“Yeah, that’s still a major obstacle,” Jock said. “Lansdale could have a crew waiting there. Like I was saying before.”

“Saddle Road isn’t military land itself—it’s open to anyone,” Kanani said. “Maybe Lansdale goes to the police even?”

“Nah. Police take too long here. You know that. And want nothing to do with this.”

They gnawed on tropical bars and shared a can of C-rat, each deep in thought and worry.

They headed onward, across more of those high plains of brown grass and lava earth like they had traversed before the lava flow. The gradually rolling plains stretched for miles and miles, and they made better time. Mauna Loa stood behind their right shoulders now, while Mauna Kea waited before them, ahead on their left. They heard nothing, saw little but brown grass and the occasional bunch of scrawny short trees. They fell silent for whole miles at a time, each pondering what brought them to this and what lay in wait. Even if they cleared the military zone, Lett imagined, they still might encounter an army of Frankie clones lining Saddle Road with shotguns as a grinning Lansdale stood ready holding a black hood and the fattest glass-and-iron syringe known to veterinary science.

Four o’clock. Two more hours had passed. The wind let up, the sun blazed. Lett was drenched with sweat. Almost twelve hours into this. Up ahead another lava flow slab came into view, ever thicker and higher. They reached another warning sign:

FIRING RANGE

BEWARE LIVE ORDINANCE

A cinder cone loomed ahead, slightly to their right. Halfway up the dark and barren hill, white target boards gleamed.

Kanani looked to Lett and Jock.

“Not a good idea crossing that direction,” Jock said.

“Might as well be a minefield,” Lett added.

“Then we got no choice but to keep heading left,” Kanani said and led them due northeast, straight toward Mauna Kea, a massive slope of a horizon rising into the sky, its peak still concealed by a solitary cloud bank that never seemed to clear. “We’re in the Saddle now. No other way. Saddle Road will be straight ahead.”

Jock reached a lone tangle of ragged trees that were more like diseased bushes. Lett and Kanani joined him. Jock crouched within the tangle, pushing away dry scrawny branches, and raised the binoculars. Lett didn’t like how quiet Jock got. He grunted once, twice.

Jock handed Lett the binoculars. “Ten o’clock,” he said.

Lett shifted his view slightly to the left. At the base of Mauna Kea’s slope, he made out a cluster of short long buildings of corrugated metal. Quonset huts.

His throat went dry, his stomach wanted to seize up. He handed Kanani the binoculars.

“Auwe,” she said and muttered similar thoughts.

Jock added a heavy sigh. “Way I see it? Must only be a small troop posted to those Quonset huts. Supposing they’re Marines. They could take care of us.”