From the Fire V Read Online Free PDF

you, God, I cannot.  But still I am praying.
    Trees and even some withered grass.  Thank you, let not the poison
take this land.  Thank you.
    ~
    [540.]
    Los Lagos Reservoirs, unreflecting mirrors all clouded over by the
ashes.  Stench of burning pork and plastic through the air vents.  I’ve closed
them tighter, but a greasy dust is somehow creeping in.  Stopping, idling to
re-tape Silas’ window, his “sniper-hole.”  Yes, he again made certain I leave
him wider view seams for gunfire.
    “Naw, I just like the view,” he whispers.
    He’s smiling, but will not often speak.  He’s weakening.  Where
his joints peak through the bandages, his skin is coming off in strands.
    (Later)
    Found a hiding place off the road.  One watching, the engine
running, for some hours we are going to sleep!
    ~
    (Day 3?)
    [541.]
    Engine ragged.  Gas a little over half, and the plastics in the
back.  The two spare barrels I could fit up top are still sealed, racked and
ready to go.
    Is it morning?
    The sky a little brighter, black and then to crimson.  The wind is
ever-changing.  Passed the turnoff onto East 72, Coal Creek Canyon.  Fewer
wrecks than I anticipated, even out to the west.  Surely Aspen was destroyed?
    Started exploring 72, east and down, but at Silas’ insistence — he
had a terrible feeling about it, said he heard an echo of weeping on the wind —
we turned around.
    ~
    (Much later scrawl, chronologically, apparently in a much older
Sophie’s hand:)
    The Valley of Weeping, as told.
    My beloved Silas.
    He probably saved our lives.
    (No elaboration upon this curious distinction is given in the
diary.)
    ~
    [542.]
    Magnolia Road crossing.  In the scorched and rutted mud by another
still-standing stop sign, three melted-paint SUVs were parked side by side, and
around them circled a line of dead bodies all holding hands.  At least a dozen
of them, two were children.  All shot, and I do not think that they were
executed.  They chose this, they let someone do this to them.
    One or two weeks ago, is Silas’ guess.  He is guessing by their
decay.
    And I was pining, sipping tea, I was in the shelter all along.
    ~
    [543.]
    Sundance Stables, nearer in toward Nederland now.
    (Later)
    Past the city limit sign, elevation 8,236 feet above sea level:  I
couldn’t believe it.  Our first true sighting of a loner.  A walker!   A
lone woman with soulless eyes.
    She stared right through me.
    She had a briefcase strapped to her back with bungee cords, and
she was pushing a rusty shopping cart.  I looked into her bloodshot eyes,
hidden away behind a slit, mole-eyes framed between two yellow bandages.  She
had cut herself a “mouth” in the lower bandage, for breathing.
    She stared and then looked away from me.  Silas was urging me to
drive on, to go — “She’s already dead,” he promised me — but I could not leave
her there.  I could not.
    I slowed, I rolled down the window, I called a common name (did I
choose Mary?  Marie?) and the woman left her cart behind and hobbled away from
us across the fire-ravaged fields, limping into darkness.
    ~
    [544.]
    Shameful.  I so wanted to go back for her.  She left her cart and
supplies behind, by calling out and terrifying her, I could have killed her.
    Silas said she had a butcher’s cleaver strapped to the back of her
belt, I do seem to remember this.  But did she?  Truly?
    I cannot remember.
    He talked me out of searching for her again.  What could we have
done?  Would she have been pleasant, grateful, eloquent, profound?  What
stories of survival could she share?  Would she love?  Grieve?  Would she have
come with us all the way?
    Would she have murdered us in our sleep?
    Silas is the stronger one, Lacie.  If you ever are sitting reading
this, my daughter, honor him .  He got me through this, despite his
delirium, his agony.
    He was always the stronger.
    ~
    [545.]
    Evening, I believe.  A little exhausted rest once I had hidden the
Hummer off the road.