Peter was aware that the others were listening now. A single strand of black hair pushed over her eyes in the wind. Watching her, he felt himself transported back through the months to that night in the Infirmary when Amy had washed his wound. He wanted to ask her: How did you know, Amy? How did you know my mother misses me, and how much I miss her? Because I never told her, Amy. She was dying, and I never told her how much I would miss her when she was gone.

“Who’s Jacob Marley?” he asked.

Her brow furrowed with a sudden grief. “He wore the chains he forged in life,” she said, and shook her head. “It was such a sad story.”

They followed the river, into the afternoon. They were in the foothills now, leaving the plateau behind. The land began to rise and thicken with trees—naked, twiglike aspens and huge, ancient pines, their trunks wide as houses, towering over their heads. Beneath their vast canopies, the ground was open and shaded, pillowed with needles. The air was cold with the dampness of the river. They moved, as always, without speaking, scanning the trees. All eyes.

There was no Placerville; it was easy to see what had occurred. The narrow valley, the river carving through it. In spring, when the snowpack melted, it would be a raging torrent. Like Moab, the town had washed away.

They sheltered that night at the river’s edge, stretching the tarp between a pair of trees to fashion a roof and laying their sleeping bags in the soft dirt. Peter was on the third shift, with Michael. They took their positions. The night was still and cold, filled with the sound of the river. Standing at his post, trying to keep motionless despite the chill, Peter thought of Sara, and the feeling he had detected between her and Hollis in that private gaze, and realized he was honestly happy for the two of them. He’d had his chance, after all, and Hollis obviously loved her, as she deserved to be loved. Hollis had told him as much, he realized, that night at Milagro, when Sara was taken: Peter, you of all people should know I have to go. Not just the words themselves but the look in his eyes—an absolute fearlessness. He’d given it up, right then; he’d given it up for Sara.

The sky was just paling when Alicia stepped from the shelter and walked toward him.

“So,” she said, and gave a loose-jawed yawn. “Still here.”

He nodded. “Still here.”

Each night without sign made him wonder how much longer their luck could hold. But he never thought about this for long; it seemed dangerous, like daring fate, to question their good fortune.

Alicia said, “Turn around, I have to go.”