Chapter 10

The two of them and Bear were far down the mountain, hunting rabbits or squirrels or anything else the dogs would eat. They stopped, and sat on a hollow log, and had some jerky for lunch. Clipper fed the dog and they talked and laughed and argued, and Clipper teased her gently.

“Girl. You ever kissed a boy? Other than me?”

She just stared at him like she couldn’t believe he’d just asked her that. She didn’t turn red or anything, she just stared. He felt stupid, and wished he’d kept his mouth shut. She is not a simple teen-age girl, he told himself. She is something much more complicated. Be more careful with her. Then, she surprised him.

“Hell, yeah,” she said.

Shit. Now what, he thought. Confession time?

“Wait.” she said. “Did you say kissed, or kicked?”

“Heh.” he was relieved. “You never kicked me, silly.”

“Not yet.” she said, standing and turning, backing up a foot to a good kicking distance.

He had just opened his mouth to say something, to be a smart-ass, when he saw the look on her face as she stared over his shoulder. His guts turned to ice. He knew instantly they had been caught with their pants down.

Girl slowly raised her hands until they were even with her shoulders. Her face was whiter than he’d ever seen it before. Her eyes were wide with fear. He slowly, carefully turned his head as far as he could. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the figure of a man standing behind him. A man, holding something. Shit, he thought. Oh shit.

He slowly raised his arms too, without any idea of why, other than that Girl had raised hers, and it seemed like a good idea because of that. He desperately wished the pistol in his belt was in his hands, but it was not, and he didn’t see how he could have drawn it without it being obvious. He knew either a bow or a gun was aimed at his back, just from the fact that Girl had raised her arms.

He slowly stood in a half-crouch, and turned, looking at the man. You goddam bastard, he breathed to himself, staring at the man. You son of a bitch.

The man looked genuinely crazy. He had a beard, a wild unkempt beard. Shit. More crazy folks. The hills were full of them, lately. The man’s hair, what of it he had, stuck out in every direction. His clothes were ragged, one leg torn completely off the jeans. He was grinning widely and somewhat insanely, and his teeth looked like a row of Corn-nuts. He was wearing an ancient, rotted pair of Nikes. Before-the-Fall Nikes. Jeezus. Clipper hadn’t seen Nikes in fifteen years.

Clipper saw all that in an instant. But that was not what really scared him. What really scared him was the Russian-made assault rifle in the man’s hands. An AK47. Sweet jeezus, he thought, an AK. He’d actually owned on of those, back somewhere in the mists of time. Where did this motherfucker get a goddam AK, he wondered. It even had a huge clip on it. Shit, thought Clipper. I am fifty-five years old, and this is the first time I remember ever looking down the muzzle of a gun like this. That guy with the .22 that time, that little hole? I didn’t even notice it. But this? Damn. What a hole that thing has. What a giant freakin’ hole in the end of it. A cannon. It looked like death to him. Not as obviously death as a double barreled shotgun might have, but death none the less. True death.

The man still hadn’t spoken. He giggled, hysterically, though. That is not a good sign, Clipper thought. Clipper slowly moved, trying to shield Girl with his body. The man did not like that. Rage flooded his face, and he shook the gun with his bony hands and leaned forward like he was fixing to absorb some recoil from the weapon. Oh shit, thought Clipper. Is that going to be my final thought? Oh shit?

Something exploded from the log beneath his feet, and was over the log and into the air. The man fired the weapon, but the dog already had his arm in its mouth by then. The shot went harmlessly into the air, the sound echoing and rumbling down the mountain. The man and the dog went over backwards and by the time Clipper got over the log and retrieved the gun it was pretty much over. Bear stood over the man, panting, his sides heaving and his muzzle bloody. Clipper saw balls of dog hair floating away on the breeze.

A huge flap of skin was torn from the man’s neck, and blood sprayed from it as the man writhed on the ground. Wordless noises and bubbling came from the hole in his throat as he struggled less and less. Girl smashed into Clipper’s body from behind, and he brought her around and hugged her to his body, dropping the gun to the ground. She looked at the man, and then looked away. He held her. There was absolutely nothing he could do for the man.

Finally, after what seemed like forever the man no longer moved. Blood had ran down the sides of his neck and soaked the short grass beneath him. It no longer pumped out, though. The man was dead.

“Son of a bitch!” said Clipper. He just stood there dumbly, staring at the man and the dog.