Mando shook his head, limped to us. “Can’t,” he said. “They shot me.”
We stopped and sat him down in the dirt. He was crying, he had his left hand up to his right shoulder. I lifted his hand away and felt the blood run over mine.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Steve cried.
“It just happened,” Gabby said roughly, and pushed me away. He put his arm around Mando’s. “Come on, we got to get him back as quick as we can.”
By the distant light of the last flare I could make out Mando’s face. He was staring at me as if he had something to tell me, but his mouth only jerked. “Help me carry him,” Gabby rasped, his voice cracking. I could feel the blood soaking the back of his shirt. Steve picked up his pistol and we were off. We could only take several steps at a time before some beam or collapsed wall stopped us. “We’ve got to stop him bleeding,” I finally dared to say. It was running inside my sleeve and down my arm. We put him down and I ripped my shirt into strips. It was hard getting the compress tight over the bullet hole. By accident I brushed the wound with my fingers: a little tear under the shoulderblade, on his right side. It wasn’t bleeding fast. Mando still stared at my face with a look I couldn’t read. He didn’t speak. “We’ll have you home in a jiffy,” I said hoarsely. I stood up too fast and staggered, but Steve helped us get him up, and we were off again.
The center of San Clemente is one big ruin, no plan or pattern to it, no clear way through. Gabby and I carried Mando between us and struggled along, while Steve ranged forward pistol in hand to find the best way. Sirens cut through the wind’s shrieking from time to time, and we had to hide more than once to avoid roving bands of scavengers. Gunshots echoed in the clogged streets. I had no idea who was firing at who. A wall fell in the wind. We hiked into dead ends more than once. Steve yelled instructions back to us but sometimes Gabby and I just picked the easiest way; this caused Steve to yell more, in a high desperate shout. Calls came from behind us and Gabby and I lowered Mando to the ground, stuck in the middle of the street. Three scavengers approached us, guns in hand. Steve ran up and fired, crack crack crack crack! All the scavengers went down. “Come on,” Steve screamed. We picked Mando up and staggered on. Dead ends made us backtrack and after a long time trying to find a way we caught up to Steve sitting in the road, houses collapsed all around us, wind and gunfire beyond, no way forward—our way blocked by a giant mare’s nest of bones.
“I don’t know where we are,” Steve cried; “I can’t find a way.” I prodded him to take my side carrying Mando, grabbed his gun and ran across the street. Through trees I saw the ocean, the only mark we really needed when it came down to it. “This way!” I called, and hopped over a beam, dragged it out of their path, ran down and got another fix on the sea, picked a road, did what I could to clear it. That went on and on, till it seemed like San Clemente had stretched out all the way down Pendleton. And scavengers on the prowl, setting off their sirens and guns, howling with glee at the hunt. They put us to ground more than once; I didn’t dare shoot at them because I wasn’t sure how many they were or how many bullets were left in Steve’s gun, if any.
While we cowered in the dark of our cover I did what I could for Mando. His breath was choked. “How are you, Mando?” No answer. Steve cursed and cursed. I nodded to Gabby and we got Mando up again. I left Steve to carry him and went out scouting. Scavengers gone, at least out of sight, that was all I wanted. I set to finding a way again.
Somehow we got to the southern end of San Clemente, down in the forest below the freeway. Scavengers were roaming the freeway; we heard their shouts and occasionally I saw their shapes. The only way across San Mateo River was the freeway. We were trapped. Sirens mocked us, gunshots might have marked a skirmish with the San Diegans, although I suspected Gabby was right and they were long gone, on their boats and under way. They wouldn’t be back to help us. Gabby had Mando resting on his lap. Mando’s breath gurgled in his throat. “We got to get him home,” Gab said, looking at me.
I took the bullets from my pocket and tried to fit them into Steve’s gun.
“Where’s your gun?” Steve said.
The bullets didn’t fit. I cursed and threw the pouch at the freeway. In the dirt we sat on was a rock I could just fit my hand around. I hefted it and started for the freeway. I don’t know what I had in mind. “Bring him up close to the road and be ready to move him across San Mateo fast,” I told them. “You go when I tell you to.” But a series of explosions blasted the freeway above us, and when they ended (burnt powder smell blown by) it was quiet. Not a scavenger to be heard. The silence was broken by the sound of a vehicle coming up the freeway from the south. A little whirrr. I crawled up the shoulder of the road to take a look at it. I jumped out of the road to wave at him. “Rafael! Rafael! Over here!” I screamed, the words tearing out of me like no others ever had.
Rafael rolled up to me. “Christ, Hank, I almost shot you dead there!” He was in the little golf cart that sat in his front yard, the one he swore he could make work if he ever found the batteries.
“Never mind that,” I said. “Mando’s hurt. He’s been shot.” Gabby and Steve appeared, carrying Mando between them.
Rafael sucked air between his teeth. “Put him in back.”
Scattered shots rang out from up the freeway, and one spanged off the concrete near us. Rafael reached into his cart and pulled out a metal tube, held by struts at an angle on a flat base. He put it on the road and dropped a hand-sized bomb or grenade (it looked like a firecracker) in it. Thonk, the tube said hollowly, and a few seconds later there was an explosion just off the freeway, about where the shots had come from. While Gabby and Steve got Mando in the cart Rafael kept dropping grenades in, thonk, BOOM, thonk, BOOM, and pretty soon no one was firing at us. With a final burst of three he jumped in the cart and we were off.
“When we go uphill, get out and push,” Rafael said. “This thing won’t carry all of us. Nicolin, take this and keep an eye out to the rear.” He handed Steve a rifle. “How about more bullets,” Steve said. Rafael gestured at the floor beside him. “In the box there.” We hit the steep hill at the very south end of San Clemente, and pushed the cart up it at a slow run. Sirens wailed off the hills; I could make out three different ones, wavering at different levels as the wind tore at their sound. We made the rise and rolled into the San Mateo Valley. I cradled Mando’s head and told him we were close to home. There were faint shouts behind us, but now we were moving faster than men on foot could. We reached the rise to Basilone Ridge and Rafael said, “Push again.” He was calm, but when he looked at me his eye was hard. When we reached the top of Basilone rise Steve cried wildly, “I’m going back to make them pay!” and he was off in the dark, back up the freeway to the north, rifle in hand. “Wait!” I shouted, but Rafael struck my arm.
“Let him go.” For the first time he sounded angry. He drove the cart to his house and jumped out, ran inside and came back out with a stretcher. We got Mando on it. His eyes were still open, but he didn’t hear me. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. Gabby was huffing beside the stretcher as Rafael and I carried him. We struck out through the forest, traversing the side of Cuchillo to get to the Costas’ as fast as possible. I stumbled and groaned, and Gabby took over my end. We got to the Costas’ place. Wind whistled over the oil drums; there was no way they could have heard us approach. Rafael propped the stretcher against his thigh, banged the door like he was out to break it. Wham. Wham.