The meat smelled pretty ripe. Gordon decided he would wait a while, in hopes of something better. The women, though, weren’t quite so finicky.
So far they had been lucky. At least the search seemed to have swept westward, away from the direction the fugitives were headed. Perhaps General Macklin’s men had found Johnny’s body by now, falsely confirming the trail toward the sea.
Only time would tell how far their luck would last though.
A narrow, swift stream swept north from near abandoned Illahee. Gordon decided it could be nothing other than the south fork of the Coquille. Of course there were no convenient canoes lying about. The torrent looked unnavi-gable anyway. They would have to walk.
An old road ran along the east bank, in the direction they wanted to go. There was no choice but to use it, whatever the obvious dangers. Mountains crowded in just ahead, hulking against the moonlit clouds, blocking every other conceivable path.
At least the going would be quicker than on the muddy trails. Or so Gordon hoped. He coaxed the stoic women, keeping them moving at a slow, steady pace. Never once did Marcie or Heather complain or balk, nor were their eyes reproachful. Gordon could not decide whether it was courage or resignation that kept them plodding on, mile after mile.
For that matter, he wasn’t sure why he persevered. To what point? To live in the dark world that seemed certain to come? At the rate he was accumulating ghosts, “crossing over” would probably feel like Homecoming Week anyway.
Why? he wondered. Am I the only Twentieth-Century idealist left alive?
Perhaps, he pondered. Perhaps idealism really was the disease, the scam, that Charles Bezoar had said it was.
George Powhatan had been right, too. It did you no good to fight for the Big Things… for civilization, for instance. All you accomplished was getting young girls and boys to believe in you — to throw their lives away in worthless gestures, accomplishing nothing.
Bezoar had been right. Powhatan had been right. Even Nathan Holn, monster that he was, had told the essential truth about Ben Franklin and his constitutionalist cronies — how they had hoodwinked a people into believing such things. They had been propagandists to make Himmler and Trotsky blush as amateurs.
… We hold these truths to be self evident …
Hah!
Then there had been the Order of the Cincinnati, made up of George Washington’s officers who — halfway embarked one night upon a mutinous coup — were shamed by their stern commander into giving their tearful, solemn vow… to remain farmers and citizens first, and soldiers only at their country’s need and call.
Whose idea had it been, that unprecedented oath? The promise was kept for a generation, long enough for the ideal to set. In essence, it lasted into the era of professional armies and technological war.
Until the end of the Twentieth Century, that is, when certain powers decided that soldiers should be made into something more than mere men. The thought of Macklin and his augmented veterans, loosed on the unsuspecting Willametters, made Gordon heartsick. But there wasn’t anything he or anyone else could do to prevent it.
Not a whit can be done about it, he thought wryly. But that won’t keep the damn ghosts from pestering me.
The South Coquille grew more swollen with every mile they slogged, as streamlets joined in from the enclosing hills. A gloomy drizzle began to fall, and thunder rumbled in counterpoint to the roaring torrent to their left. As they rounded a bend in the road, the northern sky brightened with distant flashes of lightning.
Looking up at the glowering clouds, Gordon almost stumbled into Marcie’s back as she came to a sudden halt. He put out his hand to give her a gentle push, as he had been forced to do more and more often the last few miles. But this time her feet were planted.
She turned to face him, and in her eyes there was a bleakness that went beyond anything Gordon had seen in seventeen years of war. Chilled with a dark foreboding, he pushed past her and looked down the road.
Thirty yards or so ahead lay the ruins of an old roadside trading post. A faded sign advertised myrtlewood carvings for sale at fabulous prices. Two rusted automobile hulks lay half settled into the mud in front.
Four horses and a two-wheeled cart were tethered to the slump-sided shack. From under the canted porch roof, General Macldin stood with his arms folded, and smiled at Gordon.
“Run!” Gordon yelled at the women and he dove through the roadside thicket, rolling up behind a moss-covered trunk with Johnny’s rifle in his hands. As he moved, he knew he was being a fool. Macklin still might have some faint wish to keep him alive, but in a firefight he was already dead.
He knew he had leaped on instinct — to get away from the women, to draw attention after himself and give them a chance to get away. Stupid idealist, he cursed. Marcie and Heather simply stood there on the road, too tired or too resigned even to move.
“Now that ain’t so smart,” Macklin said, his voice at its most amiable and dangerous. “Do you think you can manage to shoot me, Mr. Inspector?”
The thought had occurred to Gordon. It depended, of course, on the augment letting him get close enough to try.
And on whether the twenty-year-old ammo still worked after its dunking in the Rogue.
Macklin still had not moved. Gordon raised his head and saw through the leaves that Charles Bezoar stood beside the General. Both of them looked like easy targets out there in the open. But as he slid the rifle’s bolt and began to crawl forward, Gordon realized, sickly, there were four horses.
There came a sudden crashing sound from just overhead. Before he could even react, a crushing weight slammed onto his back, driving his sternum onto the rifle stock.
Gordon’s mouth gaped, but no air would come! He could barely twitch a muscle as he felt himself lifted into the air by his collar. The rifle slipped from nearly senseless fingers.
“Did this guy really waste two of ours last year?” a gravelly voice behind his left ear shouted in cheerful derision. “Seems a bit of a woos to me.”
It felt like an eternity, but at last something reopened inside him and Gordon was able to breathe again. He sucked noisily, caring more about air at the moment than dignity.
“Don’t forget those three soldiers back at Agness,” Macklin called back to his man. “He gets credit for them, too. That makes five Holnist ears on his belt, Shawn. Our Mr. Krantz deserves respect.
“Now bring him in, please. I’m sure he and the ladies would like a chance to get warm.”
Gordon’s feet barely touched the ground as his captor half carried him by his collar through the thicket and across the road. The augment wasn’t even breathing hard when he dumped Gordon unceremoniously on the porch.
Under the leaky canopy, Charles Bezoar stared hard at Marcie; the Holnist Colonel’s eyes burned with shame and promised retribution. But Marcie and Heather watched only Gordon, silently.
Macklin squatted beside Gordon. “I always did admire a man with a knack for the ladies. I’ve got to admit, you do seem to have a way with ‘em, Krantz.” He grinned. Then he nodded to his beefy aide. “Bring him inside, Shawn. The women have work to do, and the Inspector and I have some unfinished business to discuss.”
17
“I know all about your women now, you know.”