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There were three of them. Male. Two white and one black. The oldest was the
speaker and he looked to be around eighteen.
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They held small-caliber pistols, cheap, chromed little Saturday night
specials.
Inaccurate and unreliable weapons, but the .22-caliber automatics were still
capable of taking anyone out at fifteen feet.
"You got food, old man?" The speaker had a sparsely stubbled foxy face,
narrowed eyes and pinched mouth.
"No. Haven't eaten in three days. You got anything you can share with us?"
Laughter, hateful, venomous laughter, was the answer.
"We got something we can share with the little lady there," said the second
boy, pushing a filthy baseball cap off his sloping forehead.
Jim was conscious of the weight of the Ruger Blackhawk Hunter in its holster,
hidden under the coat. The realization came to him like a flash of lightning
out of a clear summer sky. He was going to have to use the gun. If he didn't,
then he and
Carrie would be soon dead.
She'd take her dying a good while longer and slower than him.
"Little lady's got her period," said Carrie.
The black youth smiled broadly. "Most houses got more'n one door, lady," he
said.
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The leader of the trio grinned. "You're right, Michael, my man."
"Count ten, then faint," whispered Jim, taking care not to move his lips,
confident that the crackling of the fire would cover the sound.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw her almost imperceptible nod of agreement.
"Might as well get to it," said the second of the group.
"Why not?"
"We got food," Jim blurted out, managing to sound guilty. He took a couple of
nervous-looking steps to his left, distancing himself from Carrie. He flexed
the fingers on his right hand, trying to ease some of the morning's stiffness
from them.
"Shit! That don't make no fucking difference, old man, do it?"
Second Navigator Carrie Princip made a good job of it. She half screamed,
hands flying to her face. The green eyes rolled back in their sockets, and she
tottered sideways, away from Jim, before collapsing onto the dew-damp earth.
He didn't pause to admire her performance.
Half turning, instinctively making himself into a smaller target, he whipped
the long-barreled .44 from its greased holster.
The three teenagers had all been distracted by the skinny blond woman's
theatrical tumble.
The leader tried to draw a bead on Jim when he saw the big revolver appear in
their victim's fist, but the timing was not on his side anymore.
The shot took him in the upper chest, the large-caliber, full-metal-jacket
round
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plate.
The black youth began to turn away, dropping his own pistol, mouth open. Jim
put the second bullet a little lower, smashing ribs and tearing the heart to
pulsing tatters of torn muscle.
Both of them were still on their feet as he shot the third.
There was the lighter snap of the .22, overlaid by the thunderous boom of the
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Ruger. A spray of dirt furrowed near Jim's feet. But his shot had struck home,
hitting the last of the murderous trio in the right shoulder, spinning him
around, sending him staggering to his knees.
The black teenager had gone down like a steer under the poleax, falling stiff
and still. The first one was still kicking and twitching, eyes wide, his feet
moving as though he were trying to push himself into the earth.
The last of them looked at Jim. "Please, mister," he said. "Listen to me,
mister."
"I don't have the time, son. You'd have killed us. You too shall die."
He leveled the revolver and squeezed the trigger a fourth time, blowing the
top of the youth's head into shards of splintered bone and a pulp of
blood-flecked brains.
Carrie was getting shakily to her feet, face white as parchment as she looked
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