The New Wilderness
Illustration by Pedro Gomes After days of walking into this increasingly barren landscape, they crested a slope near sunset. Beyond the valley below lay a playa, a vast dried-white lakebed, its ends reaching farther than they could see. And its far side was rimmed by a high ridge dusted with snow. The ridge was a series of bulbous mounds, cleanly rounded in the way Bea rarely saw in natural landscapes. In shade now, the mounds themselves were black as coal, and probably in daylight too. But the fine cover of snow took the severe edge from them, and as Bea looked, she thought they resembled old pictures she’d seen of whale backs arcing up just before diving into ocean depths.
“This must be where the Post is,” Glen said.
But they could see no building or structure.
“In the morning, we’ll catch the sun on the roof and we’ll know,” said Juan.
“Let’s get a fire going and eat, then sleep. Then we can wake up and be done with this awful trek,” Val said.
They swept up whatever blowdown they could, branches of sage broken off and dried, a strange orange lichen crusted on many of the smaller twigs, and mixed it with starter pieces they tried to carry with them. The fire smelled medicinal and smoked more than it flickered. They made acorn cakes and heated some smoked chunks of deer, which made the meat almost juicy.
As the last residue of sunlight vanished, Carl called everyone to the fire. He squatted and drew in the dirt with a stick. He said, “There might come a time when we have to split up.”
“Why would we need to do that?” Bea asked.
“I mean it as a what-if
