Lori Quint recovered well from the horror of the attack by the stickies. There was some scabbing and peeling of skin around her mouth from the pressure of the suckered fingers, but it was already healing. She and Doc were happy to be together at the rear of the ungainly craft, handling the long steering oar that kept them moving roughly in the center of the current.
It was a beautiful day. The early morning mist had faded away like the dew on a summer meadow.
Ryan had ridden rivers before, but most of them had been fast-flowing, broken with turbulent rapids, places where a moment's relaxation could mean an instant chilling. The Hudson was different. Most of the time it was several hundred yards wide, rolling steadily toward the sea between wooded banks that showed little evidence of man.
For the first time in a long while, Ryan Cawdor actually felt he could lie back on the timbers and take it easy. The wood seemed to be drying out in the warm sun, and the craft was riding higher in the water.
"Those hills on the right used to be called the Cats-kills," Doc shouted, lifting his voice against the sound of the river bubbling around the raft. "Folk took vacations there."
"What were vacations, Doc?" Jak asked. The albino boy was sprawled on his back, shading his vulnerable eyes against the golden sunlight. He had peeled off both his camouflage canvas jerkin and the ragged fur vest that he wore beneath it. His skin was as white as paper, stretched tight over prominent ribs. Ryan, looking at Jak, thought at that moment that he barely looked his fourteen years, seeming more like an undernourished and skinny boy, on the threshold of his teens.
"Vacation, son?" the old man mused. "Time was folks would have laughed at you and thought you was joshing 'em."
"It's a time out from killing," J.B. said quietly, wiping spray off his spectacles.
"It's when you can be with the person you want, and go where you want and do what you want," Krysty suggested, smiling at Ryan.
"Can't do better'n that," Ryan agreed, venturing a rare smile at the girl.
"I know," Lori called. "Doc tells me. It's good time out of bad. Like a day Keeper doesn't fucking up rectum." She looked proudly at Doc, who shuffled his feet.
"Took me all this time't'stop the chit from saying something a deal worse than rectum."
Jak wasn't satisfied. "Tell us what vacation was, Doc."
"Saltwater taffy, balloons, laughter, hot dogs, ribbons and bows, gingham and lace at collar and cuffs. Smell of frying and best scent and a lot of sweat. Did I mention laughter? Believe I did. Key ingredient in any vacation, laughter. Ice cream on a stick. Fiddler in the park. Fresh-baked apple pie with a spoon of cream on top. Kids, everywhere. Taxi-dancers. Jazz bands. Linked arms along the boardwalk. Hot lips together under the boardwalk. Talking of hopes for better days. Dreams. Laughter and dreams, Jak."
The raft was silent at the litany from the long-dead, long-gone past, words that Ryan had only ever read. Doc's head dropped on his chest, and he continued to speak, softer, his voice matching the stillness of the river.
"Emily and I had but one true vacation together. My work... I couldn't... Had I but known what the future held. Ah, the future. We talked much of the future that summer's day in 'ninety-six. Rachel toddling bravely beside us, and young Jolyon on his blanket."
A flock of what looked like pigeons flew from some sycamores on the eastern bank, the sun striking the bars of vermilion on their fluttering wings. The river was in a wide sweep to the right, flowing slowly and calmly. Doc's voice became even quieter.
"I had friends among the Apaches of New Mexico Territory, and we visited them. They made us welcome. It was ten years to the very day that the old fox, Geronimo, surrendered to General Nelson Miles. Wonder what happened to?.. Never looked after I'd been trawled on the chron-jump. Never thought to. The sun shone every day. The Apaches loved Rachel and Jolyon. Happiest time... laughter... Harriet Beecher Stowe died that summer, as I recall, and there was some news of prizes for scientists by the man who... dynamite... name's gone. Emily joked I would win one of them, one day. Oh, God, but I was never so happy as on that vacation. That's what it was, Jak," he said, turning his face away so that none of them could see the tears.
Around noon they passed through the shattered remains of what must once have been a sizable ville. Doc's guess was a town called Kingston, but the effort of recalling so much of his distant past had wearied the old man, and he sat down for much of the time, trailing his bare feet over the stern, gazing at their jagged wake, locked in his own thoughts. Not even Lori could tug him back for several hours.
Ryan realized just how frail Doc Tanner's hold on reality truly was.
"Let's pull her in," Ryan said a little after two o'clock in the afternoon.
"Hours of daylight left," J.B. protested, looking up at the sky, puzzled. "No storm threatening, so why stop?"
"A vacation," Ryan said, grinning. "There's a clearing to the left there. I can see a waterfall, white over the rocks. Good defense all around. Haven't seen any muties. Let's just stop, like Doc said, and rest up. We'll start again at dawn."
"Gaia, but that's a wonderful idea, lover." Krysty sighed and ran her fingers through her mane of scarlet hair so that it rippled against her skin like a wave of fire.
It was an idyllic place.
