Early Byrd (14 page)

That was why Rapput was still inside the
cave, or at least that was what he wanted us to think. But as far
as I could tell it was also the best place available for a cripple
to fight from, and I was beginning to get the idea that it wouldn't
have been honorable for him to allow his newly-adopted nephews to
fight his battles for him unsupported.

"Murphy!" the officer whispered once the
heavy weapons people had signaled their readiness. "It's your time
now, sergeant. Scout it out!"

Murphy smiled in the darkness—his teeth
showed up extra-white because his skin was so dark. So far he was
the only black man I'd seen in the Free State army. Certainly he
was a fine soldier; he handed his rifle to a friend, dropped to all
fours, and completely disappeared. He didn't turn invisible or
anything like that. What I mean is that at first when he dropped it
took him out of my line of sight. After that, I never picked him up
again. He must've moved like a shadow! But the wind was behind him,
and Rapput wasn't the sort to fail to cash in on little mistakes
like that. Li had said human troops were always unpleasantly
surprised at the Artemu's natural night-fighting ability, and I can
only suppose poor Murphy was equally shocked. One instant I
couldn't see anything but the entrance to the cave, then the next
there was a blur and scream. Two screams, really. One human, and
the other something . . .

. . . alien.

"Murphy?" the officer demanded after a long,
long silence. "Sing out, Murphy! We can't see you!"

Then something round and dark came sailing
through the air toward me. I flinched away, but needn't have. The
projectile rolled gently to a halt at the officer's feet.

It was Murphy's head.

At first I was as shocked as anyone—my jaw
dangled as if by a thread, and I felt my eyes bugging wide. Then my
mind began operating again, and I lowered my head back to the
ground so my relatively clean face wouldn't reveal me.
All life
is a battle,
I heard Rapput's voice say,
and everything is a
potential weapon with which to gain advantage.

"I . . ." the officer tried to say, his
voice laden with revulsion and terror and worst of all indecision,
"I
don
’t . . ."

"
Fire!
" a new voice declared, this
one tinged with rage as counterproductive as the officer's terror
had been. "Fire, fire, fire! Kill them all!"

Then the peaceful mountain night was well
and truly shattered. An ear-splitting volley of mixed full-auto
military and heavy magnum-class hunting rifles erupted into the
night, belching flame and superheated metal. Even one high-powered
hunting rifle was normally enough to turn my ears inside-out; now a
whole slew of them were blasting away as quickly as their bolts and
levers and whatever could be worked. With the military rifles going
all-out as well, I wanted to make my hands into claws and dig into
the ground like an animal to hide from the painful racket and hug
myself into a ball until the pain was gone and sanity returned to
the world.

But I didn't. Instead I lifted my short
shotgun, lined it up on the officer's back, and pulled the
trigger.

I hardly heard the thing among all the
noise, but the kick! Oh heavens almighty, the kick! Fire erupted
from my shoulder as the dozen or more pellets of the double-ought,
high-brass load splashed into not just the officer's back but also
that of the woman standing beside him. Lying on my belly put me in
a poor position to absorb recoil in the first place, and I knew
from watching Dad shoot that even a full-grown and properly-braced
man would've had difficulty dealing with the aftermath of the
hellfire I'd just unleashed. But I was only half done; suppressing
a moan I swung the barrel to the right, where four Free Staters
stood clustered in a tight group. I didn't even feel it when I gave
them the second barrel, or at least I didn't right at first. Three
of them fell in an instant, while the fourth clutched desperately
at his chest for a moment before falling as well.

Then I was up and gone before the rest could
recover, running downslope as best I could with my right side from
almost the hip up burning like fire and what felt suspiciously like
the broken ends of bones rubbing together inside my shoulder.

23

The men chasing after me bellowed obscenities I'd
never heard before in hot-blooded fury, while here and there
bullets popped and sang as they whipped through the foliage. My
shoes squished with fresh blood, and I bit off scream after scream
for fear of offering my enemies a better target—not that I was able
to suppress them entirely. My every step was matched with a deep
stab of shoulder-agony, causing a whimper that threatened to
explode into a full-throated cry at any second, and which I
swallowed down only with the most terrible of efforts. The joint
felt like it was filled with
broken glass.

Perhaps a hundred yards down the mountain I
finally had the presence of mind to stop and reload my weapon. Not
that I wanted to use it again—if I'd never seen another firearm
until I died of old age, that would've been fine with me. While
both my brother and I had plenty of shells, I had only one shoulder
left.

For the first time since I'd taken off
running, I took a moment to stand still and think instead of
blindly fleeing. Upslope, the Free Staters were still blazing away,
which in turn meant Rapput remained trapped in the cave. But it was
all a waste of lead; the niche was deep enough that nothing could
hurt him unless someone came in close. This in turn required a
carefully coordinated effort between the firebase and assault
party. With the commanding officer dead—I was quite certain he was
a goner—and everyone else in a state of panic after being fired
upon so unexpectedly from behind, well . . . Most likely the
Staters were scattered all over the mountain by now, imagining
saber-toothed Artemu behind every shrub and firing blindly into the
darkness. As if by confirmation, I heard something large running
down the slope not far off the path I myself had just taken. I
pushed my back up tight against a tree . . .

. . . and whoever it was went dashing
headlong by, unleashing bursts from the hip with something fully
automatic.

Most of the fire still seemed to be coming
from uphill, however, and presumably some sort of order would
eventually be re-established. Until then, Rapput was fairly safe.
Only Timmy and I were in danger.

I looked around again, this time far more
thoughtfully and carefully than I had before. If my brother and I
were able, Rapput had explained, we should try to meet up at an
old, gnarled cedar tree we'd passed on the way up during the last
vestiges of daylight. It was a memorable tree in the mostly pine
forest, and therefore a good landmark. But . . .

Where was I?

I almost broke out weeping, I was so
miserable. My feet were in ruins, my shoulder was worse, and I'd
had to abandon my comforter, the sole warm garment I possessed. It
was also getting nothing but colder, and I didn't have my uncle to
snuggle up to anymore. But . . . But . . . But . . .

Instead of crying I sighed, tucked my
useless hand into my waistband, and at random began staggering
cross-slope to my right. As Dad often said when there was work to
be done, the tree wasn't going to find itself.

I'm not sure how long it took to find the
cedar—I don't remember much of the trip and what I do recall is a
sort of a nonsense-nightmare in which the trees became dead Artemu
Freestaters and Timothy was a ferocious hunting dog and I was a
wounded buck left lost and alone to die the slow death after being
wounded by a careless hunter too lazy to follow a blood trail.
Somewhere along the line I recall firing the shotgun some more,
this time with the stock braced against a tree trunk, and reloading
it over and over. That part was probably real because Tim says I
was bleeding from a bullet crease in my neck when we finally found
each other, and a medium-caliber slug had also passed cleanly
through my right upper arm without doing any serious damage. Plus I
was nearly out of ammo. But that was later—all I really recall is
stumbling down the hill on benumbed, bleeding feet, crippled arm
flapping about like an agony-generating shoelace.

"J
eez!"
Tim greeted me, face pasty white in the
blackness. I heard a distinct click as he engaged the safety on his
weapon. "You look awful, Robert!"

I didn't have the energy to answer. So
instead I first wobbled about a bit, then collapsed at his feet.
When I woke up again, we were lying close against a rock face and I
was feeling the most desirable sensation in the universe on my
face. Could it be real? Yes, I decided when I opened my eyes, it
could. What I was feeling was the warmth of a tiny but rapidly
growing campfire, and it was wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!

"Jeez!" Timothy repeated when he saw me
blink. "I was scared it was too late!"

I
sniffed
at the smoke, and then coughed uncontrollably. Tim
scowled at this but made no motion to stop me. "They'll find us," I
rasped
at last. "Smoke
.
Light."

