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year for mushrooms and berries. There were some roots that could be eaten, but without a shovel of some kind to dig them with, the energy expended to get them would exceed their nutritional value. Maybe if I pace myself, I can keep going most of the night and tomorrow, she told herself. By then I will have found a road, or a house. With that goal firmly in mind she began again, but was forced to stop after less than a hundred feet when her lower back arched in a sudden muscle spasm. She cried out and rolled herself over onto her back and tried not to scream as the pain racked her. When, after taking several deep breaths it didn t release, Stix summoned the last of her will and reaching down, grabbed her leggings and pulled her legs up to her chest. Slowly her back began to ease up. She was able to reach the limb of a huckleberry bush and use it to pull herself over on her side. She pulled her gloves off with her teeth, worked her skirt down over her butt, and then, unbuttoning her coat, pulled her legs tight against her chest and buttoned her coat again. She felt her legs. They were ice cold. Not a good sign, gal, she told herself. She spent several minutes examining her legs and feet. They felt like ice, but still had feeling, as much as they ever did. She stayed curled up like that for an hour, occasionally arching her back to limber it up, rubbing her legs as much as her position would allow. While she lay there, she allowed herself five minutes of self pity, two why me s and one This isn t fucking fair! Then she unbuttoned her coat and straightened her legs out. No cramps. Good. When she went to put her gloves on she found that she d dropped them when she took them off and they were laying in a sodden, ice-cold mass under her. It took five precious minutes to wring them out and warm them under her coat enough that she could wear them without losing the feeling in her fingers. She made good time down the open ridgeback for twenty minutes STIX 169 before she stopped to check her legs. They were still warm but she had lost the bottom button on her coat and her leggings were ripped in two places. Blood oozed from a gash just above her left knee. She stopped, rolled on her side and again pulled her knees up to her chest and buttoned herself into her leg-warming fetal position. She used a pen she found in her coat pocket to poke a hole in her coat where the button was missing, then used the pair of fingernail clippers to cut the end off of one of her shoelaces. She threaded the shoelace through the hole she d made in her coat and let it stay there until she was ready to move again, then she tied it through the buttonhole. An hour later she had crossed the back of the ridge and was angling down a steep side hill when she froze. She sniffed the air. Smoke! She pulled a glove off and put her index finger in her mouth to wet it. Then held it up as far in the air as she could. There was a slight breeze coming from her left. She pulled her glove on and turned that way. Part way down the slope she crossed an opening. The rough grass was covered with a thin layer of ice. She stopped in the middle of the opening and rolling on her side looked up at the stars. The sky was ablaze. While she lay there a shooting star curved through the heavens. She grinned and said, Hi Dad. Another hour and two stops later the smell of wood smoke was fairly strong, but she still hadn t seen any lights. Stix stopped at the bottom of the slope and again went through the routine of warming her legs. By now the bottom three buttons had been replaced with pieces of shoelace, lengthening the process by fifteen minutes. Her arms were shaking so bad from fatigue that she was almost unable to retie the strings. While lying there trying to force her fingers to obey their commands she saw a light. It was bobbing up and down. So he comes with flashlight in hand to die. Off to her left were two more flashlights. She shivered. It had to be the evil elves. In spite of the situation, Stix grinned at her wit. Her father had taught her to always look at the weird side of things. And to make a joke at a time like this was definitely weird. Stix pulled herself toward the light until she found a rotten log. Up until this point, she d hated them, as she had to detour around 170 DAVE MEAD them. But now it would give her both cover and a place to brace herself. Once in position, she pulled her gloves off and carefully took out her gun. She took the time to pull her legs up under her coat for warmth. As the lights got closer, Stix thought of her father, sitting in the sun on his bench. For the first time since his death, she didn t want to be with him, not yet she didn t. As much as she had loved him, he was gone, she was alone. When the man was twenty feet away, she said, I love you, Dad, and pulled the trigger. The light flew up and back, spun twice in the air and went out when it hit the ground. In front of her she could hear someone gagging. The other two flashlights were immediately turned off. She could hear someone moving toward her, then he stopped. The one she shot moaned and then began to scream. She knew the other two could move without her hearing them and also home in on her for as long as the one in front of her continued to scream. She said, May God forgive me, and aiming by sound, pulled the trigger twice. She heard the distinctive sound of a bullet hitting flesh, and then there was complete silence. George? someone called. Stix recognized the voice. It was Ray. It s us. Dan and me. Again there was silence. Come on man! You can t use all that coin by yourself. We re partners. It s just us three now. While he was yelling for his partner, Stix was listening to someone moving closer to her, trying to get around behind her. It would have to be Dan. She waited, trying to remember what she d seen of the ground cover in the light from the dead man s flashlight before she d shot him. Again the one who must be Ray Piper began to yell for George. Only he wasn t, Stix realized, yelling for George, he was providing cover for Dan. Stix took the extra clip out of her pocket and held it between her teeth while she followed Dan s movements by ear. When he was about where she remembered that there was an opening, she emptied the nine-millimeter into the night. She popped the clip out and slid the full one into its place. STIX 171 Then grinned, in the muzzle flashes she d seen the figure of a man doing a death s dance to the tune of the bullets from her gun. Ray was silent now; he d seen the last of his partners die and now he was alone. Alone to take the information the crippled bitch had and fade into the warmth of unlimited wealth. He smiled at the thought. She was going to be easy. They all were. He moved like a cat, in spite of his wound, circling around behind her and then slowly, carefully, moved down to where he d last seen her. He picked up a stick that he found when he stepped on it and threw it toward her hiding place, expecting her to fire her gun, scream or at least try to crawl away. Nothing happened. He threw another stick with the same results. While he stood there a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |