Can you do this?”
Helen stared at her for a moment, then nodded. “I can do anything I have to do.” She paused. “Can you tell me what this is about?”
“It’s something I have been given to do as a Knight of the Word. It will mean helping others who need it even more than you and the children. But I won’t forget you. Take everyone north to the Columbia River and wait at the edge of the Cascade Mountains. Do you know the way?”
Helen nodded. “Others traveling with me know it better than I do.
We will find our way.”
“Be careful. The oncemen will follow you north; they will try to trap you somewhere along the way. You must not underestimate them. If they find you on the Columbia, go farther north and seek shelter in the compounds there.”
“But you will come for us?”
Angel took a deep breath and promised what she shouldn’t have. “I will come for you.”
Helen reached out for her and hugged her close. Her thin body was shaking, and her usually steady voice sounded strained and broken. “You have done so much for us. You are the backbone of our courage, and we can’t afford to lose you.
Please be careful.”
Angel hugged her back. “Care for the children, mi amiga. Cuento contigo.
I’m relying on you.”
She kissed Helen Rice on the cheek and broke away when she felt the other woman start to cry.
Chapter SEVENTEEN
LOGAN TOM WAS almost all the way across the Great Plains and in sight of the dark wall of the Rocky Mountains when he encountered the Preacher.
He had been driving west for almost two days, following the highway that the finger bones of Nest Freemark had set him upon more than a week earlier. He hadn’t slept in two days. He hadn’t even tried the first night, after fleeing the fiery ruins of the compound and its monsters. On the second night, terrifying dreams and sudden awakenings plagued him, and he was consumed by an unshakable sense that fate was overtaking him and nothing he did would turn it aside.
His surroundings did not comfort or reassure him. The plains were a dry and empty sweep of land that stretched away from horizon to horizon, a vast dusty carpet that looked frayed at the edges. He encountered no other human beings—not in the towns he occasionally turned into to explore for supplies, and not on the highway itself. Once or twice, he saw things moving in the distance, but they were too far away to identify. He felt as if he were the last living creature on earth and wondered from time to time if that might not be best. No humans would want to live on a world like this, he told himself.
So it was a surprise and something of a revelation when he stumbled upon the Preacher and his strange flock.
It was nearing dusk at the end of the second day, and he had been driving for more than ten hours. His muscles were cramped and sore, and he was looking for a safe place to spend the night. The land about him seemed empty, but you could never be sure and you never took chances. So when he spied the little town off to his left, he left the highway just past the collapsed interchange and drove through the hardpan fields until he reached its edge.
He stopped then and got out, peering among the ramshackle houses and sheds to the cluster of buildings that formed the town center. One street led in and out. Windblown pieces of paper and old leaves were piled against the walls, and broken branches and scraps of tar paper lay scattered about. A few of the roofs had collapsed in on the houses, and most of the window glass was gone.
Derelict cars, trucks, and even tractors sat rusting away in yards and in the surrounding fields. A farm town, probably close to three hundred years old, its life ended perhaps twenty years ago, it sat waiting for someone to reclaim it.
But no one ever would.
He was sizing up a grove of withered oak trees for a place to park the AV when the old man walked out of the shadows from between the buildings.
He was tall and stooped with white hair and skin that was leathery and deeply lined. He must have been handsome once, and Logan supposed he still was—in that rough, weathered sort of way old men sometimes were. Even from twenty yards away and with the light failing, he could see the clear blue light of the other’s eyes.
“Good evening to you, Brother,” the old man greeted. He walked up and extended his hand.
Logan shook it. “Evening.”
“Come a long way? You look tired.”
“I’ve been driving since sunrise.”
The old man nodded toward the freeway. “Hard work on these roads.
See anyone on your way?”
“Just shadows and ghosts.”
“That’s most of what there is now. Might I inquire of your name? It lends a familiarity to conversation to be on a first-name basis.” His smile was warm and disarming. Logan shrugged. “I’m Logan Tom.”