“Well, hurry faster,” Mom told him.
The breeze blew harder. It sent a puff of smoke that made Liz cough. Stop that, she thought, but it didn't. After what seemed forever, Dad jumped back into the wagon. He flicked the reins. The horses went off at a trot without so much as a giddyap. They'd probably wondered what was taking so long, too.
From everything Liz had heard, fire made horses stupid.
From everything she'd seen, horses were no big threat to get fives on their AP tests anyway. But, this once, panic worked for the Mendozas. not against them. The horses wanted to get away from the fires, and so did the people they were pulling.
It was going to be closer than it had any business being. In the home timeline, Dad would have been on his cell phone yelling his head off. A water-dropping plane or helicopter would have splatted the leading edge of the flames. That would have slowed them down enough to let endangered people get away. And, of course, in the home timeline, they wouldn't have been stuck in a horse-drawn wagon to begin with.
No cell phones here. No water-dropping airplanes or copters, either. And the wagon was the fastest way to escape they had. The only other choice was getting out and running. If the horses freaked and stood still, they would have to try that. Liz didn't think it seemed like a whole lot of fun.
Things ran past them in the night. Coyotes and raccoons and feral cats hated the fire, and feared it, too. So did rats and mice and hamsters and squirrels and… everything, really.
When she looked back on that night, none of it stuck in her mind as a whole lot of fun. The fire got closer and closer and hotter and hotter. The smoke got thicker and nastier, till she felt as if she were smoking about ten packs of cigarettes every time she breathed in. Mom gave her a hanky soaked in water to put over her nose and mouth. It helped some-till it dried out. That didn't take nearly long enough. She soaked it herself the next time. Mom splashed the fabric of the wagon to keep embers from catching.
Mom also rigged makeshift breathing masks for herself and Dad. “Shall I make some for the horses, too?” she asked.
“I don't think they'd put up with it,” Dad answered. “Besides, do you want to stop and find out?”
Mom automatically looked back over her right shoulder. So did Liz. and wished she hadn't. The Harries were much too close, much too big, and much, much too hot. Dad's question kind of answered itself. In case it didn't, Mom took care of things: “Now that you mention it, no.”
“About what I figured.” Dad snapped the whip above the horses' backs. They were already doing all they could, but he wanted to make sure they kept on paying attention.
“'What happens if the smoke gets them?” Liz asked through the bit of cloth that wasn't keeping as much smoke out of her lungs as she wished it would.
'“We jump down and we hold on to each other and we hustle,” Dad said. “Next question?”
Liz decided she didn't have a next question. The answer to the one she'd just asked gave her plenty to chew on all by itself.
Mom looked over her shoulder again. Liz admired her nerve. She didn't want to know exactly how close those leaping, crackling flames were. If things were going to turn out badly, couldn't it be a surprise? If you knew you were about to get roasted… Well, what could you do? Scream, maybe, and then stick an apple in your mouth.
Except she didn't have an apple. She didn't think the flames would stop when she was just done to a turn, either-not that it would matter to her one way or the other at that stage of things.
Then Mom said, “We're gaining.”
“What?” Liz wasn't sure she'd heard right. Nobody ever talked about how loud a really big fire was up close. The people who knew things like that were mostly either firefighters or dead.
“We're gaining,” Mom said again. Liz could hear her better this time. Maybe Mom talked louder. Maybe they were a little farther from the flames. If they were…
“We're gaining!” Liz said joyfully.
She looked over her shoulder then. The flames were still too close, but they weren't way too close any more. That looked like progress, all right.
“Just hope sparks and embers don't set the wagon roof on fire,” Dad said. Liz gave him a reproachful stare, not because that wasn't possible but because it was. They couldn't stop it if it did happen, so she didn't want to hear about it.
Heart pounding as loud as the flames were roaring, she looked over her shoulder once more. The fire was definitely farther away now. She approved of that. She would have approved even more if it were a mile beyond the moon.
