Sarah glanced toward Tildie; the mare was up, apparently unhurt. Sarah started to her feet, running toward her rifle, then for the horse. She slipped, falling
forward, the rifle still several feet from her. She rolled onto her side, fumbling under the shaggy woolen coat she wore, under her sweater and her T-shirt, for John's Government Model .. She had it out, in her right hand, her right thumb cocking the hammer as the man with the machete shrieked and threw himself toward her.
Her first finger pumped the trigger. The . rocked in her right hand, and the massive body rolled toward her.
Her mind flashed—why did all the others look half-starved when this man was fat?
As his body rolled toward her, she knew why. Around his neck was a necklace; the teeth were human. /
'You bastard!' she screamed as his head lolled toward her and he started pushing himself off the ice, the left hand, blood dripping from the arm, reaching for her. She fired the ., into his face, once, twice, then a third time.
She edged back across the ice, the gun held out ahead of her, toward the pulp of face, as if coming in contact with his flesh would disease her.
'Bastard,' she screamed.
She heard Tildie's whinnie, then rolled onto her belly, reaching out for the AR-, pulling it toward her, firing it out at the others as they charged toward her. The rifle empty, she stopped firing and slung it across her back, as she reached up for Tildie's stirrup. Then she pulled herself to her feet, snatched at the mane and the saddle horn, and swung up, Tildie wheeling under her, rearing, then coming down. Sarah leveled the ., firing once, twice, a third time, into her attackers; the slide locked open, empty.
'Gyaagh!' she shouted. Tildie spurred ahead as Sarah tugged at her mane.
The animal reared again, wheeled, then streaked off. In the distance, Sarah could see
Michael and Annie, Sam's black mane swatting at Michael's face as he leaned low over the animal's neck, Annie hanging on to his back.
Sarah leaned against Tildie. 'Take me out of here,' she cooed, feeling tears streaming down her face. 'Take me out of here,' she said again.
This was not for the greater glory of mother Russia, he decided. As Major Borozeni stepped inside the abandoned farmhouse, he thought he heard the scurrying sounds of rats. He turned to his sergeant, saying, 'Krasny, get a detail in here to clean this place; I do not sleep with rats.'
'Yes, Comrade Major.' The sergeant saluted.
Borozeni merely nodded, then stepped back outside into the cold. His men were retreating, ponsolidating their position. The eastern coastal regions of the United States were being buffeted by freak storms. Rebellion was starting everywhere along the southeast coast since the escape, in Savannah, of the Resistance fighters, led by the woman who had bluffed her way through, with him. He felt a smile cross his cracked lips as he dusted snow from the front of his greatcoat; then he pulled away his gloves and felt under the coat for his cigarettes.
'All is being prepared, Comrade Major,' Sergeant Krasny told him, saluting as a squad of men with hand torches went past Borozeni into the farmhouse.
'She was quite a woman, Krasny.'
'Comrade Major?'
'The woman who effected that escape. I would like to meet her again, see what she looks like without a submachine gun or a pistol in her hands. Or when she isn't all wet, for that matter.'
'Yes, Comrade Major.'
'Yes.' He nodded, walking to keep his feet from freezing. Despite the cold he liked the prospects of the farmhouse even less than the storm. He was to take his contingent of men to Knoxville, Tennessee. He wondered precisely what was in Knoxville; there had been a . World's Fair there once, he seemed to recall. He had been on detached duty then, training guerrilla fighters in the Middle East.
He decided he should have been somewhere else. He nad never like the Middle East, though he could have used some of its heat now.
The other woman in the truck had used her name. 'Sarah,' he said, roiling the name on his tongue, tasting it. She was probably someone's wife, perhaps one of the prisoners, who had been released, but he didn't think so. Perhaps someone's widow—one of the men who had been executed.
But then, he asked himself, inhaling deeply on the cigarette, wouldn't she have killed him—a Russian who was an officer, one of the ones responsible for the war?
He threw the cigarette into the snow. She was probably safe in her husband's arms by now ... or perhaps not.
He felt himself smiling. The trek across the snow, the stalling vehicles, the ice, the freezing temperatures . . . They were somewhere in South Carolina; he didn't remember the name of the town that would be ahead.
He lit another cigarette. He watched the flame of his lighter dancing against the blue whiteness of the ground. 'Sarah,' he murmured again. The sort of woman he had always wanted to meet—and never would again /. .
He shook his head, smiled, and turned, starting toward the farmhouse.
'Krasny! How goes the detail?'
Natalia studied the map—another half-day if the weather were to ease and they would be in central ,Indiana. She could convince Paul to leave her there. She looked more intently at the map; she had heard the sound again, beyond the ground-cloth windbreak.
Reaching up to the bootlaces that secured the sleeping bag about her like a coat, she undid them. Finding
