the children had realized why at night he had sat alone in a far corner of the Great Room, music low on the air, a typewritergoing.lt was a memoir of events leading to the Night of The War, and events afterward. It was not finished and Rourke had confided to his son and daughter that he felt it never would be—there was always more to add. Shakespeare, Cervantes, Ovid in the original Latin—it was good mental discipline, he had told them.
The sculpture of Michelangelo, the music of Beethoven and Liszt, the philosophy of Aquinas, Sartre, Rand. He realized early on that he was merely introducing the children to things they would have to learn without him. The fertile soil outside the Retreat yielded corn, potatoes, asparagus, tomatoes, peas. The winters were hard and long and cold and the growing seasons short, but in these times, as in all other times they shared, they shared the work together. John Rourke discovered that he not only had children, he had friends.
They would talk long into the evening— literature, philosophy, music, science, the arts.
Medicine. By the time the last year had begun, both Michael and Annie had learned first aid to the point where either would have been qualified to assume the duties of a paramedic. He had placed medical and dental knowledge above all else but self-defense, for without their health, in this hospitable yet forbidding world, they would perish.
Michael, at nearly fourteen, had begun to seriously assault Rourke’s limited—but not too limited—-supply of .44 Remington Magnum am-munition. The boy had become enamored of one particular pair of guns. John Rourke had never favored single action revolvers. Michael Rourke favored them.
At the range area beyond the entrance to the Retreat, Rourke stood, watching his son.
Michael, only two inches shorter than Rourke now, held the
eight-and-three-eighths-inch-barreled Stalker in’both hands at full arms length, the webbed sling for the massive Magnum Sales-converted Ruger Super Blackhawk swaying slightly in the breeze as it hung from its barrel and base-of-the-butt-mounted swivels. John Rourke watched as Michael Rourke studied the target—a pine cone one hundred yards distant—through the 2X
Leupold scope. Even with the sound-dampening earmuffs John Rourke wore, the sound of the Stalker as it discharged was intense. In the distance, the dot that had been the pine cone seemed to vaporize as Rourke studied it through the Bushnell armored eight-by-thirtys. “You hit it.”
“I know.”
“Let’s see what you can do with the short one.”
“All right.”
Michael set down the Stalker, taking the shorter barreled gun from the wooden table they had built together of rough hewn pine logs brought up from the valley below. Michael picked up the Predator. It was largely the same gun, a stainless Ruger Super Blackhawk reworked by Magnum Sales, but this without a scope, the barrel only four and five-eighths inches long.
Michael held the revolver in both hands. John Rourke called to him, “When I sleep again—
practice firing that smaller one you’ve got now, « practice firing it faster at closer ranges. Teach yourself to reload it on the run as you fire.”
“I understand what you mean, but not how to do it,” Michael called back, his voice deeper than it had been as a child. But not as deep as it would be, Rourke thought.
“You take your shot down range—like you planned—then I’ll empty it and show you what I mean,” and Rourke brought the shooter’s ear-muffs up again, watching as Michael did the same.
Rourke watched through the binoculars again —another pine cone, this fifty yards away. It was a good-sized pine cone, John Rourke reminded himself as Michael’s Predator discharged, the pine cone disintegrating. Rourke looked at his son—proud, no prouder than when the boy had first attacked geometry and taken quickly to it, but just as proud. Rourke walked toward his son, leaving the earmuffs up.
Michael handed him the Predator.
“Four shots?”
“Never load more than five in a single action, even if it is a Ruger,” Michael nodded.
Rourke smiled. Twenty-five feet away, more or less, was a pine tree that had been struck by lightning— natural lightning. It had happened only six months earlier.
Rourke picked up five rounds of the Federal 240-grain .44 Mags, his right thumb working open the Ruger’s loading gate, closing it, opening it, closing. “With an original Colt, I knew a man who kept the loading gate open, reloading just as fast as he fired. You can’t do that with one of these. So you improvise.” “Show me,” Michael said, his even white teeth showing as his wide mouth opened in a smile.
“I was planning to,” Rourke laughed. “That struck tree—that’s a man shooting at you. This table is cover. You’ve gotta nail him as you run toward the table, reloading as fast as you can. Then because there’s somebody coming right up your back, you’ve gotta pass that guy and finish him. So you run from behind cover and empty the next five into him—if it takes that many. This time it will.” “All right.”
“Get back over there.” Rourke gestured toa rock some distance beyond the table and out of range of any possible missed shot. “And keep your muffs up—shooting’s hard enough on your ears in combat, no sense damaging your ears during practice.”
“All right.”
Rourke took the Predator and the five spare rounds of ammo and strode back perhaps twenty-five feet beyond the table at an angle. He shouted to Michael, “Gimme a yell when you want me to start—and keep in mind I’m not very good with a single action and I don’t shoot .44
very often.” “Excuses, excuses—now!”
Michael had caught him flat-footed—but Rourke broke into a run, the Predator in his right fist, the loose ammo in his left, his right thumb jerking back the hammer, the right index finger
‘triggering the shot, the Magnum Sales Custom Ruger bucking in his right hand at the web of flesh between thumb and forefinger, bucking again and again and again as he crossed the distance to the table, the lightning- struck pine shuddering with the impacts, starting to crack near the base, Rourke skidding down behind the table, the loading gate already flicked open. His left thumb worked the full length ejector rod, the loose rounds in the left palm, his left hand’s last two fingers holding the Ruger, as the rod reached maximum extension and the empty punched out, his right plucking a loaded round from the palm of his left, inserting it, then repeating the process, the Ruger loaded, the loading gate closed, Rourke up, running, emptying four of the five rounds into the tree trunk target—the tree split, falling. Rourke stopped running.
Michael was shouting, “That’s pretty good, Dad-“
Rourke wheeled, firing the fifth and last round into the remaining stump of the tree, the distance fifteen feet, the stump cracking, a chunk of pine wood perhaps two inches in diameter sailing skyward. Rourke pulled off his shooter’s earmuffs; Mi-chael, approaching, did the same. Rourke, his voice almost a whisper, said, “I like a .45 better, or a double action. But if you’re wedded to these, maybe that’s more important. They’re good guns.”
Annie—nearly twelve, shouted from the en-trance to the Retreat. “I cracked open the last jar of peanut butter—anybody want a -cornbread and peanut butter sandwich?”
Rourke looked at Michael—Michael looked at him.
Annie was turning into a good cook for a girl of her years. “Come on—peanut butter sandwiches with fresh strawberries and tomatoes and a green pea and asparagus salad. Come on!”
A fine cook, if somewhat bizarre.
Chapter Six
Rourke sipped at a glass of the corn whiskey. The first batch had been too strong, but this was palatable enough. He still had a more than ample supply of civilized Seagram’s Seven but almost three years ago had started the still. Michael was planning to produce beer eventually. Rourke had never worshipped beer that terribly much, but if he were nearly fourteen, he supposed that he might— in anticipation.
They sat in the kitchen, Annie talking. “I wish we could find some surviving dairy animals—
anything. Even a goat. I’ve got some great recipes for cheese, for yogurt, and you’ve got the starters I need. Remember that yogurt I tried with the dehydrated milk?” “It was good, sweetheart,” Rourke told his daughter. She reminded him of her mother, except for the hair color. She had not cut her hair either, not since the Awakening. He mentally corrected himself—occasionally she trimmed “split ends,” as she called them. He imagined she had picked up the term from a book or from a videotape. But her hair, when it was unbound as it was now, reached past her waist, still the same dark honey blond color it had always been. She was becoming a woman—but he would miss the little girl she so rarely was nowadays. He had told her what to expect—when she actually became a woman. For
