Neal Stephenson - Reamde

He was afraid that she was going to ask him whether he needed any help.

On one of those occasions, only a couple of minutes after they started running, she got an awed look on her face. Richard already felt as though he knew Yuxia, partly because of Zula’s description of her in the paper towel note. Her face was expressive and handsome, but not given to unguarded moments. Much of the time she had a keen and interested look about her, and frequently she flashed a knowing grin, as if enjoying a private joke. Frank astonishment was not something she would allow herself to manifest unless it was a really big deal. So Richard faltered and turned around, taking a couple of backward steps in an amazed, staggering gait. A mushroom cloud of yellow fire was turning inside out as it sprang into the air above the site of the chopper crash.

“I’m sure it’s okay,” he blurted out, turning back around and placing a gentle hand on her shoulder, encouraging her to get turned around and moving again. She recoiled, and not in a stop-harassing-me-you-dirty-old-man way. She had taken more damage in the chopper crash than she wanted to let on. When she did turn around, she did so stiffly, and Richard understood that the spryness he had been envying her for was at least partly an act, a willed refusal to show pain. Because she didn’t want men covering for her. Because chivalry sometimes came with a price.

“I didn’t get to know Seamus very well during the five minutes I spent watching the chopper crash and so forth,” Richard said, lengthening his stride and trying to draw the suddenly indecisive Yuxia along in his wake, “but he struck me as a smart guy who knows what he’s doing, and I don’t think that he would just hang around next to something that was getting ready to explode.”

She had started moving again, perhaps a little stung to see that a lumbering old man had gained several meters on her. He saw the stiffness in her neck now, the preoccupied look of someone who was working on a major headache.

“Listen,” he said, after a minute, “there’s no telling how long we are going to be running around in these mountains being chased by jihadists, and so I would like to introduce you to our new friend and traveling companion, Mr. Mossberg.”

Yuxia looked around theatrically, doing most of it with her eyes since the neck didn’t like to move. “I don’t see him,” she said.

“Yes, you do,” Richard said, and displayed the shotgun. Some part of him was aghast at the possible consequences of supplying Yuxia with a pump-action shotgun and the knowledge of how to use it, but, in general, this all felt right. “Have you seen these things in movies?”

“And video games,” she said. “You pull back on the slider.”

“Yeah. It’s called a forearm, for some reason. With this kind, sometimes you have to pull back hard—a soft pull doesn’t work.”

“It’s okay, I’m strong,” she said.

“Red, you’re dead,” he said, showing her the safety and flicking it back and forth a couple of times, alternately hiding and exposing the red dot. “Here, you try it. Just remember to keep your finger like this.” He showed her how he was keeping his index finger pointed forward along the side of the stock, not allowing it to touch the trigger.

“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.