第24节

return.

The central and western thirds of Nebraska consisted of a vast treeless

plain, rolling uplands thinly seeded with buffalo grass and sage,

scored here and there by river valleys and streams that drained into

the Platte or the Missouri. These valle,s were the only shelter from

the howling blizzards which had driven out the early 'sod-busters'

after the sleet storms had levelled the crops they'd planned to live on

through the long winter.

And it was here that the trees lay hidden, cottonwood, willow and elm

huddled side by side out of reach of the cutting winds.

From North Platte, the river plain varied in width from one mile to

fifty, narrowing then broadening, then narrowing again as it squeezed

through the surrounding uplands in its gentle climb towards the Goshen

Hole on the state border.

At Scotts Bluff, Cadillac encountered another familiar land-mark, a

huge yellow-ochre wedge of barren rock rising eight hundred feet above

the surrounding landscape.

This was the only signpost that now remained to tell the traveller he

was about to leave Nebraska and enter Wyoming. No other evidence that

these two states had once existed as legislative and economic entities

remained. The traffic signs and roadside buildings had gone, the

abandoned, pillaged hulks of the last few Highway Patrol cars had long

since crumbled into powdery flakes of rust; the more resistant parts of

the engine and chassis disappearing beneath the creeping carpet of

vegetation. Day by day, year by year, century after century, the

planet had set about the slow task of healing itself. Now, on the eve

of the third millennium, apart from the fading lines of the hardways

and the few weathered ruins of collaps stone bridges, little remained

of what once had been. Twentieth century America had been buried with

the same relentless efficiency as the ancient cities of Sumeria.

Now at four thousand feet above sea level and still climbing, Cadillac

led the way along the river trail.

Malone, after privately consulting his well-concealed miniature map

(printed on a square of silk supplied to AMEXICO by Ieyasu's contact

men) and a tiny electronic device that took bearings from navigation

beacons and converted them into map coordinates, found that the nearest

navref point was a township called Torrington, on the old US Highway

26.

For Cadillac, visual confirmation that they were back in his home

territory came in the shape of the Laramie Mountains whose densely

forested slopes were home to a variety of conifers including the

towering ponderosa pine. Rising like the sloping ramparts of an

overgrown fort to a high point of ten thousand feet, the Laramie range

forced the river to run around its northern flank like a moat, passing

through navref Caspar before turning southwards and snaking uphill

towards its source among the snow-melt streams of the Rockies.

It was on the plain beyond the western flank of the Laramie range that

the M'Calls had made their first costly attack upon The Lady, and when

Cadillac reached the shrunken lake where the river had been dammed to

form the Glendo Reservoir, he turned left and led Steve and Malone's

band of renegades towards a trail that wound up and over the

pine-covered slopes.

Halfway between the river and the hills they came across a M'Call

turf-marker - a tall pole adorned with carved plaques of wood, bones

and eagle's wing feathers.

A mile further on, Cadillac halted the column as a large posse of Mute

warriors with the same golden feathers attached to their leather

helmets emerged from the trees and formed a line across their path some

two hundred yards ahead of the lead horses. Some carried the

revolving-drum rifles given to the clan by the Iron Masters under the

deal struck between Mr Snow and Lord Yama-Shita, the remainder were

armed with crossbows.

Malone eased his own rifle from his shoulder and laid it across his