Post-Apocalypse Dead Letter Office (7 page)

Now just switch the comes to gos and froms to tos and vice versa and you’re golden.

Now, OK, you’re probably thinking, why couldn’t I just take 70 west from Denver to Grand Junction. Well, you could. Could. But if you did you’d regret it. It can be difficult getting through Denver these days, and I-70 from there isn’t the best route to begin with. Tunnels get blocked with snow or boulders. I know that’s not much detail, but trust me when I say that it’s just not a good route for you to take.

I’d wish you luck, but I don’t believe in it. –Bridgestone BOB

Hays to Pueblo

First off, as a general rule, try to get as much traveling done as possible in your mornings. It’ll be cold when you roll out, but will warm up pretty quick, and in the summer there are regularly afternoon thunderstorms right up on the front range. They can be severe enough to wash you off the road, so if you need to, stop and find some way to anchor your buggy or wagon or whatever’s taking you out west.

OK, day one: Hays to WaKeeney. This’ll be as easy a day for you as there will be on this entire trip, assuming you rested up a bit in Hays (and didn’t get a whiskey bottle smashed over your head) or wherever it is you last stopped. If you don’t have any water or run out, you can take a hardtack road – no dirt roads! – a mile or two south or north and there’ll be a stream in just a few miles. Big Creek, to the south, is the closest and best but can be intermittent and the farmers around there are a little overprotective at times.

Day two: This’ll be a long one for you. WaKeeney to Oakley. Won’t be a bad little ride, just long. Head out as early as you possibly can so you can make it into Oakley before dusk and get more water. Also, visit the gigantic prairie dog shrine out there. Weird. You’ll definitely want to water up in Oakley, because the next leg is a doozy.

Day three: Taking I-70 up to Colby and west from there seems like a natural. Don’t go that way. Since BBOB had to bite his tongue and dissemble a bit about it, I’ll explain a bit. Denver has become a tightly-controlled syndicate town. Virtually nobody comes in or goes out without the approval of the mob. They have roving bands of thugs just cruising all around the city, scouting things out, stopping folks who are getting around by any other means than walking, and administering beatdowns if necessary. That’s all they do. It’s been like that since a year after the lights went out, and has only gotten worse since a fire wiped out a huge chunk of town a few years back. They’ve even got an outpost of ex-cons in Burlington, just over the Colorado-Kansas border – not worth tangling with. And anyway, you wouldn’t want to go north or west out of Denver. But BBOB and everyone else have covered that much. So, save yourself the trouble of going northwest to Colby (then having to swing back south to go to Colorado Springs or Pueblo) by just taking highway 40 west out of Oakley. It’s a decent road, and you’ll be able to get to Wallace or Sharon Springs by late afternoon, anyway.

Day four: OK, you’ll cross into Colorado today. You’ll be able to get to Cheyenne Wells, at the very least, but probably won’t be able to make it to Kit Carson. Stop in Firstview. It’s a nowhere town’s nowhere town, man. Nothing there, not even a bar.

Day five: Head over to Kit Carson in the morning. Then you’ll have a decision point. You can stay on 40 west or take 287 south. Depends on whether you want to head into Colorado Springs or Pueblo before tackling the Great Divide. Personally, I’m partial to Pueblo. The water sources on the way there are a bit more reliable, and the route itself is less severe. But I’ll describe the first route quickly. To get to Colorado Springs, take 40 west to Aroya, then 94 all the way into the Springs. There are a few creeks in between Aroya and Colorado Springs, very little in the way of people. Should take you two and a half, maybe three days to get there from Kit Carson. Now, to get to Pueblo, take 287 south. Don’t stop in Eads, you should be able to get past it and to a reservoir around there within one day. Day after that head down past Wiley and take highway 50 west up the Arkansas. Plenty of water and a decent road! Should take you a couple days to get into Pueblo after turning west.

From Pueblo or Colorado Springs, it’s up to you. –Ron Hightail

Lawrence to Hays

Not sure if I understand the entire concept correctly. You’re moving out to Oregon, I got that. But you’re – how are you going? It sounds like you got kids, so I hope to Christ you either own a good, converted compact car as a wagon and a few damn strong horses or a couple unobtainium-light tandems with strong kids as stokers and a couple decent cargo trailers. The other legs sounded like they thought you had animals. Being half-camel wouldn’t hurt, either, but anyway... hey, look, the letter and accompanying junk made it this far, so it’s possible. Guess you should look at it that way.

I’m assuming you know how to get from De Soto to Lawrence. If not, you’d best just cancel your plans right now, because you’re sure as hell never going to be able to figure out how to traverse half – and the arid, most mountainous half, at that – the continent. So, you get to Lawrence. Whichever way you came into town, you’re going to want to take I-70 out. There are three place to get on the interstate, not that hard to figure out. Stay on 70 through Topeka – don’t take 470 or you might get confused. Now, you’ll probably be tempted to stop in Topeka. That’s your call, but if you push through town there’s a nice stream just a few miles to the west. Good place to rest people and animals. The next place you’ll really want to take a rest is Salina. You might think you can make Junction City in a single day. It’s possible, but don’t. Don’t stop in Junction City, don’t even look at it as you’re passing through. It’s not clean and not safe. You could stay a night in Manhattan, but it’s a ways off the route. Best to just camp by a small stream wherever you can find one. Sure hope you have a decent tent or something. So yeah, stay another night in Salina. River’s just east of town, for watering your horses if you have them. A couple stores in town, so stock up on food if you need to and sundries. Fill up on water here! Things get drier the further west you go. There’ll probably be a stream here and there for you, and there’s a good lake just north of Wilson but it’s off the beaten path. Actually, staying in Wilson is probably your best bet. If you need water, you can make a sidetrip up to Wilson Lake. Another day, probably, and you’ll be in Hays. Like the last guy said, steer clear of the bars and anywhere along the main drag at night, it can be a rough town these days. Fill up on water again and God speed you the rest of the way. If you see a guy on a mint green bike, that’s me. Wave if you feel like it, but don’t bother stopping.

