He was under no illusions about his chances-carrying the boy on foot, without a weapon or even decent gear, they amounted to not much better than nil. The only hope he could see was to beat his pursuers to the thick, brushy timber ahead, where their night goggles would not be of much use. If he made it to the next day’s light, he would try to reach a paved road.
He broke a porcelain cup into shards and used one of them to worry slits in a wool blanket, fashioning it into a serape for himself. It was far from adequate, but wool would at least keep you warm when it was wet. He fashioned another blanket into a sling that he could loop around his shoulders to carry Mandrake. He collected the remaining insulin and syringes into a pillowcase, along with some bread and cheese that he had taken from the kitchen, and stuffed that inside his shirt.
Mandrake seemed only vaguely aware of what was happening when Monks wrapped him in the blanket, pulling his legs through the slits so they would hang free like a baby’s in a carrier.
“Come on, buddy,” Monks whispered. “Let’s go find some mermaids.”
16
Monks quickly pulled up the plywood panels under the kitchen sink, then lowered Mandrake into the crawl space. He followed head first, squeezing his way painfully through the narrow cut-out. There was only about a foot of room between the cold earth and the floor joists. He managed to reach back up and pull the cabinet doors closed. Then he rolled onto his belly and wormed his way forward, pushing Mandrake ahead of him as gently as he could.
The opening in the rock foundation was barely visible now. He pushed Mandrake out and worked his way through, one arm and shoulder at a time. The sharp rock edges scraped his skin through his clothes, and the sluicing rain was already soaking his arms and legs. Finally free, he spent a few seconds on hands and knees, getting his breath. Then he scooped up the little boy and stood, arranging the sling over his shoulders.
“I was just starting to trust you,” Freeboot said, behind him. “You motherfucker.”
Before Monks could turn around, he heard a distinct metallic click-like a gun’s safety being released. A figure stepped into view ahead of him, from around the corner of the building. It was Sidewinder, holding his assault rifle leveled.
Monks sagged.
“Put the kid down,” Freeboot said. He sounded more disgusted than angry, like a teacher whose patience with an unruly student had finally run out. It was more chilling than his rage.
Monks unslung Mandrake and set him on the ground.
“Take off your blanket.”
Monks pulled his homemade serape over his head and tossed it aside.
“Callus,” Freeboot called commandingly.
A third figure came striding toward them from the forest. Monks recalled seeing him at the scalp hunt. Like the other maquis, he was clean-shaven and neat-haired, with an insurance salesman’s look that contrasted jarringly with his backwoods clothes. He was one of the older men, in his thirties, and he had an air of efficiency that was almost prim-but there was a ruthlessness about it, too.
Callus also was carrying a leveled rifle, Monks thought at first. Then he realized that it was a tree branch, four or five feet long and twice as thick as a broomstick.
Something slipped around Monks’s neck, yanking tight. He clutched at it, fighting to free himself from the choking pressure. But it was futile. His fingers felt leather, slippery with rain-Sidewinder’s rifle sling.
Monks drove his right elbow back into Sidewinder’s gut with everything he had. He got the grim satisfaction of feeling Sidewinder double up with an explosive grunt. The sling’s grip loosened. Monks stomped down hard on Sidewinder’s instep with his bootheel, and fought to twist around.
Off to the side, he thought he heard Freeboot laughing.
Then Callus swung his heavy stick across Monks’s shins.
Monks yelled, a roar of rage and disbelief at the agony that burst through his bones and shot up into his brain. Pain was so intimate. There was no way to hide. It knew everything about every tiny bit of you, flared up in every one of those millions of nerve endings that you were unaware of most of the time.
“You cocksucker,” Sidewinder sobbed into his ear. The sling tightened viciously. Through the spots starting to float across his vision, Monks saw Callus swing the stick again. This time, the impact was hard enough to chip bone. Monks clawed back at Sidewinder’s face, his feet dancing crazily, trying to run of their own accord.
A third blow crashed across his shins, bringing him to the edge of blacking out. His consciousness was filled with the torture in his legs and the sound of his own choked bellowing in his ears.
The pressure around his neck let up suddenly, and the sling was released. The rifle butt slammed into his back, driving him sprawling onto the ground.
“Next time we’ll use a sledgehammer,” Freeboot said. “Now get back under that floor.”
Monks crawled to the foundation’s opening and forced himself through, moving helplessly past the wool-wrapped bundle that was Mandrake. Maybe he had been aware of what had happened, maybe not.
“He still needs his blood sugar checked every hour,” Monks panted. “And the insulin shots.”
Something came into view outside. There was just enough light left for him to recognize Freeboot’s bare feet.
“Yeah?” Freeboot said. “I’m starting to think you’ve been keeping him sick. Trying to get me to let you go.”
“If you want him to die, you’re almost there,” Monks said hoarsely.
The feet stayed there a few seconds longer. Then they were gone.
“You, fuckhead-I ought to make you get in there with him,” he heard Freeboot say to Sidewinder. “You better be right on top of him, watching every second. Callus, bring the kid.”
Another pair of feet appeared outside the opening, this time wearing boots.
“You stick your fucking nose out, I’ll blow it off,” Sidewinder said. His voice trembled with fury.
Monks curled up again and closed his eyes, trying to rub a little of the fire out of his throbbing shins. A couple of minutes later, he heard the sound of bootsteps on the kitchen floor above him, then hammering. The plywood sheets under the sink were being nailed down. There might have been a hidden camera, watching him the entire time, he thought.
Or Glenn had gone to Freeboot and alerted him that Monks was planning to run.
Gradually, the pain subsided to a bearable ache. The discomfort of being cold and wet moved in to join it. Lying in the dirt, trapped by the floor joists, he couldn’t move enough to warm himself. Within half an hour he was shivering convulsively.
A warm deer carcass to crawl into would have looked pretty good about now.
17
A couple of hours later, Monks heard Sidewinder kick loudly against the lodge’s wall.
“Hey! Asshole!” he yelled. “Come on out.”
Monks uncurled himself stiffly and squirmed to the foundation’s opening, his raw shins scraping against the hard rock-strewn dirt. He pulled himself out into the rainy gloom, fearful that he was going to get a boot or rifle butt in the face. But Sidewinder only held the leveled weapon on him.
“Freeboot says you can go back inside,” he said sullenly.
Monks’s eyes teared up with pleasure when he stumbled into the firelit warmth of the lodge. But when he walked into Mandrake’s bedroom, he saw that the shackles with the cable attached were lying on the floor.
“Put ’em on,” Sidewinder ordered. His raingear was dripping puddles onto the floor, and his face radiated his rage and resentment.
Monks sat, pulled off his boots, and snapped the iron rings around his own ankles.