Furthur

The little expedition to Farmington returned, slow and tired. There was nothing to be said, that wasn't already said.

The expedition came up through the southern mountains by Chama and Antonito; through Alamosa in the Big Valley; up into the Springs.

Judy was clicking through daytime thoughts, pressing back the eerie dreams of last night.

They had a working relationship with the Navajo at Farmington.

The Navajo and the Free Zone could exchange information on the doings of the Dark Man on the Dark lands.

The Navajo bargain with the Free Zone was to be run by Judy, under the name of "Judy Blue."

Only Judy Blue or an associate could visit the Eastern Portal to the Land, under the eye of Shell Mountain, in Alamosa.

Bilagáana who strayed out of the protective sight of Shell Mountain, die.

Any bilagáana except, for the seven travelers, who was caught uninvited on Navajo land, die.

The radio was hazy and crappy, like sunspots, and any signal out of Boulder was just ten-one-dogshit, breaker, breaker. They gave up trying to raise the Free Zone.

As the Hippies of Old would say, FURTHUR! To go on with the quest.

So they returned to Colorado Springs, before they were beset by a heavy fatigue, and slept dreamlessly, like the dead. And the evening and the morning brought the next day.

When Shit Gets Weird North Boulder

Just to remind you, this time was back before Mother Abagail had gotten her little flock trickling into in Hemingford Home, Nebraska in dribs and drabs, from all over. All the refugees had dreamed about Mother Abagail; and they dreamed some of Mother Abagail in the Free Zone, too. And there were folks trickling into the Free Zone, coming from the East and up from the South too, and a few even came in from the West, over the mountains on the Seventy, down into the charnelhouses that were the Springs and Denver, and up through to Boulder. A trickle.

They'd set out informal watches for the folks coming in town, who were usually beat and ragged.

The Free Zone folks still hadn't put together the common sense to start up the Harvesting of Denver. Later on, they'd be going around Denver and getting supplies. What once held about three million people, and now held about three hundred million pieces of crow fodder, hither and yon.

Somebody had jury-rigged up a construction water-spray truck and put it half-full of rubbing alcohol from a big chemical plant, some formaldehyde, too. You could drive through downtown Denver where the bodies were heaped, and spray 'em down with this ghastly brew. Drive-By Embalming Company! somebody painted on the side. Drivers had to wear a gas mask so's not to get sick from the fumes. They couldn't stop the truck when they were spraying, else the fumes would catch up to them and make them sick. But that was Denver, that was a little later, and that's a little bit off-track for this story.

Fortunately, the Good Stuff was mostly out in the industrial warehouses - it was just finding out which ones had what. That operation picked up later on. It sure helped when they had the trucks running down to Denver - but that's after Mother Abagail got in town, that's later.

The prairiebillies off the High Plains had trickled into Denver. A lot of them went directly through Denver to bust the Rockies and get to the Promised Land of Las Vegas. God help them that went into Navajo Land. There were a lot of hardlife bastards and thugs, like Richard Hickock and that sick little shrimp Perry Smith. A few were good honest High Plains Westerners, who could shoe a horse, make a jacket, cobble and make do without being spoilt and hand-fed, like many Easterners that come in with empty hands and hungry bellies. Those kind turned north to Boulder, to the Free Zone.

By the Brewery

It was a little strange for Judy to be scrounging around up north of Boulder, alone, thought Bart - I mean, there's Longmont and Greeley and Cheyenne up north, not real big cities like Denver. He thought she was still down in New Mexico. Now, she was towing a different trailer. And it wasn't the Dooley she was driving, but a beat pickup, a new one, but pretty laden-down. And she come in strange, wary.

Bart was put on guard. Something didn't seem right. The truck was beat – What's Judy doing, driving this thing. Tthe tires were thin. The trailer was beat too, and muddy, and there hasn't been rain in the last week.

Bart Smith suddenly had a lot to think about, on this usually dead-boring checkpoint, north past the brewery on the 119. They didn't have a barricade on the road, just a watcher or two, like I said. That road comes down out of Fort Collins, and the I-25 runs down to Trinidad just east of the mountains. It was a watchpoint for Highway I-80.

