Through Darkest America-Extended Version (32 page)

Kari was up beside him, looking scared. "Howie, what are you doing? Don't go off like that."

"I'm not
goin
' anywhere," he told her, pulling her back into the protection of the herd. "I was just checking." "What is it?"

"It's nothing, Kari. I was looking, is all."

There was a heavy, thudding sound and one of the dark Boomers whistled over their heads toward the center of the city. The herd grunted in fear and jerked as one away from the noise. Howie grinned. By God, he couldn't ask for better help. There was high grass up ahead. Another fifty yards or so. All they had to do was stick with the herd until they could lose themselves out there. Then, stay low for a mile or so until the city and the troopers were far behind.

"I'm getting sick, Howie. I mean it."

Kari sounded like she was strangling on something. "You don't look too good," he told her.

Her eyes blazed. "This is a terrible idea. I never should have listened to you."

Howie shrugged. He sympathized, but there wasn't much he could do. It was bad enough being naked with a bunch of stock. Besides that, it was never any fun trailing behind '
em
. Especially on foot. They smelled bad enough all the time, but when they got underway they were likely to leave new stuff for you to step in. Anyway, it was working. They were leaving the big engines behind and the grass wasn't far. It was a good thing, too. He wasn't sure how much longer he could keep Kari from just sitting down and throwing up. He didn't feel too damn wonderful himself. His head was aching something awful and his foot hurt every time he stepped on it.

A big buck turned and stared at him, the blank eyes trying to figure what kind of creature he might be; knowing, in
it's
small mind, that something was wrong, that Howie didn't belong. Howie waved his stick threateningly and the buck flinched and turned away.

He glanced over at Kari, and cursed under his breath.
Godamn
it, she'd dropped back again, keeping as far from the herd as she could. He turned and started back for her, then stopped. His heart came up in his throat. The trooper was almost directly behind her. No more than thirty yards off and riding hard.

There was no question that he'd spotted her. Maybe he knew right off there was a naked, long-legged girl walking behind the herd. Or maybe he was one of those men who didn't much care whether she was meat or not, if she looked as good as Kari.

Howie felt a moment of helplessness. If he called out to her she'd turn and look at the rider and scream or something and they'd both be spotted for sure. He couldn't warn her, then. All he could do was let it happen. He held the pistol up tight against his chest and nudged himself in between two big mares. God, they smelled awful! One stared at him with glazed eyes, spittle hanging out of her open mouth.

He kept one eye over his shoulder. The rider was right behind Kari. He could see her close now and he was grinning from ear to ear. Howie stepped out of the herd and turned. The trooper looked at him, a question starting on his face. Howie fired. The man shuddered and fell heavily to the ground.

He'd figured Kari would scream or run or faint dead away or all three at once. But Kari fooled him. She stopped in her tracks and stared at the dead man, then at Howie. Suddenly she turned and ran as fast as she could after the trooper's horse. The animal was trotting dutifully back to wherever it had come from, but Kari wasn't having any of that. Her long legs flew over the open ground. It was the prettiest sight he'd ever seen. She leaped for the reins and brought the mount to a stop. Howie ran to meet her, not thinking about his foot any more. He started to tell her what a great job she'd done and then the bullet sang right between them. Another dug up dust. He jumped on the mount's back and pulled her up behind. He yelled at the horse and it bolted, nearly tossing them both.

He glanced to his left and saw the two riders. They were throwing dust and coming up fast. He knew what they had in mind, they wanted to drive him back past the stock to the Rebel siege engines. Ahead was open country and no place to go. They'd sure never make it to the distant line of hills. Not riding double.

"Howie," Kari moaned behind him, "I'm getting sick." "Not now, damn it!"

"I . . . can't help it."

She clutched him tighter and he heard an awful noise and felt something warm on his back.

"Aw, hell, Kari . . .”

There was no use running, and he knew it. He reined up hard, jerked Kari off the mount, and shoved her into high grass. "Just hold the
godamn
horse," he shouted, "and keep your head down!"

Seeing him go to the ground, the riders came on harder than ever. One had a rifle, the other a pistol. They kept shooting and yelling war cries at him as they came. Howie ignored the shots and the shouting. Pardo had told him more than once that you might scare a man to death bearing down on him from a mount, but it took more than a fair shot to hit anything that way.

He got the first rider square in the chest. The second had more sense. He reined in and bore down on Howie with his rifle. But he was breathing hard and madder than hell about his partner; the shot went wild. Howie wasn't mad at anyone. He was just bone tired and anxious to get as far away from soldiers as he could.

When he got back to the narrow draw under the hill Kari was hunched up in a tight little ball, her knees up to her chin and her hands wrapped around her ankles. She had the blanket they'd taken off the horse draped over her shoulders but it didn't help much.

"We're going to freeze to death," she said flatly, without looking up. "If you'd gotten clothes off those soldiers we'd have something to wear, anyway. You should have, Howie."

Howie let out a long breath. "We been all over that.
More'n
once. Ain't any sense
goin
' over it again. There wasn't no time, Kari."

Kari muttered something he didn't hear.

"Okay," he told her, "we might have gotten the clothes. An' we might've gotten killed, too. I don't reckon you thought about that, did you?"

But Kari wasn't listening. She'd curled herself up tighter than ever and pulled the blanket over her head.

It was going to be a miserable night, he knew. It was plenty warm during the day but when the sun went down in the shadow of the big peaks to the west, it sucked all the heat out of the earth. There was still maybe half an hour before dark and he could feel the promise of a chill in the air. Howie had decided he wasn't going to start a fire, even if he could. No matter what Kari said. The city was behind them, but it couldn't be far enough, as far as he was concerned.

