The Four Winds
Page 178
The vehicles pulled up and parked. Men jumped down, carrying their weapons.
The crowd broke apart. People screamed and pushed one another aside.
“Loreda!” Elsa couldn’t see her children in the pandemonium. “Ant!”
People ran in all directions. Those who had driven jumped in their cars and drove away. The others ran for their lives across the fields.
Elsa saw Loreda and Ant, clinging to each other, being carried forward by the tide of people.
She started to run for them, but something hit her in the head, hard, and she fell to the ground unconscious.
* * *
ELSA CAME AWAKE IN stages. Her mouth was dry. She was thirsty.
The last thing she remembered was—
“Loreda! Ant!” She sat up so fast she felt dizzy.
Jack was beside her. “I’m here, Elsa,” he said.
She was in bed. But not in a room she’d ever seen before. There was an empty chair beside the bed.
Jack handed her a glass of water and sat down in the chair.
“Where are my children?”
“Natalia got them to your cabin. She drove your truck back.”
“How do you know this?”
“I told her to. Natalia never fails. She will be in the cabin, with the door locked. She will shoot anyone who tries to harm them.”
“Will they know I’m safe?”
“Natalia knows you are with me, so yes. She trusts me as I trust her.”
“Quite a relationship you two have.”
“We’ve been through a lot together.”
Elsa downed the water and slumped back. There was a ringing in her ears and a painful throbbing in the back of her head. She touched it gingerly. Her fingertips came back bloodied. “What happened?”
“One of their thugs hit you.”
Elsa saw the bloody, scraped ridge of Jack’s knuckles. “You punched him?”
“And then some.” He put a washrag in a basin of water, wrung it out, and placed it on her forehead.
The coolness soothed. “How long ago?”
“An hour, maybe. They got what they wanted: people are scared to strike.”
“They were scared before, Jack, but they showed up. Was anyone besides me hurt?”
“Several. A few were arrested. They burned down the barn. Took all our mimeograph machines and typewriters.”
Elsa glanced around the small room, saw the spartan décor: an old dresse