Part Two, Chapter Three

In the morning, Donovan loaded the wagon and they tackled the switchbacks as soon as there was enough light for the jennies to find their footing. Before the sun was full in the sky, they had reached the valley floor.

The wagon tracked its way through a meadow of dull silver grass, mountains on every side, as if they were in the concave hollow of a bowl. As they bounced along the rutted path, they passed fallen fence posts and mailboxes, overgrown driveways leading sometimes to nothing and sometimes to buckling trailer homes or small frame houses that had collapsed after years of neglect. The rusted hulks of automobiles lay strewn in weed-choked yards, sometimes burnt and smashed, other times abandoned intact, but useless. The wind played about old swing sets and with the bleached and warped remains of plastic children's toys and patio furniture, pathetic reminders of the trivial uses to which precious oil had once been put.

The buildings became more numerous and closer together as they went on. A bank and gas station had been burnt, the remains painted in mocking, obscene graffiti. Fast food restaurants had been allowed to fall to pieces after the doors had been kicked in, windows smashed, and the kitchen equipment dragged out and sold for scrap. At every turn Donovan guided his team around blowing trash, long-dead electrical lines, and signs and traffic signals that had come loose from their posts and dashed into the intersections.

He pulled up short in front of the caved-in remains of a supermarket, its plate glass windows gone, its asphalt parking lot clotted with weeds and half-covered in dust. Looking around uneasily, as if there might be witnesses among the ruins, he jumped down from the wagon and unwound a stray cable from where it had lodged around the rear axle. He paused while climbing back onto the seat and opened his mouth as if he would speak, but thought better of it. Carina had shed her cloak and looked almost pretty in her straw hat with its fluttering black ribbon, but there remained something unapproachable about her, and in this heavy, silent atmosphere, talk seemed risky and perhaps even blasphemous.

They continued past a motel that would never see another guest, past an empty diner whose sign promised they never closed, and past looted shops advertising sales on electronics, clothing and camping equipment. As they reached the other side of town and the buildings began to space farther apart, Donovan found himself breathing again, as if the very air in the center of town had been deprived of oxygen. He twisted around in his seat and looked back. There was something too still about the place, as if the town had not yet resigned itself to its fate and whatever negative force had driven the people away still lingered. He shuddered and turned back toward the road.

Gradually the path climbed again. Goneril and Regan pulled against the traces, their coats darkening with sweat as the sun reached high noon. Donovan knew he should pull over and let them rest before tackling the pass, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop again in this haunted valley. They had to get to someplace where it wasn't an abomination to be among the living.

From the bowl of the valley Donovan had been able to see the exact point of Trés Ladrones pass, but now as they entered the switchbacks, it was obscured by the meandering path as it wound back and forth, ever upward. The wind grew colder as they went higher, but it was a cathartic sort of cold that blew away the last of the oppressive weight they had carried with them from below. When they turned a corner and found their way obstructed by fallen rocks, it didn't at first seem like much of a difficulty. Donovan parked the wagon at an angle and set the brake, then he walked up ahead, taking stock of the situation.

"None of them are very big," he said when he returned. "But there's a lot of them." He went to the back of the wagon and pulled out a shovel, one of several seemingly odd tools that Amalia had insisted they pack. "Bring the team behind me as I clear the way."

It was slow going. The rocks seemed to go on forever, although Donovan knew logically that this stretch couldn't be more than half a mile. Occasionally there was a bigger stone in the road and he would have to lay down his shovel and drag it off to the side. After half an hour of this, having only gone a few hundred yards, he stopped and rubbed his back, fighting discouragement.

"I can take over for awhile."

Carina was watching him solemnly, her eyes clear and frank in the afternoon sun. He shook his head. Amalia could've done it. A week ago, Carina could have, too. But not now, thin and with her health possibly in jeapordy.

"You need to rest," she insisted, holding out her hand for the shovel. "You should eat and have something to drink."

"Get back in the wagon and guide the team," Donovan told her. "I'm fine."

"Now you sound like me. Maybe I'll work up an appetite."

She was right. He was thirsty and nearly dizzy with altitude and hunger. Reluctantly he handed her the shovel. "Just the small ones," he cautioned her. "And if you start to feel bad..."

"I know." She began scraping the rocks toward the edge of the road, careful not to toss any over the edge, where they might start a rockslide below. She worked more slowly than Donovan and soon found her billowing skirt to be a hindrance, so she gathered it into a knot at her knees. Donovan, eating stale cornbread as he guided the jennies, tried to remember if this was the first time he had ever seen Carina's bare legs. She had pretty calves. Too bad—

No, he had to stop that line of thinking. It would only lead to trouble. He took a long drink of water, and since Carina was too busy to watch what he was doing, he topped it with a swig of cider. It was what the officers in the Guard used to give them whenever a task was so demeaning that no one in his right mind would keep after it for long. He released the brake and let the jennies draw the cart forward a few more steps. They were going to have to make faster progress than this if they were to make it to shelter before sundown. This pass was too dangerous for them to stay long. Little rocks tumbled down even as they worked, and a bigger one could fall at any time. There was nowhere to camp and there was no way they were going back to Catalunia. They would have to get through before nightfall and that was all there was to it.

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