When Goulay straightened with the purse in one hand-gaping as though disemboweled where the previously concealed compartment now lay open-and a nickel-plated Ruger .38 five-shot in the other, I was standing in front of the child. Luz inhaled sharply. The hand holding the Ruger didn't waver.

All the heat had burned from my bones, leaving them light and strong. A fly hummed a few feet from Luz's head. I felt dense and supple and utterly relaxed. "Luz." I reached behind me, put a hand on her shoulder. "Esta bien."

She had been so brave all this time, but now I felt the tremble deep in her little bones.

"It's all right," I said again.

"Child, get the car keys and bring them to me."

"They're in my right-hand pocket," I told Luz, not taking my eyes off Goulay. The child was the point. This time I would not forget.

Luz groped in my pocket for a moment and came out with the keys. The Glock hung in my waistband, but there would be no time to use it.

"Bring them here." Goulay held out her left hand, the gun in her right still trained on my stomach. The gun's vanity plating meant it was probably the cheap model Ruger had taken off the market a few years ago, because there wasn't much demand for a pretty weapon with a stiff trigger. And it wasn't cocked.

My head filled with humming. It wasn't the fly. I breathed in, deep and slow, until the world took on a dreamy blue edge. All the time in the world. Luz moved in slow motion towards Goulay with the small unsteady steps of a terrified nine-year-old. One step. Two. On three her hand lifted and dropped the keys into Goulay's palm.

The human body is densely studded with nerve endings which constantly send information to both our conscious and subconscious minds. Generally the brain does a superb job of traffic control, and training can improve this, but an untrained person cannot focus on two important and unfamiliar things at once. When those keys touched the sensitive skin of Goulay's hand, for a split second her attention was divided: her right arm still pointed at me, her index finger still rested on the trigger, but for that moment, just a hitch in time-the space between a breath, the time it takes for an electrical impulse to leap a nerve synapse-her body knew more about her left hand than her right. And it takes more pressure than the untrained realize to pull the trigger of an uncocked gun.

Remember the child. Oh yes. This is who I am. This is what I do.

I took one sliding step with my right leg, slapped the gun away with my left hand, and hit her neatly under the ear with my right elbow. She folded without a sound. I smiled at Luz, picked up the gun, broke open the cylinder, and tipped out the bullets. Dry-fired it. Just as I thought. Stiff. Cheap. I wiped the gun clean on my sweatshirt and dropped it into Goulay's coat pocket. The bullets went in mine. Luz stared at me, lips pale.

"She'll be fine," I said. "Can you be brave just a bit longer?"

She nodded jerkily.

"Good. I'm going to need your help to tidy up a bit." I bent and plucked the keys from Goulay's white hand. "If you open the back door, I'll put her inside where she'll be more comfortable until she wakes up." My knee flared when I bent to pick up Goulay. Pain is just a message, information about an injury. If the structural damage isn't enough to stop you, the message can be ignored. Goulay was heavier than she looked and it took me a while to make sure all her flopping limbs were safely inside before I could slam the door. "We have to move the rig, too." I pointed at the trailer and truck.

"Where's the man?"

Mike. Right. "He's ... You'll have to help me with him, too. He's tied up behind the truck, but he's not unconscious, so we'll have to bring the car to him to make it easier to get inside. Okay? Come on. You can sit in the front."

Like all rental cars, the Maxima smelled new and unblemished. The tank was still two-thirds full. I drove the few feet to the rig so that the back door was as close as possible. "Open the door. I'll go get him." She slid out and went to the back door. I left the engine running.

Mike's face was livid. He writhed as much as he was able and grunted explosively as I pulled out his gun.

"Two choices. One, I drag you to the car, face down, which will rip your skin up quite a bit, might even damage your eyes. Two, I untie your feet and you get into the car without a struggle. If you struggle, I shoot you. Dead people are just as easy to move." Easier. But it would probably upset Luz. "Should I untie you?"

More grunts.

"Should I untie you?" I asked again, patiently.

He nodded.

I loosened the belt so he could free his feet but pulled it back tight on his hands. "Stand-"

Luz's scream sliced my sentence in half. I whipped around just in time to see Goulay, now in the front seat, one arm around Luz's neck, her own head craning to see behind her, before the car screeched away in reverse. I lifted the Glock, and that's when Mike hit me on the back of the neck with his clubbed fists.

How did he do that? I thought stupidly, as the strength drained from my legs and my hands went numb. I staggered, the Glock fell from my fingers, and Mike hurled himself at me. I went down face first, him on top. One of my ribs popped with the long, leisurely sound a cork makes coming out of a particularly anticipated bottle of port. The gravel under my cheek should have felt cold but didn't, though the metal at the corner of my eye did. Somewhere a child was screaming. Someone grabbed my right wrist and pinned it to the road by my head, so that I pointed after the reversing car, which was only a few yards away and moving terribly slowly. Dust and that scream hung in the air as though someone had stopped the world.

The man on top of me shifted, dropping his whole weight down and forward on his hands to pin me more securely. My cheek tore on gravel as I smiled. Give me a long enough lever and I will move the world.

The child had stopped screaming. I put it from my mind.

For the Chinese, it is the source of chi, for the Japanese, ki, for dancers and gymnasts, it is the center of gravity: the fulcrum around which the body moves. Shift your balance, and everything changes. Balance is also psychological. If your opponent expects you to pull in one direction, he sets his muscles to resist. Mike had put all his weight over my wrist: he was balancing on it; he expected me to pull my hand in instinctively and protect my torso. So I did, but slowly, so he had time to resist, and when he began to push the other way-which pleased me so much I laughed, which startled him, which made it even easier-I thrust both hands up over my head, simple as stretching. His balance followed my wrists, sliding as smoothly as the bubble in a tilting spirit level, and as he fell forward, I pulled both legs under me and bucked. Thigh muscles are enormously powerful. He soared, upturned face comical, and I was scrambling after him on all fours like a strange, bloodied train, Glock in hand-where had that come from?-before he hit the ground. He was lovely and fast, already up on one knee before I pistoned right elbow into his neck, left fist into his solar plexus, and arced the Glock into the back of his skull. He collapsed. I smiled, and stood. Staggered. Pain is just a message.

The Maxima was now forty yards away, veering wildly, jerking, driving again, still in reverse. I wiped the blood from my face, squinted. The child had stopped screaming because she had her teeth buried in the woman's wrist. I lurched forward. My knee buckled and I almost went down again. Just a message. I ran. In another fifty yards, the Maxima would reach the crossroads where there would be room to turn around. Once it was out of reverse, I'd have no hope of catching it.

The woman slapped the child. The child hung on. The car slowed almost to a stop. I ran. Thirty yards. The woman hit the child again. Twenty-five yards. The child let go. Twenty yards. Now or never. I lifted the Glock, sighted, breathed out, held it, and shot out the left front tire. I moved the gun slightly, sighted on the woman's chest. Neither of us moved. Slowly, she raised both hands.

I limped as fast as I could to the car. "Out," I said to the woman. "Now." Even in rural Arkansas a shot might not go unnoticed. She climbed out warily. There was blood on her right wrist. I could smell her fear. "Turn around. Hands on the roof of the car." Before she'd even turned around properly I whipped the Glock across the back of her head. I caught her before she fell.

The child had squeezed herself up against the passenger door, as far away from me as she could get. "Open the back door," I said. She didn't move. I ignored my knee, ignored the terrible need to hurry, and dredged up her name. "Luz. I need you to open the back door." She stared at the gun, then my face. The gun, my face. I couldn't put the gun down without letting go of the woman. Another child ... shiny eyes ... "Button needs you," I said. "We have to hurry." There was no more time. I slung the woman as best I could over my left arm and tucked the Glock back in my waistband out of sight. That's when I remembered the noise my rib cage had made. I cursed softly, then put that message aside, too. I could just reach the door handle. I got it open and stuffed the woman in. She left a smear of blood on the upholstery. I slammed the door, got in the driver's seat.

Luz still hadn't moved or spoken. I picked her up bodily-she was practically catatonic-put her in her seat, and pulled the seat belt round her. The pain was making it hard to breathe.

The tire rim ground on the gravel as I drove the hundred yards back to the rig and the sprawled lump in the road.

Out of the car, open the back door, drag the man to the car, lift and prop, fold and push him on top of the woman. Close rear door. Use remote to lock all four doors. Open door of truck, sigh, walk back to car, open passenger door. "I'm going to move the rig-the truck and trailer-so we can drive past. I'm coming back." I'm going to pass out. "Stay there." This time she nodded cautiously.

I got in the truck, turned it on. I could just drive away and never come back. I checked my throat in the mirror: red, but not reopened.

It took four minutes of slow and careful backing and filling before I had the rig on the side of the road, pointing south. Each time I twisted, each time I moved my right arm to change gear, I thought I might throw up. Just a message. The hitch didn't feel right, but there wasn't time to check it properly. Somewhere a sharp-eared neighbor might be dialing the sheriff. I turned off the engine, climbed down, went back to the car. The child was so quiet I could hear the two in the back breathing slowly but steadily. The child-Luz, her name is Luz-had unfastened her seat belt.

"Fasten it back up."

Luz looked at me. "Button?"

"We have a short drive to make first."

She looked over her shoulder at the woman Goulay and Mike, but didn't speak. Probably thought I'd shoot her if she did.

I had to slow for every curve. With that tire gone, the car tilted to one side and the front wheels had a tendency to skate. I checked the rearview mirror often. No pursuing traffic. "How far can you walk?"

