47 strapped to one shoulder and a three-month old daughter strapped to the other, had brought it down with three shots.
The Night Shift had come upon the scene just as the woman was poking through the wreck, stripping weapons and boots from the smoking bodies. Dirk Fallows had given her a burst from his M3A1 that disintegrated her left hand and arm up to the elbow in a pink explosion of blood and bone. Neither she nor her baby made a sound as she spun and dashed into the jungle, her left arm looking like a bloody shredded sleeve. They searched, but never found her.
Among the items that the woman had discarded as useless was a set of four drugstore photos of a young woman about twenty-one. In the first photo she was sucking in her cheeks and crossing her eyes imitating a goldfish. In the second she was nibbling a baby's ear; the baby was laughing. The third was of the woman's obviously pregnant belly, slightly out of focus from being so close to the camera. The fourth was the woman and baby smiling, holding a piece of notebook paper with 'I LOVE YOU!!!' printed on it in lipstick.
From the dogtags on Lieutenant Finnegan's body, Eric managed to trace the woman in the picture, Annie, and wrote her his condolences. She wrote back, a chatty, friendly letter all about being pregnant, about her philosophy classes at San Francisco State, about the funeral. She seemed so healthy, adjusted. So damn normal.
He never wrote her again.
But he did keep the tiny, cheap photographs folded safely in his pocket for the rest of his tour. Every once in a while he'd huddle in the dark, damp jungle and take them out, a glimpse of normal, happy people, a family. Somehow it made the going easier, somehow saner.
It was a year after the court-martial when he finally met her. He was twenty-four now, back in college among a lot of eighteen-year-old kids who marched for open sex with the same ferocity that they marched against the war. He was sympathetic to their demands, their needs, but somehow he felt too remote from them to join, too burned-out to belong.
He was running across the quad trying to make his 2:00 Renaissance Europe class, when he got tangled up in a Vets Against the War rally. A bearded guy in an army fatigue jacket and a red bandanna tied around his forehead was shouting into the microphone, describing the atrocities he'd seen. There were a couple hundred students gathered around and more drifting in all the time. Eric didn't pause to listen, he'd seen much worse than what was being described.
As he shoved brusquely through the horrified crowd, something-a flash of light maybe?-stabbed in his eye. He stopped, looked around. Over next to the makeshift stage and leaning on a battered, psychedelic VW van, was a shaggy rock 'n' roll band tuning up their guitars. And a woman with thick, long hair past her waist and a clipboard was gesturing at them as if giving them last-minute instructions. The sun kept reflecting off the metal clip as she waved her hands. She had a sleeping baby strapped to her back and a tiny girl tugging on her patched jeans.
It was Annie.
Eric shifted directions, winding through the crowd until he was standing directly behind her. He didn't know why he was doing this, what he would say.
'I want you guys to lay off smoking this shit until you're done here. You're supposed to be volunteering your services for the cause, and we're paying you plenty of money, so look sincere about ending the war. Got me?'
'Hey, lady, we're against the fucking war,' one of them said, his long, black hair tied in a pony tail with a tiny American flag.
'Yeah, right,' she nodded with disgust, 'that's why you made us pay you up front.'
'Expenses. That's all. Travelin' bread.'
'Just put on a good show, okay?'
'Shit, no sweat, lady.'
Annie shook her head, 'Right. No sweat.' She sighed, turned around and half-sprinted into Eric, 'Oh, sorry. I didn't see you there.'
'My fault,' Eric said. 'Didn't mean to sneak up on you.'
'Is the kid still asleep?' she said, hooking her thumb over her shoulder. The little boy's face was pressed against her back, his eyes closed, a large wet spot on her cotton blouse where he'd drooled in his sleep.
'Yeah, but your blouse will need washing.'
She laughed in loud spasms, like a frightened whooping crane. A couple of people in the crowd turned to look at her. 'Tell me about laundry, man. When they film my life story, it'll be shot in a Laundromat. Faye Dunaway will never look so good as when she's pouring Tide.'
'Mommy,' the little girl said, pressing her knees together. 'I gotta go.'
'Okay, Jenny.' Annie nodded at Eric and took off in sudden clipped walk, holding Jenny's hand. As an afterthought, she called over her shoulder, 'Nice meeting you.'
Eric tagged along. 'That group. They didn't look like they even knew there was a war, let alone protest against it.'
She shrugged. 'Doesn't matter. They're pretty well known locally, so they'll help draw a crowd. We've got a couple reporters and camera crews coming by in an hour, so we'll want to have as large a crowd as possible for the early news show.' She stopped, looked up into his eyes, her jaw firmly set. 'And don't give me any crap about how that's deceiving the public or any bullshit. We're not here to win Eagle Scout medals, just end the damn n war.
He stared back at her, a smile playing on his lips. 'I'm Eric.'
'So what?' she said, her eyes locked with his. Then her harsh expression began to change, melt slowly into something like recognition. A tear rolled out of one eye. 'My God,' she said.
They were married within the year.
Eric flipped the light switch in the bedroom, checked the fuses in the box he'd installed recently, the one that controlled the security system he'd built into the house. The fuses were fine. He dropped to his knees and checked the crossbow under his bed, the quiver with hunting bolts next to it. Light glinted off the brass plating, making it look ominous, hungry. He'd been practicing with it and his long bow for several weeks now until he was almost back to his old marksman self. Still, tomorrow he would take a little trip to downtown Los Angeles and shop around for a gun where, as long as you have the cash, no questions are asked.
The doorbell chimed.
He heard happy chattering drifting up from down-stairs.
'Eric,' Annie shouted. 'Drag your keester down here. Trevor's brought another cheap wine he insists I ruin my magnificent dinner by serving.'
Eric scanned the room one final time. Everything was in place and working. The alarms, the weapons. He wouldn't be caught off-guard again. He glanced out the window, down into the dark yard below. The street lights hadn't worked since the quake. Every shadow looked dangerous, threatening. Lurking.
'Eric! Your mother's faint from hunger. Let's go.'
Eric studied the shadows a little longer, then pulled the curtain shut. 'Coming,' he said.
'I've never been so popular in my whole life!' Trevor Graumann laughed, waving his unlit pipe in the air. 'Not since dear old Atlas hit-'
'Atlas?' Annie asked.
'That's what he calls the damned quake,' Maggie explained. 'Quaint, huh?'
'Yes, Atlas,' Trevor said defensively. 'It's the perfect name. He carried the world on his shoulders. One shrug from him could bring everything down. He was-'
'Yes, yes, yes. We all know about Atlas, Trevor.'
Trevor Graumann frowned at Maggie, shifted his slightly rotund body, and sucked on his unlit pipe. He ran a pudgy hand over the top of his bald and freckled head as if checking for any new growths. It was habit more than hope. He'd been bald since he'd first met Maggie forty years ago in graduate school. She was one of the few women there who actually took her education seriously. She was going to be an archaeologist and a teacher, by God, and that was that. Her intensity had intimidated him a bit back then-hell, quite a bit-and he'd ended up marrying the secretary to the Dean of Admissions. A pleasant young girl who miscarried twice in their first year of marriage before deciding she'd rather be a movie star. Not an actress, mind you, a movie star. So one day she cleaned out the joint account and took off in his Buick, never to be seen or heard from again. For forty years Trevor had avoided going to the movies for fear he might see her in one, perhaps under a flamboyant stage name, even if only in a bit part. He knew it would hurt him unbearably, make him feel as if she'd been telling everyone in
