Louis opened his eyes after a broken sleep. For a second he did not know where he was. He remembered falling asleep with his shoulder against the wall and the rifle across his knees. At some point, one of them had taken the rifle and helped him onto the bed. He did not remember who. He lay half on the edge of the mattress with his injured leg bent at an uncomfortable angle. Jennifer lay stiff beside him, with Gladice on his other side. All three were under the same blanket.
Angelique stood beside the bed with her hair tied back and the hunting rifle in her hands.
“It’s time,” she said.
The sky beyond the windows had begun to turn gray. The fire had gone out, though the stove was still warm.
Gladice opened one eye, saw Angelique, and shut it again at once. “Fuck. Already?”
“Yes,” Angelique said.
Gladice sat up with a low groan and swung her legs off the bed. Jennifer was already awake. When Angelique stepped back, she sat up and smoothed the front of her wrinkled nightdress.
Louis pushed himself up, turned, and lowered his feet to the floor.
“How long did I sleep?” he asked.
“Two hours.” Angelique handed him a mug from the table. “Glads and I covered the rest of the night.”
“Thanks.”
She nodded. “Drink. We need to move.”
He took the mug and drank. The water was cool and flat. He drank half, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Jennifer watched him, then looked at Angelique.
“Where are we going?”
“South,” Angelique said. “It will be a long walk.”
Gladice stood and stretched. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and find a truck to steal.”
“We should not count on that,” said Angelique.
“Never said I was counting,” Gladice said. She pulled on her shoes, laced them, and went to the stove. She poured the remaining water from the kettle into her cup and drank it.
Angelique brought in the baguette she had left behind the back seat of the car and set it on the counter. It was stale and dusty. They opened the cans with Angelique's knife and ate standing. Louis brushed the dust from the baguette and broke it into four pieces. The beans tasted bland and metallic. The Spam was better than he expected. They passed the spoon between them and ate without speaking. When they finished, they took turns using the outhouse while the others packed the backpack and Jennifer’s valise.
Gladice slung the rifle over her shoulder and nodded toward the door. “One last look at the car.”
They stepped outside. The sky had begun to lighten, but the track and the trees remained dark. The rear corner of the tarp was still folded back from when Angelique opened the rear door. She and Gladice pulled it down again and tucked the edge beneath the car. Louis remained by the cabin wall and watched the lane through the trees with the pistol low in his hand. Jennifer held the valise against her coat and watched them.
“It holds,” Angelique said quietly.
“For ten minutes maybe,” Gladice answered. “Longer if no one comes looking.”
Angelique straightened and looked south through the pines. “Let’s move now.”
They left the cabin on foot. Gladice took point with the rifle held low across her chest. Jennifer followed her, then Angelique. Louis stayed a pace behind them and slightly to one side so he could watch the ground and the lane behind them. The trees and brush soon blocked the cabin from view. The track was little more than old tire ruts covered with pine needles and a strip of thinner growth between them. Gladice followed it for only a few minutes before turning into the pines, where the fallen needles softened their steps.
For the first several minutes Louis heard only the scrape of Jennifer’s shoes, Angelique’s skirt brushing the undergrowth, and the tip of his cane sinking into the pine needles. His foot caught a root once. His injured knee twisted, and he drew a sharp breath before recovering his balance. As the sky lightened, he began to see the ground around them. Pines and low scrub covered most of it, with sections of wire fence and wet soil in the lower areas. They crossed a drainage ditch on a fallen trunk. Beyond it, the ground flattened and the trees grew farther apart.
Gladice raised one hand and dropped into a crouch. They stopped. At first Louis heard nothing. Then he caught the faint sound of an engine behind them. Gladice looked back and motioned them down. They moved off the track and lowered themselves into a shallow channel cut by rainwater. The engine grew louder. It sounded like a truck. It came up the lane they had just left and slowed near the cabin turnoff. Louis heard no doors open. The engine idled. He could not see the vehicle from the ditch, but its headlights moved between the tree trunks.
He heard men talking, though they were too far away for him to make out the words. Jennifer lay motionless beside Angelique. Gladice rested on one elbow with the rifle along the edge of the ditch, pointed toward the lane. The engine revved once, then moved forward again. A beam of light crossed the lower tree trunks thirty yards away and disappeared. After several seconds, the truck continued down the lane. The engine receded southward, then stopped again farther ahead.
No one in the ditch moved. They waited a full minute before Gladice lifted her head and whispered, “Let’s move on.”
Louis got back to his feet and put his weight on the injured leg. It supported him for the moment. Jennifer’s breathing was fast. The sky had turned gray. In another hour, anyone crossing open ground would be easy to see. The trees grew farther apart, and sections of the path appeared again. They crossed a wire fence where the bottom strand had sagged and followed a shallow ditch for a quarter mile. Louis kept quiet about his knee as long as he could. When they reached a stretch of scrub and coarse grass, his injured leg buckled. He caught himself on the cane, but the others stopped.
Gladice turned at once. Louis straightened before anyone could step toward him. “I’m fine.”
“Tell it to your knee,” she said.
He did not answer. Angelique looked at Louis, then at the weight he was putting on the cane. The sun had not cleared the trees, but there was enough light to see across the open ground. Anyone near a field or road could also see them.
Gladice looked south, then west. “At this speed we don’t make the border before full day.”
