wood until the fire was steady and strong.

“Think you can light it tomorrow?” Justin asked.

“I can try.” 

“You’re a smart lady. I think you’ll figure it out.”

“Do you really think I’m smart?” she asked, her voice hesitant and soft. “I sometimes feel like a moron because I don’t know these things.”

“Yes, I think you’re smart, Carly. You’ve just never lived a life where you need to know all of this. Most people would be in the same situation, I assure you.” Justin stood and gave her a reassuring smile. “I’m going to scout around a bit. Why don’t you relax and read for a while? I’ll be back soon, and we’ll cook dinner.”

“Be careful,” Carly said. Having him gone made her nervous because she didn’t know what she’d do without him.

He grinned at her. “I always am.”

Sam bounded off after him and left Carly and Shadowfax at the campsite. Shadowfax was grazing on the nearby vegetation and didn’t even look up as Carly approached. “I’m going to look at your feet, okay, girl?” Shadowfax chewed placidly as Carly crouched down beside her and tugged her foreleg until she lifted her hoof.

It was the first time Carly had ever looked at a horse’s foot, so she wasn’t exactly sure what she was looking for. The metal horseshoe was attached well; it didn’t wiggle when Carly tried to move it. The underside looked smooth and uninjured. Carly walked around to the other side and performed the same examination. In one back hoof, she found a little pebble wedged under the shoe and decided that couldn’t be comfortable, so she dug it out with a small stick. She stood and patted Shadowfax’s neck. “Thank you for not kicking me.”

She settled down to read, leaning against her rolled-up sleeping bag. Justin returned a few minutes later carrying an armload of large sticks. Carly looked around in alarm. “Where’s Sam?”

“I thought he was with you.”

“No, he followed you.” Carly’s heart began to pound. If they didn’t find him, there was no way Sam could survive out there on his own.

“Carly, don’t worry,” Justin said, his voice low and soothing. “He wouldn’t have gone far, and he can’t get lost. He’ll follow his own scent trail back. Or he’ll find mine and follow me back to camp. He—”

Justin didn’t finish the sentence as Sam came bounding through the brush. He stopped in front of Carly and dropped a dead rabbit at her feet.

“Well, I’ll be damned. Good boy, Sam!” Justin picked up the rabbit and rubbed a grinning Sam between the ears.

Carly hugged Sam tightly. “Good boy,” she said, though she wanted to scold him for taking off like that.

“I’m gonna go out on a limb here and assume you’ve never had rabbit for dinner, right?”

Carly shook her head.

“Then you may not want to watch this next bit. Why don’t you walk back to the creek and get us some water?”

“Where is it?”

“About a hundred yards that way.” Justin pointed. “You should be able to see the tracks I made in the leaves. But if you get off the trail, just yell. You’ll be within earshot.”

She found the creek and washed her face and hands before filling the bucket. Sam started lapping at the flowing water. “No! Don’t drink that until Justin purifies it.” Sam just looked at her with those eerily sentient eyes.