The Steel Mirror (1948) by Donald Hamilton

Author:Donald Hamilton [Hamilton, Donald]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: New York : Rinehart
Published: 1947-12-31T12:00:00+00:00

ing he could say or do would reach her. Now he was allied in her mind with the savage world she had known during the war. She knew how to deal with him, now.

- He watched her fingers come up absently to rub tiie tiny scar on her lip, the wedding ring glinting on the appropriate finger; and he shivered.

"Did you get everything I asked you to?"

"Yes," she said mechanically.

"You don't mind camping out?"

"No."

It was like speaking to an obedient doll. "I have a feeling well do better not registering anywhere tonight," he said, and tried a grin. "Even though it's legal, now."

She looked at him and looked away. He stopped trying to grin and opened the car door for her, closed it behind her, and walked around the car to get behind the wheel.

The sun was almost down when the road dipped to show them a barren plain below, broken by a series of garishly striped, eroded buttes that, Emmett thought, were good for nothing but putting on a postcard. You did not beheve in them, seeing them in tiie red evening sunlight, even while you were looking at them. Even the wide graded highway, witii its accompanying line of telephone poles, running straight through to the horizon, did not break the illusion of unreahty; a distant car, dragging dust behind it, was a busy insect from another planet.

Emmett heard the quickly indrawn breath of the girl beside him, and glanced at her, but did not speak in spite of a sudden desire to share the experience with her, in words. Her face was suddenly alive again, with awe and wonder, but he knew that his voice would break the spell. He led the car down the series of switchbacks a little too fast, having to

brake a little too often. He was getting quite tired, he realized suddenly; almost dangerously tired. It seemed a long time since he had had any sleep. It seemed almost as if he had been driving along endless mountain and desert roads as long as he could remember. When he saw a faint track leading ofiF the highway toward the badlands, he swung the car onto it, jouncing across the parched clay of the alkali plain.

He stopped the car when the first butte hid them from the road, and switched oflF the engine. Presently the car began to creak and tinkle metallically as various parts of it contracted, cooling. He was aware that his shirt was still wet across the back from the heat of the day, but now he was a little chilly. Ann was silent beside him, waiting for him to move. He took his camera from the glove compartment, hesitated, looked at the space where it had been; then got stiffly out of the car and took a picture of the steep clay cliff above them, the erosion patterns standing out clearly shadowed by the low sunhght. But it was a picture that really needed color film, he reflected. He was not really thinking about it, anyway.

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