The library occupied a third of a long metal building across from the town park. The rest of the building was shared by the city hall and fire department. A fire truck sat outside the big overhead door on one side of the building. It was halfway in the street and buried to its rims in ash, hopelessly stuck.
Darla hiked toward the library door, and I slid along beside her. There were huge drifts of ash surrounding the building except in front of the doors, which had been shoveled clear. I glanced up and figured out why. Someone had cleared the ash off the roof, throwing it down in piles below the eaves.
Darla tried the metal door labeled Worthington Public Library. “Weird, it’s locked. Supposed to be open.” She rapped on the door.
I heard a click-the lock turning in the door. A muffled voice came from inside, “Come in.” I unclipped my boots from the skis and followed Darla through the door.
The first thing that caught my eye was the huge double-barreled shotgun pointed at us. It gleamed in the light of an oil lamp. My eyes followed the barrel of the gun back to where it was planted against its owner’s shoulder. She was a tiny old woman; she looked smaller than the gun she was wielding. Her hair bloomed in a crazed white tangle above her eyes, which peered suspiciously along the barrel at us.
“Christ!” Darla said. “What is wrong with Worthington? Does everyone here have to point a gun at me?”
I didn’t say anything-just held up my hands and shuffled backward toward the door. Antagonizing a little old lady holding a shotgun seemed like a very bad idea.
“Darla?” The woman behind the gun said. “Darla Edmunds?”
“Yeah, it’s me, Rita Mae. Now would you put that goddamn gun down?”
She leaned the shotgun against the circulation desk. “Now there’s no call to be cussing and using the Lord’s name in vain, young miss.”
“Maybe not but sh-, I mean, that’s the third time in two hours someone’s pointed a gun at me. That’s not at all like people around here.”
“Maybe not, but there’s good reason.”
“What, the pheasants have flown up out of the ash to exact revenge for years of hunting? Worthington’s got to be the safest place in Iowa.”
“Now don’t get all impertinent. Why, you know the Fredericks’ place, outside town? Someone broke in there and murdered them all. Horrible.” Rita Mae glared at Darla.
I decided to interrupt before the argument got out of hand. “We came to see if you had any information about rabbit diseases.”
Rita Mae swung her glare onto me. “And you are?”
“That’s Alex,” Darla said. “He’s a… uh, friend.”
“Well, son, I believe in free public libraries. But considering the situation we’re in, it’s become customary to offer something for the maintenance of the library in order to use our services. We’re in dire need of candles, batteries, lamp oil, and the like.”
“I don’t have anything like that,” Darla said.
“I might have a candle stub and a few matches,” I said.
“What about food?” Darla asked. “That help?”
“Certainly,” Rita Mae said. “A librarian can’t live by books alone, and I wouldn’t eat them if I could. Feel too much like cannibalism.” She shuddered.
Darla dug through her pack and found one of the bags of cornmeal. “So, my rabbits. They’re running a temperature, and they keep climbing into their-”
“Water bowls, right?” Rita Mae said. “You feel any funny bumps or growths on their bones, especially legs? Labored breathing, panting, or signs of respiratory distress?”
“I haven’t noticed anything weird about their bones, but I haven’t checked that carefully.”
Rita Mae pulled a book off the shelf behind her desk. “This is about the dig at Ashfall Beds. You know it?”
“No,” I said.
“It’s a paleontology site in Nebraska. They’re digging up hundreds of animal skeletons there-ancient rhinos, deer, birds-”
“Okay, but what does this have to do with my rabbits?” Darla asked.
“I’m getting to that. About twelve million years ago, an enormous volcano erupted in what’s now southern Idaho. It’s the same volcano as Yellowstone, but the tectonic plate has moved above the volcanic hot spot, shifting it from southern Idaho to northwestern Wyoming.
“The eruption dumped more than a foot of ash in northeast Nebraska, about a thousand miles from the volcano. The animals living there breathed in the ash and got sick with silicosis, a lung disease. Symptoms include high fever, respiratory distress, and unusual porous deposits on bones.
“Since the animals were running a fever, they crowded into a watering hole to cool off. They died there and then were buried by drifting ash.”
“So it’s breathing the ash that’s making my rabbits sick?”
“Yes.”
“How do I treat it?”
“You can’t. Clean air will keep it from getting worse, but there’s no cure.”
“Crap,” Darla said. “Sure hate to lose all of them-if I could keep five or six to breed I could-”
“What about us?” I said. “Can we get this… silicosis, too?”
“Yep. Don’t go outside without a mask, or at least a damp cloth over your mouth and nose. Stay in clean air, and try not to stir up the ash.”
I remembered our ash-throwing fight on the way to Worthington. Brilliant. My thoughts were turning positively grim, so I changed the subject. “We got a bit of a radio broadcast at the farm, but nothing about what’s going on east of here. You heard anything here?”
“Everyone with a working radio’s been listening for news. Mayor organized info sharing at City Hall next door. If anyone hears anything, they write it down and post it on the wall over there.”
“Anything about Illinois? Warren? It’s not far from Galena.”
“There’s a refugee camp outside Galena. Government says they’re focusing triage efforts on Illinois and setting up camps there for any Iowans who can make it across the Mississippi. Fools in Washington think Iowa’s a lost cause. Guess we’ll show them.” Rita Mae looked like she was sucking on a sourball.
I didn’t say anything, but I was relieved to find out people were getting help in Illinois. Maybe my family would be okay.
“You know anyone in town who might have an extra set of cross-country skis for sale?” Darla asked.
“Might be. I’ve got a pair gathering dust in the basement. What are you offering?”
Rita Mae haggled with Darla over those skis for more than half an hour. Darla wound up giving her both rabbit haunches and another bag of cornmeal on top of the bag we’d already given her as a “donation” to support her “free” public library. I had to throw in my candle stub and matches to seal the deal.
Rita Mae snuffed out the oil lamp and hung a Back Soon sign on the library door. The three of us walked to her house to pick up the skis-apparently the rumor that she was sleeping on a cot in the library was unfounded.
Along the way, we passed St. Paul’s school. Rita Mae said, “You know, if things get tight out on your farm, you can come stay at the school. Mrs. Nance, the principal, is taking in anyone from the area who needs a place to stay. Everyone has to work if they’re able, but that’s only fair.”
“Thanks,” Darla said. “Looks like we’ll be fine on the farm, though.”
The ski boots didn’t fit Darla very well-too tight. Darla said they’d stretch out, but I doubted it; Gore-Tex and plastic don’t stretch much.
We said goodbye to Rita Mae as quickly as we could. I was getting worried about making it back to the farm before nightfall.
We made a lot better time with both of us on skis. Not long after we left Worthington, I felt a vibration under my feet. It picked up force, and in a few seconds the ground was rolling and heaving.
“More of this crap?” Darla said.
I shrugged and spread my skis wider, trying to stay upright.
The earthquake passed in less than a minute. It wasn’t strong enough to knock us over, but it did raise a fine haze of ash that clung to the ground like early-morning fog.
Almost two hours later, a series of low booms rumbled out of the West. It was nothing like the explosions-Darla and I could, and did, talk over it, even though it continued for more than five minutes. I hoped it was the volcano’s dying gasp and not a harbinger of more trouble to come.