Reamde

“Oopsy daisy,” she said, nodding.

They had slowed to a brisk walk, but he deemed it a reasonable risk; it was important for her to know how to work this thing. He got the harness untangled from his clothing and handed her the gun, noting with approval that her index finger went naturally to the right place. “Pull the forearm back a little and you can see that there is a shell ready to fire,” he said.

“Shell equals bullet.”

“Shell is a word we use to mean a piece of ammunition, but here it’s not a bullet. It’s a lot of little balls.” He used his hands to pantomime them spraying outward. “Very powerful. But you have to be close, or the balls will spread out and miss the guy.”

“How close?”

“Twenty meters or less. And it helps if you aim it.”

She looked at him, not sure if he was being sarcastic. “I’m serious,” he said. “Put it to your shoulder, keep your cheek on the stock—the handle—and look down the barrel. Both eyes open.”

Yuxia came to a stop so that she could practice this, taking aim at a tree about ten yards away. “I want to shoot it,” she remarked, finding it funny and fascinating that she wanted this.

“Someday you can come to my family reunion and do all the shooting you want,” he promised her. “Not now. We only have four shells. And we don’t want Jahandar to hear us.”

“Okay, I guess I’ll give it back to you,” she said, sounding quite sullen. He looked sharply at her, and she flashed a grin. Fooled you!

“Probably a good idea,” he said. “He’ll shoot the one with the weapon first. Then you have to take it from me, and hide, and wait for him to come close.”

This remark seemed to take all the joy out of the situation, so they picked up the pace now and devoted all their attention to covering ground. He was surprised by the apparent speed with which they made it back to the spot where he had parted company with Zula earlier. This seemed like a natural place to take a break, or at least slow down, and take stock of their situation.

“I am glad I had so many free waffles,” Yuxia remarked, eyeing Richard.

“I’m running on fumes,” he confessed.

Yuxia didn’t seem to find this very reassuring. Richard straightened up and patted his belly. “Fortunately, I have a lot of stored energy.”

Yuxia gazed clinically at his gas tank.

“In another half an hour or so, we’ll be at a trail. A long climb up many switchbacks.”

“Switchbacks?”

“Zigzags. At that point, you should probably go on ahead. I’m just going to slow you down.”

“Who gets the gun?” she asked.

He thought about this question for a few moments. His brain was tired and working slow.

Then he understood that the question wasn’t meant to be answered. It was an impossible choice. They had to stay together.

Which meant that he needed to get off his ass.

“Thank you,” he said, and forced one foot to pass in front of the other.

“Is this where Zula went?” she asked him.

“I hope so. But Jones and the others probably followed her.”

“And now we are following them.”

“And Jahandar is following us.”

“If that is true,” Yuxia said, “I hope Seamus is following Jahandar.”

She seemed enormously comforted by that idea, so Richard held his tongue rather than speculate about the mountain lion that might be serving as the death train’s caboose.

“I am sooo glad Zula is alive,” Yuxia said, a few minutes later. Richard got the clear idea that she was trying to get his mind off how exhausted and sore he was. “I thought she was dead. I cried so hard.”

“So did I.”

“I asked her questions about her family,” Yuxia said, “but she did not answer very much. Now I get it; she didn’t want the others to hear such information.”

“Smart girl. She didn’t want them to know about me.”

“We found out about you later,” Yuxia said. “Big game man.”

“Yes. I am a big game man.” Being stalked by a big game hunter.

“Tell me about your family,” Richard suggested.

“Aiyaa, my family! My family is sad. Sad, and maybe in trouble.”

“Because of what happened to you?”

“Because of what I did,” she corrected him. “It didn’t all happen to me.”

“When the story comes out,” he said, “it will all be fine.”

“If we don’t get killed,” she corrected him, and picked up her pace so dramatically that he lost her in undergrowth—her camouflage outfit was very effective—and had to break into a jog for a few paces.

“Look, someone left clothes!” she announced a long sweaty while later and tugged on a loose sleeve that was peeking out from beneath a fallen log.

“Zula’s,” he said, catching up with her and recognizing the garment. “She ditched all the stuff she didn’t need. Getting ready for the climb.”

“The climb is next for us?”

“It starts now,” he said, and stepped past Yuxia, bushwhacking through a few more yards of undergrowth until he broke in upon the switchback trail.