Chapter Fifteen - North Platte and the Blue Time

North Platte

She stopped off in North Platte to rest a bit, stretch out, maybe even stay for a day.  She started a campfire out in the town pan-flat Centennial Park, across the river and not too far from the interstate.  She rustled up a butane stove and tank - she kept her travel one stowed.

There were a few folks here and there, they knew how to behave.  She'd invite one or two, here and there, who stopped by at an interested but respectful distance.  They were flatland Westerners; they knew how to behave, courteous.

Had about fifteen or twenty come by; that's about a quarter of the town.  The sun set slowly, slowly over the flat horizon, giving its goodbye in a green flash, and the Blue Light time come up like gangbusters.

Some deer, and of course some steak for the weary traveler.  Company was checked out at a little outpost on Blue Sky Highway south of the river; unwanted guests were waved off.

Finishing up a truly great evening meal, and most of the folks seemed to be making it through the die-off just right.  Not too many deadizens in downtown, they were mostly cleaned up.  Made for good nitrogen for the soil, phosphate too.  Like all the Civil War battlefields - a century and a half later, and they still put up a good crop of green.

She talked about the Decision out by Big Springs - North, or South?  Almost all the folks around knew that Mother Abagail was there, they'd dreamed of her, and even a few had known their family and their spread.  Some of them come up the I-80, and folks put a little waystation there for the travelers, but no passage - they'd have to go up State Route 25 out of Oglala, by the reservoir, to get to Hemingford.

Over the last couple of days, she was having a new part to the dreams that came in, other than the screaming nightmares of corpses and zombies.  Mother Abagail sort of "broadcast" across the continent; the Walkin' Dude, too.  But after coming west up out of Iowa, there was just a blue diamond down at the foot of the Rockies, just a blue diamond, nothing else.  It wasn't good or bad, as much as it was urgent.  Mother Abagail made for a respite and retreat, but the Blue Diamond at the Root of the Mountains was - compelling.

[to be continued]