The End is Coming

Chapter Fourteen

She couldn’t take her eyes off the guns—he only wore the double shoulder holsters, the ones he had always worn. The leather of the harness seemed a little dirty, but from so long on the trail, searching for her—her eyes shifted up to his eyes, flickering in the dull burn of the bare bulb suspended from the ceiling over the small card table in the far corner of the underground shelter. Michael slept, and so did Annie—getting them to sleep had been hard, with their father newly returned. But she had convinced them that the next day, going to their new home at their father’s Retreat would be full of excitement and wonder—she had not been able to convince herself. She was nervous—John had told her about the death of Bill Mulliner—and she had wept more than she had thought she could. All that was fine, decent—all that was good. It was being de-stroyed forever. Mary Mulliner sat by the edge of the card table, between Sarah and John. At each side of the table, one dominated by John, sat men of the Resistance, Pete Critchfield opposite John, his cigar more foul-smell-ing than the one her husband puffed. To Rourke’s right sat Tom—he had told her a little about his first encounter with her husband. To John Rourke’s left—to her left though she sat back from the table, was Curley, the radio oper-ator.

She watched her husband’s eyes. Watched his lips as he took the cigar from his teeth, turning his face toward her, his eyes flickering toward Mary Mulliner, between them.

“Mrs. Mulliner—before we talk here—well—”

“Bill is dead,” Mary Mulliner said, her hands awkward-looking on her trousered thighs—Mary had never been anything of a modern woman, Sarah thought, trying to remember if ever before had she seen the older woman wear pants. She didn’t think so. And the hands just rested cupped inside one another between her thighs now.

Sarah Rourke heard John Rourke clear his throat. “He died—well, very bravely. He was trying to save some other Resistance people who’d been shot up by Brigands—I don’t think he was in a lot of pain—he—”

Mary Mulliner began to cry—to sob, heavy sobs. Sarah slid from the folding card table chair to the floor beside Mary’s chair, on her knees, reaching up to fold her right arm about the older woman’s shoulders. The woman’s head rested against her right shoulder, Sarah hugging her to herself. Her husband began again to talk. “The last things he said—well—he told me, Bill did—Tell my mom I love her— and tell Mrs. Rourke good-bye.’ “

Sarah looked into her husband’s eyes—she cried, her throat tight, so tight she could barely breathe.