Paint the Wind

  Fancy dressed herself hastily and pulled an extra coat and scarf from the rack. "Aurora's here," she said breathlessly. Jewel's head came up, an expression of extreme distaste on her face.

  "Yeah. Kinda makes you think maybe there really is justice in the world, after all."

  Fancy looked steadily at her friend. "I can't leave without her, Jewel."

  "Jesus Christ, Fancy, are you off your rocker? The kid's a dope fiend."

  "I can't leave her."

  "You'll kill us all."

  Fancy shook her head emphatically. "I've got to take her with me, Jewel... she's mine and she could die here if I don't. I can't trust Jason to keep her alive. I know exactly where they've got her stashed. Just let me make a try for her and if I'm not back in ten minutes, you leave without me. I can't ask you to risk yourself any more than you already have."

  "In a pig's patootie, I'll leave without you! God damn it, Fancy, I come here to get you out of this hole, and I intend to do it, if I have to take you back across my saddle. I don't give a flying rat's ass about that useless brat of yours, but I sure as hell intend to get you out of here."

  Jewel held out the key ring to her in the darkness; Fancy stuffed it into her pocket, as Jewel pressed the Colt revolver into her hand. Automatically, Fancy spun the cylinder and saw that it packed five cartridges, the hammer resting on an empty chamber; she stuffed it into her belt with conviction.

  "Let's get the little bastard," the redhead said, pulling a woolen hat down over her curls as Fancy yanked her out the door and into the icy night.

  The two women extricated Aurora from the small house with little trouble; all the patients were so drugged, no one had ever required guarding at night, beyond the locked door and the barred windows and a nurse as easily overpowered as the one on Fancy's ward. Aurora was so full of laudanum that Fancy had to help her dress.

  Jewel eyed Aurora with disapproval. "You look like shit after a shower of rain," she said as they bundled her through the door of the small outbuilding and headed toward the high wall with the single gate that stood between them and freedom. Two guards with sidearms patrolled the wall, Jewel said, but they would not be expecting trouble. There might be a third at the gatehouse.

  Aurora's hair looked as if badgers had nested in it. The circles beneath her eyes were the color of mud, her skin like putty; she was gaunt where she'd been rounded, and skeletal where she'd been slim, but she followed them clumsily and without expression.

  The two guards who tended the gate in the winter had only once been called upon to thwart an escape after dark, and that had been seven years ago. Most nights they snoozed in shifts between rounds, or played cards; this night, one dozed while the other patrolled the perimeter of the sprawling property. The resounding crunch of Jewel's gun butt on the head of the nodding man made him sleep even sounder. She trussed him quickly with stolen bandage, and gagged his mouth. Fancy sighed with relief, and reached for the gate keys, but a deep male voice broke the stillness behind her.

  The guard stood silhouetted in the doorway, a .44/40 pointed at the escapees, a self-satisfied grin on his face. He was big and brawny with soulless eyes.

  "Put those guns down nice and easy," he said, and Jewel, her heart pounding violently, complied. Fancy held her ground and the guard frowned at the defiant look on the younger woman's face.

  "I said give me the gun," he barked, so forcefully that the glass shook in the little guardhouse and Jewel wondered what on earth Fancy had in her mind. She looked as if she had no intention of letting go of her gun. As she watched, an expression of utter defeat began to suffuse Fancy's face, her lower lip trembled as if she might cry. Her voice, when she spoke, was as frightened as a child's.

  "You don't know how horrible it is back there," she faltered. "I'd do anything you want, absolutely anything... I mean, we both would—wouldn't we, Jewel? If you'd just let us go." Fancy kept talking, her mind at fever pitch. She didn't know for certain if she could pull it off; she was weak from hunger and inactivity and her heart was pounding so she could barely breathe.

  What in the hell is she up to? Jewel thought; she ain't gonna sweet-talk that hulk into letting us go.

  "Turn the gun around real slow and hand it to me by the barrel," the guard growled, and suddenly Jewel knew exactly what her friend intended.

  Crestfallen and teary, Fancy seemed to tremble as she offered the .45, butt-end toward him, to the armed man who stood so menacingly before her. Put slightly off guard by her performance he lowered his rifle and reached out to grasp the .45.

