Reamde: A Novel

by Neal Stephenson

  The plan that took shape in his head, then, as they devoted the entire morning to clambering down into the valley of the river, was that he would slip away from camp tonight and make his way to Jake’s place and warn them.

  They took a long siesta at the side of the river, prayed some more, cooked lunch, rested sore muscles, and wrapped bandages around twisted ankles. Richard pulled his hat over his face and pretended to sleep, but in fact stayed awake the whole time working out the plan in his mind. They would make one more push after this break, and he would show them how to get around the falls: yet another surprisingly difficult operation. After that they would set up the evening’s camp, and Jones would kill him or not. If not, Richard would try to get out of there after dark. The falls were deep in a rock bowl, covered with mist-fed vegetation so dense that not even GPS signals could get through. Forget about phones.

  If only he had a flashlight.

  Then he remembered that he did have one, a pinky-sized LED light attached to his key chain.

  Water he could get from the river. Some energy bars might be useful, and he had a couple of those in his pack that he could slip into his pockets when no one was looking.

  He had gone, over the course of a few hours, from utterly hopeless cynicism to toying idly with this nutball idea, to seriously working it out, to deciding that it was doable. That he was going to do it. When they got moving again, working their way down the river toward the falls, he was already thinking several miles ahead, trying to remember the way he would take tonight up out of the gorge and into the lower slopes of the mountain.

  They crossed into the United States, a fact discernible only because of a moss-covered boundary monument that one of the jihadists nearly tripped over. The falls were just ahead of them and to the right. They worked their way downstream of the falls by crossing a high shelf of rock that looked down upon it from its east side. This terminated in a cliff that obliged them to descend to the riverbank in order to make any more southward progress. As Richard now explained, there was a way to scramble down from here; there had to be, or else it would never have been possible to make the return trip. But when going in this direction, the descent was considerably easier if you just used ropes. Richard had warned Jones of this well in advance, and so Jones had made sure to bring some good long ropes along. They paused up there for a short while so that some could enjoy the view down while others, who were good at such things (or claimed to be) made the rope fast to a giant cedar growing near the edge of the cliff. Half the men went down to reconnoiter. Then they sent Richard. Then the rest of them went down. He got the sense that this had been carefully thought out; they were becoming nervous that he might make a break for it and wanted to make sure that there were a few people at each end of the rope to keep an eye on him.

  As soon as they reached the bottom, Jones gave an order to Abdul-Ghaffar, the white American jihadist, and nodded significantly at Richard. Richard was still absorbing this when Abdul-Wahaab (“the other Abdul” to Richard; apparently Jones’s most senior lieutenant) drew his pistol, chambered a round, and aimed it at Richard’s chest from maybe eight feet away. “I’d like you to stand with your feet about shoulder-width apart,” said Abdul-Ghaffar in his flat midwestern accent. Out of his pack he was pulling a sheaf of black heavy-duty zip ties: not the skinny ones used to restrain unruly Ethernet cables in office environments. These were a quarter of an inch wide and a couple of feet long.

  None of which seemed like the beginnings of an execution. Richard, tired and taken by surprise, had been caught flat-footed anyway. He stood as Abdul-Ghaffar had asked him to, and Abdul-Ghaffar knelt behind him and zipped four of the big zip ties around the top of each of his boots, stacking them to build a heavy cuff around each ankle. He slipped more zip ties under those cuffs and linked them in a chain, joining Richard’s feet with a sort of hobble. When he was finished, Richard could move in six-inch steps, provided the ground was level. A similar treatment was then inflicted on his wrists, leaving maybe eight inches of space between them, but in front of his body, presumably so that he could open his fly to urinate, or convey food and water to his mouth.

  This had all happened fast enough that his brain didn’t really catch up until it was all over. They weren’t going to kill him, at least not yet. But they seemed to have read his mind and anticipated that he might have thoughts of escaping. They searched him thoroughly now, presumably to make sure he wasn’t carrying a pocketknife or nail clipper that he could use to cut his plastic bonds during the night.

  And night came soon, for they were deep in a bowl and the sky was a slot above them, traversed by the sun for a mere few hours each day. They pitched their shelters on a flat shelf of rocky ground a quarter of a mile downstream of the falls and used river water to cook up a generous repast of instant rice and freeze-dried backpacking chow.

  Richard could think of nothing else to do and so he went into the tent that been assigned to him, wriggled into his sleeping bag fully clothed and booted and, without much trouble, went to sleep.

  THEY PEDALED THROUGH Bourne’s Ford, slowly getting warmed up, pausing twice to adjust the bicycles and tighten up the loads. Like most American towns, this one had grown in a thin sleeve on a highway. Farmland took over behind the strip malls and fast-food outlets. Olivia had gotten the general picture that they were riding north in the valley of a river, which was off to their left, sometimes close enough to the road that they could get a good look at it, other times wandering off into the distance. It was not a fast-running mountain chute but a slow stream that meandered all over the place, but to judge from the intensity with which it was cultivated, it was excellent land. To their right, low hills developed out of the floodplain, blocking their view of what she knew to be much higher mountains in the main ranges of the Rockies beyond. To their left, the picture was altogether different, as green mountains rose abruptly from the flats just on the other side of the river. Traffic on the highway was light, and it seemed as though the majority of the license plates were from British Columbia. Except for the dark mountains brooding over it to the west, it might have been some idyllic midwestern landscape, and Olivia could see perfectly well why people who only wished to be left alone and live uncomplicated lives might come here from all over the continent and establish homesteads.

