“Sarah’s my wife—I’m taking her with me. All of us are righting what’s happening—in our own ways. Raising Michael and Annie if we all live long enough for her to do that is the best way I know to fight the Communists, to try to make something out of America again—to rebuild. That’s what she’ll be doing. Period—end of discussion.”
If it were possible, he seemed to clamp the cigar more tightly, his jaw set harder. Sarah—her hands shaking—fought within her thousands, millions of years of what if meant to be a woman. Standing up, she whispered, “Damn you—” and she walked away from the table, start-ing for the outside.
She needed to breathe.
Chapter Sixteen
“Whatchya think that is, over yonder there, Bob?”
Bob raised the binoculars he’d stolen in a fight days after The Night of The War—binoculars stolen from a five and ten cent store they had been looting in Commerce, Georgia. The man with the rifle in the store—not a very big man—had been tough enough and good enough with a gun that twelve of Bob’s friends—he thought of their names now—had died. Command had sort of de-volved to him—Bob—and he had ordered a with-drawal. The little finger of his left hand was gone, shot off. A parting gift from the owner of the five and ten cent store.
He stared through the binoculars now. They weren’t made for using at night, at least he didn’t figure they were. He’d thrown away the box with the owner’s manual. All he could see were dim shapes—what looked like some burned buildings and a white fence that almost seemed to glow. He put down the binoculars, saying to the man beside him, “Dunno, Lyle—maybe jes’ some folks hiding out from guys like us—don’t think they’s no Russians. Maybe some of them Resistance he-roes—hell,”
and he spat into the grass in front of his engineer boots.
“I saw me a light for a second—like some door was bein’ opened. Hey—lookee there,” Lyle rasped. Bob followed where Lyle pointed—with his eyes.
Near the white fence—someone was walking.
“They’ll be a guard or two, betchya,” Lyle said.
“If it is them Resistances, we can get us some food, some more guns and stuff— shit—”
“We gonna take ‘em, Bob?”
Bob looked at Lyle, then up the defile behind them. He had forty men—all of them with guns of one kind or another—and all of them pretty good with their bikes.
“Fuck, yeah—yeah,” and Bob spat again be-tween his boots.
Chapter Seventeen
She hadn’t meant it—not wanting to damn him—she loved him. But always—he was always the one who was right. No other opinion mat-tered—never—nothing. “Damnit,” she snarled, hitting her little fist into the fence crosspiece. The crosspiece rattled.
She heard movement beyond the barn—it would be Jack. It was his tour on guard— “Just me, Jack,”
she hissed loudly into the night.
After a moment, she heard him call back, “Right, Mrs. Rourke!”
She started walking along the fence.
Her hair was up—the first time she’d had it up since the attack on the Mulliner farm. She had taken the blue denim skirt from her pack, the only skirt she had—she wore it still, with a blue chambray shirt like the ones her husband habitually wore—this given her by one of the Resistance men. It was too big for her, the sleeves rolled up above her elbows, all but the top button buttoned and still showing more neckline than she liked, and it bloused like a balloon around her waist inside the waistband of her skirt. She only had track shoes—she looked like a clown, she thought. Like an over-age urchin. And she had her belt around her waist with the holster for the Trapper .45—trying to dress up for her husband, she still hadn’t been willing to abandon the gun.
The spare magazine for it was in the left side pocket of her skirt—she remembered that as she stabbed her hands into her pockets now, walking still beside the fence.
Why did he have to be like that?
He’d come after her—they’d argue, she’d give in. “Shit,” she whispered. She looked up—lightning illuminated the scat-tered clouds, the moon bright—almost bright enough to read by.
She kept walking.
Chapter Eighteen
John Rourke stood over his children, watching them sleep. Michael rolled over—opened his eyes. “Hi, Daddy.”
Rourke dropped to his knees beside the chil-dren. It was a far corner of the bunker, a blanket hung to make a triangle with the corner walls. There was another air mattress beside the one on which the children lay—it was empty. Sarah slept there, he knew—she had shown him their quar-ters.
“Shh,” he told his son. He raised his right first finger to his lips, his voice low. “Don’t wanna wake your sister, Michael.”
“Where’s Mommy?”
“Outside—”
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing to worry about—I’m taking you and your sister and your mother home tomorrow— you’ll have a ball. So much to do at the Retreat— books, music—I’ve got a videocassette recorder there—movies, educational programs—you can learn about astronomy, about the human body, about science—physics and chemistry—all of it—for you and Annie to learn from—”
“Can we play outside?”
Rourke sucked in his breath. “Sometimes—but the idea of the Retreat is that it’s kind of secret—like a secret hiding place, ya know? But you can play with Paul—you can call him Uncle Paul—he’s my best friend. And—”
“And Natalia?”
Rourke closed his eyes.
“Mommy told me she’d asked you about some Russian lady and you said her name was Natalia and she’d be living with us from now on.”
Rourke nodded. “You can play with Natalia, too—Annie’ll like her a lot—so will you, son.”
“But aren’t the Russians the ones who started everything—like The War, and all the trouble—”
“But Natalia didn’t start it. She saved my life—more than once. Natalia and Paul—the three of us have been searching for you and your sister and your mother. She’s a good friend—you’ll like her, be happy with her.”
“Is Natalia going to marry—what did you say his name was—”
“Paul.”
“Is Natalia going to marry Uncle Paul?”
Rourke closed his eyes again, then opened them, seeing his son in the gray light. “No—she isn’t—no—”
“Well, why is she staying with us, Daddy?”
Rourke swallowed. “She’s a good friend to Paul and me. And in helping us look for you guys, well, she kind of got in trouble with the KGB—”
“That’s the Russian CIA, isn’t it?”
“Yeah—sort of—but different in a lot o f ways.
“Is Natalia a spy, like you were?”
“Sort of—but she’s through with that now—just wants to be with us, be our friend, help things get right again—like that—it’s a long story. Compli-cated—kind of.”
“I’m not sleepy—you can tell me,” Michael in-sisted.
“I’m sleepy,” Rourke smiled in the darkness. “I’ll tell you all about it later—all about it. I hear you’ve been taking good care of your mother and sister—give me your hand,” and Rourke reached his right hand out in the darkness, found his son’s vastly smaller, but solid, firm hand—he clasped it tight.
“Oww—”
Rourke laughed, low, soft. “You’ve turned into one hell of a good man, son. And I’ll be needing your help a lot as we go along.”
“Momma tell you that I—”
“That man at the farm—that you killed him. I’m sorry you had to do that—but I’m glad you were there to protect your mother and sister—yeah—she told me. And at the Mulliner place—looks like all those times we went out back and fooled with the guns came in handy, huh?” and he clasped his son’s shoulders in the darkness. “But you can put all that behind you now—go back to growing up. You’ve done a lot of that, but there’s a lot of grow-ing to do and everything. I’m proud of you.”