A few minutes later, Dad let the horses slow down. “I'm pretty sure we're good,” he said. “It's burning straight west, pretty much, and we've got north of it.”
“What do we do now?” Mom asked.
“How about we sleep for a week?” Dad said.
“Works for me,” Liz said. “And you know what else? I bet we've got so much soot on our faces, nobody can recognize us.”
“That works, too,” Mom said. “I was going to say we should wash in the morning, but maybe not. In the meantime…”
In the meantime, Liz had no trouble at all falling asleep in the wagon.
Back in the Valley, Dan hadn't thought about sleeping on asphalt wrapped in no more than a blanket. That didn't mean he couldn't do it. If you got tired enough, you could sleep anywhere. He proved that: Sergeant Chuck had to shake him awake when the sun came up the next morning.
Yawning, Dan started to sit up straight. Then he didn't. You never could tell whether Westside snipers were waiting for somebody to do something that dumb. Chuck was on his hands and knees. He'd been ready to push Dan down if Dan forgot where he was. Since Dan didn't, Chuck relaxed.
Relaxed or not, he didn't look so good. He needed a shave, and smoke from last night's watchfires streaked his cheeks and forehead. “Boy, Sarge, you ought to clean up,” Dan said.
“Look who's talking. You'd stop a clock at fifty yards,” Chuck retorted. He was probably right. Dan had been firing a matchlock musket all day. Every time the gun went off, it belched out a great cloud of fireworks-smelling gunpowder smoke. How much of that was he wearing on his face?
“What do we do today?” Dan asked.
“Wait and see what our loving neighbors to the south try,” Chuck said-or something like that, anyhow. “If they want more trouble, we can give it to them. If they sit tight, we're not going to go after them or anything. What would the King of the Valley do with land south of the Santa Monica Freeway?”
Rule it? Dan thought. As soon as he did, he wondered, But how'? It would take a long time to get messages and orders back and forth between Zev's palace up in Mortriridge and these lands way down here. Back in the Old Time, people said, you could talk to anybody right away, no matter how far apart the two of you were. Radio, TV, telephones… Dan believed in them, but they weren't around anymore. The telegraph survived-where people didn't steal wires for their copper, anyway-but who really wanted to pay attention to orders in Morse code? Dan knew he wouldn't.
“Have they started shooting yet?” he asked.
“No. but it's still early,” Sergeant Chuck answered. “I don't know that they won't, and neither does anybody else.”
Dan 's stomach growled. It had ideas of its own, and wasn't shy about letting the rest of him know about them. '“Will anyone bring us breakfast?” he asked.
“I heard they were supposed to be making sandwiches, but I sure haven't seen any.” Chuck looked around. “Wait-speak of the devil.”
Kitchen helpers with big cloth sacks crawled up and down the freeway dealing out sandwiches and Old Time soda bottles full of watered wine. Dan 's sandwich was smoked pork and pickled tomato on a hard roll: something that wouldn't go bad in a hurry. He made it disappear in a hurry, so how long it would keep didn't matter. Chuck 's breakfast was the same, and vanished even faster.
“It's not bacon and eggs and hash browns, but it'll do,” the sergeant said.
“Yeah, Sarge, but think what army cooks'd do to bacon and eggs and hash browns,” Dan said. Chances were the cooks would do fine by them. He didn't let that bother him. Complaining about army cooks probably went all the way back to the Old Time.
“They're pretty lousy, all right,” Chuck agreed. Sergeants complained about cooks, too. Sergeants complained about everything. It was part of their job.
Here and there, Valley soldiers started standing along the freeway line. When nobody fired at the first few, more men did the same. Dan and Chuck stood up at the same time: not soon enough to take a big chance, and not late enough to seem yellow. Getting shot wasn't part of anybody's job… except when it was.
“ Dan! Musketeer Dan!” somebody farther down the freeway called.
“I'm here!” Dan sang out. “What's happening, man?”
“They want you back at the traders' house, so step on it,” the messenger answered.