Brigands.
A woman caught alone in the open—she couldn't He to herself as to her fate if they got her. She had seen what they did to women, to little girls—even to little boys. But to women most of all.
She felt a pain in her, below her abdomen. She would have put the twinge down to ovulation—but it was fear instead.
She quickened her pace, snatching up a piece of high grass in her hands and using that as an excuse to turn around.
Men—six, then six more, then more than a dozen others. There seemed to be more each time she shifted her gaze. She watched them—they watched her. Big—long haired, some of them. The clothes, the weapons —'Brigands.' She whispered the word to herself. Then she screamed it. 'Brigands!'
Sarah Rourke started to run.
Chapter 17
Her heart pounded in her chest, her lungs aching with the oxygen deprivation, the skirt of her yellow dress bunched against her thighs, the wind resistance as she ran keeping it there. She heard the sounds behind her— motorcycles.
She turned, starting to look at the brigands pursuing her, her right foot catching in a clump of the high grass that was somehow tangled. She felt herself falling.
Her chest, her face—she slapped into the sandy ground.
She looked behind her as she jerked her right foot free—there were three men on bikes, closing fast. She could hear them shouting now above the roar of their engines.
'A woman—shit!'
She pushed herself to her feet, scooping up two handfuls of the sandy soil. Then she started running again. Fifty yards remained to the end of the field and there was nothing she could do to outrun the men on the bikes.
Sarah stopped, turning, her fists bunched tight together. The lead biker slowed, the other two slowing behind him.
'Ya'll git tired a runnin', woman?'
'Maybe,' she gasped, nodding.
'Hey—maybe I like my women when they skin sweats—maybe I'll just put me a rope 'round yo neck and
run ya awhiles, huh? See how ya like it and git ya t'beg me maybe to stop. Maybe offer me something good, huh?'
Sarah said nothing.
The man dismounted the bike, the engine still throbbing. She had ridden a bike with John but counted herself no expert. But only two hundred, maybe two hundred and fifty yards to the house—it as her only prayer.
The brigand, his face dripping dirty sweat, the sweat running in brown rivulets along his neck and hair- covered chest, stopped, less than a yard from her. He reached out his right hand—she felt it explore her neck, start to knot into her hair.
She took a single step, closer to him, thrusting both hands up and outward into his eyes, the sandy dirt powdering through her splayed fingers, the man starting to scream. Her nails were too short for it, but she dug them into the eyes, the man grabbing at her as she smashed her bare right knee up into his crotch.
There was a pistol—she felt it as he sagged against her—and she snatched it from his waistband. She almost lost the gun, the grips sweaty and wet. An automatic.
She lifted the pistol into her left hand as she stepped back, the man screaming, pawing at her as he sank to his knees. Her right hand worked back the slide, her eyes catching sight of the flicker of brass in the sunlight— there had already been a round chambered.
The two closest bikers were starting toward her.
She let the slide go forward and fired, the pistol bucking in her hands, but the shot low. She didn't see it impact. She fired again, the nearest biker less than two yards from her.
She saw the explosion of blood on his upper chest just under the hollow of the neck.
She stepped back, firing again at the second biker, the man's right arm leaving the handlebars, the right hand
grasping at the abdomen, the bike starting to go down.
There was a hand on her ankle, dragging her down. As she fell forward, she fired again, the pistol discharging point blank into the face of the first man still on the ground.
The hand was still locked on her ankle. She fired the pistol—it was a . but smaller than her husband's gun somehow. The shot impacted into the forearm, the hand's grip on the bare flesh of her ankle loosening.
She tripped, caught herself and fired a wild shot toward the remainder of the brigand force, the men halfway across the field, some on bikes, some on foot, some pickup trucks coming behind them, packed with men
