Chapter 3

Sarah allowed herself a small measure of satisfaction when she saw she was the first one to arrive at City Hall that morning. True, Lindsay Odekirk had a three-year-old to wrangle, so she could be excused for not being exactly on time. Carson definitely didn't have that same excuse, but he'd never been on time for anything the entire six months they'd lived together…or even during the couple of months he and Sarah had dated before that, when you would have thought he'd be on his best behavior.

The hour probably didn't matter too much, though. It wasn't as if anyone was expecting her at Ghost Ranch.

Lindsay came hurrying up about five minutes after Sarah arrived, looking breathless, her dark gold hair pulled back into a messy bun.

"I am so sorry," she said. "Mandy Miller was supposed to watch Dylan this morning, but she forgot to set her alarm clock and was still asleep when I called. I hope you weren't waiting too long."

"Only a couple of minutes," Sarah replied, then decided against commenting on the way Carson hadn't even shown up yet. His absence was obvious, and she didn't want to sound petty. As far as she knew, Lindsay had no idea that she and Carson had even been a couple for a while. Their community was small, but Sarah had realized long ago that she was a very insignificant cog in it, and there was no reason for someone who carried the double burden of serving on the town council while also assisting her scientist husband with his research to have paid any attention to the romantic entanglements of Los Alamos' residents.

"Good," Lindsay said.

The night before, she'd sent Sarah and Carson a quick email to meet in the downstairs conference room in the building, so that was where they stood now. Lying on the table in front of them were several folded pieces of paper, ancient Triple-A maps that must have been scrounged from Espa?ola during a gleaning mission.

She reached for one of them now and opened it on the tabletop. "Have you ever been to Ghost Ranch?"

"Once, when I was around eleven," Sarah said. "My dad and I stayed at the Abiquiu Inn and spent about a couple of days exploring the area."

The worried expression Lindsay had been wearing ever since she arrived at City Hall eased itself somewhat. "Oh, that's good," she replied. "Then at least it won't be totally brand-new for you." She paused there, because Carson had finally deigned to show up and had paused in the doorway to the conference room. Tone growing a little sharp, she added, "Nice of you to drop in."

He'd been smiling faintly, and his expression didn't slip even the slightest bit as he replied, "Sorry I'm a little late. Things got away from me this morning."

Considering how perfectly styled his hair looked, Sarah guessed that his lateness had everything to do with his elaborate grooming habits and not any kind of external complications. He'd been like that the entire time they'd been together, always hogging their small home's single bathroom, taking what felt like ungodly amounts of time to get ready for the day.

Why he'd felt the need to look so polished for their mission, she had absolutely no idea. Most days, she just pulled her long brown hair back into a ponytail because she didn't see the need to do anything more with it…especially since she was working all the time and needed to keep it out of the way. Back in the before time, she'd taken a lot more care with her appearance, obviously, because she'd never known when she might bump into someone who was connected to a casting director or even active in local community theater. Granted, the chances of that happening in Albuquerque were a lot lower than they would have been in L.A., but still, she'd never wanted to waste an opportunity.

And it had paid off at least once, as she'd gotten a part in a local commercial just because she'd run into the producer while waiting in line at the co-op in Nob Hill.

Sometimes, you just never knew.

"It's fine," Lindsay said, although something in her tone let Sarah know that it actually wasn't all that fine. "Here's a map you can use to help you get around."

She picked up the map that was still folded and handed it over to Carson, who didn't even bother to open it up, but merely stuck it in the backpack he had slung over one shoulder.

Well, it wasn't as though he was going to need the thing right away, not with Lindsay driving them to La Chuachia so they'd only have to walk for about a day before they reached their respective destinations.

"And also trail rations for five days, and some canteens," she went on, pointing toward the supplies that had also been stacked on the table.

Carson and Sarah both moved forward to take their share, although she found herself hoping she wouldn't need quite as much as Lindsay had provided. True, it would take one day to hike in and another to hike out, with one sandwiched in between for exploring and taking notes, but five days' worth of supplies seemed a little excessive.

Then again, they were going into territory that, if not precisely uncharted, still hadn't been explored for several years, and there was no way of knowing exactly what they might encounter. Better to play it safe.

"We might as well get going," Lindsay continued after the two volunteers had stuffed their backpacks, although this time she kept her attention more on Sarah than she did on Carson, another sign that she wasn't too thrilled with the way he'd sauntered in here so late. "Miles had to take Dylan to the lab because I couldn't find anyone else to watch him on such short notice, and I don't even want to think what kind of trouble those two could get into."