– B. Onkey

To: Candace Gillentine, Overland Park, KS

From: Sam Gillentine, Wichita, KS (mailing from Salina)

June 12th, 20+4

Hey babe, it’s Sam.

Got your letter earlier this year. Quite a surprise to hear from you. Sorry to learn about your beau Harlan. It’ll come as no surprise to you that I never cared for him too much, but since he made you happy, I suppose that made him OK in my book.

Still can’t believe it has been five years since you left. I figured you’d head on over to Kansas City, have yourself a big time for a few months, wind up flashing your tits (or other parts) to the wrong guy in front of Harlan, then make your way back. Never counted on the whole world going to hell in a bucket. After that it’s been almost all thinking about my next meal, parting out old cars and vans for pieces folks can use to heat their house solarwise. Never knew much else. Can’t garden – but not for lack of trying, lately, tell you that – can’t sew or butcher cattle or do any of the other hundred or so things a hell of a lot more important now than fixing up busted transmissions. Just a wrench. Never saw much money or food or anything else out of it, just enough to get by on. Living hand to mouth... pretty much like before, but with even less barbecue and no television, lights or running water. Heheh.

But I got the gist of the message. The part about Sean, I mean. I hadn’t seen the kid in the better part of a decade, I suppose, and I only had the one little photo of him in my wallet. The one from his high school graduation, with the rat stache and bolo tie. Yeah, I kept it. I can’t look at it too often or for too long, though. He’s got your eyes, and ––-

Well, so he’s important to both of us, even though I’d forgotten how much so when things were bad between you, me and the bottle. And I knew what you were asking in your letter, and pretty much thought and felt the same way. But I couldn’t just up and leave overnight. No working bike, no map to speak of, no provisions. I wouldn’t have lasted long just going off half-cocked. So I went into the library after work one day, around noon or so – business had been slow over winter and hadn’t picked up yet – and checked out a book on bicycle repair. I figured that, with me being mechanically inclined, it wouldn’t be too awful hard, but might take me a couple weeks to really pick up on how to fix that old Schwinn of Sean’s. Well hell, come to find out there’s hardly anything to them. Just some bearings, racings and a chain, spokes, breaks and tires are all that ever needs maintained, and a couple oddly threaded bolts to keep in mind when taking the thing apart and putting it back together. So I pulled that Schwinn out of the shed and broke it down. Broke it all down, cleaned the bearings and other moving bits good with your old toothbrush and a rag, slathered those parts with Crisco and put everything back together. I couldn’t get the chain off because there is a special tool I needed for that, but I just wiped it off and greased it up well, and it’s good as new. Took the book back a couple days later – I think they were surprised to see it get returned at all. When I tried to check out a road atlas or other map book, they really put their foot down. Guess they’ve seen far too many maps just walk out and not come back. So I had to ride home – faster than walking was, though – and pick up a bit of paper. Then I went back to the library and trace the route. I did pretty well, I think. I didn’t include much, just the main ways into and out of Denver and the general outline of it and its suburbs. The whole trip one-way was something like 500 miles.

Now, I’ve never been the picture boy for health or what not. I didn’t really know how many miles I could do in one day, much less how many I could do stringing those one day trips together and being sore and all that. But I had given up smoking almost four years prior, when I couldn’t get it no matter how badly I wanted it. I just started riding into work every day. Didn’t take long before I realized I needed some fenders, and so I pulled those off your old Schwinn in the shed. Good chrome-plated ones, and plenty wide to cover the tires. Riding got easier after a week or two, but I knew it wasn’t even remotely preparing me for the trip.

I still hadn’t really figured out how to get enough food to cover the trip. Well, I remembered Sean had gone to Sunday school before you and I hooked up so I went to the Methodist church and asked about getting a handout. I’d always thought I was above doing such a thing, but it came really natural to me. I didn’t even have to lie about it, just told them that I needed it to go find my son... well, former stepson, but they didn’t need to know quite that much of the truth, right? (Alfie Ganz filled me in on how lenient the Methodists were with all things material, except money.) I came away with a whole shit-ton of flour and some parched corn and a half-gallon of pickled eggs and even some beef jerky. So, if I ever said anything bad about the Methodists, let me take it back right now. They’re OK folks.

So I made hard tack. Just water and flour that you let kind of bake or dry. It’s not very good, but I ate less and worse before. Made some in advance and packed it and the rest of the flour to make more as I went along.

Just had my boots re-soled last fall, but I figured the old pair of sneakers would work a lot better on the road. And I packed an old sleeping bag I got with Marlboro miles and a blue poncho that used to belong to Sean. Didn’t have a helmet. Hot enough riding without a big damn hat on, and if I fell off and really hurt myself... well, who knows? Might have been a relief.

So I let Alfie know where I was heading a couple days before – just shook his head, like he knew it all – and then left out of Wichita on April 30th, as early in the morning as I could muster. By the time I made it to Newton, I was in a bad way. Just panting and had it in the granny gear on almost all of the hills. But, I kept on and made it just past Hesston. I’d tell you I thought that wasn’t too bad for a first day, but I wasn’t really thinking anything once I got off the bike. I crawled into the sleeping bag and wrapped the poncho around me tightly as I could. It was colder than I thought it would be, but I still fell asleep in a few heartbeats. Slept like a log.