“Asimov!” she orders. “Play dead!”
Asimov, already denied the canine pleasures of the hunt, glances over his shoulder at her, offended and disbelieving.
“Play dead, dammit!”
With a sigh of almost human frustration, Asimov sags loose-limbed onto the seat as Kirsten brakes abruptly and sends the van into a wild skid that whips it tailpipe first across the opposite lane, hauling so hard on the wheel that her shoulders ache. The truck comes to a stop facing her pursuers, whose pickup swerves wide to avoid her and ends half in and half out of a roadside ditch concealed by the mounded snow. Kirsten pulls the bandage off her head, bringing fresh blood, and slumps across the steering wheel. Her finger presses lightly on the trigger of the gun in her lap.
She hears both doors of the pickup open and close, to the accompaniment of obscenities. Then feet, scrunching through ice and crusted snow.
The latch on her own door clicks, and she can smell burnt cordite. Then a voice. “Oh, hell, Brad. It’s just a girl and her dog. She’s bleeding.” There is another click as Brad opens the passenger door.
Kirsten shoots the first man, angling the barrel of her gun high, to take him in the chest. As she squeezes the trigger, she yells, “Take him, Asimov! Hold!” and feels the dog’s weight launch itself out of the van. A roar fills her ears as a shotgun discharges less than a yard away, followed by an angry, human yell. “Off! Get off me, goddam you!”
Kirsten raises her head, getting a firmer grip on her gun, and slides out of the van. The man she has shot is sprawled on his back, arms flung wide, blood pouring from his mouth into his beard and grey plaid muffler. As she watches, his eyes fix, staring somewhere past her shoulder.
“Steve! Steve? What the fuck’s going on here? Answer—” The voice is suddenly cut off, and Kirsten hears a flurry of movement, ending in a low growl from Asimov.
“Hold, boy!” she calls to him. “Hold!”
“Goddam you, you bitch, what’ve you done to my bro—”
This time Asimov’s growl is deeper as it cuts off the voice. “Good boy, Asimov! Hold!”
Steve has fallen partly onto his rifle. Wishing that she did not have to know his name, Kirsten has to shift him to extract it. A last, wheezing sigh escapes his lungs as she turns him, startling her so that she almost drops the weapon. The man on the other side of the truck, Brad, is yelling again. She wishes that she did not know his name, either.
Very deliberately, not thinking, Kirsten walks around the front of the truck. Asimov’s outsize paws are planted on Brad’s chest, his jaws clamped onto the man’s throat. He has not drawn blood, only snarls and clamps down a little tighter each time his prey cries out. The man’s eyes follow Kirsten’s movements. She sees his death in his eyes.
Slowly, very deliberately, not thinking, Kirsten shoulders the rifle and shoots Brad in the head. Blood blossoms on the snow, unfolding in crimson and scarlet like the petals of a rose. Flower of evil.
Just as deliberately, Kirsten picks up Brad’s 12-guage and lays it on the floor of the van. In the foundered pickup, she finds shells for both the shotgun and the rifle. Two sleeping bags lie rolled up on the back bench; Kirsten takes them. Finally she reaches under the dash and tears out the ignition wires, cutting them off short with a pair of snippers she finds on the console between the seats. It is quicker than shooting out the tires, and it makes less noise.
Her hands are sweating inside her gloves. On her way back to the van she begins to shake. At first it is only a fine shiver, like a chill over her skin. Then reaction takes possession of her, adrenaline rattling her bones together and buckling her knees beneath her. She makes her way around Brad’s corpse and hauls herself back up onto the seat. Asimov follows, and huddles up against her, nudging her shoulder with his nose. He whimpers softly as she gasps, half-choking, for breath.
Part of it, she knows in a rational corner of her mind, is pure physiology. That part will pass if she does not feed it
The other part, which may never pass at all, is that she has just killed two men who were almost certainly innocent of harm.
Because she could not take the chance.
She tells herself she needs to get moving again. The sound of the shots will have carried. When Brad and Steve do not return to their companions promptly, the other men at the barricade will come looking for them. And then they will come looking for her.
She needs to throw them off her trail and she needs to find shelter. And she needs to do both by nightfall. She has perhaps two hours.
When her hands are steady enough, she turns starts the van again, turns carefully so that she does not run over the two dead men, and sets out again toward the south.
7
Several hours later, Dakota leaves her patient’s room, wiping her hands on a towel supplied by her cousin. He’kase is resting comfortably in the care of one of the rescued women who has had some Nurse’s Aide training. Her wound is clean and dry, and antibiotics are pumping their way through her tiny system. In place of the medicine pouch, which again holds its customary place around Koda’s neck, the youngster holds an eagle feather, the sacred icon that Manny has held onto since he was shorn of his flowing locks upon first entering the Air Force.
“Damn, Koda. I forgot how good you were at this stuff.”
“You’re not so bad yourself.”
The cousins share a rueful laugh as they walk through the late November evening, nodding to the soldiers as they pass.
Once inside the main house, Manny takes his leave, scurrying off to the shower.
Maggie looks up from her place at the kitchen table and beckons Dakota over with a smile. A mug of steaming black coffee is already there, as if awaiting her presence. Dakota acquiesces, sitting down with a groan and stretching out her long legs as she lifts the mug to her lips, inhaling the fragrance with a sigh of approval.
“Things went okay?” Maggie guesses from the look on Koda’s face.
“As well as can be expected,” Dakota replies, taking a bracing sip of coffee, letting it warm her from the inside out. “Manny hasn’t lost his touch. He’s got the makings of a damn decent medic.”
“Better that than a pilot,” Maggie jokes.
“Hey!!” Manny yells, filling the doorway with his towel-girded bulk. “I heard that!”
Both women laugh, knowing that the young man before them is as good as it gets when it comes to flying. Absolutely fearless, he can make a jet walk and talk and turn on a dime. He’s one of the best of the best, and everyone knows it.
“Alright, flyboy, get your ass to bed. We’re on the road at 0430.”
Snapping off a crisp salute while still managing to retain the hold both on towel and dignity, Manny grins, winks, and turns back down the hall. The soft click of his door shutting puts paid to the conversation.
Silence falls among them, a soft ethereal mist. Peering at Dakota over the rim of her coffee cup, Allen takes in the sharp, clean lines of her face and the energy that seems to hum around her even now, while sitting quietly apparently lost in thought. It’s a sweet Siren’s song, one that Maggie is in no way adverse to hearing.
“See anything interesting?”
Dakota’s warm contralto rolls over her and Maggie is suddenly glad that her mocha skin hides her flush well.
Though not, perhaps, quite as well as she might have liked, given the sparkle of amusement in the crystal eyes turned her way.
“I might,” she allows, responding to the tease with a small one of her own. A smile curves her lips, and her gaze is bold and direct, though not overly aggressive. To put the cliché into perspective, Maggie Allen is a woman who knows what she wants and isn’t shy about reaching for it. As career Air Force, she’s seen her share of too many wars and too many deaths and when opportunities for warmth and life present themselves on gilt-edged platters, she rarely hesitates.