He was getting too close. I hurriedly crawled back to the pile of laundry I knew was Abbie and shook her shoulder. “We’ve got to go down again!”
“Wha? Wha?” She lifted a shaky head and showed me bleary eyes.
“One of them came up! Back there! He’s shooting!”
“Oh, Chet, I’m so tired.”
“Come on, honey. Come on.”
I herded her onto the ladder, with her about to fall twice, but the more she moved the more she woke up, and when she finally put her weight on the bad ankle on the ladder she woke up completely. She also let out a healthy yowl.
“That’s right,” I said. “Now get down and let me down.”
“Oh, wow, that hurt.”
“I’m sure it did. Go down, go down.”
She went down, and I followed her. As my head was going down past the level of the roof I saw that guy back there on his feet. I stayed where I was, just high enough to see him. Now what?
He braced himself. He thought it over. He shook his head and got down on his knees. He shook his fist at himself and got up again. He braced himself. He ran forward. He leaped from the front of his car to the back of the next car. He made it, and the car he’d landed on jounced. He teetered way to the left, his arms pinwheeling. The car jounced again, and he teetered way to the right, his arms pinwheeling. The car wiggled, and he teetered every which way, arms and one leg pinwheeling. He got down on one knee, down on hands and knees. He’d made it. And the car waggled, and he rolled over onto his side and fell off the train.
“Well, I’ll be darned,” I said. I looked down at Abbie, asleep in midair between the cars. “We’re going back up!” I shouted.
“Oh, nooo!”
“Oh, yes! Come on!”
She grumbled, she complained, she said unkind things, but she came on, and when she got to the top, I said, “Now we go back down again.”
She roused enough to stare at me. “Are you out of your mind? I hope they kill you, you crazy—”
“Listen to me. We’re going down the other side. The last two are on this side of the train, so we’ll go down the other side and jump off and they won’t be able to see us go.”
“Sure,” she said.
“Just do it,” I told her.
She did it. There was no ladder on this side, but there was a window ledge, there were handles and wheels, there were all sorts of things to climb on. As easy as falling off a building.
So we finally got back down again, both of us, and I spent some time instructing Abbie how to jump. I told her to stay loose, keep her arms and legs loose, don’t stiffen up, roll when she hit, try to land in a snowbank, and all sorts of good advice like that. She nodded continually in a dull sort of way, meaning she wasn’t hearing a thing I was saying. All I could do was hope some of it was seeping through into her subconscious and would show a result when we made our leap.
Finally I gave up on her and looked out from between the cars. We were on an overpass now, a deserted street below us. Beyond, the land fell away in a steep slope down from the tracks, with the rears of supermarkets and gas stations at the bottom.
“Up ahead,” I said. “It’s a snow-covered slope, it should be good for us. If there aren’t a lot of old tin cans under the snow. When I give the word, you jump. And remember to jump at an angle, jump as much as possible in the same direction the train is going. And stay loose when you hit. And roll. You got that?”
She nodded. She was sound asleep.
Here came the slope. “Jump!” I shouted, and pushed her off the train. Then I leaped after her.
I must admit it was exhilarating out there for a second or two. In midair, sailing along high above the world, the cold wind whistling around my orange-capped head, a very Jules Verne feeling to it. And then the feeling became more physical as my feet touched the snowy slope and I discovered I was running at thirty miles an hour.
I can’t run at thirty miles an hour, nobody can. I did the only thing I could do instead, I fell over on my face, did several loop-the-loops, and rolled madly down the hill, bringing up against somebody’s trash barrel at the bottom. Brrooommm, it went, and I raised myself up a little, and Abbie crashed into me. And I crashed into the barrel again.
“Oh, come on, honey,” I said. “Watch where you’re careening.”
“Growf,” he said, and wrapped his hand around my neck.
It wasn’t Abbie.
34
His hand was on my throat. My hand was on what I took to be his throat. My other hand was on what I took to be the wrist of his other hand, the hand in which he would be holding his gun if he was holding a gun. My head was usually buried under his chest somewhere, being ground into the ground. My feet thrashed around. We rolled and rolled, this way and that, gasping and panting, trying with only partial success to cut off each other’s breathing, and from time to time we would bong one or another part of our bodies into that stinking rotten trash barrel. It got so I hated the trash barrel more than the guy trying to kill me. It got so what I really wanted to throttle was that trash barrel.
In the meantime, who was really getting throttled was me. We seemed to have stabilized at last, no more rolling, and unfortunately we’d stabilized with him on top. With his hand squeezing my jugular and my face mashed into his armpit, it looked as though I wasn’t going to be getting much air from now on. About all I could do was kick my heels into the ground, which I did a lot of. I also tried squirming, but with very little success.
My strength was failing. I was passing out, and I knew it. I kicked my heels into the ground as hard as I could, but he just wouldn’t let go. My head was filling with a rushing sound, like a waterfall. A black waterfall, roaring down over me, carrying me away, washing me away into oblivion and forgetfulness, dragging me down into the whirlpool, the black whirlpool.
He sagged.
His grip eased on my throat.
His weight doubled on my head.
Now what? I squirmed experimentally and he rolled off me, and suddenly I could breathe again, I could move again, I could see again, and what I saw was Abbie standing there with a shovel in her hands.
“Don’t bury me,” I said. “I’m still alive.”
“I hit him with it,” she said. “Is he all right?”
“I hope not.” I sat up, feeling dizzy, my throat hurting, and looked at my assailant. He was lying on his back, spread-eagled, sleeping peacefully. He was breathing. More important, so was I.
His legs were still on mine. “He’s okay,” I said, and pushed his legs off, and tottered to my feet. “Where’s the other one?”
“Still on the train, I guess,” she said. “I thought we were supposed to be getting away from both of them by coming over to this side.”
“They must have figured that,” I said, “and one of them climbed over. So they could watch both sides.”
“So I didn’t have to do all that climbing around.”
“Did I know that? Come on, let’s get out of here.”
“Aren’t you going to thank me for saving your life?”
“What?” I looked at the shovel, at the sleeper, and back at the shovel. “Oh, yeah,” I said. “You did, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did,” she said.
“Throw away the shovel and I’ll thank you,” I said.
She grinned and threw it away. I took a step closer and put my arms out and she came into them and we swapped breaths. Hers was very warm and sweet, and even through all our clothing she felt very soft and slender and delicious.
She broke first, and smiled at me. “That’s nice,” she said.
“Come back,” I said. “I’m not done thanking you.”