"Ohh—you're getting stronger all the time—you know that?"
"You wanna feel my muscle?"
"Okay," she nodded, the boy raising his arms in the classic iron pumpers pose.
* 'Which one do you think is bigger—stronger? I think it's my right arm."
She felt the right arm, then the left—carefully. The biceps were hard, however diminutive. She felt the right one again. "I think the right one is stronger, too—but that
makes sense. You're right handed."
"Yeah," he nodded.
"Can I hold your hand?"
"Okay," he smiled, letting her take his right hand in her left.
They started to walk.
The last afternoon sun was low, the sky already reddening—the redness which seemed imperceptibly to increase bothered her—perhaps John would know why. She looked at Michael—he was tall, strong—she loved him.
She felt the pain before she heard the shot. She looked down—her left hand and his right were covered with blood.
"Michael!"
She smudged her right hand across their hands—the fleshy part of her left hand had a deep cut—it burned. The upper portion of Michael's right wrist, near where it joined the hand—a gaping cut there as well.
"Michael!" She dropped to her knees, gunfire everywhere now around her, ricochets humming maddeningly off vehicles and tent pegs and cooking pots. There was a whooshing sound. And an explosion to her far left—near the tent where some of the sick were housed.
The tent burst into flames.
A whirring sound—cutting the air.
She looked skyward—a helicopter—another helicopter —like the kind she had seen before, red stars painted over U.S. symbols—the Russians.
Michael's wrist. "Can you move it—"
He was holding back tears. "Yeah—it hurts!"
"Does it hurt to move it?"
"No—it hurts—hurts here," and he touched at the cut, tears welling in his eyes.
She ripped the bandanna handkerchief from her hair, binding it around Michael's wrist. The fleshy edge of her own left hand. She wiped it against the left thigh of her jeans, cleaning away the blood for an instant—her fingers moved, her wrist moved.
"Ohh, my God, were we lucky!" She pushed herself to her feet, grabbing the little boy by the shoulder. "Run, Michael—hurry!''
The helicopters filled the air like hungry insects above her, machinegun fire ripping through the dirt camp streets, men, women, children—running—dying.
The tent where her gear was—she needed to reach it.
"Come on, Michael—hurry—run!" She could see the tent, gunfire hammering the ground around it. Beyond the tent, at the farmhouse, she could see David Balfry, an assault rifle in his hands, blazing skyward. She heard the rumble of the trucks—She looked behind her. The furthest end of the street— Soviet troops, pouring from trucks, rifles in their hands, women, children—the resistance fighters—going down.
"Momma!"
"Gotta get to the tent!" She screamed the words, fear gripping her—she turned, seeing more of the Soviet troopers now, running down the street, killing, killing— killing everyone. Reverend Steel—he was outside his tent, holding a cross in his hands with a Bible behind it.
The top of his head exploded and the body fell.
She was at the tent. She pushed Michael inside. "Get everything of ours together—hurry—throw it in any way you can."
She stuffed her clothes, all the food she had—the spare ammo for her husband's ., the pistol itself—all of it into her knapsack. The picture—she glanced at it for an instant —her wedding dress—it had burned in the ruins of her house.
His tuxedo—it was gone as well. The picture— water stained, dirty, cracked. She shoved it in the knapsack.
"Momma!"
She wheeled, reaching unconsciously for the Trapper . on her right hip, thumbing .back the hammer, pointing the gun instinctively, the Soviet soldier raising the muzzle of his assault rifle.
She fired—the Soviet soldier's face exploded.
"Ohh, my God," she whispered.
She upped the pistol's safety, stuffing it back in the holster at her hip, then grabbed up her M-.
She worked the bolt, chambering the top round.
"Grab all the ammo," she shrieked, catching up the knapsack. She reached into her hip pocket, found her other, handkerchief and wrapped it around her left hand—the hand burned, was stiff—but she could move the fingers. She gripped the front handguard of the M-, her right fist on the pistol grip, the knapsack slung across her back.
"Come on, Michael—gotta find your sister—and Millie, too."
She pushed through the tent flap, stepping over the dead Russian soldier.
Gunfire from the helicopter above laced the center of the street, running men and women dying.
She pushed Michael ahead of her, "Toward the fence where the children play—hurry!"
Carrying a knapsack and a second sack loaded with ammunition and spare magazines, her son ran ahead of her, Sarah stopping to pump the trigger of the M-, catching a Soviet soldier in the chest. She started to run again, the whooshing sound—she guessed it was a mortar. The tent behind her exploded, the tents on each side catching fire, someone running from the nearest tent—she couldn't tell if it were a man or a woman, the body a living torch, screams shrieking from inside the flames.
She pumped the trigger of the M-—a long burst, the body tumbling to the ground, the screaming stopped.
She kept running, Michael ten yards ahead of her, already beside the fence. "Get through and onto the other side—hurry, Michael!"
The boy slipped through the fence, starting to run across the corraled area. She reached the fence, climbing up, rolling, half falling down, firing the M-into a knot of Russian soldiers too close to her, gunfire ripping into the fence posts and runners, the M-bucking in her hands, two of the Russians going down.
She rammed a fresh magazine into the rifle, stuffing the empty into her jeans waist band. She made to fire—nothing happened.
She worked the bolt, letting it fly forward. Nothing happened again as she fired.
One of the Russians remained. He was wounded, on his feet, running toward her.
She looked down at the rifle as she worked the bolt—the bolt wouldn't pick up the top round, wouldn't chamber it.
"Damn," she shouted.
"Damnit!"
The Russian was less than ten yards from her, his arms raising as he shouldered his assault rifle.
Sarah dropped the rifle, reaching for the Trapper ., thumbing down the safety, extending the pistol at arms length—she pumped the trigger once, then once again, then once again, the Russian's body stopping as though frozen, the assault rifle dropping from his hands as he lurched forward. She fired the .—again, then again, the slide locking open, the Russian falling, against the fence runners, his body hanging there, inches from her face.
She pushed the magazine release, taking the empty magazine and pocketing it, then finding the second loaded spare Bill Mulliner had given her. She stuffed it up the butt of the pistol, thumbed down the slide stop.
She picked up the malfunctioning M-in her left hand, backing away from the fence, the cocked . in her right fist.
"Momma!"
She looked over her shoulder.
Michael—and someone pulling him into the bushes.
She started to run, toward the far side of the corral, to the fence, through the fence this time rather than over it, the . extending ahead of her.
"Momma!"
It was Annie's voice this time.
She was ready to kill—but the red-haired head that bobbed from behind the hedgerow—Bill Mulliner. "Mrs. Rourke—come on!"
She started to run, the whirring of the helicopter rotor blades overhead. Instinctively, she threw herself down, __ machinegun fire tearing into the ground on both sides of her as she looked up, the underbelly of the green chopper passing over her head, the rotor sound fading.