The Nightmare begins Page 4
referring to. But they were already in the mountains, she realized, and she
wondered if Jenkins' enigmatic references had been to the Smoky Mountains of
Tennessee rather than the mountains of northwestern Georgia. Leaning back in the
saddle, trying to press her spine against the cantle to relieve the aching, she
realized that if Jenkins intended to take them out of Georgia she would not go.
On the chance that her husband, John, was still alive—and somewhere she told
herself, as she had told the children repeatedly, that he was— chances would be
slimmer of his finding them if they left the state and the area around the farm.
She knew that her husband's survival retreat was in these mountains somewhere,
and if they stayed in them it would only be a matter of time, if—when, she
reminded herself—he came for them, before they would meet. But the farther
Jenkins took her away from the northeast Georgia farm she and the children had
called home before the night of the war, the slimmer the chances would be.
They had viewed some towns from a distance, and many had looked as though they
had been looted and burned. Once, several hours back, they had hidden quietly as
a gang of brigands, on motorcycles and driving pickup trucks, had gone down
along a road they had been about to cross.
Sarah's mind flashed back to the night of the war, and to the morning after and
the gunfight when she had killed the men and the woman who had tried to harm her
and the children. Her spine shivered and she twisted involuntarily in the
saddle, her eyes drifting to the much modified AR-15 rifle she had taken from
one of the dead men. Her husband's Colt .45 was still in the trouser band of her
Levis and she shifted it—the automatic was rubbing against her flesh and it
hurt.
Checking the reins for Sam knotted to her saddle horn, she loosed them again and
pulled her husband's horse after her as she passed Carla Jenkins' bay and rode
up alongside Ron. "What is it, Ron?" she asked again.
"Down there—another town," he answered.
Sarah looked where he pointed, catching a loose strand of hair and tucking it
under the blue and white bandanna covering her head. Her hair felt dirty to
her—she had not washed it since the morning before the war. There hadn't been
enough water and there hadn't been any time.
It was already nearly dusk and she couldn't see clearly at first in the
sunlight-obscured shallow valley below them, but after a moment, as her eyes
became more accustomed to the dimness, she could make out the scene unfolding
there. It was the brigand gang they had seen several hours earlier. The faces
were strange when she had seen them from quite close then, but even discounting
that, she had known they were not from the area. People in Georgia were, by and
large, good-natured, gentle people. As a northerner in a strange part of the
country she had learned that years earlier. And these men and women in the small
town below them were not gentle. Some of the old frame houses on both ends of
the main street were already afire. The bulk of the gang of brigands was in the
center of the town. Looking down into the shallow valley, she was too far away
to make out individual actions, but—rather like large ants—she could see them
moving from store to store in the small business district. Because of the
clearness of the mountain air, she could even hear the sounds of smashing glass
from the shop windows. She could hear shots as well.
"Those people were fools to stay in their town," Jenkins observed to her.
"Well, can't we do something, Mr. Jenkins?" The formality of the way she
addressed him shocked her.
"Well, Mrs. Rourke," and his voice emphasized her name, "I'm no weapons expert
like your husband was."
"Is—Mr. Jenkins."
"I doubt that. I think he bought it during the war. Atlanta I figure is just one
big crater right now and you said yourself he was supposed to be landin' there.
But I ain't like him whether he's alive or dead—I'm just an army veteran tryin'
to get along. I can handle a gun as good as the next man, but I'm not about to
go racin' on down there and be a hero 'cause all I'll be is dead and you and my
wife and daughter and your kids then is gonna be just on your own. And that
ain't right. I got a responsibility to my family and to your family. And I take
that pretty serious."
Involuntarily almost, she reached across and pressed Jenkins' hand. "I'm sorry,"
she said softly. "You've right, I guess."
She glanced back over her shoulder and noticed Carla Jenkins staring at her.
She took her hand away from Ron Jenkins' hand.
"What are we going to do, then?" she asked him.
"I think we're gonna just sit tight up here and see which way them folks decides
to go after they finish their business down there. Then we'll move out in the
opposite direction. Carla's got a sister up in the Smokies there around Mount
Eagle and I reckon that should be a pretty safe place to go."
"But that's in Tennessee, Mr. Jenkins—I can't go there!"
"Mrs. Rourke. Now listen," and Jenkins for the first time faced her, turning in
the saddle and getting eye contact with her. "I don't know what's under that
scarf and all that hair and everythin' and hidin' there in the back of your
pretty little head, ma'am, but you can't just sit out here in the mountains and
wait for your husband to appear out of nowhere now and rescue you. You got them
two kids to look out for same as I got my wife and daughter. Once things calm
down a might after everythin' gets settled, you can always look for your husband
then. But if you decide on stayin' in these mountains with the likes of them
down here," and he gestured toward the pillaging in the town below them, "you
ain't gonna last a day—and that's a pure fact."