  The Roadagent's Spin happened so fast, even Jewel barely saw the gun twirl around Fancy's index finger and come to rest in firing position, with her finger firmly on the trigger. She slammed the hammer back, and the Colt spat fire once, in the ice-still night. The guard slid wordlessly to the floor, his rifle still clutched in his hand, and a look of consummate astonishment on his dying face.

  "Sonuvabitch!" Jewel breathed as she grabbed the keys and kicked the body out of her way efficiently. "Ford sure would be proud of you! They'll be after us now and the law with them."

  "No choice," Fancy answered huskily, knowing how close she'd come to being dead. Jewel nodded her assent; looking right and left, the fugitives, dragging Aurora behind them, ran for the cover of the woods, as lights began to flicker on in every window of the' asylum.

  All three women reached the cover of the trees, hearts racing and steam clouds puffing from their nostrils at every breath. They halted long enough to retrieve the bag of provisions from the place where Jewel had hidden it, then pushed on into the woods despite the darkness. There was already one man dead behind them, and the more miles they could put between themselves and their pursuers before morning, the better their chance of survival. Traveling in pitch-black wilderness was neither safe nor smart, but it would take the asylum people time to figure out the full extent of what had happened, and those precious minutes were the only thing in their favor. All other aces were in the wrong hand.

  The moon was a crescent sliver and Fancy tried to calm herself enough to find communion with the darkened woods around her. She'd never killed a man, the memory of his startled dying eyes kept trying to surface. She couldn't think of that now, couldn't think of anything but the spiritual connection she needed with these woods, to keep them alive in alien terrain. She must force her ears to hear what others wouldn't, force her eyes to see the invisible. Oh, Atticus, I need you now, she breathed into the frigid air as she took her bearings from the stars and pointed in the direction they must go.

  It wasn't until morning, when the drug had long worn thin, that both Fancy and Jewel could see what a serious problem they had on their hands in Aurora. In the dawning light, the girl raised hooded eyes to Jewel and then to Fancy. She looked ravaged from the drug's withdrawal, but Jewel could see the virulence of the hatred she bore her mother. She wondered if Fancy saw it, too; if so, by God, she must be bleeding inside. Hatred or no hatred, the kid would have to shape up, or she could damned well be left behind. Jewel had no intention of getting killed or captured because of Aurora's grievances against her mother.

  Jewel jerked her head sharply in the girl's direction, then turned toward Fancy. She was winded from the relentless pace Fancy had set them through the awful night, and angry enough at Aurora to want to set ground rules.

  "Listen, Fancy. I've gone along with you about draggin' Aurora with us, but it's my life, too, at stake here, and I got to know what exactly you want us to do with her. She don't look to me like she's got our good at heart... and I wouldn't trust her any farther than I could throw Rufus."

  Fancy had seen the naked hatred, too, and with no energy to spare at the moment for other than survival, had decided to ignore it. "I've got to get her back to Wu, Jewel, he's the only possible hope, and I'd like to give her a fighting chance. But I know you're right that we can't trust her worth a damn—she's gone back to the drug once already—I'm afraid she'll do anything she has to, to get it again."

&
nbsp; Jewel grunted. She knew better than Fancy the degradation to which an opium addict could stoop—pinch your poke or cut your throat, whichever was more convenient.

  Jewel moved in close to the surly Aurora and stood facing her in the dim light of spreading dawn. Hands on hips, fingers of her right hand half fastened on her piece, Jewel said very clearly, "Now you listen to me, kid, and understand real good what I'm tellin' you, 'cause there's a couple or three things we'd better get straight before you get any older. Fancy loves you—I don't. Whatever stupid-ass quarrel you think you got with your mama, just you understand this one thing from Jewel: You hurt her, or even try to, while I'm around, and I'll send you straight to hell myself. And if you should be damned fool enough to try to get the drop on me, you'll be lookin' at this mountain from the underside, faster'n you can say 'Rest in Peace.' I'm older than you and I'm a damned sight tougher, so you give me any crap and I'll see you make a real good breakfast for the wolves."

  "Jewel!" Fancy cried out.