After he dug the shallow depression in the ground, he lined it with as many dead boughs as he could find. There weren't many, but they'd have to do. They could get under the blanket and out of the wind, anyway, -and maybe pull in dirt and more boughs to keep out some of the cold.

Kari gave the sleeping arrangements a dubious eye. The little crease between her eyes started working and Howie could see it coming. On top of everything else, it was just about more than he could take. He didn't even give her a chance to get started.

"It's
goin
' to be pretty
godamn
awful, Kari," he said sourly. "You're going to have to
touch
me without no clothes on, and you're
goin
' to have to get 'bout as close as you can to keep from freezing. 'Course, if you think it'll make you sick or
somethin
' you can always sit up naked all night and talk to the horse. It don't make no difference to me."

She studied him warily, "Couldn't I just keep the blanket and stay up here, Howie?. I think that'd be a better idea. Then you could have the hole all to yourself."

Howie didn't bother to answer. He got up and walked over to her and jerked the blanket off her shoulder and left her sitting bare on the ground. Then he got into his bed and started pulling dirt and leaves in after him. She watched him a long moment, scowling, and shivering in the chill air. Then she got up and moved in beside him, keeping as far away as she could. He could feel her shaking, but she made no effort to touch him. The sun went down and the cold wind swept out of the mountains to frost the earth.

"Howie?"

"What."

"If I turn over and get close you won't . . . feel anything or do anything, will you?"

"If you do that," he said wearily, "there won't be no way I can help feeling you, Kari."

"You know what I mean."

He didn't answer.

"Howie.
Please
turn over and h-hold me. I'm freezing to death!"

He turned and took her in his arms and she came to him, pressing herself against his body, burrowing into every hollow she could find.

"Howie," she said after a minute, "I'm sorry. I know the things you want to do to me and I guess this makes it a lot harder not to do them, doesn't it?"

"There ain't
nothin
' I want to do to you, Kari," he lied, "go to sleep."

"Yes you do. You like to see me without any clothes on whenever you can, but I know you want to do more than that. You want to now, Howie."

Howie ground his teeth. "Kari . . . just shut up and go to sleep. I don't want to talk about it." She's got to know what's happening to me, he thought helplessly. There ain't no way she couldn't!

Kari suddenly went rigid. "You're . . . going to, aren't you?" He caught the small edge of fear in her voice. "Even if I don't want you to. I can feel that and
I don't want you to do anything!
"

Howie shuddered and moaned to himself. He jerked roughly away and turned his back to her. She stayed away a long moment. He could hear her breathing, and thought she'd fallen asleep. Then she moved up against him again and her flesh was like fire.

"Howie. I'm sorry."

"You always been like this?" he asked harshly. "You didn't ever feel
nothin
' . . . with anyone?"

Kari hesitated. "Some . . . I guess."

"Where was that? In High Sequoia?"

She stiffened at his words. "What do you know about High Sequoia, Howie?"

"I don't know nothing. Pardo mentioned it once." "Pardo did. About me." She sighed against him. "Pardo always knew things you didn't figure on."

"What is there to know, Kari?"

"There isn't anything."

"All right …"

"Howie, it's a place is all."

"And you come from there?"

"No"

"But you said you'd . . . felt something for someone. I thought maybe . . .”

She gave a sad little laugh. "Not there, Howie. You don't
feel
things there. You feel everything and not anything. You're supposed to, anyway."

"That don't make much sense."

"I don't want to talk about it
any more
, Howie. Not any at all. Okay?"

Howie shrugged. He lay still and listened to the wind. He felt her heart beat against him and smelled her hair crushed up on the back of his neck. The cold ate into the place where his eye had been and made him want to bite his tongue with the pain.

He tried to think about something else. What they'd do the next day. They'd go south, maybe. Where it was supposed to be a lot warmer all the time. They'd get food, and clothes, and there wouldn't be any soldiers anywhere. He'd take them so far nobody there would even know about the war. He wondered if there was a place like that.

He was puzzled over what Kari had said—or hadn't said, really. Something pretty bad had happened to make her like she was. She hadn't always been like that. She just couldn't have been. And people didn't
have
to stay like they were, did they? They could change, and be something different. And Kari just had to. Because whatever she was, there wasn't anyone else he wanted. Not anyone.

"Kari?" he said softly, "you awake?"

"
Uhmmmm
," she said sleepily.

"Kari, I think we ought to circle around real wide tomorrow, 'til we get pretty far from the city. Then I want us to head south. Real far, where it's warm. That all right with you?"

"It's fine with me, Howie," she told him. "Whatever you think."

She pressed warmly against him and wrapped one arm around his chest. In the
half darkness
he could look down and see the dim whiteness of her fingers on his shoulder.-He knew it didn't mean anything at all but he could imagine that it did. "What happened to you, Kari," he said suddenly. "Damn it I'm sorry, but I got to know that. I got to know what it was."

She stiffened slightly but didn't move. "You can't leave anything alone, can you Howie?"

"Not that I can't."

"
Pardo
didn't tell you!'

"He didn't tell me nothing but High Sequoia. I don't even know what it is."

Kari was silent a long moment. "It's a place where you can get whatever you want, Howie. That's what it is. Whatever you want if you got the goods to pay. The best- whiskey and food and everything else." Her voice was distant, as if someone else were talking and not Kari at all. "My daddy taught me how to fix guns. He was the best there was till the sickness took him. A man from High Sequoia saw me shopping in the market. I was going on twelve. I didn't get away for four years. A man bought me and took me off. Me and a horse and two guns that didn't work. I fixed one of the guns for him and killed him and ran off."