“I know it. It’s clinical depression. It’s a disease, like cancer or mumps. You need to see someone or take something.”
“I am fine. It will go away.”
“Stubborn old goat. Looks like Matt Dillon himself watching the town he tamed turn to hell, and nobody realizes what he went through to get the place livable.”
“It’s called progress.”
“Maybe not progress. Maybe just change.”
“I’ll be okay, sweetie.”
“Go for a long ride. Get some air in those lungs, feel the wind, watch the deer and the antelope play. Maybe the skies will not be cloudy all day. Get some stimulation, that’s what you need. Something nice and mild to get you operational again. Take up photography, Chinese checkers, decoupage, quilting, adultery, but something, for God’s sake.”
“You’re the best,” he said.
“You say that to all the girls,” she said.
So one day he found himself riding the rim on a horse called Horse, a good bay gelding, with spirt and more stamina than he had and a tendency to comment in horse on everything. Even Horse seemed to be telling him to get over it. Or get over himself, maybe that was it.
The cliff below was about thirty feet, and Horse wouldn’t go near the edge, a sound policy, but cantered along jauntily enough. Bob enjoyed the wind, which was cold, the distance to the blue mountains, which was immense, the architecture of the clouds, like ruined castles or damaged dreams rolling this way and that in unmeasurable complexity. He felt better. He felt okay. Next week he was flying to England to Jimmy Guthrie’s vintage sniper match at Bisley, and he knew a lot of old boys and a lot of active-duty younger guys would be there. That would be fun, that would be a toot. Then, Jen was going to meet him in London and—
His cell rang.
He pulled up on Horse, fetched the thing from his jeans pocket, slid it on, and saw a strange number come up. Who the hell? Only a very few people knew his number, and none of them ever had a number like that.
“Swagger,” he said noncommitally.
“Bob!” It was Reilly.
“Where the hell are you?”
She was laughing. “I’m in Australia.”
“Australia! What are you doing there?”
“I’ll tell you. But where are you?”
“I’m a cowboy, remember? I’m on a horse in the middle of nowhere. That’s what cowboys do.”
“Well, get off the horse.”
“Why? What is—”
“Trust me, Swagger. Get off the damn horse.”
“Okay, just a sec.”
He unlimbered from Horse, let the reins go. The gelding was well trained and would not go far.
“This better be good.”
“Oh, it’s good, all right.”
“Let’s have it.”
“The story isn’t over. There’s one more chapter.”
CHAPTER 58
The Carpathians
Ginger’s Womb
JULY 28, 1944
As Karl walked away from the woman, Wili joined him. “Nice shooting,” he said.
“I thought so,” said Karl.
“You missed her by what, two, three feet?”
“Hmmm,” said Karl. “Was it that obvious?”
“Yes. What’s the point, may I ask?”
“I’m not sure.”
“What is your motivation, may I inquire?”
“No motivation at all. It just turned out I couldn’t do it. I told her to drop when I fired. She did.”
“She’s a much better actress than you are an actor. Her fall looked quite authentic. On the other hand, every single thing about your performance was insincere. I would stick to race cars after the war. Forget about the movies.”
“Do the fellows know?”
“I’m sure they do.”
Karl yelled at the first two Green Devils he saw peering over the rear of the trench at him. “Get a shelter half and pick up the dead woman and move her to the trench.”
“Suppose she wants to walk, Karl?”
“I’m sure she’ll cooperate.”
“Sure, Karl.”
And off they went.
“I know you have a plan,” said Wili.
“Not exactly.”
“What do you intend to do?”
“Improvise, I suppose. I improvise brilliantly.”
“No, you don’t. You have no gift for improvisation at all. I’m the improviser. All the good ideas come from me. You’re just the symbol.”
“All right. Can you come up with something?”
“It would help if you’d alerted me earlier.”
“I didn’t know earlier.”
“First problem: what do we do with these assholes?”
He gestured, and Karl turned, looking down the road. All three SS Sd. Kfz 251s, mud spattering their dappled forest camouflage, their treads grinding through the soft earth, their MG-42s ominously scanning the horizon, lumbered toward them. In the first, recognizable even at two hundred meters, stood Captain Salid, like a statue above the rim of the armored driver’s compartment.