was smoke, and there was only one thing up there likely to be on fire, but before he could get out a single word, there was a tremendous hot bang from the Oldsmobile's engine compartment. The hood jumped and even dimpled in one place, as if an angry fist had lashed up inside. The car took a single forward snap-jerk that felt like a hiccup; the red idiot-lights came on and the engine quit.
He steered the Olds toward the soft shoulder, and when the edge gave way beneath the right-side wheels and the car canted into the ditch, Ralph had a strong, clear premonition that he had just completed his last tour of duty as a motor vehicle operator. This idea was accompanied by absolutely no regret at all.
"What happened?" Lois nearly screamed.
"We blew a rod," he said. "Looks like it's shank's pony the rest of the way up the hill, Lois. Come on out on my side so you don't squelch in the mud."
There was a brisk westerly breeze, and once they were out of the car the smell of smoke from the top of the hill was very strong. They started the last quarter-mile without talking about it, walking handin-hand and walking fast. By the time they saw the State Police cruiser slued sideways across the top of the road, the smoke was rising in billows above the trees and Lois was gasping for breath.
"Lois? Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," she gasped. "I just weigh too-" Crack-crack-crack.pistol-shots from beyond the car blocking the road.
They were followed by a hoarse, rapid coughing sound Ralph could easily identify from TV news stories about civil wars in third world countries and drive-by shootings in third-world American cities: an automatic weapon set to rapid-fire. There were more pistol-shots, then the louder, rougher report of a shotgun. This was followed by a shriek of pain that made Ralph wince and want to cover his ears. He thought it was a woman's scream, and he suddenly remembered something which had been eluding him: the last name of the woman John Leydecker had mentioned. McKay, it had been.
Sandra McKay.
That thought coming at this time filled him with unreasoning horror. He tried to tell himself that the screamer could have been anyone-even a man, sometimes men sounded like women when they had been hurt-but he knew better. It was her. It was them.
Ed's crazies. They had mounted an assault on High Ridge.
More sirens from behind them. The smell of the smoke, thicker now. Lois, looking at him with dismayed, frightened eyes and still gasping for breath. Ralph glanced up the hill and saw a silver R.F.D. box standing at the side of the road. There was no name on it, of course; the women who ran High Ridge had done their best to keep a low profile and maintain their anonymity, much good it had done them today.
The mailbox's flag was up. Somebody had a letter for the postman.
That made Ralph think of the letter Helen had sent him from High Ridge-a cautious letter, but full of hope nevertheless.
More gunfire. The whine of a ricochet. Breaking glass. A bellow that might have been anger but was probably pain. The hungry crackle of hot flames gobbling dry wood. Warbling sirens. And Lois's dark Spanish eyes, fixed on him because he was the man and she'd been raised to believe that men knew what to do in situations like this.
Then do something! he yelled at himself. For Christ's sweet sake, do something.
But what? What?
PICKERING!" a bullhorn-amplified voice bellowed from beyond the place where the road curved into a grove of young Christmas tree-size spruces. Ralph could now see red sparks and licks of orange flame in the thickening smoke rising above the firs. "Pickering, THERE ARE WOMEN IN THERE! LET US SAVE THEM! WOMEN!"
"He knows there are women," Lois murmured. "Don't they understand that he knows that? Are theyfools, Ralph?"
A strange, wavering shriek answered the cop with the bullhorn, and it took Ralph a second or two to realize that this response was a species of laughter. There was another chattering burst of automatic fire. It was returned by a barrage of pistol-shots and shotgun blasts.
Lois squeezed his hand with chilly fingers. "What do we do, Ralph? What do we do now?"
He looked at the billowing gray-black smoke rising over the trees, then back down toward the police-cars racing up the hill-over half a dozen of them this time-and finally back to Lois's pale, strained face.