The women were about forty feet away, huddled at the corner of the house. Lois was facing them, talking to them, keeping them from going any farther. Ralph thought that with a little preparation and a little luck they would be okay when they did-the firing from the police strongpoint hadn’t stopped, but it had slackened off considerably. “Pickering!” It sounded like Leydecker, although the amplification of the bullhorn made it impossible to be sure. “WHY DON’T YOU BE SMART FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE AND COME OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN?”
More sirens were approaching, the distinctive watery warble of an ambulance among them. Ralph led Helen to the other women. Lois handed Natalie back to her, then turned in the direction of the amplified voice and cupped her hands around her mouth.
“Hello.” she screamed. “Hello out there, can you-” She stopped, coughing so hard she was nearly retching, doubled over with her hands on her knees and tears squirting from her smoke-irritated eyes.
“Lois, are you okay?” Ralph asked. From the corner of his eye he saw
Helen covering the face of the Exalted amp; Revered Baby with kisses. “Fine,” she said, wiping her cheeks with her fingers.” It’s the damn smoke, that’s all.” She cupped her hands around her mouth again.
“Can you hear me?” The firing had died down to a few isolated handgun pops. Still, Ralph thought, just one of those little pops in the wrong place might be enough to get an innocent woman killed. “Leydecker!” he yelled, cupping his own hands around his mouth. “John Leydecker.” There was a pause, and then the amplified voice gave a command that gladdened Ralph’s heart. “STOP FIRING!” One more pop, then silence except for the sound of the burning house. WHO’s TALKING TO ME? IDENTIFY YOURSELVES!” But Ralph thought he had enough problems without adding that to them. “The women are back here!” he yelled, now having to fight a need to cough himself. “I’m sending them around to the front."’
“NO, DON’T.I” Leydecker responded. “THERE’s A MAN W!ITII A GUN IN THE LAST ROOM ON THE GROUND FLOOR! HE’s shot,5Lo, ERAL PEOPLE ALREADY. “One of the women moaned at this and put her hands over her face. Ralph cleared his burning throat as best he could-at that moment he believed he would have swapped his whole retirement fund for one ice-cold bottle of Coke-and screamed back: “Don’t worry about Pickering! Pickering’s-” But what exactly was Pickering? That was a damned good question, wasn’t it?
“Mr. Pickerring is unconscious.” That’s why he’s stopped shooting!” Lois screamed from beside him, Ralph didn’t think “unconscious” really covered it, but it would do. “The women are coming around the side of the house with their hands up! Don’t shoot! Tell us you won’t shoot!”
There was a moment of silence. Then: “WE WON’T, BUT I HOPE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’re TALKING ABOUT, LADY “Ralph nodded at the mother of the little boy. “Go on, now. You two can lead the parade.”
“Are you sure they won’t hurt us?” The fading bruises on the young woman’s face (a face which Ralph also found vaguely familiar) suggested that questions of who would or would not hurt her and her son formed a vital part of her life. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Lois said, still coughing and leaking around the eyes.
“,Just put your hands up. You can do that, can’t you, big boy?”
The kid shot his hands up with the enthusiasm of a veteran copsand-robbers player, but his shining eyes never left Ralph’s face.
Pink roses, Ralph thought. If I could see his aura, that’s what color it would be. He wasn’t sure if that was intuition or memory, but he knew it was so.
“What about the people inside?” another woman asked. “What if they shoot? They had guns-what if they shoot?”
“There won’t be any more shooting from in there,” Ralph said.
“Go on, now.”
The little boy’s mother gave Ralph another doubtful look, then looked down at her son. “Ready, Pat”
“Yes! “Pat said, and grinned.
His mother nodded and raised one hand. The other she curled around his shoulders in a frail gesture of protection that touched Ralph’s heart. They walked around the side of the house that way.
“Don’t hurt us!” she cried. “Our hands are up and my little boy is with me, so don’t hurt us!”
The others waited a moment, and then the woman who had put her hands to her face went. The one with the little girl joined her (the child was in her arms now, but holding her hands obediently in the air just the same). The others followed along, most coughing, all with their empty hands held high. When Helen started to fall in at the end of the parade, Ralph touched her shoulder. She looked up at him, her reddened eyes both calm and wondering.
“That’s the second time you’ve been there when Nat and I needed you,” she said. “Are you our guardian angel, Ralph?”
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe I am. Listen, Helen-there isn’t much time.
Gretchen is dead.”
She nodded and began to cry. “I knew it. I didn’t want to, but somehow I did, just the same.”
“I’m very sorry.”
“We were having such a good time when they came-I mean, we were nervous, but there was also a lot of laughing and a lot of chatter. We were going to spend the day getting ready for the speech tonight. The rally and Susan Day’s speech.”
“It’s tonight I have to ask you about,” Ralph said, speaking as gently as he could. “Do you think they’ll still-”
“We were making breakfast when they came.” She spoke as if she hadn’t heard him; Ralph supposed she hadn’t. Nat was peeking over Helen’s shoulder, and although she was still coughing, she had stopped crying. Safe within the circle of her mother’s arms, she looked from Ralph to Lois and then back to Ralph again with lively curiosity.
“Helen-” Lois began.
“Look! See there?” Helen pointed to an old brown Cadillac parked beside the ramshackle shed which had been the cider-press in the days when Ralph and Carolyn had occasionally come out here; it had probably served High Ridge as a garage. The Caddy was in bad shape-cracked windshield, dented rocker panels, one headlight crisscrossed with masking tape. The bumper was layered with prolife stickers.
“That’s the car they came in. They drove around to the back of the house as if they meant to put it in our garage. I think that’s what fooled us. They drove right around to the back as if they belonged here.” She contemplated the car for a moment, then returned her smoke-reddened, unhappy eyes to Ralph and Lois. “Somebody should have paid attention to the stickers on the damned thing.”
Ralph suddenly thought of Barbara Richards back at WomanCare-Barbie Richards, who had relaxed when Lois approached. It hadn’t mattered to her that Lois was reaching for something in her purse; what had mattered was that Lois was a woman. Sandra McKay had been driving the Cadillac; Ralph didn’t need to ask Helen to know that.
They had seen the woman and ignored the bumperstickers. We are family; I’ve got all my sisters with me.
“When Deanie said the people getting out of the car were dressed in army clothes and carrying guns, we thought it was a joke. All of us but Gretchen, that is. She told us to get downstairs as quick as we could. Then she went into the parlor. To call the police, I suppose.
I should have stayed with her.”
“No,” Lois said, and slipped a lock of Natalie’s fine-spun auburn hair through her fingers. “You had this one to look out for, didn’t you? And still do.”
“I suppose,” she said dully. “I suppose I do. But she was my friend, Lois. My friend.”
“I know, dear.”
Helen’s face twisted like a rag, and she began to cry. Natalie looked at her mother with an expression of comical astonishment for a moment, and then she began to cry, too.
“Helen,” Ralph said. “Helen, listen to me. I have something to ask you. It’s very, very important. Are you listening?”
Helen nodded, but she went on crying. Ralph had no idea if she was really hearing him or not. He glanced at the corner of the building, wondering how long it would be before the police charged around it, then took a deep breath. “Do you think there’s any chance that they’ll still hold the rally tonight? Any chance at all? You were as close to Gretchen as anybody. Tell me what you think.”