Bart waved. Judy pulled off WAY far up the road, a hundred yards or so, just stopped and watched him. She had binoculars, he could see the flash of sunlight on the lenses. Finally, she came out of the truck wearing a gunbelt with a pistol, and a carbine rifle slung back across her shoulder. She wasn't looking happy.

Judy came up to about twenty yards, hailing distance, and stopped. Bart was just standing, trying to stand relaxed, which he wasn't.

"What are you doing here? What do you want?" she asked, none too friendly.

"It's just me, Bart Smith. I pulled the daytime watch on the 119."

They eyeballed each other. Must not have gone too well down in Farmington. And what's she coming down from the North for? Hadn't heard they were back from Farmington.

She looked beat. She looked thin, and a lot less healthy. And dirty. And her hair was shorter, it was cut up above the shoulders - but streaky, greasy.

"It's Bart. Smith. Say, girl, you look awful. You drive up to Fort Collins for vacation or something?" Bart laughed a little, here's ya some humor, let's simmer down this storm that seems to be gathering between them.

She stared worse, a gunslinger's stare. Bart was pretty sure something had happened that made her go crazy. It would be a good time to run away now.

"Dammit, Judy, what's wrong? What happened to you?" Now that got greeted with an openmouth stare, and after a second or two, she said "What did you call me?"

Bart got the queasy feeling he was about to say sayonara to the ol' planet pretty soon, and spoke his last breath. "Judy."

"You know Judy? Where is she? Is she alive?" An earnest expression swept over her face, as she walked in on him. As she came in, he began to notice that she wasn't quite Judy, exactly. Same, but not quite. That helped him from bolting and running from this crazy woman.

"I thought you was Judy. You ain't Judy? Because you're a spitting image of her, then."

"My name is June Hernandez. I come out of Chicago, running from the big plague like everyone else. I come across from Iowa and Nebraska. I had dreams of a sanctuary someplace out here. And of - (she paused) - other things. I'm searching for my family, if any are alive"

Bart smiled at his boots. "Well, I expect you'll be wanting to meet Judy Hernandez. Her looking like you and all." Had he not been looking at his boots, he might have braced himself for the exploding hug that crashed into him, full-on June. That surprise was followed instantly with loud and caterwauling bawling straight into his ear, calf-in-a-fence bawling, full-on, body-shaking sobbing.

"She's alive!"

At least she had the foresight to unsling the carbine and drop it in the dirt, Bart mused. Woulda hit me in the side of the head, muzzle like to tore up my ear, she didn't.

After a good five minutes of bawling and carrying on, and snot, my goodness could that girl make snot, and she could stand on her own without bursting into tears again, they got her cleaned up with some bottled water and a rag. A good cry after an exhausting drive through highways littered with corpse-wagons, that doesn't make you look your best. But what she did have on was a glowing smile, and that looked just fine.

He told her, pretty careful and slow because she didn't look like she could pay attention much, "I better stay up here, June. Go down about two mile, stay to the right and it turns into Iris Street, and up off 19th Street, take a right onto it, and look for the big Dooley parked out the side. That's Judy's house."

Well, just saying Judy's name was good for a couple of minutes of weeping, and snot - this girl never seems to run out of that - and a few more hugs, although a little less explosive.

After all that, Bart asked "You good to drive?" She nodded. "Hey, one more thing, very important. Don't go prowling around her trailer, next to the house. She don't care about if you wander all over the house, stay the hell away from the trailer."

Casa de Hernandez

Well, June made it down there, and some neighbors came by for a looky-loo; they had never seen Judy look so beat up, and June told them she was June, and that they were twins.

"She never mentioned one thing about you," said a helpful and somewhat tactless neighbor.

"I thought she was dead. She thought I was dead, probably. We were going to go on without the other." Now, with the sniffing and bawling, it probably took her two minutes to get that all out.

They walked her into Judy's house, and she looked around a little. She splashed her face with some fresh water from the bucket in the kitchen, wiped her face off with a dishtowel, and promptly looked like she was about to drop where she stood. She politely chatted up the neighbors, fielded a few nosy and inane questions, discovered the bedroom, and dropped face-down onto the bed and passed out. The neighbors let themselves out straight off. "Poor thing," one said. And they charged off to spread the news like wildfire.

