“I’m sorry son, there’s nothing I can do for you.”
A single shot.
Alec leaned against the tree and threw up.
After what seemed like hours, Russo came up beside him. “First time you’ve seen men killed.” It was not a question.
Alec mumbled, “First time... I’ve been responsible.”
“Okay... You take their weapons back to the truck. Take it slow and easy. You’ll need to make a half-dozen trips. I’ll bury them.”
“You’ll... what?”
With an almost bashful shrug, Russo said, “Someday somebody’s going to kill me, and I wouldn’t want to be left aboveground to feed the maggots.”
“But you killed them. I mean, we did.”
“Yep. And now they need burying.” He paused a moment, then explained, “You kill your enemies when they’re in a position to kill you. If they’re running and weaponless, you let them run. If they’re dead, you bury them. And you don’t take prisoners unless you’ve got a good reason to.”
“Those are the rules of war here?”
“The rules of survival.”
Alec nodded to show that he understood, even though he could not agree. He began to gather together the rifles and carbines that the dead men had left scattered on the ground. Russo took one of the corpses off along the tree line, carrying it in his arms almost tenderly.
“Hey!” he suddenly called. “Come here!”
Alec was running toward him instantly, slamming a fresh ammunition clip into his pistol as he moved.
Russo had dropped the corpse at his feet. Hanging from the outstretched limb of a tree, dangling by his thumbs, was a ragged scarecrow of a kid, wide-eyed with pain and terror. His thumbs were swollen and blue. A filthy rag had been stuffed into his mouth. A long gash was oozing blood down one bare leg.
Russo whipped a knife from his belt and cut the boy down, then pulled the gag from his mouth. He collapsed into the big redhead’s arms.
“Must’ve been a prisoner of the mortar crew’s,” Russo said, “or one of the other gangs nearby.”
The kid’s emaciated face was hollow-cheeked, his chin stubbly with the beginnings of a beard. He stared at the rifle slung over Russo’s shoulder, then at Alec and his drawn pistol.
“No, no...” he whimpered.
Russo loosened the ropes knotted over his thumbs as the kid winced with pain.
“What do we do with him?” Alec asked. “What are your rules for this?”
Holding the skinny youngster by his shoulders, Russo asked, “Can you stand?”
The kid nodded and hobbled a few steps away from the big redhead. Russo shook his head and looked back at Alec. “He’ll never make it by himself.”
“Please,” the youngster whined. “Okay. Okay.”
“Can you talk?” Alec asked sharply. “What’s your name? Why are you here?”
“Ferret. Live here. In woods. They... caught me. Gonna kill me. Later. Slow.”
“No guns on him,” Russo said. “Not even a knife.”
Studying the painfully thin youngster, Alec realized that they might both be the same age. This kid is just a runt, Alec thought. He must have gone through his whole life half-starved.
Alec heard his own voice say, “We’ve got medical supplies in the trucks.”
Russo started to reply, but Ferret sank to his knees with a barely-suppressed groan.
Frowning, Russo said to Alec, “You remember what I said about prisoners?”
“I’ve got a good reason. He knows the territory around here. He could be useful to me.”
“Don’t expect him to be grateful,” Russo warned. “Don’t trust him at all.”
But Alec stepped over to the emaciated young man and helped him to his feet. “Come on,” he said. “We’ll have that leg fixed in no time.”
When they got back to the airfield, the battle had long been over. Russo left Alec at the edge of the woods, saying he had to check his own men, and he would be back before sundown. Alec rode the truck back to the runway, with Ferret lying silent but wide-eyed at his side.
Jameson eyed the wounded prisoner with obvious disdain, but gave orders to have his leg attended to. Then he gave Alec an account of the battle. “They kept melting back into the trees. We couldn’t follow them in there with the trucks, so we just kept patrolling around the edge of the woods, squirting at them to keep them from getting any closer. They lobbed a lot of mortar rounds at us, but didn’t do much damage with them.”
Two of the trucks had been clawed by shrapnel, but were still running. Several of the men were hurt, none seriously.
Jameson peered into the woods, his face the image of a hunting hawk. “This man Russo is with your father, is he? Are they on our side, or what?”
