Denver

Denver is a major-city waypoint in Robert and Richard’s cross-country expedition, first included in Ish’s plan for investigating what had happened to the great cities and later confirmed in the boys’ account of their route east. The novel gives little description of Denver itself; its importance lies in the questions the travelers carry there and in the route it opens across the plains.

Place in the Expedition

Ish directs the boys to travel through Denver, Omaha, and Chicago, hoping they will discover what became of those cities. He expects that they will reach this part of the journey by spring. Beyond Chicago, he advises them to try for Washington and New York by whichever route seems most passable, while leaving their return route to their own judgment once they know more about conditions. Denver is thus one of several intended points of inquiry in a journey shaped by uncertainty rather than a fixed itinerary.

The Reported Route

The boys’ later account places Denver after a community near Albuquerque, apparently based at an old pueblo. From there, they swung north to Denver and then east across the plains. Their route continues along what Robert describes as a road resembling part of U.S. Route 66; Ish recognizes the markers Robert is trying to describe as those of Highway 6. The road leads them through the corner of Colorado and across the plains of Nebraska.

Narrative Significance

Denver connects Ish’s broad hopes for knowledge of the ruined cities with the practical, fragmentary geography Robert and Richard encounter. Ish can name cities and propose a route, but the boys’ descriptions show how much of the old world’s system of signs has become difficult to read: Robert senses a resemblance between the Highway 6 markers and the numerals on U.S. Route 66 without being sure what they mean. Denver therefore functions less as a depicted urban setting than as a point along a journey in which inherited maps and knowledge are being tested against what remains on the ground.