"But my husband will never find us in Tennessee."
"Your husband is dead, Mrs. Rourke—and I wish you'd wake up and see that."
Sarah Rourke looked at him suddenly, pulling the bandanna from her head,
realizing it was giving her a headache. She said, her voice low and even, "John
is alive, Mr. Jenkins. I've been telling that to my children and I believe it
myself. He spent his whole life learning how to stay alive and I know he did
somehow. And I know that somewhere now wherever he is he's thinking about me
and about Michael and Annie and risking everything to get back here to us. And
I'm not going to betray him and run out. I'm not. He's alive. John is alive and
you can't tell me otherwise, Mr. Jenkins. And I'm not going to Tennessee with
you or anyone else."
She twisted the bandanna in her hands, then stared down into the valley. As the
sunlight ebbed, she could see the fires at both ends of the town much more
clearly.
Chapter Seven
All Ron Jenkins had said to her and to his wife, Carla, was, "I'm goin' on down
into that town there. I won't need my horse—you keep it close by and saddled and
ready. I figure they might have some water and some other things down there I
reckon we could use just as soon as letting them down there to rot."
Carla Jenkins had thrown her arms around her husband and tried to s
top him, but
one thing Sarah Rourke had learned about Ron Jenkins was that once he made up
his mind he wouldn't change it. She remembered her own husband being like that,
but now, since the night of the war and her experiences that following morning,
she felt that perhaps she should have changed hers. She had hated the guns he
kept, practically called him a fool for building and stocking his survival
retreat. Yet, guns had kept her alive so far, and now the survival retreat she
had loathed the thought of seemed to her a sort of haven of normalcy as she sat
there in the dark, huddled with the children, their heads on her lap.
There could be no fire, the brigands having left the town only a few hours
earlier and still perhaps close enough to see a fire and come and investigate.
She couldn't sleep, though she was tired. Her body was beyond sleep, she
thought. She watched Carla Jenkins. Carla—who talked too much usually—was silent
as a grave, her daughter Millie's head cradled on her lap. Carla—less than a
yard away from Sarah—just sat staring out into the darkness.
The sound came again, and the shiver up Sarah Rourke's spine came again as well.
It was a scream, from the town below them in the darkness of the valley. A
scream, but an unnatural-sounding one. She knew the sound, having worked as a
volunteer in a hospital where she'd first met John Rourke. It was a man
screaming. She had heard the sound in the hospital emergency room too often. She
had met John, thought little beyond the fact that his lean face and high
forehead and dark eyes and hair looked attractive and that he had apparently
noticed her too. Years later, when their lives had crossed again, they had
dated, talked a lot and married eventually. It had taken both of them some time
to recall the chance meeting years earlier. They had laughed about it.
But now, as the scream came for a third time, the memory of each moment shared
with her husband was like a cocoon to which she could withdraw, even if just for
an instant.
Finally, when the scream came a fourth time, she eased the children's heads from
her lap, pushed the hair from Michael's eyes and moved nearer to Carla Jenkins.
"I think one of us should go and see, Carla."
Sarah whispered, afraid that even the slightest noise might attract the
brigands.
"I can't," Carla answered, her voice barely audible.
"I can go," Sarah said, bolstering her courage and simultaneously cursing
herself for having said it.
"No—you mustn't. Ron will be back soon."
"But someone is screaming down there, Carla. It might be that something has
happened—"
"No—he is just fine. Now you let things be."
Sarah Rourke sat back on her haunches, staring at Carla Jenkins, seeing the
face, watching the lips move even in the darkness between them—but hearing
herself. She couldn't say to Carla Jenkins, "You're being a fool—your husband is
in trouble down there. The brigands must have come back— they're killing him."
She couldn't say that without admitting to herself that perhaps the thought of
John Rourke coming for her and Michael and Annie was just a fantasy.
"I'm going," she said finally.
"I don't want you to."
"Watch Michael and Annie, Carla—I have to—" but Sarah Rourke didn't finish the
sentence. The scream came for a fifth time, only weaker but longer in duration
now. She stood up, checked the .45 Colt Government Model in her waistband and
went back to Michael and Ann. She nudged Michael. "Michael— I need you to wake
up."
"No—I wasn't asleep. Just a—"
"Now Michael—you're like your father! The slightest noise in the middle of the
night and you're wide awake. Try to wake you up in the morning and it's like
World War—" She stopped, her mouth still open. My God, she thought! How we used
to joke about it. She tried waking Michael again and this time he sat up.
