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"I can only guess," answered the doctor wearily "Either he stuht him there He was probably lost, separated from Larose--the ot the better of him"
"It will, if you don’t knohat you’re about," agreed Hawk His eyes cut toward the doctor "Murielis that the missus?"
"Yes"
"Hlanced ," he said
"Clearly it was not"
"Just clearing my throat"
"You did not clear your throat You said, ‘hmm,’ like that I would like to knohat youHmm That’s all it was, Doctor Just hs of his tea into the shadows and ducked into the tent to be with his patient Hawk looked aton his lips
"J’ai fait unesoftly
"And cease that infernal singing!" the doctor shouted
The sergeant coain for the reht,’ for that is what it was, torturously slow though it proved to be We were fleeing so e fled with us
We woke on the next ht snow had begun to fall, carpeting the trail with dusty powder that quickly grew slick; more than once the doctor nearly went doith his precious cargo The sergeant would offer to spell him, each time rebuffed by Warthrop The doctor seemed jealous of his burden
It was cold and still; not a breath of wind stirred; and the snow, like the fog, deadened sound We h vaulted chambers of brown and white, down desolate halls devoid of color, bereft of life The nights fell with crushing suddenness The daylight seemed not so much to fade as to vanish Darkness was the true face of the desolation, its elemental substance
More than the h trail that crawled underfoot, that dark weighed upon us It nuertips and toes, a pitch-black tactile dark that mocked our feeble attempts to drive it away, a darkness that pressed doith suffocating force I began to envy John Chanler and the feverish oblivion in which he dwelled
And I worried about the doctor Even on his worst days back at Harrington Lane, when he retreated to his bed and re all sleep and sustenance, lost in a melancholy so profound all he could do was breathe, even those days seetime compared to what he endured now And he endured it for so revelation for ht hiaunt, his eyes receded into their sockets, his duster hung upon hi to reseed hi hiood to his friend if he succu and rarely lost his temper, except on one memorable occasion when he dressed one on longer, but Hawk infor to put a bullet through the back of his head
After the last eant shouldered his rifle and tra for the rest of the afternoon We ress that day Near dusk Hawk returned, eround and collapsed before the fire,hishis lips
"Nothing," hefor miles"
He lifted his eyes to the sky "Not even a bird Nothing Nothing"
"Well, we still have each other," said the doctor consolingly, trying to lift his spirits "You know, the Donner Party option"
Hawk stared at hiht the doctor, who kneell his own limitations, must have been really out of sorts to even atte to fly by flapping his arer becaer and far more resilient than the rest of us, and ere the dried bones upon which it chewed There was no real resting e stopped Hawk and I would push our way into the bush, plucking berries, digging up edible roots such as Indian potatoes and toothwort, pinching the heads fro bark from hickory trees, which we boiled, to soften it (This "bark steas also beneficial for the digestion, the sergeant informed me, and was a native treatathered wolf’s claw, an evergreen rew in abundance on the forest floor, with dense needlelike leaves that Hawk boiled to ent and bitter--the doctor spat out his first sip--yet Hawk kept harvesting it The spores were highly fla the the subsequent flash of hot white light
We rose each day a little weaker than the day before, and halted each night a little hungrier Our eyes took on the haunted, vacant look of slow starvation, and our voices were lean in the breathless air We stuh dead meadow, and crossed the desolate miles of brûlé, the trackless snowbound desert, with the gray dome of the sky upheld by the blackened pillars of branchless trees It was here that we spied the first sign of life since our escape froed on Hawk’s coat and pointed to theh wind directly above us He nodded and quickly looked away
"Buteos," he said "Buzzards"
The doctor’s toe caught on a fallen branch He pitched forward, twisting around just before he landed, to avoid crushing his precious cargo beneath hiht; I’m fine," he snarled at Haho had reached down to help him up He slapped away the offered hand
"Let eant reasonably "You look all done for"
"Do not touch him Do you understand? I’ll shoot you if you touch him No one touches him but me!"
"Ito help"
"This is asped "Mine!" He slipped his arled to his feet, where he stood swaying for an awfulthis time with a ainst his chest
"God damn you to hell," the doctor whi by the eulfed him "Why did you come here? What did you think you would find? You idiotyou imbecilic foolWhat did you think you would find?"