  "Shut up, Fancy! This here's between me and the kid. I ain't takin' her with us unless she's tied up, and I ain't trustin' her far as my hind foot." Jewel snatched a piece of rope vengefully from her pack and looped it around Aurora's unresistant wrists, tying knots that wouldn't easily come loose. She has the eyes of a rattlesnake, she thought, yanking the rope taut instinctively—she'll kill us if she can.

  Fancy saw Aurora assess Jewel's intent and, deciding there was no point at all in trying to con this woman, relax back into her bonds.

  "You got the option of goin' back to the asylum if you want to, or of comin' with us of your own volition. We got a mountain to climb and we cain't afford to leave no trail behind us. We got work to do to stay alive, so if you come with us, I'll untie your hands when it's time to do your share, but that's it until I think I can trust you—if I ever do, which is real unlikely."

  Aurora's head snapped up. "You can't be serious! I'm not walking over any mountain... we're a hundred miles from nowhere and I feel rotten."

  "You got a great eye for distance, kid. If you're stayin', now's the time to say so; those men behind us'll find you soon enough. If you're coming with us, quit bellyachin' and start walkin'."

  Aurora glared at Jewel, but the older woman was already in motion. Reluctantly, the girl straggled after her, and Fancy lagged behind to obscure their tracks.

  "How far do you think we are from home?" Fancy asked, her eye squinting up at the sun's position.

  "Could be a week or so walkin'... more, if the weather kicks up or grumpy here slows us down." Jewel nodded in Aurora's direction; the girl had sulked and dragged behind, until they'd had to attach a rope to her waist to force her to keep up the pace.

  "Maybe she's sick," Fancy said uneasily.

  Jewel harumphed. "Maybe she's lazy and would like them guys that are followin' us to catch up."

  Aurora stared at the two women with unmitigated loathing; at first she'd decided to go with them because she'd thought anything was better than that stinking rathole of a sanitarium. But what they expected of her now was insufferable—her feet hurt and her hands were rubbed raw from unaccustomed work, she was freezing cold, and so far all they'd eaten was hardtack and stale biscuits. Her mother had said they couldn't spare ammunition for hunting, and they couldn't stop long enough to set a snare; Aurora's stomach grumbled, and it never occurred to her for a moment that Jewel and Fancy might be hungry, too.

  The next night, they made a shelter by scraping together boughs and ground debris for protection from the bitter cold.

  "The smaller the shelter, the less energy it will take to keep us warm enough to stay alive," Fancy told Aurora as she dragged a long, fallen pine limb to the center of the clearing and began to weave branches into the framework for a mound-shaped dwelling. The size was just large enough to fit the three women with no room to spare. "We can last three days without water, and weeks without food, but we won't make it through another night without shelter," she said grimly.

  "For God's sake, just build us a fire!" Aurora demanded. "I'm damned near frozen solid." But Jewel shook her head emphatically.

  "We don't know yet how far behind us they are, Aurora. We cain't afford to show 'em our whereabouts with smoke, it's too damned open here. We ain't got nothin' to cook anyway."

  "If we cram enough debris into this framework I'm making, we can insulate ourselves enough to get by without a fire tonight," Fancy added, breathing hard from the exertion of fighting the unruly branches. "You'd better start helping me... the only thing between us and this mountain once night falls will be whatever we manage to stuff into this shelter. Believe me, we wouldn't be the first three who ever froze to death in a situation like this."

  "That way's east," Jewel said, taking her bearings from the dying light. "Face the entrance that way, Fancy, so at least we'll catch the first rays of sun in the morning. The wind will be at our backs."

  The three fugitives huddled together for warmth and finished their dried food allotment from Jewel's stolen supply, in silence. In response to Aurora's constant whine, Fancy had built a tiny tipi-shaped fire that gave off barely any smoke, but they had to take turns huddling over it with a blanket over their heads, and Aurora, unskilled in such an awkward effort, couldn't manage to keep her balance.

  "We'll need meat to keep up our strength, you know," Jewel said, finally. "In this weather, we won't last a week without animal flesh." Fancy nodded wearily; the effort of building the shelter in the worsening cold had drained her.

  "We cain't risk giving away our position with a shot, but I been thinkin', kid... Ford taught me how to use a bow and a spear, years ago. If we could make one or the other, I could maybe catch us somethin' worthwhile for dinner. If I could bring down a slow deer or even a rabbit, we'd have meat and an extra pelt for warmth."

