On Saturday night he came back from the stream and she stood holding the gun, pointing it at him, her eyes narrowed hatingly. 'He called me before he did it,' she said.
He said, 'What are you—' and 'King!' she cried. 'He called me! You lying, hating—' She squeezed the gun's trigger.
She squeezed it again, harder. She looked at the gun and looked at him.
'There's no generator,' he said.
She looked at the gun and looked at him, drawing a deep breath through flaring nostrils.
'Why the hate do you—' he said, and she swept back the gun and threw it at him; he raised his hands and it hit him in the chest, making pain and no air in him.
'Go with you?' she said. 'Fuck with you? After you killed him? Are you—are you fou, you green-eyed cochon, chien, batard!'
He held his chest, found breath. 'Didn't kill him!' he said. 'He killed himself, Lilac! Christ and-'
'Because you lied to him! Lied about us! Told him we'd been-'
'That was his idea; I told him it wasn't true! I told him and he wouldn't believe me!'
'You admitted it,' she said. 'He said he didn't care, we deserved each other, and then he tapped off and —'
'Lilac,' he said, 'I swear by my love of the Family, I told him it wasn't true!'
'Then why did he kill himself?'
'Because he knew!'
'Because you told him!' she said, and turned and grabbed up her bike—its basket was packed—and rammed it against the branches piled at the place's front.
He ran and caught the back of the bike, held it with both hands. 'You stay here!' he said.
'Let go of it!' she said, turning.
He took the bike at its middle, wrenched it away from her, and flung it aside. He grabbed her arm. She hit at him but he held her. 'He knew about the islands!' he said. 'The islands! He'd been near one, traded with the members! That's how I know they come ashore!'
She stared at him. 'What are you talking about?' she said.
'He'd had an assignment near one of the islands,' he said. 'The Falklands, off Arg. And he'd met the members and traded with them. He hadn't told us because he knew we would want to go, and he didn't want to! That's why he killed himself! He knew you were going to find out, from me, and he was ashamed of himself, and tired, and he wasn't going to be 'King' any more.'
'You're lying to me the way you lied to him,' she said, and tore her arm free, her coveralls splitting at the shoulder.
'That's how he got the perfume and tobacco seeds,' he said.
'I don't want to hear you,' she said. 'Or see you. I'm going by myself.' She went to her bike, picked up her kit and the blanket trailing from it.
'Don't be stupid,' he said.
She righted the bike, dumped the kit in the basket, and jammed the blanket in on top of it. He went to her and held the bike's seat and handlebar. 'You're not going alone,' he said.
'Oh yes I am,' she said, her voice quavering. They held the bike between them. Her face was blurred in the growing darkness.
'I'm not going to let you,' he said.
'I'll do what he did before I go with you.'
'You listen to me, you—' he said. 'I could have been on one of the islands half a year ago! I was on my way and I turned back, because I didn't want to leave you dead and brainless!' He put his hand on her chest and pushed her hard, sent her back flat against rock wall and slung the bike rolling and bumping away. He went to her and held her arms against the rock. 'I came all the way from Usa,' he said, 'and I haven't enjoyed this animal life any more than you have. I don't give a fight whether you love me or hate me'—'I hate you,' she said—'you're going to stay with me! The gun doesn't work but other things do, like rocks and hands. You won't have to kill yourself because—' Pain burst in his groin—her knee—and she was away from him and at the branches, a pale yellow shape, thrashing, pushing.
He went and caught her by the arm, swung her around, and threw her shrieking to the ground. 'Batard!' she shrieked.
'You sick aggressive—' and he dived onto her and clapped his hand over her mouth, clamped it down as tight as he could. Her teeth caught the skin of his palm and bit it, bit it harder. Her legs kicked and her fisted hands hit his head.
He got a knee on her thigh, a foot on her other ankle; caught her wrist, let her other hand hit him, her teeth go on biting.
'Someone might be here!' he said. 'It's Saturday night! Do you want to get us both treated, you stupid garce?' She kept hitting him, biting his palm.
The hitting slowed and stopped; her teeth parted, let go.
She lay panting, watching him. 'Garce!' he said. She tried to move the leg under his foot, but he bore down harder against it. He kept holding her wrist and covering her mouth. His palm felt as if she had bitten flesh out of it.
Having her under him, having her subdued, with her legs held apart, suddenly excited him. He thought of tearing off her coveralls and 'raping' her. Hadn't she said they should wait till Saturday night? And maybe it would stop all the cloth about King, and her hating him; stop the fighting—that was what they had been doing, fighting— and the Francais hate-names.
She looked at him.
He let go of her wrist and took her coveralls where they were split at the shoulder. He tore them down across her chest and she began hitting him again and straining her legs and biting his palm.
He tore the coveralls away in stretching splitting pieces until her whole front was open, and then he felt her; felt her soft fluid breasts and her stomach's smoothness, her mound with a few close-lying hairs on it, the moist lips below. Her hands hit his head and clutched at his hair; her teeth bit his palm. He kept feeling her with his other hand—breasts, stomach, mound, lips; stroking, rubbing, fingering, growing more excited—and then he opened his coveralls. Her leg wrenched out from under his foot and kicked. She rolled, trying to throw him off her, but he pressed her back down, held her thigh, and threw his leg over hers. He mounted squarely atop her, his feet on her ankles locking her legs bent outward around his knees. He ducked his loins and thrust himself at her; caught one of her hands and fingers of the other. 'Stop,' he said, 'stop,' and kept thrusting. She bucked and squirmed, bit deeper into his palm. He found himself partway inside her; pushed, and was all the way in. 'Stop,' he said, 'stop.' He moved his length slowly; let go of her hands and found her breasts beneath him. He caressed their softness, the stiffening nipples. She bit his hand and squirmed. 'Stop,' he said, 'stop it, Lilac.' He moved himself slowly in her, then faster and harder.
He got up onto his knees and looked at her. She lay with one arm over her eyes and the other thrown back, her breasts rising and falling.
He stood up and found one of his blankets, shook it out and spread it over her up to her arms. 'Are'you all right?' he asked, crouching beside her. She didn't say anything.
He found his flashlight and looked at his palm. Blood was running from an oval of bright wounds. 'Christ and Wei,' he said. He poured water over it, washed it with soap, and dried it. He looked for the first-aid kit and couldn't find it. 'Did you take the first-aid kit?' he asked. She didn't say anything.
Holding his hand up, he found her kit on the ground and opened it and got out the first-aid kit. He sat on a stone and put the kit in his lap and the flashlight on another stone alongside. 'Animal,' she said.
'I don't bite,' he said. 'And I also don't try to kill. Christ and Wei, you thought the gun was working.' He sprayed healer on his palm; a thin coat and then a thicker one. 'Cochon,' she said.
'Oh come on,' he said, 'don't start that again.'
He unwrapped a bandage and heard her getting up, heard her coveralls rustling as she took them off. She came over nude and took the flashlight and went to her kit; took out soap, a towel, and coveralls, and went to the back of the place, where he had piled stones between the spurs, making steps leading out toward the stream.
He put the bandage on in the dark and then found her flashlight on the ground near her bike. He put the bike