Louis knew she was right. Accepting it meant abandoning their plan to reach the border before daylight. He said, “Then we need a better way to move.”
Angelique said, “Agreed.”
Jennifer looked between them. “Then what do we do?”
Gladice answered first. “We find another vehicle.”
Louis said, “Or a phone.”
Gladice turned toward him. “You want to call your father? From here?”
“Yes.” Louis faced her. “He’ll send a rescue team.”
“To where? We don’t even know where we are.”
“He can find us.”
“With what, a magic compass?”
“If I can give him coordinates, he will get us.”
Gladice stared at him. “How do you intend to get coordinates?”
“We find the nearest town. We find a phone. We call.”
Gladice started to answer, then stopped. Louis already knew her objection. If they entered a town and were recognized, the police might reach them before any rescue team.
Angelique spoke before Gladice could answer.
She nodded toward Louis. “We have to risk something.”
Gladice looked at Angelique. “You think we should call?”
“I think we should head south until we find a town and see what we can do from there. Either a vehicle or a phone.”
Jennifer’s hands tightened around the handle of the valise. She looked from Gladice to Angelique, then to Louis.
Gladice exhaled through her nose. “Fine.” She turned to Jennifer. “What is your vote?”
Jennifer blinked. “My what?”
“Your vote. You are one of us now. So say what you want.”
Jennifer looked lost. “I don’t—I don’t know what is best.”
“That’s okay,” Gladice said. “Say what you feel.”
Jennifer swallowed. “I want to go home.”
“That’s not a vote.”
“I don’t want to be here anymore,” Jennifer said, her voice rising slightly. “I don’t want to walk through fields and woods while men with guns are looking for us.”
“Okay.” Gladice nodded once. “That’s a vote. So we try for a town.”
Louis looked at Angelique. She nodded. He said, “South then.”
Gladice started walking again. The others followed without speaking. Louis put more weight on the cane and thought about what would happen if they had to run. He would slow them down almost at once. After half an hour, they reached the edge of the trees and found a county road. They crossed it and entered the brush on the other side, keeping close enough to follow the road without stepping onto it.
Gladice kept the rifle ready. No vehicles passed, and no patrol appeared. The longer the road remained empty, the more Louis expected to hear an engine. Then he saw a low roof beyond the scrub, a leaning signpost, and a gravel lot with one vehicle parked in it. At first he thought it was another abandoned shack. Then he saw a gas pump beneath a narrow awning and a board-fronted store or bait shop attached to it. An old four-door pickup had been backed into the lot at an angle beneath a leaning utility pole. He stopped so abruptly that Jennifer nearly ran into him.
“Over there!” He pointed toward the store.
Gladice followed his gaze and swore under her breath. He studied the road, the gravel lot, and the distance between the scrub and the building. There was little cover between them and the station.
“Is it open?” Angelique asked.
“Let’s find out,” Gladice said.
They moved closer. The sky was bright enough that the scrub no longer concealed them completely. The pickup remained parked beside the building. Louis lowered himself into the scrub, bracing on his cane. The others followed. From there he could see the pump, the store windows, and the pickup. The truck could get them off the road, and the building might have a telephone.
“We rob it,” Gladice said. “Shoot anyone who isn’t us on sight.”
Jennifer turned toward her. “What?”
Gladice kept watching the station. “We take the truck, clear the office, strip whatever matters, and leave before anyone up the road notices we were here.”
Angelique said, “You want to kill whoever is inside?”
“We are in enemy territory, Angel. You don’t walk up and say please.”
Jennifer turned fully toward Gladice. “You can’t just—”
“Jenny.” Gladice cut her off. “This is a war. If you want to live through it, you do what you have to do.”
Jennifer stared at Gladice, then at Louis. He held her gaze. He remembered her in her room, holding out the stolen master key in the moonlight. Now she was waiting for him to answer.
He said, “There may be another way.”
Gladice turned to him. “What way?”
“We split up. Someone goes in and causes a distraction while the rest of us get to the truck and start it. If we’re fast, we can be gone before they know what happened.”
Gladice rested the rifle across her knees and kept watching him. “You want to send a woman in alone.”
“I will go,” Louis said.
“Are you joking? You can’t even walk.”
“I don’t need to run to cause a distraction.”
Gladice started to answer, but Angelique spoke first.
“He is right,” she said. “If we split, it will work. Louis goes to the office. The rest of us get the truck.”
“And if they shoot him?” Gladice snapped.
“They won’t.” Angelique did not raise her voice. “Not at first. He looks too much like he needs help. If they ask questions, he gives them just enough to keep them interested. Meanwhile we take the truck. Then he comes out.”
Gladice stared at her. “And if he doesn’t come out?”
“Then we follow your plan,” Angelique said. “We will finish it.”
Gladice looked from the pickup to the office, then along the road.
“You’re both insane.”
Jennifer said, “Please don’t do this.”
“Someone has to,” said Louis. “We can’t walk much farther.”
She looked at him and then back at the station. “What do I do?”
Gladice glanced at her. “Stay with me and Angelique. Move when we do. Be fast.”
Jennifer nodded. “Okay.”
Louis tightened his grip on the cane and studied the ground between the scrub and the office door. The station was fully visible in the morning light. If they waited much longer, someone inside might see them first. He stepped out of the scrub and started toward the station.
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