it to a hyena’s bark. The Cross pen in her pocket pressed her breast over her heart. She took comfort in it, ducking behind the fairing to dodge the stinking wind and the clawing skeletons of ungroomed trees. She’d signed on the line, after all. And either Nick had to see her and the Kawasaki safe or she got back what she’d paid.
As if Nick abided by contracts.
As if he couldn’t just kill her, and get what he wanted that way. Except he couldn’t keep her, if he did.
“Damn,” she murmured, to hear the echoes, and hunched over the Kawasaki’s tank. The wind tore at her leathers. The heavy bike caught air coming over the last rise. She had to pee like she couldn’t believe and the vibration of the engine wasn’t helping, but she laughed out loud to set the city behind.
She got out easier than she thought she would, although her gauge read empty at the bottom of the hill. She switched to reserve and swore. Dead trees and smoking stumps rippled into nonexistence around her, and the lone and level sands stretched to ragged mountains east and west. Back in Nevada, if she’d ever left it, hard westbound now, straight into the glare of the afternoon sun. Her polarized faceplate helped somewhat, maybe not enough, but the road was smooth again before and behind and she could see Tonopah sitting dusty and forsaken in her rear-view mirror, inaccessible as a mirage, a city at the bottom of a well.
Maybe Nick could only touch her in the towns. Maybe he needed a little of man’s hand on the wilderness to twist to his own ends, or maybe it amused him. Maybe it was where the roads crossed, after all. She didn’t think she could make it back to Tonopah if she tried, however, so she pretended she didn’t see the city behind her and cruised west, toward Hawthorne, praying she had enough gas to make it but not expecting her prayers to be answered by anybody she particularly wanted to talk to.
The 95 turned northwest again at the deserted Coaldale junction; there hadn’t been a town there since long before the War, or even the disaster at Vegas. Mina was gone too, its outskirts marked by a peeling sign advertising a long-abandoned crawfish farm, the “Desert Lobster Facility.”
Harrie’s camel bag went dry. She sucked at the straw forlornly one last time and spat it out, letting it sag against her jaw, damp and tacky. She hunkered down and laid a long line of smoking road behind, cornering gently when she had to corner, worried about her scorched and bruised tires. At least the day was cooling as evening encroached, as she progressed north and gained elevation. It might be down into the double digits, even, although it was hard to tell through the leather. On her left, the Sarcophagus Mountains rose between her and California.
The name didn’t amuse her as much as it usually did.
And then they were climbing. She breathed a low sigh of relief and patted the hungry, grumbling Kawasaki on the fuel tank as the blistering blue of Walker Lake came into view, the dusty little town of Hawthorne huddled like a crab on the near shore. There was nothing moving there either, and Harrie chewed her lip behind the filter. Dust had gotten into her helmet somehow, gritting every time she blinked; long, weeping streaks marked her cheeks behind the visor. She hoped the dust wasn’t the kind that was likely to make her glow, but her dosimeters had settled down to chicken-like clucking, so she might be okay.
The Kawasaki whimpered apologetically, and died as she coasted into town.
“Christ,” she said, and flinched at the echo of her own amplified voice. She reached to thumb the mike off, and, on second thought, left it alone. It was too damned quiet out here without the Kawasaki’s commentary. She tongued her music back on, flipping selections until she settled on a tune by Grey Line Out.
She dropped her right foot and kicked the stand down on the left, then stood on the peg and slung her leg over the saddle. She ached with vibration, her hands stiff claws from clutching the handlebars. The stretch of muscle across her ass and thighs was like the reminder of a two-day-old beating but she leaned into the bike, boot sole slipping on grit as she heaved it into motion. She hopped on one foot to kick the stand up,