He shook his head. “I was just wondering about that girl, the one I asked you to talk with. Did you ever find out anything about her?”
Tessa’s brow furrowed. “I found out more than I wanted to. She’s had a hard time of it. Her parents are dead, her family gone, and she’s been out on her own for weeks. She’s had a lot done to her, none of it good. She said she found Logan while he was traveling south toward the mountains in Oregon. He shared his food with her and told her to come north across the Columbia and then east to find us. She managed it somehow. Found some other kids along the way and brought them with her.”
“So she’s got a new family now, I guess.”
“Like all of us.” Tessa looked away. “I miss my mother. I know I don’t have any reason to, not after what she did to me. But I do. I wish I could have done something to help her.”
“Everyone wishes that about someone,” he said, thinking suddenly of Chalk. “But regrets don’t help. We have to forget about what we couldn’t do and concentrate on what we can.”
She gave him a sideways glance. “I just wish I could do more to help you. I don’t like not being able to do anything more than this.”
“Than this?”
“This. Walking with you. Keeping you company. Giving you a chance to talk with someone who won’t judge or criticize or demand anything.”
He smiled. “Because you love me.”
She smiled back. “Because I do. Very much.”
“I liked it when you had to sneak out of the compound to meet me. Not putting you in danger like that, but the adventure of it. It was exciting.”
“Everything we did was exciting,” she said. “I liked it, too.”
They walked in silence for a time, their boots scuffing up clouds of dust on the dry flats, their faces streaked with dirt and sweat. Hawk felt the heat of the day bearing down on him, a great weight that reflected accurately the weight of his self-doubt. In the distance, gusts of wind blew up dust devils, their funnels churning through the hazy air in wild bursts. The sun had crested the mountains and flooded the sky with a panoramic wash of blinding white light.
“Is it a long way to where we have to go?” she asked him after a while.
He shrugged. “Couldn’t say. I don’t know yet.”
She grinned. “Do you even know where we are?”
“Not really. Do you?”
She brushed at her curly dark hair and frowned. “I think so. I was talking about it with Owl. We both remember this country as being a part of an Indian reservation in the old days. Long time ago, when there was a government. Not much to look at now, is it?”
He shook his head. “I wonder if they’re still holding the bridge against that army. I wonder if they’ve been able to keep them from crossing.”
Tessa didn’t say anything. They walked on, and he found himself listening to the soft drone of the Lightning following several dozen yards behind. He glanced over his shoulder at the caravan, stretched out behind him for almost a mile, a jumble of vehicles and figures, shrouded in dust and sweltering heat. Behind them, the Cascade Mountains were a strange gray-blue smudge against the horizon, jagged peaks stretching north and south for as far as the eye could see.
“I don’t think they can hold that bridge for long,” he said, dark eyes intense as he studied the land ahead again. “I don’t think anyone could. Not against what’s coming.” He shook his head. “It’s odd, but I can see the shape of it, can sense its power, even without knowing what it is exactly. I can make out just enough, in my mind’s eye, to know that it’s too much for anyone.” He paused, looked at her again. “I really can, Tessa.”
“I believe you,” she said.
“I wish things could go back to the way they were,” he said softly.
She reached over for his hand and placed it against her stomach. “Everything?”
He smiled. “Okay, maybe not everything.”
She hooked her arm through his and pressed against him.
AT MIDDAY, when they stopped to eat, Owl joined them. She wheeled herself over from the AV to where Hawk and Tessa sat apart from the other Ghosts in the dappled shadow of a skeletal tree stripped of leaves and life alike. She handed each a small hunk of cheese she had been saving, her face lined with worry.
“Are you all right?” she asked them. “You look tired.”
They were, of course. Everyone was. But Owl wasn’t looking for an answer; she was trying to give them a chance to talk about it.
“We’re okay,” Tessa assured her, a smile brightening her dark face. She patted the soft swell of her belly. “Baby says to tell you not to worry.”
“Maybe you should ride with us after we eat,” Owl suggested.