Ryan and Jak scouted the region around the landing place while J.B. held the mooring line ready for a swift flight. But they found no trace anywhere of any human footprints. Ryan checked the radiation count, taking a reading that dropped below the orange. Everything that he'd ever heard made him certain that the entire northeast industrial area had been nuked almost out of existence, leaving the place a throbbing hot spot that for a long time actually glowed at night, according to some of the older men and women at Front Royal ville.
The water that tumbled eighty or ninety feet from the lip of an escarpment was fresh and sweet without any kind of chem taste.
There were ample deadfall branches that would make an excellent fire — one with a glowing heat but very little smoke to attract any potential enemies.
Doc lay down on the gently sloping beach of soft white sand and instantly fell asleep. Lori sat beside him, plaiting a chaplet of tiny white and golden flowers that she'd found growing in an abundant profusion near the border of the forest.
Spruce, larch, white oaks and hickories dominated the sloping hillside above the beach, with tiny red squirrels and chipmunks darting fearlessly among them, showing no fright at the appearance of the humans.
"Coming, J.B.?" Krysty asked.
"Where?"
"There," she responded, pointing toward the beckoning shade of the green forest.
"Why?"
"For the pleasure of it, J.B., like Doc said. It's a vacation for us all. Rest and relax and stop your mind running on death."
"I'm happy here, Krysty."
The Armorer was sitting cross-legged in the sand, a few yards nearer the water than Doc and Lori. He had the mini-Uzi cradled in his lap, already halfway through fieldstripping it. His glasses caught the sun, and his fedora was pushed well back on his high, sallow forehead.
"Come on," Ryan urged.
"When we chilled the stickles, I thought I heard something catching on the mechanism. Something didn't sound right. The selective fire blowback's my guess. I've got to check it out, Ryan. You know that."
"Sure. Watch the boat."
The Armorer nodded his agreement, bending happily to his task.
"Jak," Krysty called.
"Yeah. You going to walk?"
"Want to come?"
The boy was still stripped to the waist, his boots off, breeches rolled above the knee. He was paddling in the shallows of the river, one of his lethal little throwing knives poised in his right hand.
"Fishing."
"You'll never get anything with a blade," Ryan said disbelievingly.
"Want to bet?"
Ryan laughed. "I know better, kid."
"Go pick flowers, One Eye. Have some fish grilled for you when you get back."
"Sounds good." Krysty smiled and hooked her arm through Ryan's elbow. "Looks like you an' me, lover."
"Looks like it." Ryan called across to J.B., "Be back 'fore dark."
The Armorer waved a casual hand.
Close together, hips touching as they walked, Ryan and Krysty made their way into the cool, scented gloom beneath the waiting trees.
"Herb the blacksmith, back in Harmony ville, knew lotsa old songs and verses," Krysty said. "Told one 'bout a lost path through the woods. How it was gone, but it was still there for those who had the eyes to see it."
Ryan could see what had prompted her line of thought. The trees were well spaced, with daggers of golden sunlight thrusting through the top branches and dappling the floor of the forest. They could hear the light breeze as it tugged at the fresh green leaves that danced and swayed. The air tasted fresh and clean. Gradually they were leaving the rolling sound of the Hudson behind them.
They picked a path between the trunks, climbing up the slope.
"It's a beautiful day, Ryan."
"Good day for a vacation."
"Look, down there."
They stopped on a grassy knoll that thrust out between the trees, overhanging the beach, giving them a view clear across the river. From that height it shone and glittered like molten glass, barely moving. A little farther above them they could hear the thundering of the waterfall.
Far below them they could easily make out the twin shapes of Doc and Lori, lying close together on the beach, seemingly asleep.
"Oddest love match I ever saw," Ryan said. "I know he's not really two hundred and thirty years old, but he's definitely around his middle sixties. And she's still in her teens."
"You disapproving, lover?" Krysty asked teasingly.
"No. Course not. I'm pleased the old goat's so happy, and the girl couldn't have found a nicer person than Doc. Specially after that double-crazy Keeper she lived with."
"Look at J.B."
Ryan, arm held loosely around Krysty's slender waist, shaded his eye against the sunlight. The Armorer had laid his coat on the sand and was stooped over the stripped segments of his blasters, carefully wiping each one, using a tiny container of oil to grease them. J.B. was in his element, relishing the vacation in his own dedicated way.
"Jak looks like a little boy at play," Ryan observed. "Not that he ever had any kind of childhood."
The white hair blended with the sun-bright sand. As they watched, the lad flicked his wrist. There was a flash of silver from the thrown knife as it splashed into the river. Jak plunged his hand into the water, coming out with something that wriggled and glistened blue-green in his fist. As though he sensed that he was being watched, the boy whirled around, scanning the wall of the forest. He spotted the man and the woman far above him and waved the trout in triumph. Jak shouted something to them, but the words were whisked away on the soft westerly wind.
"Supper should be good, lover," Krysty whispered. "Come on, let's walk some more." She waved to Jak, and then she and Ryan stepped back out of sight of their companion on the beach.
