[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

frustration, that neither of them had been left unlocked.
So far, unbelievably, the disturbance he and June had made in getting out had
failed to draw the attention of any of their guardians.
He was going to have to get away on foot, or not at all. He waved and shrugged
at June, and she waved at him, and made fierce shooing motions with both arms.
The silent message was plain enough: Go on, get out of here! You're not doing
me any good by staying
.
Before finally heading out, he ran back to where June was sitting, to get the
plastic bottle of water they had brought with them from the kitchen. Had there
been any time, he would have stuffed some food in his pockets but there was no
time for food. He knew enough about the desert to realize that water meant
life and death.
"He clutched her hand once more, exchanged with her a silent pledge of fierce
intensity, and then was gone.
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kru...s%2009%20-%20A%20Sharpness
%20on%20the%20Neck.html (289 of 389)23-2-2006 17:54:44
Saberhagen, Fred - Dracula 09 - A Sharpness on the Neck (v1.0) (html)
Watching, sitting huddled against the building, still clutching her ankle,
June held her breath, her whole being tensed against the impact of an alarm
that had not yet sounded.
* * *
Philip was on his way, running in a crouch at first, bending low until he'd
put a rise of ground between himself and the mobile homes. Still there was no
alarm.
lie could get his overall bearings by the sun, but as he wasn't sure in which
direction they had been driven to reach this place, knowing north from south
was not immediately helpful.
Keeping to low-lying land as much as possible, he clung fiercely to the few
remembered clues he had to determine by what road or route, from which
direction, the van had approached the house on the night he was brought here.
But the effort seemed hopeless.
Every few minutes he had to fight down a wave of frantic emotion, in which he
wanted desperately to turn back, at all costs not to leave his wife alone. But
each time he reminded himself savagely, with all the conviction he could
muster, that the course he was following was the only sensible one. The only
chance he had of doing June any good at all.
He trudged on across country. There was only one visible road, no more than a
pair of ruts dead-ending at the front yard of the mobile homes, and he kept it
intermittently in sight. But for the time being he avoided getting too close
to the road. Any travelers on it might very well be some of Graves's people.
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kru...s%2009%20-%20A%20Sharpness
Page 142
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
%20on%20the%20Neck.html (290 of 389)23-2-2006 17:54:44
Saberhagen, Fred - Dracula 09 - A Sharpness on the Neck (v1.0) (html)
Before Phil Radcliffe had walked or trotted more than a mile, his heart gave a
jump at the sight of a pickup truck approaching. Still almost a mile away, he
could see the vehicle only by faint plume of dust raised by its passage in the
hot dry air. The driver might, of course, be Graves himself. Well, he'd have
to take that chance.
Long minutes passed before Phil thought he might be close enough to signal.
Though he tried frantically waving his arms, the truck failed to stop for him,
or even slow down. He thought he might not have been close enough for the
occupants to see him. Anyway, who was going to stop in the middle of nowhere
for a lunatic thrashing his arms about? Next time he'd make one simple,
appealing gesture.
Philip trudged on, expecting at any moment to see signs of pursuit from the
collection of mad people he had left behind.
The sun was already merciless, his hat was already saving his life, and his
single bottle of water was not going to last him for many hours. Maybe it was
just as well there weren't two people sharing it.
The good news was that no signs of pursuit had yet appeared. He trudged on,
trying to turn up his speed a notch.
The fugitive consumed a little of the water he had brought with him. He tried
to remember whether it was supposed to be better to drink your water freely or
ration it out.
Soon he was close enough to the real road to see it quite plainly as a
distant, whitish streak, marking the course of some kind of commerce between
ranches
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kru...s%2009%20-%20A%20Sharpness
%20on%20the%20Neck.html (291 of 389)23-2-2006 17:54:44
Saberhagen, Fred - Dracula 09 - A Sharpness on the Neck (v1.0) (html)
or farms, he supposed.
More little plumes of whitish dust came into being, showing the presence of
vehicles. First one plume, then ten or fifteen minutes later another, creeping
in the opposite direction. Hiking that road, he wasn't going to have to worry
about getting run over in the traffic. He wondered whether he should turn
right or left
(north or south?) when he reached it-Even getting within shouting distance of
potential traffic seemed to take hours. With every sloping of the land, the
road disappeared and then rose again above the western-movie vegetation.
At last he felt he was so close to the road that the occupants of the next
passing vehicle could not fail to see him.
But it turned out that seeing him and stopping for him were two different
things.
On the first try, and the second, waving and yelling did no good.
His heart leaped when the second or third vehicle he tried to flag down, what
looked like a converted school bus, repainted in military-looking camouflage,
did stop for him, pulling an impulsive U-turn in the sand to do so.
A long-haired young man, dressed in baggy pants and a reversed baseball cap,
opened the door and politely asked if he could offer him a ride. Three or four
other faces looked out through a variety of windows.
"You can. You sure as hell can."
At first glance the people in the bus looked a little rough, perhaps, but at
least none of them were wearing masks. They seemed reassuringly normal after
Graves and his companions.
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kru...s%2009%20-%20A%20Sharpness
%20on%20the%20Neck.html (292 of 389)23-2-2006 17:54:44
Page 143
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Saberhagen, Fred - Dracula 09 - A Sharpness on the Neck (v1.0) (html)
He got in with a great sensation of relief, slammed the door, looked at the
expectant faces around him, and asked to be taken to the nearest phone because
he had to call the police. God, have I got a story to tell."
"Sorry, we don't have a phone in the bus. But we'll take you to a place where
you can call."
Someone else said: "And we'd sure like to listen to your story." To emphasize
his point, he was gesturing with a very real-looking automatic pistol.
And only then did Radcliffe notice all the weapons.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Within a few hours Marie Grosholtz, a woman in her early thirties, well
dressed within the bounds of Revolutionary fashion, and attractive in her own
way but bearing little personal resemblance to Melanie, appeared at the door
of Philip's cell with a guard for an escort. When the door had been unlocked
the guard performed brusque introductions, as of one citizen to another, and
in the name of the Revolution thanked Radcliffe for so far repenting his
aristocratic crimes as to consent to having his face modeled. The guard, in
the manner of one dealing with a frequent visitor, took only a perfunctory
look into the container Marie was carrying. She had brought with her, in what
looked like a hatbox, the equipment she needed in her work. Scarcely an hour
before Marie's arrival, another guard had officially notified Philip that the
model-maker was coming to take an impression in plaster of Paris of his living [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]