Sarah managed to keep her mouth from twitching. Although she'd never been asked to watch Miles and Lindsay's young son, she'd heard horror stories. Or rather, he seemed like a pretty typical three-year-old…well, an exceptionally smart typical three-year-old…and that was enough to convince her she wanted to stay far away. It wasn't that she had a problem with anyone who was doing their best to repopulate the world, but rather that, as an only child, she didn't have much experience with little kids and was just fine with keeping it that way for the time being.

And although it seemed as though Miles was a very good father — something Sarah found a little surprising, considering how focused he was on his work — she had to admit that leaving the two of them unsupervised in the lab for any length of time probably wasn't a good idea.

Even Carson seemed to realize it was better not to comment, because he kept his mouth shut as they walked out to the parking lot, where Lindsay's Volvo SUV was waiting for them. He went straight for the front passenger seat, and once again, Sarah found herself trying her hardest not to roll her eyes. True, he was much taller than she and therefore should have been the one to ride shotgun, but he could have at least asked.

That wasn't really his style, though, so she allowed herself an inner sigh of resignation as she got into the back seat and buckled her seatbelt. At least she'd sat down behind Lindsay and had more legroom than she would have if she'd taken the position directly behind Carson.

With them all strapped in, Lindsay pulled out of the parking lot and headed down Highway 30 toward Espa?ola. Rather than follow the route they usually took, however, going into the heart of town, she followed 285 along its outskirts, positioning them to head roughly northwest toward Abiquiu.

Sarah hadn't gone this way for quite a while, and she found herself scanning her surroundings with interest. True, there wasn't a huge amount to see, only shabby houses and businesses that hadn't improved much after five years of standing empty.

That wasn't entirely fair, though. In empty lots, community gardens were green with young corn and squash and beans, and some of the homes had obviously been worked on, too, with fresh paint and newly mended fences. It would take years for an appreciable number of houses here to be occupied, but she could tell that the Los Alamos community was taking its expansion plans seriously.

Which made her wonder why moving out toward Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch was even that necessary, considering how many homes were available in Espa?ola. Then again, this wasn't only about housing, but also increasing arable land so food would never be an issue…and that didn't even take into account the fishing the Rio Chama would provide to supplement what they already caught in the Rio Grande.

Sooner than Sarah would have liked, Lindsay stopped in La Chuachia, right where the two highways diverged from one another. "I'll be back here on Saturday morning," she said, then reached into her vehicle's console so she could extract a pair of walkie-talkies. "These are fully charged, and they should last for up to forty-eight hours or even more if you don't use them too much."

She handed one to Carson and the other to Sarah, who took it with some reluctance. While she understood the need to keep in contact with her fellow volunteer, she still didn't like the idea of him calling and bugging her whenever he felt like it.

On the other hand, she'd probably be pretty glad to have the thing if she slipped and fell, or ran into a pack of coyotes or something.

Not that coyotes were usually too much to worry about. However, there had been a couple of wolf sightings in the area this past winter, and while the animals might have ranged farther north with the approach of summer — no one had seen any wolves for months now — that still didn't mean she should let down her guard.

Well, she had a large hunting knife on her belt, and while she hadn't brought a gun along…mostly because she knew she wasn't a very good shot and had decided carrying might be inviting trouble…it also wasn't as though she was completely defenseless.

Carson was smiling as he thanked Lindsay and put the walkie-talkie in his backpack. No doubt he was already thinking about how he could use it to bother her during her hike, and Sarah knew she'd have to resist the temptation to turn hers off entirely.

"We'll meet you back here around ten on Saturday, then," she said, after a glance down at her watch to double-check the time. Back in the day, she hadn't worn a watch very much because she'd used her phone to see what time it was, but in this post-Dying world, cell phones were pretty paperweights and not much more.

"Good luck," Lindsay said. "If you encounter anything weird, though, come back early. It'll be more of a hike for you, but someone in Espa?ola will be able to patch a call through to City Hall. No point in using the walkie-talkies — they don't have the range."

Definitely not, since even Abiquiu was more than fifty miles away from Los Alamos, and Ghost Ranch farther still.

"I'm sure there won't be anything weird," Carson replied, clearly unconcerned. "So we'll see you here on Saturday."

Lindsay nodded. "Okay. Be safe, you two."

"We will," Sarah said. Or at least, she knew she'd be cautious. She couldn't vouch for her companion's actions.

But Carson had a pretty strong sense of self-preservation, so she kind of doubted he'd do anything to put himself in danger. No, he'd probably hotfoot it out of there at the first sign of trouble.

The two of them got out of Lindsay's Volvo and began walking north on Highway 84. To either side were small ranches and farms, their outbuildings already falling apart from exposure to the wind and weather, fences sagging, private access roads cracked and buckled. A line of cottonwoods on the right picked out the path of the Rio Chama as it meandered through the valley, and thanks to the rain they'd gotten lately, everything was green and lush.

