wider, dropped to my belly, and slithered through. Immediately I wormed off the trodden path into the deep snow. The snow slowed me down, but it also hid me.
When I thought I was close, I cautiously raised my head above the level of the snow. The bandits had a homemade toboggan, laden with lumpy canvas bags. They’d gagged and bound Anna and Rebecca, stacking them on the toboggan like cordwood. Machine Pistol was leaving one of the greenhouses with a plastic sack overflowing with kale. He’d harvested it so fast that he’d pulled up the roots. Blue Scarf stepped over to Max’s body, hefted it, and tossed it on top of the load. Blood pulsed from Max’s temple.
I blinked repeatedly, but my eyelids couldn’t clear the gruesome scene. My body was coiled tight, caught on a knife edge between two fears: I needed to help Max, to see if he was even alive, but I couldn’t move, couldn’t approach the sled without being seen.
The four bandits grabbed a knotted rope and started hauling the toboggan away. Max’s blood drew an erratic pink streak in the snow. I couldn’t let them abduct my sister and cousins. Rebecca was the only family I had left. I’d rather die than lie there in the snow and watch her being taken. I had a black belt in taekwondo. I’d been forced to use it during my flight from Iowa last year. But trying to fight four of them at once? Suicide.
Suddenly it struck me: All I had to do was slow them down until Darla came with help. If I could get them to talk. . I stood up. “Stop!” I shouted.
All four of them turned. Three gun barrels swiveled toward me. I sent fruitless orders to my knees to be still.
“Leave the girls. Take me instead.” I was relieved my voice didn’t quaver. Much.
Handgun stalked toward me until he was less than thirty feet away. His mouth twisted in a cruel leer, and he raised his gun, aiming at my head.
Chapter 2
I was dead. He was too far away for me to rush him, too close for the bullet to miss. Trying to talk was a stupid idea-the last stupid decision I’d get to make.
A gun barked. Handgun was thrown sideways, arms splayed, as blood bloomed at the side of his chest. I glanced left. Darla was about 100 feet off, kneeling in the snow, her eye sighting down the length of Uncle Paul’s hunting rifle.
Shotgun raised his weapon, business end pointed at me. Max, whom I’d feared was dead, punched at the bandit, aiming for his groin. He missed, hitting Shotgun in the hip. The gun wavered and boomed. My side felt like it had been stung by a dozen angry hornets, though most of the pellets flew wide, peppering the snow beside me.
Another rifle shot rang out. The bullet caught Shotgun square in the chest and threw him backward against the toboggan.
I was running forward without ever having made a conscious decision to charge. I had to get to Machine Pistol before he started spraying bullets everywhere.
Blue Scarf turned and ran. Machine Pistol hesitated, then stepped backward and raised his gun at me. Darla shot again but missed. I put everything I had into my insane charge, screaming at the top of my lungs. Maybe he’d just shoot me instead of spraying Max and the girls.
Instead, he lowered his gun and fled.
Darla fired again. Machine Pistol stumbled, but collected himself and kept running.
I staggered to Max, my body trembling with fear and adrenaline. A bullet had carved a narrow trough along his temple. Blood soaked the side of his hat, scarves, and coat.
“Get the hell out of my field of fire!” Darla screamed.
I ducked, hoping she could fire past both of us. Bright red blood poured from Max’s head, gushing in time with his heartbeat. I hesitated a moment, unsure what to do. A year ago I would have screamed for help and called 911. Now nobody but Darla would hear me scream. The phone wouldn’t work, and even if it did, there was no one to answer it.
I knew how to stop the bleeding-put a clean cloth over it and apply pressure. But what if his skull were cracked? Wouldn’t pushing on it make it worse, maybe kill him?
I stripped off my gloves and started probing the wound as gently as I could with my fingertips. Max moaned. He was shaking and sweating despite the cold. My hands dripped blood.
Darla was alongside the sled now, kneeling in the snow and firing at the fleeing bandits.
Max’s temple was firm under my fingertips-which I hoped meant his skull wasn’t broken. I ripped off one of my scarves and pressed it against his head.
“They’re in the south hollow, running like wild rabbits,” Darla said as she lifted the rifle and stood. She took the knife off her belt and started cutting Rebecca and Anna free.
“This wound is going to have to be sewn up,” I told her.
“I can do it,” Darla said-she’d stitched up a vicious wound in my side last year.
“I think we should get Dr. McCarthy. What if he’s got a concussion or a break I didn’t find?”
“Okay,” she replied.
“Rebecca?” I asked. “You okay?” She didn’t look okay. She was trembling and rubbing her wrists.
“Not really,” she said. “What should I do?”
“Can you run to the woods and get Aunt Caroline and Uncle Paul?”
She took a deep breath. “I’ll be right back.” She took two tentative steps toward the house, and then changed direction, sprinting for the woods.
Max’s blood had already soaked through my scarf. Darla handed me one of hers, and I wrapped it around his head as tightly as I could.
Anna was crouched with her hands covering her inner thighs. I saw a spot of wetness around one of her hands.
“Anna,” I said softly. “It’s okay. I peed myself the first time I met bandits last year.”
“You did?”
“Yeah, I did.” It wasn’t true. I’d thrown up. But I needed Anna’s help. “Can you take care of your brother while Darla and I get Dr. McCarthy?”
Anna nodded.
“Your mom and dad will be back soon. Tell them we’ve gone to get the doctor, and we’ll be right back, okay?”
She nodded again. I tied the second scarf around Max’s head, and we carried him into the house and laid him on the floor by the living room fireplace. I grabbed a couple of spare scarves while Darla told Anna how to care for Max. As we ran toward the barn, I passed one scarf to Darla and wrapped the other one around my neck. It was one of Aunt Caroline’s-bright orange-red and not particularly warm. Better than nothing. We threw open the barn doors and dragged out Bikezilla.
That’s what I’d dubbed Darla’s snowmobile. She’d built it not long after she finished the gristmill. The snowmobile was a tandem bike frame with a ski attached to the front fork where the tire had been. Darla had scavenged a track off a real snowmobile and installed it in place of the bicycle’s rear wheel. Above that she built a small wooden load bed, almost like a pickup truck’s.
A real snowmobile would have been a lot faster, but we couldn’t get gas. The meager amount still stored in the tanks at Warren’s only gas station was reserved for emergencies.
We’d been using Bikezilla for the last six months to haul kale to Warren to trade for pork. Warren had thousands of frozen hog carcasses stored, since there were several slaughterhouses nearby. Bikezilla wasn’t as fast as a real bicycle, but it could handle deep snow okay, and the load bed could carry plenty of pork. On the icy road to Warren, it was at least twice as fast as running.
Darla and I stood up on the bike for the whole trip, kicking the pedals down. We had no extra breath for talking. My side hurt where the shotgun pellets had hit, and I felt a warm spot of blood soaking into my T-shirt. I gritted my teeth and ignored it.
Darla and I slid up to the clinic, beating our previous best time to Warren by five or six minutes. I could tell