"Smoke, yes," Tim agreed. "Light, no—we're
right at the edge of a cliff, and the light only shows on the
drop-off side. By the way, be extra careful if you decide to go for
a walk!"

I gurgled my appreciation of his sense of
humor—at the moment I didn't think I'd ever take another step
again.

Tim shuffled closer and looked me over. "You
must've been in a real fight!"

I looked away. "Don't remember any of it.
Honest."

My brother nodded. "Well . . . while you
were out of it I scouted your backtrail in case someone was
following. It looks like a whole squad was doing exactly that,
until you bushwhacked them but
good
." He shook his head in admiration.
"Maybe you
should
be the one to carry the best gun."

I coughed again. "This fire . . ." I
complained, too drained to say more.

"You'll die without it. Maybe me too." He
was quiet for a moment, the crackling and spitting of the fire
filling the silence. "You really, really scared me, Robert. I
couldn't even tell for sure if you were breathing. So the fire
stays. Get as warm as you can while you can—I'm going to keep
watch. If someone comes, I've found another good place for us to
hide."

I nodded back. "Thanks, Tim."

"Don't mention it," he replied. Then he was
gone.

My twin was right; the fire probably
did
save my life. The longer I absorbed its warmth, the
better I felt. Not that things ever got to the point of being
anything resembling wonderful, mind you. The shivering messed with
my shoulder, and soon the bullet wound in my arm throbbed as well.
But my
feet
! The more they thawed, the worse they hurt. It
felt like I was walking a bed of hot coals over and over again but
couldn't stop no matter what.

I was stiffening up too, which neither Tim
nor I had anticipated. It didn't matter much until after
I-don't-know-how-many hours my brother eased up silently beside me.
"There's three coming this way," he hissed. "They smell the
smoke—I'm sure of it."

"Right," I agreed. Then I tried to sit up .
. . and couldn't.

"Come
on
!" Tim urged. "We have to move
fast!"

I tried again, but neither my legs nor my
good arm did much in the way of responding. Sure, they twitched in
the direction I wanted them to go. But the pain, oh the pain! It
washed over me like the waves on an Atlantic beach I'd once visited
with Mom while Dad was working in Washington and Tim was recovering
from having his tonsils out. I'd had Mom all to myself for almost
the first time ever; the sunshine had been golden, the water warm
and wet and supportive . . .

"Robert!" Tim said
. "Come
on
!" Then he reached down
and tried to shake my shoulder.

The injured one.

"Aaaaaah!" I screamed, leaping
to my feet and
instinctively bending over into a pathetic crouch designed to
protect my most-hurt parts. I'd probably given away our location to
anyone within a thousand yards. But at least I was up and moving
again.

"Come on, Robert," Tim urged in a gentler
voice, reaching out as if I was many years his junior and in need
of his assistance crossing the street.

"I'm fine!" I snapped, slapping the offered
hand away. It was bad enough that he was a few minutes older than
me so that he got to cup my head in his hand before class every day
instead of me cupping his; there wasn't any need for him to keep
rubbing in the 'older brother' thing. "Where are we going,
anyway?"

"You're going to love it," Tim replied,
though his usual grin was absent. He pointed into the distance.
"The cliff runs that way. Be super-careful. We're going to hide
right on the edge."

I nodded and followed, now
feeling
ashamed of all that Tim had
accomplished without me. He'd dragged me into a safe place, built a
fire, nursemaided me, and located yet another good place to hide.
Meanwhile, I'd done little more than lie moaning in the dark. Well,
I acknowledged to myself, apparently I
had
been involved in
a second firefight somewhere along the line, and even done pretty
well in it. But did that count in my favor if I couldn't even
remember it?

Soon Tim led me to the cliff's edge, as
promised. It wasn't as dangerous as I'd been warned to expect,
because by now the eastern sky was light enough to clearly reveal
the drop-off. The morning fog was thick, so the only thing visible
was a wall of gently-glowing white that indicated where the
mountain and trees weren't. But it was far better than not being
able to see at all.