Downtown

When Chew got wind the news, that there was this twin sister to Judy in town, he sighed and said, "More work to do, more work to do," and went off to his garage. There was the sound of hammering, much hammering, and a little harsh hissing - he had a blowtorch in there, a little one. "Go away, working on a surprise," he'd say to visitors. Nobody had the slightest idea what he was talking about, and more than a few worried he wasn't clever enough to handle a torch, he'd burn the garage down.

Reunion Up from the South

The Farmington Crew rolled up from the Springs. They'd camped up north of town a bit, so as to miss the stink coming up off the flatlands. The radio had just quit; it wasn't worth it to find another CB. There was just nothing new to say.

The Free Zone was like a little burg, so of course when they run up the 36 to the University, they slowed down and stopped. There was a gob of people milling about, what looked to be a Renaissance Faire without the medieval duds, or a Sixties Flash mob maybe. Or somebody had gotten into the brewery, and opened a few dozen kegs.

This surprise party didn't please the travelers, no, not in the least. After busting a thousand miles, camping out, and dealing with the Navajo - good people, wonderful neighbors, but exhausting - the expeditioners wanted to

Not be driving.

Not talk.

Sleep in a bed.

Take a hot shower.

Be left the hell alone.

That was especially true of Judy Blue or whatever they called her, made up a Navajo ID card, stamped right there "NOT TRIBAL MEMBER," and named Judy Blue. A few Navajo words in the ID, laminated, there ya go. She hardly ever drank liquor, but she had a sudden craving for a shot of whiskey, a warm glass of milk, and a nap.

They pulled over to see what had gotten into the local bunch to bring forth this kind of merriment. They all walked over to the lawn, where people were cavorting and having a real merry old time. There were a few barrels of tapped ale at a little stand, which entirely went along with the crowd's merriness. A bundle of cavorters rushed up to the Farmington Crew and started hooting "It's June! June is here!"

They were completely befuddled. This June wasn't one to remember. This June is the one that had Captain Trips crash the party. If there was ever a month to shut up and slink away, it was this month.

The shiny button eyes and the intensity of the glee in the little crowd suggested chemical stimulants of some sort. "June! June is here! She's here!"

Judy yelled out - "June who?" and a few cries came back "Your June! Your sister! It's June! She's here!"

Judy

Judy, who'd walked around the front of the truck for a stretch, promptly dropped into a pile, looking like abandoned laundry, immobile, for a second as though she had been raptured and left only her duds behind. Head, between her knees, sobbing.

"WHERE IS SHE?"

"At your house. Back at your house. Your house," came the chorus.

This whole party was about June! Life! That was why all these goofs were dancing around. Her sister June was alive.

Home

Mr. Sandoval drove her home like an uncle taking care of a battered niece. Judy sat there, looked mostly stunned, kept putting her hands over her face, said nothing.

It was only a mile or so away from the University to Judy's house. A beat-up muddy trailer and nondescript pickup were pulled up on the road in front. The Welcome Wagon fandango of Free Zoners had departed, leaving June alone to sleep.

Mr. Sandoval and Judy walked in. The place was quiet, the shades were drawn. It looked like a place where somebody was trying to sleep. They walked in the bedroom, and a person or body or something was face-down, fully-dressed, on the pillow. Judy said "June?" but no answer. She began to poke at her butt with her finger - "June? June? June?" A cross and muffled "What?" came through the pillow. "It's Judy! You're alive!"

From the pillow, "Hey, Sis. Sleeping. K?" Judy felt all the exhaustion from all of the days of pilgrimage catch up to her at once, flooding her body. She lay down next to June. Mr. Sandoval put a blanket over them, left them there, snoozing side-by-side.

Downtown

The Hey June party rolled on through the dusk, loud and unabated, the absence of the maids of honor regardless. They were out like little lights, working up a good case of morning breath. The party was about Life, a ray of life in the face of Death. The twins were be lights-out, but everyone else could dance and crow about them. The rockin' party wound down when the coyotes began to howl up in the hills