And she was pregnant. Lila had heard Tiffany mention it at a Meeting. That, Lila thought, was where at least part of her glow came from.
It was dusk. They would have to stop soon. Maylock was visible, a spread of dim dark buildings in a valley a couple of miles distant. The exploring party had been there, and found no one, male or female. It seemed that only Dooling held human life. Unless there really had been a woman in the men’s prison, that was.
“You seem like you’re doing pretty well,” said Lila carefully. “Now.”
Tiffany’s laugh was amiable. “The afterlife clears your mind. I don’t want dope, if that’s what you mean.”
“Is that what you think this is? The afterlife?”
“Not really,” said Tiffany, and didn’t pick the subject up again until they were lying in their sleeping bags in the shell of a gas station that had been abandoned in the other world, too.
Tiffany said, “I mean, the afterlife, it’s supposed to be heaven or hell, right?” They could see the horses through the plate glass, tied up to the old pumps. The moonlight gave their coats a sheen.
“I’m not religious,” Lila said.
“Me neither,” Tiffany said. “Anyway, there’s no angels and no devils, so go figure. But isn’t this some kinda miracle?”
Lila thought of Jessica and Roger Elway. Their baby, Platinum, was growing fast, crawling all over the place. (Elaine Nutting’s daughter, Nana, had fallen in love with Plat—an ugly nickname, but everyone used it; the kid would probably hate them for it later—and rolled her everywhere in a rusty baby carriage.) Lila thought of Essie and Candy. She thought of her husband and her son and her whole life that was no longer her life.
“Some kind,” Lila said. “I guess.”
“I’m sorry. Miracle’s the wrong word. I’m just saying we’re doin all right, right? So it’s not hell, right? I’m clean. I feel good. I got these wonderful horses, which I never in my wildest dreams imagined could happen. Someone like me, takin care of animals like these? Never.” Tiffany frowned. “I’m making this all about me, aren’t I? I know you’ve lost a lot. I know most everybody here has lost a lot, and I’m just someone who didn’t have nothing to lose.”
“I’m glad for you.” She was, too. Tiffany Jones had deserved something better.
9
They skirted Maylock and rode along the banks of the swollen Dorr’s Hollow Stream. In the woods, a pack of dogs gathered on a hummock to observe them as they passed. There were six or seven of them, shepherds and Labs, tongues out, breath steaming. Lila took out her pistol. Beneath her, the white mare rolled its head and shifted its gait.
“No, no,” Tiffany said. She reached a hand across and brushed the mare’s ear. Her voice was soft but steady, not cooing. “Lila’s not gonna shoot that gun.”
“She’s not?” Lila had an eye on the dog in the middle. The animal’s fur was a bristly gray and black. It had mismatched eyes, blue and yellow, and its mouth seemed especially large. She wasn’t a person who typically let her imagination run away from her, but she thought the dog looked rabid.
“She certainly isn’t. They want to chase us. But we’re just doing our thing. We don’t want to play chase. We’re just getting along.” Tiffany’s voice was airy and certain. Lila thought that if Tiffany didn’t know what she was doing, she believed she knew what she was doing. They paced along through the underbrush. The dogs didn’t follow.
“You were right,” Lila said later. “Thanks.”
Tiffany said she was welcome. “But it wasn’t for you. No offense, but I’m not lettin you put a fright in my horses, Sheriff.”
10
They crossed the river and bypassed the high road the others had taken up the mountain, continuing instead on the lower ground. The horses descended into a dell that formed the gap between what was left of Lion Head on the left and another cliff face on the right, which rose up at a sharp, splintery slant. There was a pervasive metallic stench that tickled the backs of their throats. Crumbles of loose earth shook down, the embedded stones echoing far too loudly in the bowl created by the rises on either side.
They tied up the horses a couple of hundred yards from the prison ruins and approached on foot.
“A woman from somewhere else,” Tiffany said. “Wouldn’t that be something?”
“Yes,” Lila agreed. “Finding some of our own still alive would be even better.”
Fragments of masonry, some as tall and wide as moving vans, were embedded higher up along the back of Lion Head, stabbed into the earth like enormous cenotaphs. As sturdy as they appeared, Lila could easily imagine them breaking loose under their own weight and tumbling down to join the pile at the bottom.
The body of the prison had hit bottom and folded inward on itself, forming a vaguely pyramid-like shape. In a way, it was impressive, how much of the building’s body had survived the slide down the mountain—and hideous, too, in its decipherability, like a dollhouse smashed by a bully. Spears of jagged steel jutted out from the cement, and massive root-knotted clods of earth had settled on other parts of the debris. At the edges of this unplanned new structure were tattered breaches in the cement that offered glimpses of the black interior. Everywhere there were smashed trees, twenty-and thirty-footers snapped into raw shards.
Lila put on a surgical mask that she’d brought. “Stay here, Tiffany.”
“I wanna come with you. I’m not afraid. Let me have one a them.” She stuck out her hand for a surgical mask.
“I know you’re not afraid. I just want someone able to go back if this place falls in on my head, and you’re the horse girl. I’m just a middle-aged ex-cop. Also, we both know you’re living for two.”
At the nearest opening, Lila paused to wave. Tiffany didn’t see it; she’d walked back to the horses.
11
Light filtered into the interior of the prison in sabers punched through the smashed concrete. Lila found herself walking atop a wall, stepping on the closed steel doors of cells. Everything was turned one-quarter. The ceiling was on her right. What would have been the left wall was now the ceiling, and the floor was on her left. She had to lower her head to slip under an open cell door that hung down like a trap. She heard ticking noises, dripping noises. Her boots crunched against stone and glass.
A clog composed of rock, shattered pipes, and chunks of insulation obstructed her forward progress. She flicked her flashlight around. A-Level was stenciled in red paint on the wall above her head. Lila backtracked to where the door hung. She jumped and grabbed the doorframe, hoisting herself up into the cell. A hole had broken open in the wall on the opposite side of the hanging door. Lila made her way—carefully—to the breach. She crouched and ducked her way through. Serrations of broken concrete snagged at the back of her shirt, and the fabric tore.