Chapter Nineteen: Westward Ho — Part 5
The trip to Colorado Springs proves an intermittent challenge, requiring a stop at nearly every city and town to scavenge. Each stop provides enough fuel to get to the next stopping point, but not much more. This is mostly because Jynx and the others are in a hurry to get wherever it is they are going. For the first time in a long time, Jynx wants to settle in somewhere, and there is nowhere she is passing that feels right to either her or Joe. Each progression is such that it takes two days to reach Colorado Springs, and they are nearly into town when Jynx puts on her brakes, curious about something she sees ahead of her on the road, and a feeling that seems to creep into her bones. Her keen eyes have caught something in the clear morning air, a stretch of death along the road that looks more recent.
Jynx feels something in the air, something out of the ordinary, a pulse that shakes her a little, then dies back. She feels things that ChoCho and the others need instruments to detect, very often, but she’s pretty certain that they can feel this. The air kind of tingles, and there is the hint of a pull on her that seems off center of the road. She doesn’t know how the others miss even the little ones, but one thing that isn’t missed is that, up until the caravan that is visible around the curve, the vehicles have suddenly been cleared from the road. It looks to Jynx as if somebody had come up off of one of the exits, only to start pushing into Colorado Springs, and suffer for it.
Up ahead, she can see the results of an arch interaction, and she is certain not to let her crew get close enough to watch the results. By the time she has her binoculars out, and has set her elbows on the hood of the Girl, Joe has walked up from the back, curious about the delay. She’s scanning the line of wreckage. There are dead along the line, she sees something both odd and disturbing. Jynx hands the binoculars to Daria, who scans the road, seeing the remains. She nearly drops the binoculars as they flash across the front car, catching clearly burned out remains encased in armor. Kevin catches the binoculars, steadies her. Joe pulls his scope out and has a look at about 60X.
What he sees are twenty vehicles all blown apart, their drivers dead in their seats. Where there is metal, it has been mostly turned to slag by the heat. Each of them is burned, but their armor, which they have chosen to wear, has survived. The lead driver is a shorter body, its skull fallen back and hanging at an unnatural angle, its skin mostly ash, bone exposed in places under muscle, the body has just started to decompose, as if the elements were not severe enough to start the process from a dried frame previously. Despite the heat, the seal of the Black Purse is cleanly marked onto the chest plate, the paint having survived the burning at the cost of its colors. Joe recognizes it just the same. He knows those people as well as Daria does, and he knows that without the uncanny senses of Jynx at their disposal, they might have gotten enough to the arch to suffer the same fate.
“Shit.” Joe says, handing the scope to Blake.
“It’s Samuel.” Daria says to Kevin. “That’s our crest on that armor. It has to be Samuel.”
“We can’t go any closer.” Jynx says.
“Why not?” Heath asks.
How Heath has stepped in next to her, Jynx doesn’t know. Joe explains. “Well, Pudding, there’s an arch down that way. Big one. It’s down there, in the city, probably. Big enough to blow that caravan to pieces, big enough that it is humming along right now. Could do the same to us, if we get closer.”
Jynx speaks quietly. “I’ve only got maybe a quarter tank of fuel, and I know you have to be running low as well. There won’t be fuel in Colorado Springs, because of the arch, so we’ll have to risk a reroute to Boulder, I think, if we’re going to move on. We need to map the edge, find a way North and fuel up. It will be risky, maybe.”
ChoCho has his bowl out, and the bearing is nearly a quarter inch off center, the water is bent at an odd arch, straining and twisted on the surface. “She’s right, it’s big. Maybe even big enough for whatever it is you want, Joe.”
Joe considers the map in his head. “I wanted to be on the other side of Death Valley, if possible, and put some honest distance and rugged terrain between us and the Glenn.”
“Why don’t you just tell them that you want to be where you can see the ocean, or at least some kind of body of water, when you wake up in the morning?” Blake says.
“I need to see the water.” Joe admits. “It’s important.”
“It is very important to live near water.” Heath agrees.
“Then we either go south, to Pueblo, and land there on fumes, or we try to work our way around to Boulder.” Jynx says.
ChoCho shows Jynx his bowl again, looking worried. The water, which had before looked like a warped tortilla, pulling on both sides, has begun to undulate, like the tortilla has been dropped and is flapping back and forth, only in a set, powerful rhythm. Jynx shakes her head, feeling a pressure in her ears. The pressure is building slowly, it feels kind of like a twist in the way gravity is pointing, or pulling, even though the marble in the bowl continues to point true toward the arch.
“Pueblo it is.” Jynx says quietly. “You sure you don’t want to set up your base camp here?”
“Did your gizmo ever do that while we were in the Glenn?” Joe asks ChoCho.
“No.” ChoCho admits.
“Then, no, I do not wish to set up camp here.” Joe says.
“Then we need to back up, find an exit south, and zip on down to Pueblo.” Jynx says.
The bowl suddenly swirls around and the water blows out one side, not toward the arch, but into the sky. Jynx can hear the fuel in her tank agitating just like the water; can see the vans and trucks moving as well. In a few moments the pressure she’s feeling dies back, and ChoCho is left with water down his blouse and skirt, looking for his steel bearing, which was sloshed onto the ground. Joe and Jynx look at each other for a second, and each of them feels about to wretch.
“I think we’d best just do it now, rather than later.” Joe says. “We’ll get turned around, and you can back the rig up to the last exit. I’ll tell the other drivers what we’re going to do.”
Even as the trucks settle on their shock absorbers, Jynx knows another fit of pressure is on its way. She looks along the freeway, figures that with a little care she can back the truck down to the exit ramp as Joe suggested, and then take it south on the side roads to Pueblo. It will be a stressful twenty minutes of moving in reverse, but she takes it slow, careful, and gains some serious experience at backing a rig down an empty street. Even though it sounds easy, Jynx is covered in nervous sweat by the time she gets the Girl far enough back to put the truck in first gear and drive onto an off ramp to a street that, according to the map, will allow them to reconnect south of Colorado Springs and finish their trip, maybe permanently, in Pueblo. Jynx hopes Pueblo will have fuel, because as beautiful as Colorado is, like Joe, she would much rather be on the other side of Death Valley, even if her reasons have nothing to do with a pirate’s longing for the sea.
