False Dawn Read Free

sank to the floor. When the man had managed to choke down the white slime, she spoke again. “Tomorrow I’m going east. You can come with me if you can keep up. There’s one more bad river ahead, and you might have to swim it. It’s fast though, and rocky. So you better make up your mind tonight.”
    She did not look for an answer. She took two more sticks of jerky out of her pack and ate them in guarded silence.
    The north wind bit through them as they walked; the sun was bright but cold. Gradually the gentle slope grew steeper and they climbed more slowly, saying nothing and keeping wary eyes on the bushes that littered the hillside. By mid-afternoon, they were walking over the crumbling trunks of large pine trees that had fallen, victims of invisible smog. The dust from the dead trees blew in plumes around them; stinging their eyes and making them sneeze. Yet they climbed on.
    Their going got rougher and slower until they were forced to call a halt in the lee of a huge stamp. Rossi braced his good shoulder and held out his tattered jacket to protect them both from the wind.
    “Are you all right?” Thea asked him when she had caught her breath. “You’re the wrong color; kind of purple and green at once.”
    “Just a little winded.” He nodded. “I’m…still weak.”
    “Yeah,” she said, looking covertly at his stump. The tawny shade was deepening. “You’re getting better.”
    He started to make a flippant reply and his feet slid suddenly on the rolling dust. He grabbed out to her to keep from falling.
    She stepped back. “Don’t do that.”
    As he regained his footing, he looked at her in some surprise. “Why?” he asked gently.
    “Don’t you touch me.” She grabbed at her crossbow defensively. Superimposed over his features she could see the hate that had been in Mackley’s face at the river.
    He frowned, his eyes troubled, then his brow cleared. “I won’t.” In those two words there was great understanding. He knew the world that Thea lived in, and the price it exacted from her.
    With a look of defiance she tightened the crossbow’s straps on her arm, never taking her eyes from the man. “I can shoot this real fast, Rossi. Remember that.”
    Whatever he might have said was lost. “Hold it right there,” came the voice from behind them.
    Aside from a quick exchange of frightened glances, they did not move.
    “That’s right.” There was a puff of dust, and another, then a young man in a ruined C. D. uniform stood in front of them, an assault rifle cradled in his arms. “I knew I’d catch you,” he said aloud to himself. “I been following you all morning.”
    Thea edged closer to Rossi.
    “You people come out from Chico, right?” He bounced the weapon he carried, eyes glittering.
    “No.”
    “What about you?” he demanded of Thea.
    “No.”
    He looked back toward Rossi, an unpleasant smile widening on his face. “What about you…Rossi, is it? Sure you didn’t come through Chico? I heard a guy named Rossi was killed outside of Orland. One of Montague’s men, Rossi was.”
    “I don’t know about that.”
    “They said he was trying to save Montague when Cox took over. You know anything about that? Rossi?”
    “No.”
    The younger man laughed. “Hey, don’t lie to me, Rossi. You lie to me and I’m gonna kill you.”
    In the shadow of the tree-stump, Thea slowly put a quarrel to her crossbow, keeping as much out of sight as she could.
    “You’re going to kill us anyway, so what does it matter if we lie?” Rossi was asking.
    “Listen,” the C. D. man began. “What’s that?” he interrupted himself, looking straight at Thea. “What are you doing?” And he reached out, grabbing her by the arm and jerking her off her feet. You bitch-piece! He kicked savagely into her shoulder as she fell, just once. Then Rossi put himself between them. “Stop this.” “Move!” The order was accompanied by a shove with the butt of his rifle.
    “No. You want me to move, you’ll