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Back Timberdark Save as PDF
Chapters (44)
  1. Title Page
  2. Contents
  3. Dedication
  4. Praise for Wranglestone
  5. Epigraph
  6. Map
  7. Part I
  8. Prologue
  9. 1
  10. 2
  11. 3
  12. 4
  13. 5
  14. 6
  15. 7
  16. 8
  17. Part II
  18. 9
  19. 10
  20. 11
  21. 12
  22. 13
  23. 14
  24. 15
  25. 16
  26. 17
  27. 18
  28. 19
  29. 20
  30. 21
  31. 22
  32. 23
  33. 24
  34. 25
  35. 26
  36. Part III
  37. 27
  38. 28
  39. 29
  40. 30
  41. 31
  42. 5 Years Later
  43. Acknowledgements
  44. About the Author

“It’s breathin’,” whispered Cooper. “I can hear the Earth breathin’.”

“Me too,” said Peter. “Why don’t we set up camp here for the night and head back first light?”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“I want the lake to work,” said Cooper. “I want the Returnees to have a home.”

“Me too.”

But even as he said it, Peter’s thoughts turned to that town. The town that Tokala talked of when he arrived, the one only some thirty miles west of the lake where a community living in harmony alongside the Returnees had already been made. And he wondered about the pretty lights and the buildings and all the kitchen comforts waiting out there to be discovered.

“I want us to be happy on the lake, Pete.”

Peter nodded absent-mindedly.

“I’m gonna paint Pa’s canoe up real nice for the summer, too. Make it ours.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“What colour?” Peter asked.

“Bright red. As red as saddle sore.”

The bison moaned in quiet contentment at the grass they’d found.

Cooper went quiet.

“We will be happy on the lake,” he said after a while. “Won’t we?”

“Yes,” said Peter putting all thoughts of the town away. “Always.”

3

The mudflats hadn’t been visible before now. But overnight, while the wind pummelled the tent making the tarpaulin crimp and rumple, Peter could’ve sworn he heard something gulp out there in the darkness. By morning, the bison were gone and the steam had blown away, revealing their position on a ridge some elevation from a basin of wet land below them.

Peter pulled a blanket across his shoulder and stood on the rim where a set of wolves’ pawprints played. The ridge curved round some half a mile to form a lip like a crater. Pine trees flanking the hillside were frozen inside their snowy tombs, but the basin was completely bald of any coverage. Steam constantly churning up from below made it hard to see the ground beneath, but every now and then the wind shaved it off the surface like foam from a cup, revealing a scabby patchwork of copper pools and fizzing potholes. Here the skin of the Earth was just too thin for any life to grow. The volcano was bleeding through.