As they made love on a bank of light green moss, shaded from the sun, Ryan kept the G-12 at his side. This place was as near to an Eden as anything he'd come across in the Deathlands. But that didn't mean that it was free from serpents.
The foaming stream that fed the waterfall was only a few yards from them, chattering over the rounded stones. A miniature wading bird, wings darted with vivid turquoise and crimson, hopped and picked its way through the water. A gold-throated woodpecker hammered away at a live oak behind them, the thin sound of its rapping beak echoing around the forest. A mutie raccoon, no more than four inches long, skittered over the fawn carpet of leaf mold, ignoring the lovemaking couple who watched it.
"Makes a change to see a mutie animal that's gotten smaller," Krysty said.
"I saw some bear tracks and what I guess is a bobcat," Ryan said. "They looked a coupla weeks old. Mebbe more."
"Gaia, but I hope you're right!" Krysty exclaimed, pretending to push Ryan off her, looking around. "A bobcat on top of me as well as you would be too much."
Ryan moaned in pleasure as the girl laughed. When he was deeply buried in her, she was able to do amazing things with her stomach muscles, lying quite still, yet somehow sucking and caressing him with rippling waves of pressure. He lowered his face to hers, kissing her gently on the lips, tasting sun and salt on her skin.
"I love you, Ryan Cawdor," Krysty whispered. The tip of her tongue danced over his lips, probing between his parted teeth. She sighed as he thrust harder against her, feeling his swelling climax racing closer. She began to pant, raggedly and urgently showing the nearness of her own release.
"Not yet, not yet, not yet," she chanted, head rolling back. The long coils of her burning hair seemed to rise, brushing Ryan's cheeks and shoulders with an odd, sentient life of their own.
"I can't... can't..."
"Soon, lover, soon... yes! Now, you fierce bastard, now!"
They fought to a mutual orgasm, Ryan collapsing on top of her, feeling as though the core of his soul had been sucked out from his loins. He could feel her powerful muscles, fluttering uncontrollably with the power of her own ecstasy.
"Fireblast," he exclaimed. "How d'you like them apples, lover?"
"I guess you don't get many of them to the bushel, huh?"
Ryan rolled off her, wincing at the stickiness. "Where d'you get that expression from? Not many of them to the bushel!"
Krysty grinned at him with the sleepy, contented face of a cat that's gotten the best of the cream. "Back in Harmony. Mother Sonja had a host of old sayings like that. Guess she never figured it'd be used for a real mind-blower like that."
"Guess not."
"Didn't you have sayings like that, lover? Back in your own family."
"Not that I recall."
The smile slipped away, and she saw the tension come snapping back into his face, hardening the lines around his eye and mouth.
"Ryan?"
He stood up, turning away from her. She had a moment to admire the muscular slimness of his naked body, his back, arms and legs seamed with a multitude of old scars.
"Ryan? I'm sorry I touched a nerve."
"Don't signify, lover." He moved to the edge of the water and dipped a toe in it, whistling at the cold. "Feels like meltwater."
"Going to bathe?"
"Hell, why not? Come join me."
She gasped at the shock of the icy stream as she crouched to wash herself. She leaped out suddenly, running on the cropped turf to try to get warm again. A raven wings carrying the polished sheen of sunlight, floated over the treetops, catching her eye.
Krysty pulled on her silken bikini panties, adjusting them across her hips, easing the flimsy material from the cleft between her buttocks. She hoisted her trousers and tugged on the elegant western boots. The water had splashed her hair, and she ran her fingers through it, letting it float across her shoulders.
"Come out, lover. You'll freeze, and the cold's doing nothing for that..." She pointed at his shrunken genitals, giggling at him.
"It'll warm up," he said, some of the toughness easing from his face once more.
"Get dressed, Ryan. Then come and sit here by me. There's another hour or more before we need be heading back to join the others."
He got dressed, leaving his chest bare, relishing the feel of the sun on his skin. Ryan held up his brown shirt, shaking his head at the stain on it, which was nearly black.
"Poor Hennings," he said.
"Seems years past. Can't be more'n a few weeks since he bought the farm. One too many mornings..." Her voice trailed away.
"Mebbe we should settle on going west and try to find some of the Trader's old crew."
Krysty rested her hand on his bare shoulder, feeling the skin still chilled by the stream. "What about Virginia?"
"And the Shens?"
"Sure, lover. And the ville at Front Royal where someone's the baron... someone who owes you a debt."
Ryan breathed deeply so that his ribs became prominent against the skin of his chest. "It's too many years. Like you said, Krysty. A thousand miles behind. Best leave it there."
But he couldn't hide the note of doubt in his voice. The girl lay stretched out on her back, hands behind her head, looking up at the harsh planes and angles of his face.
"You aren't sure?"
"No. No, I'm not."
"Talk about it."
"You know the story. You heard it down in the swamps."
"I want to hear it from you, Ryan. Now. Your story, your words. There'll never be a better time."
Ryan folded the bloodstained shirt and placed it on the grass, then lay down at the girl's side.
Beginning to speak...