Leo followed her gaze. "Yeah. Hole up, get some food, some rest. It'll be a long night's drive."
"But the people in the house—"
"They know we're here," he said. He began walking up the lawn toward it. His useless arm swung and he coughed. "In fact, they're Railroad, too."
Speechless, she followed him toward the house in the growing light.
SIXTEEN
The first things he was conscious of were the little white pinwheels.
They danced at the edge of the darkness, daring him to come out after them. For a long time — hours, it seemed — he resisted, preferring the friendly nothing where he floated without care or thought. But at last the pinwheels were joined by nagging pain and the darkness in his mind dissolved gradually and he came back to himself.
He lay on his side, in darkness, and all was quiet around him. The pain was principally in his arms, which were doubled behind him, and in his wrists, which were (his brain slowly interpreting the feelings) bound together too tightly for circulation. As a consequence he could no longer feel his hands, nor his right arm. His feet too were bound.
The last thing… the last thing he remembered (though this seemed fuzzy; his mind did not seem to be working too well, everything seemed uncertain and drunkenedged) was struggling with Turner. Slowly being strangled. And now… he was lying tied up on a hard floor, somewhere dark and silent. And closed up; the air was stuffy, he smelled paint and diesel fuel.
He was still on the boat, then. But it wasn't moving, not even the tiny restless motion of a boat alongside a pier. And he could hear no footsteps, no talking, nothing but, when he concentrated, a faraway scraping or rustling.
How long had he been unconscious? He pulled himself upright, gasping as his head began to pound. Some nausea, too. Perhaps a slight concussion. Hadn't his head struck something just before he went out?
Circulation flooded back into his right side with prickling agony.
I have to get free, he thought. If they've abandoned the boat then they've taken the shell with them. To do what? To go where? Perhaps back North. No, that would be asinine.
The Railroad terrorists wanted it for themselves. In a way, even as he groaned and tested his bonds, he had to smile. It was such an ironic reversal. Even now, Richmond would be telling Philadelphia black terrorists had seized the Union freighter. Well… now it was true.
His wrists writhed as he tried for a grip on the thin rope. One loop seemed to be high, caught on one of the brass buttons of his uniform sleeve. He twisted in the dark, cursing the rolling oaths that too were Quidley heritage, trying to work the slick line free. At last one of his numbed fingers slipped under it and he twisted and worked it free.
A second later he was groaning as the rush of fresh blood brought new agony, but he kept working till he had his legs free too. At last he was able to get the gag from his mouth. He ran it through his fingers in the dark. An oddly fine, silken fabric.
He tossed it away and got up. He staggered, holding himself up by leaning against the invisible wall. But at least he was upright, and free. Good going, Aubrey. He buttoned his tunic and hooked the collar. Then he began feeling about the room, very quietly. At last he found the door and eased it open a crack. Darkness on the other side. Another small room by the texture of the black. He took a step forward and stumbled over something and felt for it: a folded-down bunk.
Now he knew where he was. This was the bunkroom. The hatchway out should be back in the first room, to the left of the door. He felt his way back and found it.
It wasn't locked. He slid it open cautiously, waited a long time, his ear to the crack, and then opened it the rest of the way and climbed the ladder.
Night, still. Or was it, night again? Hadn't it been almost dawn when they'd left the President McClellan? He twisted his watch to catch starlight. He couldn't read the date, too dim, but both hands pointed straight up. It was midnight.
He'd lain unconscious through an entire day.
The deck he stood on was deserted. Trees bent low over it (he remembered the tapping, rustling sound) and underbrush grew close on either side. Up some narrow channel, to hide it from the air… even as he thought this he registered the distant drone of zep motors. They were out looking. Perhaps they'd already caught Turner and his people. Certainly, with the kind of search Vickery and Norris would initiate when FPB-122 did not arrive, they couldn't evade capture for long. He walked toward the stern, ducking to avoid low branches, and looked over the side. The hull was wedged against the bank. He wouldn't even have to get his boots wet to get off.
Thinking of that reminded him of his loss. Not the loss of the shelclass="underline" that was too big for him even yet to grasp. But the loss of the Quidley sword.
He stood thinking. There was a slight chance they might have left it aboard. A colored carrying a sword would attract instant arrest. Surely they couldn't afford to be conspicuous. Hurrying below again, he snapped on the light and quickly went through the boat. His disappointment and anger grew. No sign of it. They'd probably dropped it over the side as soon as they'd taken it from him. The damned —
He stopped, and bent. There in the corner, where it had rolled, by the hatchway, was a metal tube, perhaps a foot long He picked it up.
It was the fuze. A slow smile spread over his face.
He had to get in touch with Norris, let him know what was going on. He thought of the radio and looked into the wheelhouse but someone had anticipated him; it had been smashed to fragments with a fire-ax. Well, there must be a house somewhere near. He could find a telephone, and find out, too, just where he was.
He went back to the stern and looked over the side again. A stirring in the water: Cottonmouth? Probably just a frog. He slipped the fuze into his tunic and threw one leg over the gunwale.
Mud sucked at his boots and then he was fighting his way through the underbrush to get up the bank. Thorns ripped in his uniform and he cursed as they raked his face. Then he was out and the brush thinned. Have to check for ticks when he got out. And a nice hot shower would help… aspirin, this damn head….
He saw lights ahead, through the trees, almost at once. He smiled. A house, people. Then he caught himself. What if they were sympathizers? Or, worse still — what if Turner and the others were there, hiding? A momentary fantasy shaped itself of him bursting in, wresting away a gun, capturing them all.
Thinking of Turner reminded him of Vyry. And suddenly he realized that in what he'd thought was the last moment of his life, with the black giant's hands crushing the life from him, he'd felt something soft — something with her scent.
His lips drew back in a half-conscious snarl as he thrashed through the woods. She'd been there with them, the bitch. And you thought she cared for you. Sawyer was right. Like belonged with like. She'd tricked him, used him….
The underbrush ended just ahead. He crouched, listening. There seemed to be an open space beyond, for he could hear, all around him, the singing of the cicadas… but not from ahead.
After a moment he moved warily out, onto carefully kept lawn. Water sparkled to his right. The lights of a house yellow on his left, perhaps a hundred feet away, up a slight slope. He moved toward it, crouching, but after ten steps stumbled over an inequality in the ground.
It was a rut. No, a pair of them, just visible in the starlight. He bent and ran a finger inside one.
Fresh, wet, from a heavily-laden vehicle with knobby tires. He followed the ruts down toward the water, curious, and found the torn grass and trampled mud, and the deep V depression that looked as if a boat had been run up on shore.