The words: “Fuck the winners.”
They climbed out of the arroyo at the same point at which they had entered it, and just as they emerged, there came from the west the high-pitched scream of sirens. They stood on the flatland, and seconds later three cars came very fast along the rutted trail — two black-and-white county cruisers and an unmarked black hardtop. One of the cruisers slowed and stopped near the two bodies at the foot of the slope, and the other two machines continued along the ruts.
A chattering, whirring sound reached their ears, coming from the sky to the east, and when they looked up they saw a dark shape — a helicopter — flying just to the near side of the golden rim of the sun, like an insect moving away from a naked light bulb. They looked back to the wheel ruts as the cruiser and the black hardtop drew abreast of them, came to shuddering halts one behind the other. Doors were flung open, and men burst out and began to run toward them across the rocky flatland.
The helicopter was very close now, the sun reflecting off the transparent glass bubble beneath its rotors, coming directly overhead. The hot turbulence generated by its spinning blades was somehow soothing on Jana’s face, billowing her dust-grimed hair, the tattered remains of her clothing. It really is over, she thought with a kind of wonder, it’s finally over. And then her eyes turned to Lennox and she thought: No, it’s just beginning.
He took her hand, held it tightly, and they started toward the approaching men.
Walking now.
Walking together.