  The farmlands were served by an irregular network of rural roads. One of these led to a bridge across the river. They turned onto it and crossed over the stream, heading now directly toward the mountain wall. Olivia now saw the wisdom of trying to make good time, since the sun was going to set at least an hour earlier as it fell behind the high ridgeline of the Selkirks.

  The bridge connected with a north-south road set just inside the tree line, at an altitude where it would not be inundated by seasonal floods. Olivia was referring more and more frequently to a map that she had drawn by hand on a Starbucks napkin. For Jake Forthrast had given her some rough coordinates, but he did not seem to have an address per se; or if he did, he denied the authority of the U.S. government to make such assignments. They did not have to ride far before they came to an intersection with a blacktop road that plunged steeply down out of the west. It seemed to correspond to one Olivia had sketched on the napkin, so they shifted into much lower gears and began to ride up it. Tall trees closed in to either side. Half a mile later the road devolved into gravel. At the same time, it became considerably less steep, as it had taken to following the course of a tributary stream rushing down out of the mountains toward the big lazy river.

  Olivia was continuing to be quite sensitive, or so she imagined, to the Crazy that she imagined must lurk up in these places. The Canadian border had become in her mind something like the end of the world, a sheer, straight cliff descending straight into the pit of Abaddon; as they crept asymptotically closer to it, the scene must become more and more apocalyptic and the people who chose to live there correspondingly strange. Which was, of course, utterly ridiculous, since what actually lay on the other side of
that imaginary line was British Columbia, a prosperous and well-regulated place of socialized medicine, bilingual signage, and Mounties.

  And yet the line was there, drawn on all the maps. Or rather, it was the upper edge of all the maps, with nothing shown beyond it. Since people—at least, before Google Earth came along—could not actually hover miles above the ground and see the world as birds and gods did, they had to make do with maps, which substituted for actually seeing things; and, in that way, the imaginary figments of surveyors and the conventions of cartographers could become every bit as real as rocks and rivers. Perhaps even more so, since you could look at the map any time you wanted, whereas going to look at the physical border involved a lot of effort. So perhaps it might as well be the end of the world, as far as some of the locals were concerned, and might affect the way they thought accordingly.

  But now that they were actually riding up into those hills she found that human beings, and what they thought and did and built, were the least part of the place. It didn’t matter how odd the locals were when there were so few of them, scattered over so much space that was so difficult to move around in.

  Road signs, riddled by shotgun blasts and the occasional hunting round, insisted that they were on National Forest Service land and that the same agency was responsible for these roads. And indeed they frequently saw steep gravel ramps launching up into swaths of mountainside that were being logged or had been logged in the recent past. But from place to place they would enter upon a stretch of road that ran through relatively flat and manageable territory, frequently in proximity to river crossings. Small ranches occurred in such places, and sometimes several dwellings were collected into a sort of hamlet scattered through the pines and cedars. They were not close enough to call each other neighbors, but still there was a definite sense of placeness, even though these were not named and did not appear on maps. Some of the dwellings reflected a degree of poverty that Olivia associated with Appalachia, or even Afghanistan. But as they worked their way deeper and higher up the valley, such places became less frequent; or perhaps the elements had already destroyed them. For it was clear that, while one need not be rich, or even affluent, to survive in this environment, it was necessary to have some of the qualities that led to affluence when they were applied in more settled places. The cords of split wood neatly stacked under corrugated roofs, still amply stocked even at the end of the long mountain winter, and many other such details told Olivia that the same people, transplanted to Spokane, would soon be running small businesses and chairing civic organizations.

  They rode into dusk and found their progress up the valley blocked by a pair of large dogs who had classified them as intruders. Each of these animals probably weighed more than Olivia. One seemed to have a lot of Newfoundland in him, but she could easily convince herself that the other was largely, if not entirely, a wolf. But both of them had collars, and both were well fed. “Do not look them in eyes,” Sokolov suggested, dismounting and getting his bicycle between him and the animals. “Turn bike around, ride away if it gets bad.” Olivia, feeling no urges whatsoever to behave heroically, reversed her bicycle’s direction and kept one leg thrown over the saddle. Sokolov stood his ground. She knew that he could put these animals down with bullets to the brain from the pistol that he was carrying somewhere on his person, and that he was refraining from doing so only out of a desire not to offend their owners.

  The dogs’ barking eventually drew the notice of a man who came riding out from a nearby compound on a four-wheeled ATV. He did so, Olivia suspected, because he was too heavy to move about conveniently on his feet. He was armed with (at least) a large flip-knife and a semiautomatic pistol in a hip holster. He began shouting at the dogs as he drew closer, but it was difficult to get them calmed down, and so there had to be rather a lot of shouting and alpha-male drama before he could get them to sit down and shut up. The whole time he was keeping a sharp eye on Sokolov and, to a lesser extent, on Olivia.

  She had no idea how these people would think about race. She had seen many more Native Americans than Asians today and guessed that she might be mistaken, by such people, for a member of one of the local tribes. But it didn’t seem to be an issue with this guy; or at least it didn’t make him any more suspicious and hostile than he was to begin with.

  How he’d react to a man with a heavy Russian accent was impossible to guess.

  Olivia set her bicycle down in the middle of the road, approached Sokolov, and tucked herself in under his arm. A woman who had been claimed by a dominant-looking male was a whole different organism from a woman who seemed to be up for grabs. Flattening her vowels and trying to sound as American as possible, she said, “We’re looking for Jake Forthrast’s place. He invited us to come and pay him a visit.”

  This changed everything. The man, who introduced himself now as Daniel (“as in The Book Of”) wouldn’t hear of letting them finish the journey on their bicycles; he rode back into his compound and emerged a few moments later driving a huge diesel pickup truck. Sokolov threw the bicycles into its back and rode with them while Olivia sat in the passenger seat with Daniel. From the way he had talked, she was expecting a long journey, but the distance covered, from there, was no more than a few miles. Somewhat adventuresome miles, as the road became steeper and worse the farther they went—giving Olivia the vibe that they really were approaching the End of the World. But then they penetrated a narrow slot between a granite cliff face, astream with snowmelt, and a furious river and entered into a little dell, no more than a mile across, where four distinct homesteads had been built around a little body of water that Olivia guessed was there because of beavers. Directly across the water, and reflected in it, was a lone mountain, so close to them that they could be said to be on its southern approach.

  The pond was ringed by a dirt road. In one place, another road led away from it, between two of the homesteads and farther up into the woods that grew on the mountain’s southeastern flank. Daniel proceeded up that, moving slowly and being sure to exchange friendly waves with all the children, dogs, and homesteaders who had taken note of them.

  The landscape now changed dramatically, becoming moister and cooler and cedar scented. A few hundred meters up the road they came to a gate, bolted together out of massive timbers, completely blocking the way. Posted on it were several documents, preserved under clear plastic. Olivia only glanced at these as she approached it, undid the latch, and hauled it open. For Daniel had assured her that it was permissible for them to do this. One of the documents was the U.S. Constitution, with several passages highlighted. Another was some kind of manifesto, apparently placed there for the edification of any federal agents who might come calling to collect taxes or gather census data. There were some favorite Bible passages as well, and a page of the Idaho State Code explaining precisely what a citizen was and was not allowed to do to an intruder in the defense of his own dwelling.

  All of which was quite intimidating, and probably would have prevented her from going into the place at all, had she come here without a local guide; but Daniel seemed to think that he could make it past all Jake’s defenses simply by honking his horn a lot. Dogs came out at a run. Olivia closed the gate behind the truck and leaped up onto its rear bumper; Sokolov hauled her up over the tailgate with several moments to spare before the arrival of their canine escort. They drove along for another minute or so, since Jake apparently didn’t believe in having his front gate inordinately close to where he actually lived. The road bent around a spur of rock, and then the actual house came into view: tall and narrow by the standards of log cabins, perched on the opposite side of a creek bridged by a homespun log-and-plank span. The truck crossed it and pulled around to the back side. Spreading away from the cabin was a flat, partially cleared space complicated by livestock enclosures, gardens, and sheds. This rambled over some acres of ground until it came up against the base of a forested slope.

  A boy with an axe was emerging from a woodshed. A woman with a long dress
was stepping out onto a deck above them. Jacob and John Forthrast came around the corner of the building wiping black grease from their hands.

  “Picked up a couple of strays,” Daniel joked, jerking a thumb toward the back. Olivia stood up, since the truck had come to a stop. Automatic lights had been triggered by the truck’s thermal signature and shone warm on her face. She was about to remind them of who she was when she heard Jake explain, “It’s Olivia.” Guessing, maybe, that John’s eyes were not good enough to recognize her in the sudden light. She found it odd that she was considered to be on a first-name basis with this family.

  “Oh, hello again, Olivia!” John exclaimed. “Who is your friend?”

  “That’s a long story—but he came here because he wanted to help Zula.”

  “Then he’s a friend of ours,” Jake said. “Welcome to Prohibition Crick.”

  Day 21

  Richard went to sleep with ease and then woke up a couple of hours later feeling bad that he had done so. After several days’ absence, the Furious Muses had hunted him down in this remote place and come after him with a vengeance. It made for a very crowded tent.

  The jihadists might kill him in the morning. But it seemed unlikely. If that had been the agenda, they would have done it already and saved themselves all those zip ties.

  If they weren’t going to kill him, then in the morning they would make him guide them up the old smugglers’ trail to Abandon Mountain and Prohibition Crick. In order for that to work, they’d have to remove the zip-tie hobbles. He would then have the option of trying to run away from them. It seemed likely that this would lead to pursuit, capture, and ceremonial decapitation.