  Fancy looked up, with more animation. "I could try to make a throwing stick or a slingshot, Jewel. I used to be pretty good with rabbits and squirrels. If we can figure out where the animal runs are and what they're eating, we can feed ourselves."

  So, for the next three nights, wherever they camped, the two women worked on fashioning a throwing spear, slingshot, and rudimentary bow, a difficult task with fingers stiffened by the cold. Aurora watched the labor with disdain, until Jewel managed to bring down a small doe with her invention and Fancy contributed a snowshoe hare to their larder. The women dressed the meat gleefully, hiding the wastes from their pursuers and cutting the meat they would carry with them into strips. They saved the sinew to use in fashioning a sapling bow, and took the rest to roast oyer a small fire, built in a cave to hide their smoke.

  "At least we'll die on a full stomach," Jewel said, her mouth watering over the aroma of venison; she'd tried hard to ignore her hunger, but her strength had ebbed and Fancy, in her already weakened condition, had needed meat desperately, although she hadn't complained.

  Aurora watched the surprising skill with which her mother dressed the meat and prepared the meal; just one more thing she was good at, one more talent to crow about... not that these skills were any Aurora would ever want to possess. Fancy tried to show the girl how to skin the carcass and clean the meat, but

  Aurora said disgustedly that she never, ever intended to do such a revolting task, so there was no real point in learning how.

  Jewel and Fancy knew they were being closely followed. Brookehaven couldn't face Jason without having mounted a party to trail the missing inmates, and Jeb was probably murderous in his embarrassment. Worse yet, if the asylum's security staff was incompetent, Jason's boys were not, so if they had joined the pursuers sometime on Saturday, the odds against the fugitives had worsened considerably. Fancy took pains to cover their trail, but the intermittent snow flurries worked against her, and if the men had a good tracker with them... she couldn't afford to think about that now.

  Nourishing food and a decent night's rest in the warmth of a real fire and the safety of a cave were their foremost needs tonight; if they didn't stay strong, they
'd never make it out of the treacherous wilderness. The men were mounted, they were on foot. The men had serious armament—they had only the guns and ammunition they'd stolen from the guards at Brookehaven, and the weapons Jewel had stashed. Cunning and desperation were their only allies now, Fancy thought as she roasted the meat on a spit—but when your life and freedom hangs in the balance, maybe they tend to tip the scales in your favor.

  "This is just like old times for you, ain't it, kid?" Jewel asked as they sat huddled by the welcome fire, after the first real meal they'd had in days. "I mean, with Atticus and all."

  Fancy smiled with memory. "It was a hell of a lot warmer in the woods we traveled through, Jewel, most times, anyway. He was really an amazing man, I see that now. He took such good care of us." If Atticus were here right now, she felt certain he'd know how to handle Aurora. A disease of the spirit, Wu had said, a disease the girl was obviously still riddled with; but Atticus could have healed her. Fancy sighed to think that for all her wealth and worldly wisdom, she was still so much less than Atticus had been.

  "Ford and me spent some time in the wilderness, too, you know," Jewel said, sitting back against the rock wall, bundled up in her blanket. "That's how I know how to hunt with a bow and fish with a string and a stick, and such. Bandana was with us, part of the time—we was on the run from somewheres—cain't think now just why. Anyways, Bandana—we called him Otis back then —he used to sing for us every night around the fire. It kept us from the lonelies, I guess, all that music, and all the yarns we spun for one another." Jewel let her eyes wander toward Aurora.

  "Cain't live without friends, you know," she called over to the silent girl. "A lot of lovin' and a lot of learnin' comes from friends." Aurora didn't answer.

  That was when Fancy started to sing; she didn't know why, exactly, except it seemed the right thing to do. She sang and Jewel sang, the sounds echoing and reechoing in the cave's hollow interior; they laughed and reminisced until the fire had burned down, feeling strangely replete. Aurora told herself she was bored by their stupid behavior; what was wrong with them that they could have such a good time out here stranded on some stinking mountain, half starved and half frozen, with hostile men closing in on their trail? But after a while she realized she would have liked to participate, if she'd only known how. But she didn't want to give them the satisfaction of asking, so instead she went to sleep, the sounds of the women's incomprehensible laughter still ringing in her ears.