Ahern, Jerry - The Nightmare begins

She pulled up on the reins. Tildie slowed and stopped, bending her head down low and browsing the ground. Sarah Rourke looked behind her. Michael was riding her husband's horse Sam by himself now, and Millie and her own daughter Annie were riding Carla Jenkins' mount and Ron Jenkins' appaloosa was carrying most of the cargo. It was a better arrangement for the animals, and every few hours she swapped horses with Michael to rest Tildie from her weight. It would be several more days before they reached Mt. Eagle, Tennessee and tried searching for Millie's aunt who had a small farm there. Earlier in the day, Sarah had tried questioning Millie about where the farm was, but the girl had remained silent, just as she had been since the death of her parents the previous night. At the back of her mind, Sarah Rourke realized that if the girl did not respond, trying to find her surviving family would be hopeless. And by leaving Georgia, Sarah thought bitterly, she was cutting down on her own chances of reuniting with her husband. She had concretized the idea in her mind that John Thomas Rourke was still alive, out there somewhere and looking for her even now. She realized that if she once abandoned that idea she would be without hope.

She could not see any value in a life of constantly running from outlaws or brigands, living in the wild like hunted animals. She bent low over the saddle horn. The pains in her stomach were increasing in frequency and severity. It wasn't the time of the month for her period, though she supposed it possible she was having it early. But the cramps were somehow different anyway. She had tried the water near the one town they had passed, she recalled. Something had been odd-tasting and she had kept the children and the horses from it and gone on.

Hours later, she had found bottled water in an abandoned convenience store and stocked up.

She turned quickly when she heard a noise from one of the horses behind her. It was Sam—her husband's horse. As she started to turn her head back, she doubled over the saddle, gagging, her head suddenly light and hurting badly. She started to dismount but couldn't straighten up, tumbling from the saddle onto her knees on the ground.

"Momma!"

"Mommie!" The last voice was Annie's. Sarah started to push herself to her feet, wanting to say something to Michael. She pulled on the base of the left stirrup near her hand, but as she stood she slumped against the saddle, colored lights in her eyes. She could feel the blood rushing to her head. Her hands slipped from the saddle horn and she tried grabbing at the stirrup but couldn't…

Chapter Twenty

Rubenstein sat in the darkness, watching the rising and falling of the strange girl's chest in the moonlight, listening to her heavy breathing, the Schmeisser cradled in his lap. His mouth was dry. He'd given up cigarette smoking two years earlier, but now having a cigarette was all he could think about. He looked at the Timex on his wrist. Rourke had been gone for more than an hour. "That woman keeps mumbling about a jeep," Rourke had said. "If there is one out there, that should mean food and water, maybe gasoline."

"But she wouldn't have left it if it hadn't been out of gas," Rubenstein had countered.

"People out here in the desert don't usually let themselves run out of gas.

Could have punched a hole in a radiator, severed a fuel line. Could still be enough gas to run these bikes into Van Horn. Otherwise, we've got a long walk ahead of us and we used our last water with her."

"You're the survivalist, the expert," Rubenstein had said, almost defensively.

"Can't you just go out there and find water?"

"Yeah," Rourke had answered. "If I take a hell of a long time doing it I can, and I can find us food, too— but not gasoline. Even if I discovered crude oil it wouldn't do us any good."

And Rourke had mounted up and gone, leaving the Steyr-Mannlicher SSG rifle with Rubenstein for added protection, the light-gathering qualities of the 3-9

variable Mannlicher scope that rode it something Rourke had labeled "potentially useful" if whoever had wounded the girl were still out there somewhere in the darkness. The thought of more violence-prone thieves didn't appeal to Rubenstein. He shivered in the darkness. The girl's body temperature was about normal, Rourke had said, and she wasn't really so much unconscious anymore as just sleeping, Rourke had cleansed and bandaged the deep flesh wound on her left forearm. Her right hand still had blood on it, but only blood from the arm wound, which Rourke had not washed away because of the water shortage.

Rubenstein shifted his position on the ground, hearing something in the darkness to his left. He turned and peered into the black, seeing nothing. He heard the sound again, pulling open the bolt on the Schmeisser, ready, his voice a loud whisper, saying, "I know you're out there—I hear you. I've got a submachine gun, so don't try anything."

"That doesn't do much to scare a rattler, Paul," Rourke said softly. Rubenstein wheeled, seeing Rourke standing beside the sleeping woman, the CAR-15 in his hands, the sling suspending the gun beneath his right shoulder. "Rattler—your body heat is drawing him. Move over."

Rubenstein took a step left. Rourke raised the CAR-15 from its carry position, drawing out the collapsible stock and bringing the rifle to his shoulder. "What are you doing?" Rubenstein said.

"I'm sighting with the iron—this kind of scope wouldn't be much good at this range."

Rourke shifted his feet, settling the rifle, and suddenly Rubenstein jumped, as Rourke almost whispered, "Bang!" then brought the rifle down and collapsed the stock.

"Bang?"

"Yeah—If I shoot that snake—unless he comes into camp and we have to, all I'm going to do is advertise to everybody and his brother we're here, we've got guns and we're stupid enough to go shooting at something in the dark. Keep an eye out for that snake and I'll bring my bike up."

"Why did you leave it?"

"What if something had happened, somebody'd wandered into camp and gotten the drop on you?"

''That wouldn't have happened,'' Rubenstein insisted, his voice sounding almost hurt.

"Happened to her," Rourke said slowly. "After I found her jeep, I backtracked it. I didn't figure I'd have to go far. There was a bullet hole in the radiator and in today's heat the thing couldn't have gone far without the engine stalling out. Dead man. Either her boyfriend or her husband and they just didn't believe in rings. Throat slit ear to ear. Four other dead men there—bikers, well armed.

Looks like our ladyfriend there shot all four but one of them."

"Maybe the other one's still out there," Rubenstein said.

"No condition to do anything to us—looks like she broke his nose and drove the bone up into his brain. Professional young lady. I found a jacket that looked like it was small enough to be hers—had an interesting little gun in it. The dead man with his throat slit was carrying a Walther P-38K. Pretty professional piece of hardware—the muzzle was threaded on the inside for a silencer. I found the silencer back at the jeep stuffed inside one of the tubular supports for the seat frame."

"Jesus," Rubenstein exclaimed.

"I don't think that was his name," Rourke said quietly, turning then and fading back into the darkness.

Chapter Twenty-One

Michael Rourke opened his dark eyes, squinting against the sun. His legs ached and he started to move, but then remembered the weight on his lap. He looked down at his mother's face, the eyes still closed. "Momma," he said softly. "Wake up—it's morning."

He looked across the flat expanse of ground and confirmed the rising sun. Millie and Annie were still asleep. The horses were still tied to the tree that he'd secured the reins to the previous night. Their saddles were still in position.