CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The last thing Hector spoke to Dave was a warning.
“Don’t trust any of them. Don’t even trust me.”
“No, I think I’ll trust you. If I don’t, where am I?”
In a while there was a sound of movement close by. Hector signaled Dave to stay where he was and then went on alone.
There was a frozen crack of small-arms fire and after that a tremendous jarring silence. Dave groped through the trees, too sick from the constant presence of disaster to worry about being careful. But he could not find his friend. He lost the footprints in a tangle of alder and underbrush, discovered himself flailing senselessly at a clutching wilderness, then shouted, then put his hand up to stop his shouting.
He went for the rest of the day on a compass bearing, not making any real time at all, not