"Now, are you awake?"
"Yes," he said, his voice not sounding that way to her.
"All right—I'm going down into the valley to see if Mr. Jenkins is all right. I
don't want to wake up Annie, but if she does wake up keep her very still. If she
makes noise those bad men who burned the town there could find us. Do you
understand, Michael?"
"Yes, I understand. But why do you have to go, Mom?"
"Somebody has to go—Mr. Jenkins might be in trouble down there."
"Do you have your gun—so you can shoot them if you have to?"
She looked at her son, running her fingers in his hair. His hair, his face, even
the dark eyes that because of the night she couldn't quite see were exactly like
her husband's. She was coming to understand that so was his logic. "Yes, I'll
take my gun. Just listen to Mrs. Jenkins and do what she says unless—" and Sarah
Rourke looked over her shoulder, watched Carla Jenkins staring into the
darkness, rock rigid. "Unless what she says doesn't sound right—do you
understand what I mean?"
He screwed up his face, looked away a moment, then said, "I think I do—if she
tells me to do something dumb, I shouldn't do it?"
"Right—but think—just think and otherwise do what she says."
He leaned up and put his arms around her neck and she kissed him, barely
touching her left hand to her daughter's head in fear of waking her. "Take care
of Annie—remember you're the man," she said.
Sarah Rourke reached down and took the AR-15, checked the safety and pulled the
bandanna down a little over her ears. She blew Michael a kiss and started away
from the campsite. She half thought of taking her horse as a quick means of
escape, but the noise the animal would make might give her away, she reasoned.
The legs of her jeans—bell bottoms— caught continuously on the brush as she
moved as silently as she could into the woods on the slope and down into the
valley. She stopped after a few hundred yards and rolled up the cuffs of her
pants. She heard another scream; by now she had lost count. She remembered
reading a western novel her husband had bought once. In it, the Indians had
taken the scout captive and were torturing him throughout the night and into the
early morning, just to unnerve the settlers hiding in the circled wagon train.
They had tied the man to a wagon wheel and roasted him over a fire. The thought
of it still caused her to shudder.
She stopped in her tracks, then dropped to the ground, hugging the AR-15 to her
chest. She was less than a hundred yards from the main street of the town now
and could see the center of the street clearly. She could see a half-dozen or so
of the brigands—and at their center she could see Ron Jenkins. At least she
supposed it was Ron Jenkins. She heard the scream again and almost screamed
herself.
One of the men—a tall black man with no sleeves on his coat—had a jumper cable
in his gloved right hand, the cable leading to a storage battery on the ground a
few inches from Ron Jenkins' feet. When he touched the end of the cable to
Jenkins' body, Jenkins twisted against the ropes binding him to the front bumper
of the pickup truck, shuddered, then screamed again.
Sarah Rourke looked ca
refully on each side of the center of the street and saw
no one—just the four men and two women torturing Ron Jenkins. One of the men was
black, as was one of the women. There was another pickup truck parked a few
yards away from the one to which Ron Jenkins was lashed, but it appeared empty
to her. She moved the selector of the AR-15 to the unmarked full-auto
position—the gun had been illegally altered by the man she'd taken it from.
She got up to her knees, then rose to her feet, the rifle snugged to her
shoulder.
"Don't move—any of you. I've got you covered with an automatic rifle," she
announced at the top of her lungs, "Now step away from him!"
"Well, well," the black man shouted back, turning to face her. "We cut your sign
earlier—figured if we grabbed your man here you'd soon come along to get him.
You can have him too, all we want is your horses—and maybe somethin' else. He
don't look like much for a girl like you—tits like I bet you got under that
T-shirt I guess could set a fella like me just on fire, sweet thing." The black
man laughed, then started walking toward her. "Now, gimme that ol' gun before I
whip your white ass with it for being bad to me, hear?"
Sarah Rourke touched her finger to the trigger of the modified AR-15 and shot
the black man in the face, then brought the muzzle around and started firing at
the remaining three men and two women. They started to run, only one of them
starting to shoot back at her. She fired at him and he threw both his hands up
to his face.
She shot one of the women in the back as the woman tried making it into the
pickup truck, shot another of the men in the head as he jumped into the back of
the furthest truck, which was already in motion. The black woman was in the cab.
The last man was running to catch it and Sarah fired, a three-shot burst which
she felt—oddly—proud of herself for being able to control. She'd drawn a
three-point bullet hole line across the man's back and he'd fallen forward on
his face as the truck had sped away.
She almost automatically changed magazines for the rifle, set the selector back
to safe and took the pistol out, her thumb over the raised safety catch, the
hammer cocked. She ran to Ron Jenkins, glancing over the dead as she did to make