Neal Stephenson - Reamde

The gray man said something about America.

Ershut looked up and noticed that the gray man was gripping, in one hand, the end of a piece of string that disappeared into the sleeve of his motorcycle jacket. He straightened his arm, jerking at the string.

IT WAS A good thing that Olivia enjoyed looking at Sokolov, because his reactions had given her a lot to enjoy since their arrival at Jake’s cabin. Clearly he had never even imagined that there were people in the world like this, living out in the middle of nowhere, disconnected by choice from the grid, surrounded by weapons, and living each day as if it might be civilization’s last. During the bicycle ride from Bourne’s Ford, she had tried to explain what they were getting into. Sokolov had nodded occasionally and even made eye contact from time to time. She had sensed, though, that he was only doing so to be polite. He did not really believe until he saw a woman in a long, old-fashioned dress with a shoulder holster strapped over the bodice carrying a semiautomatic pistol and two extra clips. From that point on, his reaction to everything was fascination and bemusement. Noting this, and choosing to interpret it in a favorable way, Jake gave him a quick tour of the place, showing off the water purification system, the ammo reloading bench, the stockpiles of food and antibiotics and gas mask filters, and the safe room—a reinforced-concrete bunker—under six feet of earth in the backyard. Sokolov watched Jake carefully, and Olivia watched Sokolov, and John, the elder brother, stomping along a few paces behind them on his artificial legs, watched Olivia watching Sokolov, occasionally sharing a wry look with her. Sokolov began to notice these exchanges of looks and to share in them, and so by the time they had gone inside, sat down around the table, held hands to say Grace, and tucked into a simple but generous and nutritionally balanced dinner, they all seemed to have arrived at a wordless understanding. Jake was a true believer. Elizabeth perhaps even more so. But Jake understood that not everyone saw the world as he did—not even his own brothers, with whom he was nonetheless quite close. This did not especially trouble him. In fact, he was even capable of making little self-deprecating jokes and drawing humorous comparisons between this part of the world and Afghanistan. John, for his part, seemed to have developed a facility for shutting his ears off whenever Jake began to talk what he deemed nonsense. If Jake needed to change the oil in his generator or fish wire through a wall to hook up a new electrical outlet, then John was right there with him, helping him get it done. And he had unlimited time and patience for Jake’s sons, who clearly loved him. Olivia suspected that John was making a conscious effort to tell the boys, without explicitly saying anything, that if, when they grew older, they decided they wanted to rejoin the civilization that their parents believed to be utterly corrupt and doomed, they would always be welcome in his house.

In any case, John’s ability to relate easily to these people without actually believing in any of what they believed provided a sort of template that Olivia was able to use in order to maintain cordial and even warm relations with them during the evening and through breakfast the following day. Because in most of their social interactions they were like any other basically happy and stable family.

Olivia provided a vague explanation of why she and Sokolov were here. Anywhere else, it would not have gone over very well. But Jake, no great respecter of borders and laws, readily agreed to show them the way to the Canadian border in the morning. The first few miles, he explained, could be a bit tricky, even if they had a GPS. As a matter of fact, the GPS could actually be more trouble than it was worth in that it would induce them to go in directions that would turn out to be dead ends. As a man who enjoyed hiking anyway, he was more than happy to guide them to a point along the flank of Abandon Mountain from which they would be able to see all the way to the border. They could do much of the journey on their mountain bikes. In places, they would have to carry them, which would be tedious work, but it would pay off later when they crossed over and made it through the old mine and found themselves on a nicely groomed trail leading all the way into Elphinstone. “On foot it’s a three-day hike,” he said. “With your bikes you can be sipping your lattes in downtown Elphinstone tonight.”

Jake had a sturdy, unspectacular mountain bike of his own. So in the morning, after they had risen, showered, eaten a huge pancake breakfast, and packed their things, they set out in a caravan of four: Olivia, Sokolov, and Jake on their bicycles and John trundling along behind them on a four-wheeled all-terrain vehicle. The ATV carried the baggage at first, which made for rapid going during the first hour as they switchbacked up a trail that took them out of the valley of Prohibition Crick. This petered out as it reached the tree line. Jake began to lead them along a circuitous and, as advertised, completely nonobvious route on terrain that rapidly became almost impossible. Soon they had to traverse a long steep talus bank that was impassable for any wheeled vehicle, so at that point John shut off the ATV’s motor and helped them load their gear onto the mountain bikes. John then switched off the engine, made himself comfortable on the ATV’s saddle, and enjoyed a little snack while Jake led Olivia and Sokolov across the traverse, sometimes pushing the bikes, sometimes carrying them, but never riding them. They were clearly making for a spur of cream-colored granite thrust out westward from the summit of Abandon Mountain. Perhaps a thousand feet below them, in the lee of that spur, were the remains of what Olivia took to be an abandoned mine: a roadhead, some old shacks devastated by weather, some rusted-out trucks and abandoned equipment. She understood Jake’s warning now: if they’d had a GPS, they probably would have made for that site. But the road leading away from it went in the wrong direction and would take them miles out of their way. They only way to get past it was this arduous traversal of the slope high above. The spur seemed to bar their way, and she wondered how they would ever get past it, but Jake assured her that it was not as forbidding as it looked. And indeed as they struggled closer, Olivia was able to make out a series of natural ramps and ledges that seemed as though they would give much better footing than the loose talus. Seen from a distance, the spur had been foreshortened in a way that made it look very steep—almost a vertical cliff. But as they drew closer, she perceived that this had just been a trick of the eyes and that its slope was actually quite manageable.

This pleasing prospect only made the trip to it seem that much longer. But in due time they reached a place where they could finally stand on hard and reasonably level ground. Olivia was all for stopping there and having a little snack, but Jake talked her into clambering up over the spur. This they did easily, even riding the bicycles for part of the way, and finally attained the flattish top of the great outcropping, from which they could look back the way they’d come and see John still sitting on the red ATV a couple of miles behind them, as well as enjoy a previously hidden vista to the north.

Several miles away, their path was barred by a high ridge running approximately east-west that Jake assured them was north of the border. Far below them, and a little closer, was a dark green kettle in the terrain, producing a dim roaring noise and partly shrouded in humidity. This, Jake said, was American Falls, which, as the name implied, was just south of the border. Between those two landmarks, and making use of a compass, it was easy to envision the east-west line of the forty-ninth parallel running between them.