Carefully, in no hurry, the sergeant walked clear of the porch, flicked off the safety and raised the pistol straight-armed before him. He waited until the copter swung away and was no longer over the girl, who still lay face down in the yard, then dropped the pistol sights onto the target and pulled the trigger.
Three times the recoilless.50 boomed, coughing out its small tangent flames, and the half inch, steel-cored slugs tore chunks of aluminum from the copter’s body. The whistle of the jets died and the blades slowed. Two more shots boomed out as it slanted sideways and fell into the maple grove behind the house and burst into flames. No one came out of the wreck.
“They were trying to leave the plague area,” the sergeant said, as he struggled to get the gun back into his holster on his right hip with his left hand. “So it meant I had to get the copter, too.” He looked unsmilingly at the dead policeman. “And Forson was a good cop.” His expression changed suddenly to a mirthless smile as he tapped an enamel and gold decoration that he wore above his shield. “First place in the pistol tournament— firing with either hand.” He started to sag and Sam caught him, led him toward the porch.
“Sit down and shut up while I put something on that hole.”
Legs sprawled before him, the sergeant sat silently while Sam sprinkled sulfa on the bullet wounds, then slapped on self-adhesive bandages. Dr. Stissing came hesitantly onto the porch.
“Finish this dressing, will you, Doctor,” Sam said, climbing to his feet. “I want to look at the others.”
The pilot was dead, the back of his skull torn away by a rifle bullet. The tanks on the copter blew up just then with muffled thuds and no one had emerged from the crumpled cabin: the men inside were beyond his help. Sam went over to the girl, who was still lying face in the dirt and sob-bing painfully.
“I’m a doctor—” he said, but when he touched her shoulder she shivered away from him and only sobbed harder. Sam wanted to move her into the house and examine her, but without using force: perhaps Stissing might be able to help.
“Doctor,” he called, “do you know this girl?”
Stissing, blinking nearsightedly, came down from the porch and bent to look at the girl’s face.
“Looks like the Leslie girl—” He moved her hands away from in front of her face. “Come on, Katy, stand up and let’s go into the house; there’s no sense in lying out here.”
With the doctor’s gentle urging she climbed to her feet and pulled her torn cotton dress about her, then let him help her inside. They passed the sergeant, sitting on the steps and scowling fiercely at the wreck of the copter, and went into the parlor, where Katy dropped onto the couch. Sam went to find some blankets while Stissing made an examination.
“Nothing serious, physical that is,” Stissing said afterward, out of the girl’s hearing. “Scratches, contusions, what you might expect in a rape and assault, I’ve had them before. That’s not my big worry. The girl saw her father killed; he’s a widower and they live alone, the other side of town. These men broke into the house, looters she said, from somewhere in Jersey, drunk and nasty, and when they started to fool around with her, her father swung on them. Killed him, right in front of her, set fire to the house, probably burnt, I never saw or heard of anything like this before, not around here…”
“We saw the house on the way in, leveled to the ground. Something will have to be done about these patients of yours.”
“Phone’s out,” the sergeant said, coming out of the house. “Not the wire either, I checked that. We better be going.”
“You’re in no condition to go anywhere…”
“It’ll take more than that little bullet hole to strand me up here in the woods.”
“You can take my car,” Stissing said, “it’s in the barn. I’ll stay here with Hadley and the girl until you can get some help from the county hospital. They can bring the car back.”
“Sorry, Doctor,” the sergeant said. “But those bowbs got to your car first. Pulled out the ignition. Only way out of here is by walking.”
Sam thought about it for a moment. “You’re probably right. There can’t be many of these looting gangs around or we would have heard about it, so we shouldn’t run into any more. You’ll be safe enough here, Dr. Stissing, just keep the windows and doors locked and we’ll get some help to you as soon as we have contacted the local police. Let me get my bag, Sergeant, then we can go.”
“One thing first, Doctor — if you don’t mind. Could you undo my belt and slip my holster around to the left side so I can get at it easier? Be a big help.”
They walked in the center of the road, going back toward the town. The first house they passed had all the shades pulled down and was sealed up: no one came to the door, even when they knocked loudly. At the next farm, a red brick building set back from the road, they had a response even before they knocked — a gun barrel protruded from the partly open window on the porch.
“Just stop there,” the unseen man behind the gun called out.
“I’m a police officer,” the sergeant said with cold anger. “Now put that weapon away before you get into trouble.”
“How do I know what you are? You got a city cop’s uniform on, but I never seen you before. You could of stolen it. Move on — I don’t want trouble.”
“We want to use your phone, that’s all,” Sam said.
“Phone’s out, trouble at the exchange.”
“Do you have a car—”
“I got a car and it’s staying right here in case I need it, now get moving! You may have the plague from space for all that I know and I’m not talking any more — move!” The gun barrel wiggled up and down.
“Strategic retreat,” Sam said, taking the angry sergeant by the arm and pulling him away. “There’s nothing here worth getting shot for.”
“Rubes!” the sergeant grumbled.
The town of Stonebridge was sealed as tight as the farmhouses and there were no cars in sight. They continued through it and toward the highway just a mile down the road. They heard the sound at the same time, coming from somewhere ahead, and they stopped, the sergeant with his hand on his gun.
“I’ve done enough duck hunting to recognize that — it’s a shotgun.”
“Two of them — sounds like a private war.”
“If you don’t mind, Doctor, I’ll walk in front since I’ve got the only weapon.”
They went along the shoulder of the road, close to the trees, as silently as they could. There was another farm ahead, half seen through the trunks of the oak trees, and running figures. A woman screamed and another shot sounded. The sergeant had his gun out and a cold smile on his face as he slipped forward.
“Looks like this time we’re here when the trouble is just starting…” He raised his gun.
There was a truck parked by the side of the road, its outline through the leaves strangely familiar to Sam. He ran forward and deflected the sergeant’s gun arm.
“What are you doing? Those are looters…”
“I don’t think so — isn’t that an Army half-track over there?”
Once around the bend they could see the olive-drab truck clearly, with the leafy branch framed globe insignia of the UN stenciled on its armored side. They passed it and turned into the farmyard where the screams had turned into a gasping sob. A burly corporal was embarrassedly holding a woman by the shoulders while she cried into the apron raised before her face. A lieutenant was supervising two soldiers who were spreading poison grain in the chicken run behind the house. Next to it was another wire enclosure with an open gate and on the ground outside the scattered bodies of a number of turkeys, while another of the birds was perched on the branch of the oak tree to which the ropes of a children’s swing were tied. A soldier below the tree raised and fired a repeating shotgun and the pellets tore the bird from its perch. The shot echoed away into silence among the trees until the woman’s muffled sobbing was the only sound. The officer turned around when they approached: like the other soldiers he had a New Zealand flash on his shoulder. His eyes jumped quickly from the bandaged police sergeant to Sam’s white clothes and black bag.