Now he did look at me as though I were a stranger. I looked back, hoping I knew him as well as I thought I did. He had a brain and he had courage. He just didn’t want to change .
“Do you want to break off with us,” Zahra asked, “go your own way without us?”
His gaze softened as he looked at her. “No,” he said.
“Of course not. But we don’t have to turn into animals, for godsake.”
“In a way, we do,” I said. “We’re a pack, the three of us, and all those other people out there aren’t in it. If we’re a good pack, and we work together, we have a chance. You can be sure we aren’t the only pack out here.”
He leaned back against a rock, and said with amazement, “You damn sure talk macho enough to be a guy.”
I almost hit him. Maybe Zahra and I would be better off without him. But no, that wasn’t true. Numbers mattered. Friendship mattered. One real male presence mattered.
“Don’t repeat that,” I whispered, leaning close to him. “Never say that again. There are other people all over these hills; you don’t know who’s listening.
You give me away and you weaken yourself!”
That reached him. “Sorry,” he said.
“It’s bad out here,” Zahra said. “But most people make it if they’re careful. People weaker than us make it— if they’re careful.”
Harry gave a wan smile. “I hate this world already,”
he said.
“It’s not so bad if people stick together.”
He looked from her to me and back to her again. He smiled at her and nodded. It occurred to me then that he liked her, was attracted to her. That could be a problem for her later. She was a beautiful woman, and I would never be beautiful— which didn’t bother me. Boys had always seemed to like me. But Zahra’s looks grabbed male attention. If she and Harry get together, she could wind up carrying two heavy loads northward.
I was lost in thought about the two of them when Zahra nudged me with her foot.
Two big, dirty-looking guys were standing nearby, watching us, watching Zahra in particular.
I stood up, feeling the others stand with me, flanking me. These guys were too close to us. They meant to be too close. As I stood up, I put my hand on the gun.
“Yeah?” I said, “What do you want?”
“Not a thing,” one of them said, smiling at Zahra.
Both wore big holstered knives which they fingered.
I drew the gun. “Good deal,” I said.
Their smiles vanished. “What, you going to shoot us for standing here?” the talkative one said.
I thumbed the safety. I would shoot the talker, the leader. The other one would run away. He already wanted to run away. He was staring, open-mouthed, at the gun. By the time I collapsed, he would be gone.
“Hey, no trouble!” the talker raised his hands, backing away. “Take it easy, man.”
I let them go. I think it would have been better to shoot them. I’m afraid of guys like that— guys looking for trouble, looking for victims. But it seems I can’t quite shoot someone just because I’m afraid of him. I killed a man on the night of the fire, and I haven’t thought much about it. But this was different. It was like what Harry said about stealing. I’ve heard, “Thou shalt not kill,” all my life, but when you have to, you kill. I wonder what Dad would say about that. But then, he was the one who taught me to shoot.
“We’d better keep a damn good watch tonight,” I said. I looked at Harry, and was glad to see that he looked the way I probably had a moment before: mad and worried. “Let’s pass your watch and my gun around,” I told him. “Three hours per watcher.”
“You know I’ll take care of it,” I told him.
He nodded. “You be careful,” he said, and closed his eyes.
I put the watch on, pulled the elastic of my sleeve down over it so that the glow of the dial wouldn’t be visible by accident, and sat back against the hill to make a few quick notes. While there was still some natural light, I could write and watch.
Zahra watched me for a while, then laid her hand on my arm. “Teach me to do that,” she whispered.
I looked at her, not understanding, “Teach me to read and write.”
I was surprised, but I shouldn’t have been. Where, in a life like hers, had there been time or money for school. And once Richard Moss bought her, her jealous co-wives wouldn’t have taught her.
“You should have come to us back in the neighborhood,” I said. “We would have set up lessons for you.”
“Richard wouldn’t let me. He said I already knew enough to suit him.”
I groaned. “I’ll teach you. We can start tomorrow morning if you want.”
“Okay.” She gave me an odd smile and began ordering her bag and her few possessions, bundled in my scavenged pillowcase. She lay down in her bag and turned on her side to look at me. “I didn’t think I’d like you,” she said. “Preacher’s kid, all over the place, teaching, telling everybody what to do, sticking your damn nose in everything. But you ain’t bad.”
I went from surprise into amusement of my own.
“Neither are you,” I said.