Yes, this was good land. It would be a shame to let it go to waste.

"Nice day," Carson commented, and Sarah nodded.

"I suppose that's one good thing about the world as it is now," she said. "The weather's gotten cooler and wetter. I remember when things wouldn't be this green until late July or early August, depending on what the monsoons were doing that year."

Talking about the weather was safe enough, right?

"Yeah, I guess so," Carson replied. "I suppose I haven't really thought about it too much."

No, he probably wouldn't. With hindsight, Sarah knew he was the kind of person who didn't pay much attention to anything outside himself.

As best she could, she shoved the thought away. She didn't like the guy, but she needed to be civil to him for at least the next couple of hours until they reached the spot where he'd turn off to go to the lake and she'd keep heading north to Ghost Ranch.

"It'll make farming a lot easier," she said. "And it looks like there's already plenty to work with along here. The houses will need to be fixed up, and some of these barns probably would be easier to pull down than try to repair, but — "

"I wasn't aware you were so into farming," Carson cut in, a not entirely pleasant smile tugging at his lips.

She really wasn't. Or rather, while she knew agriculture was important for the continuation of their community, she hadn't put a whole lot of thought into the nuts and bolts involved and had been fine with working where she was told to work and not much more.

Come to think of it, she herself hadn't put a lot of thought into much of anything lately, either. It was easier to cruise through this new life while at least partially checked out…which might have been a large part of the reason why she'd hooked up with Carson in the first place.

"Well, it's important to the community," she said, knowing how unconvincing the words sounded even as they left her lips.

One of Carson's sandy-brown eyebrows lifted. To her relief, though, he didn't challenge her statement, and instead only responded, "I guess that's why we're both here, right? So we can do something for the community?"

"Exactly," Sarah said, glad that he seemed willing to take her words at face value. But then, he'd never been the type to probe too deeply.

They walked in silence for a while after that, for which she was extremely grateful. The night before, she'd manufactured all sorts of awkward scenarios as to what might happen today, with most of them having Carson grill her over their break-up and demand to have her explain why she'd ever thought leaving someone as awesome as him would be a good idea.

However, he seemed willing to let it alone. For all she knew, he was already seeing someone else. She thought she would have heard about something like that, mostly because it was very difficult to keep secrets in a community as small and interconnected as theirs, but she supposed it was possible that even if one of her friends — and by "friend," she meant the people she was friendly with, since she didn't have anything close to a confidant — had heard the news, they might have decided not to pass it along to her.

Whatever the reason, the quiet between her and Carson was almost companionable as they followed Highway 84 along its various curves and bends, until a few hours later, they arrived in Abiquiu. The little town wasn't much more than a wide spot in the road, with the Abiquiu Inn being one of its main landmarks, but at least it let them know they weren't too far from the place where they'd have to part ways.

As they walked past the Inn, Sarah couldn't help feeling a little pang of something that might have been nostalgia, or possibly just simple regret that the place was shuttered and dark and left to decay. She remembered lunch there with her father, how she'd thought the smoked chicken quesadillas were the best thing she'd ever tasted. Even now, she had to admit that she hadn't eaten many meals that surpassed that one, simple as it might have seemed in retrospect.

Something must have shifted in her expression, because Carson hitched a shoulder in the direction of the low adobe building and said, "You ever stay there?"

"When I was a kid," she replied. "It was a long time ago."

A stupid thing to say, she supposed. While she still had a couple of years before she hit thirty, she hadn't been anything close to a kid for more than a decade, so of course her stay at the Inn would have taken place years earlier.

Carson only nodded, though, and they continued in the same silence that had accompanied them for the past couple of hours. Another forty-five minutes or so of walking, and then they paused by the turn-off for Abiquiu Lake and its recreation areas.

"Guess this is my stop," he said.

Something about him seemed almost nervous, which felt very out of character. Was he having second thoughts about bravely hiking off into the wilderness?

If that was the case, they'd gone way too far for him to change his mind now.

"Guess so," she said, doing her best to sound casual. "Don't go crazy with any abandoned speedboats you might find."

The comment made him crack a grin, as she'd hoped it would. "I wish," he replied. "But I'm pretty sure the gas would be totally stale by now."

He had a point there. "Or kayaks," she added with a smile.

"Yeah, I don't think that'll be a problem." He paused and looked down at his watch. "You should make it to Ghost Ranch before nightfall, so that's good." Another hesitation, and then he added in an echo of Lindsay's words, "Be safe."

"You too."

Nothing left to say, so he turned away from her and began striding along the road that led to the lake, while Sarah made herself head northward again.

She wasn't sure what she would find at Ghost Ranch, but better to get there while the sun still shone.