Four and Twenty Blackbirds Read Online Free PDF Page A

weapon, but the handle rotted away when I pulled it loose from the ground.
    Somewhere above, the crashing feet of my pursuer slowed near the spot where I'd disappeared. I tried not to move, not even to breathe.
    An inch at a time his wet head peered over the edge of the hole. "You cannot," he puffed the words laboriously, "outrun justice. You can't. God has promised it." His hand reached over and pointed the gun down at my head. I desperately rolled myself towards what I thought was the edge of the hole.
    Bang.
    I didn't stop against a wall of dirt. I kept on rolling, down a little farther. My turn took me beyond the friendly skylight and all was dark. I felt wildly around for anything substantial, grasping at dangling tree roots and squeezing handfuls of mud. I dragged my knees up off the spongy ground and forced them to ratchet me into an upright position.
    I was more than a little surprised to learn that I could stand without impediment, and finally I wandered a couple of steps farther to lean on a thick square timber. I pressed my wounded back against it and tried not to wonder how much blood I might be leaking.
    Overhead I heard the scrambling scuffle that signaled I was still being pursued. The boy yelped when his legs surrendered their balance and he tumbled down after me, landing exactly where I had.
    He was wheezing. "There's nowhere for you to go now. You can't stay in this . . . well, or cistern, or whatever, forever . . . it won't hide you long."
    It's a mine shaft. Hold your ground. He's blind. Let him pass you.
    I dug my back hard into the tunnel wall. Small, squirming things wriggled wetly against me. I jammed my eyes shut, which made almost no difference in the underground dark. Something with many slight legs worked its way up my neck. I pressed my lips together and willed my ears shut too. The bug worked its way up my cheek and across my scrunched eyelid before heading on past my forehead and over my hair.
    The boy tread into the blackness with halting legs. "Give yourself up. I'll do it quick."
    He stopped no more than a foot in front of me. I could smell his breath, stinky with corn chips, ranch dip, and cola. I felt the swish of air parting for his waving arms, groping ahead. I unsealed my lips and exhaled as quietly as I could, then slowly sucked in more moldy air through my wide open mouth.
    Breathe in. Mustn't make a sound. Breathe out.
    He kept moving, another step. Than another. Deeper back, farther from me.
    Push the beam, child.
    I didn't understand. She said it again.
    Push on that beam. Shove your good shoulder against it.
    Still afraid to move too much, I leaned a little weight on it and heard a creak.
    He heard it too. His footsteps stopped.
    No, do it hard. All at once. Then get out of the way. Go back the way you came.
    No time to argue. He was turning, his shoes squishing an about-face in the muck.
    I lunged, heaving with all my might. The timber groaned and cracked, then collapsed. I darted past it and back towards the patch of sunlight just in time to hear the walls falling in. My pursuer called out but his cries were stifled by the falling wood and mud. Hand over aching hand, knee over scraped knee, I crawled up out of the hole and left him there.
    Back topside the rain was falling again, or maybe it was only the wind bothering the trees. It was lovely.
    I tumbled back down the side of the mountain until I reached the road to my house, gripping my stinging shoulder as hard as I could, almost crying with relief.
    Lulu, keeper of the hearth, was waiting at the door.
    II
    They made me go to court.
    Lulu was wearing a fitted blue dress that stopped at her knees, and a pair of high heels that made her calves discreetly convex. Dave wore a black T-shirt and jeans. I was trussed up in a green skirt and blouse with cuffs that clenched at my wrists. Since we weren't regular churchgoing folks, it wasn't every day I was forced to present myself in such a manner. The clothes made me uncomfortable even