eyes. Christine was all right. She might not turn out to be a hero or a genius, but she was a good driver. A person who could be trusted to maneuver a metal and glass box containing one's fragile bones and tender flesh down a highway at a mile a minute was a valuable ally. In a moment, Jane began to dream.
IT WAS NIGHT, but she was not feeling safe enough to sleep. She was in her compartment in a longhouse that belonged to the women of the Wolf clan, but her husband was somewhere else—out in the forest with a party of warriors, going south along the crests of the mountains to fight. There were always men out in the endless woods. So many men were killed in the fighting that more men had to be sent out to find captives to bring home and adopt to take the places of the dead.
There was shouting. She wanted to find out what it was, but couldn't get her muscles to respond. Someone threw back the hide that covered the doorway, and she could see bright orange flames outside. There were dark silhouettes crossing the doorway, footsteps thudding on the packed earth outside the longhouse.
There were sounds of fighting. Then she saw fire fifty paces down the longhouse wall, licking up the elm bark wall on the inner side, beginning to reach the support laths. She rolled off the platform to the pounded earth floor and stood.
She looked around her, and saw the shapes of two children in the compartment across the hearth from hers—her cousin's children, a boy and a girl. 'Where's your mother?' They said nothing, so she said, 'Come on. Come with me.'
They both came to her and clung to her legs, but she took their hands and said, 'There are men out there who want to kill us. We're going out, and we're going to run for the forest and go as hard and as far as we can. If one of us gets caught, keep running. There won't be any reason to look back.'
She moved to the western doorway, opened the flap only slightly, so the light from inside would not show, and peered out. There were many people running—women and children. The men all seemed to be enemies, all dashing from one longhouse to the next with torches, or chasing fleeing people and bludgeoning them to the ground with swings of their war clubs.
Jane couldn't tell by looking at the dark silhouettes who the attackers were. There was only a shine of reflected firelight on glistening skin, a flash of red or yellow or black paint across a face, scalp locks, and feathers. She watched them for a few moments, then whispered, 'It's time.' She pulled the two children out with her, timed her run to pass one of the raiders from behind before the next one could appear.
She was a very fast runner, her long, strong legs dashing for the dark ring of palisades that surrounded the village. Right away she saw that the children weren't going to be fast enough. The flames from burning longhouses were rising higher now, and they would be seen. She knelt and said to the boy, 'On my back.' When he had climbed up and clung to her neck, she scooped up the girl and said, 'Hold tight.' The vertical logs were set in place so they formed a spiral, leaving a narrow corridor as a portal. She stood and ran toward the gap in the stockade.
As she ran she heard terrible shrieks, some of them cries of final agony and others of wild exhilaration and joy. She could see the gap in the row of tall, sharpened tree trunks now. It was the opening she had used each day to go out into the fields. She ran hard for it. She knew that by now there must be enemy warriors who had seen her in the light of the fires, and as though her thought drew it, she heard an arrow flit past her ear. She tried bending lower, and almost stumbled under the weight of the children, then regained her footing and ran harder. She sensed that enough time had passed now for a bowman to nock an arrow and draw the bow, so she abruptly dodged to the left. The arrow flew past her right arm into the ground ahead of her. As she passed it, she tugged it out of the earth and clutched it as she ran.
The gap was close. She ran into the space made by the overlapping palisades and saw the man blocking the passage. His face was painted red below the mouth and black above, so he seemed in the dim light to be headless. He lunged toward her in the narrow space, his arms out to reach around her and the two children, but Jane thrust the head of the arrow toward his abdomen just below the sternum.
As she pushed the arrow upward with all her strength, she felt her right arm jerk forward against nothing, and she was awake. She was in a car, the rented car. She could feel the mild vibration of the car over the road, feel the artificial unchanging breath of the air-conditioning on her face. She sat up.
'Good afternoon.'
Jane looked and remembered Christine. 'Hi,' she said.
'You were having a nightmare, weren't you?'
'I don't think of them as nightmares.'
'Your legs started twitching. We had a dog who used to do that in his sleep, like he was running.'
Jane sat up straight, looked at the road, then flipped down the sun visor and opened the flap in the back to reveal the makeup mirror. Her eyes looked a bit puffy, but her hair hung straight, as usual. 'I guess the dog and I must have the same dreams.' She looked out to her right, searching for landmarks. 'What was the last town you passed?'
'Erie, Pennsylvania.'
'Good,' said Jane. 'You've made good progress. Want me to drive?'
'To tell you the truth, I was just beginning to think about waking you up. I'd like to stop someplace soon.'
Jane looked at her watch. It was still the fancy dress watch with the tiny face and the diamonds. 'I forgot to take this thing off after the benefit, and now I'm stuck with it. I guess it says one-thirty.' She stared out the window again. 'I think the next place that's right for your purposes is a little restaurant called Dill's. It's on the lakeshore right around here. I recognize where we are. Take the next exit.'
'You know this route that well?'
'I've driven it plenty of times. Even before the security at airports got serious, it wasn't always a good idea to take a plane. There were always too many people who got a chance to see your face, too many times when you had to give a false name. And when you get on an airplane, there's not much you can do about who gets on with you. So I've always tried to use the highways when there was time. Turn right up here. Now keep going straight. There will be a big sign on the left that says DILL'S. The parking lot is next to it.'
Christine said, 'This is going to be the best place around here?'
'Best for us.'
'For us?'
'Two women driving west, one of whom is being hunted. Picking where you're willing to stop is a good skill to learn. Find places that cater to people who look just like you, if you can. You don't want to stand out any more than you have to. Dill's is a place where local people go, which means the food is dull but safe. It's too far from the main highways to get much of the passing traffic. The rest-rooms are very clean. That's a big sign. It means that there's somebody in charge who cares about the business. If something seems to be threatening to one of his customers —meaning you—he's going to try to help.'
Christine found the restaurant, and drove into the parking lot. Jane said, 'Park between those two big SUVs. They hide the car from the road.'
She maneuvered the car into the space Jane had indicated, and Jane said, 'Now before you turn off the engine, look around. Is there somebody visible who seems to be watching every car that arrives, or has a particular interest in us?'
'Not that I can see.'
'Good. Anything else that feels odd?'
'I don't think so. Does what I feel matter?'
'Absolutely. Your fear is the best thing you have right now. Use it. Listen to it. Always give yourself a few seconds to let those feelings come to you. If you feel things aren't right, then they aren't. How does it feel here?'
'Comfortable. Easy,' said Christine. 'It reminds me of the places my dad used to take my mother and me when I was little.'
'The reasons your father picked a place like this are complicated, but they're essentially the same. He wasn't going to take a woman and a child into a place that wasn't safe or where they'd feel conspicuous. Now, what if you and I are both wrong about this place? Or what if things change quickly? If you know in advance what you plan to do, then you'll be able to do it efficiently. If the four come, can they block the exit?'
'Not really. If they tried, I can drive over the lawn to the street in a second.'