Now the look I got was full of incomprehension, as though I were speaking Urdu. How many nine-year-olds would know how far they could walk? She could probably manage three or four miles without any lasting damage, and I could always carry her. "There's a map in the glove compartment," I said. "Pass it to me please." I slowed, one hand on the wheel, the other tracing tiny lines. Brink Creek campground was about four miles. The woods there would be dense enough to confuse most city people, and there wouldn't be much traffic. I handed the map back to Luz, who refolded it and put it back in the glove compartment without being asked. Remarkable adaptation to circumstances. Her early life must have been interesting. Or perhaps all nine-year-olds were this resilient.

The campground was empty. I pulled in under the trees, parked, and pocketed the keys. Luz seemed to listen to the silence.

"Now you have to help me wipe the car down." I eased Goulay's heavy coat off her shoulders and ripped away one of her cardigan sleeves. "Take this and rub it all around the steering wheel. It's very important that you rub every single bit of the surface."

"Why?"

It wasn't her fault the Carpenters didn't have a television. I forced myself to breathe through the pain in ribs and knee, and managed to speak without growling. "Fingerprints."

While she scrubbed industriously at the wheel and gear stick I tore off the other sleeve and wiped at the doors and roof where I might have touched the metal inadvertently. Then I tackled the shiny vinyl on the backs of the seats and inside windows.

I remembered the belt and wiped that down, too-after I'd retied it around Mike's ankles. He must be more supple than I'd thought. Just as I was finishing that, he woke. "Don't," I said in his ear. "Keep still and you'll be fine. She'll wake up in a few hours and untie you." It would be dark and cold by then. I tucked Goulay's arms back into her coat.

I motioned Luz away from the car, gave the wheel and stick a quick wipe myself, then threw the ragged sleeve on the front seat.

"Now we walk back to the trailer. It's a long way." She didn't move. "What?"

"My stuff."

The suitcase, in the trunk.

At first she insisted on carrying the case herself. She carried it two-handed, in front of her, bumping her knees. I tried not to wince.

"When you get tired, let me know."

I matched my pace to hers, but even at two miles an hour my knee burned. The back of my neck throbbed and every now and then my hands tingled. Some kind of nerve bruise. I felt at my ribs gently as I walked; no obvious splintering. Cracked, perhaps, or maybe just soft-tissue injury at the sternum. Cartilage probably.

I had no idea what to do with this child. I had seen the look on her face as Goulay tried to take her away from the Carpenters. But a dog will bond even with a cruel owner, one who beats it and starves it.

We walked on. Luz began to lag. I slowed even more. She hung on to the case with grim determination. I had no idea what nine-year-olds talked about.

"What's in there, then? Gold and jewels?"

"Stuff."

"We can buy you more stuff. More clothes."

"Not just clothes."

Of course. Books. "You know what one of my favorite books used to be? The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Have you read that?"

On an adult, her expression would have meant, Don't tell me you love me if you don't mean it. I plowed on, glad I didn't have to lie. "I've read all of them."

"There are seven!"

"Yes. I've read them all. But I think The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is my favorite. Or maybe Prince Caspian." A bloody thirty-two-year-old Norwegian discussing 1950s English novels with a nine-year-old Mexican girl in backwoods Arkansas.

The absurdity of the situation didn't seem to bother her. "I like it best when they have supper with Mr. and Mrs. Beaver," she said. Safety, warmth, food. Tenderness. Every child should have them. "And I like it when Edmund is in the sleigh in the snow with the White Witch eating Turkish delight." She swang the suitcase to one hand, then changed her mind and tried the other.

"You want me to carry that for a bit?"

"Okay. Just for a bit."

All her worldly possessions. It weighed about eight pounds. Not much, but eight pounds more than I wanted to carry.

"I like it too that Edmund was good in the end and that his sisters and brother were nice to him." She frowned. "But I don't know what Turkish delight is. Aba doesn't know, either. She said maybe it's kind of like chocolate."

"Real Turkish delight is soft and squashy and sweet. It comes in round boxes. The pieces are pale yellow or pink cubes, and all dusted with powdered sugar."

"Is it nice?"

Being in the rig, being out of sight, and getting my ribs taped would be nice. "It's a bit perfumey, like eating roses. Sickly. I'll buy you some if you like, then you can tell me."

"Aba doesn't like me to eat sweet things." A slitted, sideways glance.

Aud Torvingen, White Witch. "Did you know that they made a film based on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe?"

She gave me that look that said I was speaking Urdu again, and I remembered she didn't go to school, where children are exposed to other children talking about cartoons and movies and gross-out videos.

"So what books do you have in here?" She shook her head and flushed, which I hadn't seen her do before. "Must be a heavy one."

She actually hung her head. I imagined her poring over a book of knowledge in tiny type with black-and-white illustrations that was forty years out of date and smelled of mildew, imagined her agony of indecision when it came time to pack her things: she would have wanted it so, but known it was stealing.

"I could buy you encyclopedias, too. New ones."

"Why?"

"Because they're better." But that wasn't what she meant. She stumbled, but pulled away when I tried to help her.

"How far is it?"

"Another two miles."

She nodded wearily.

"I could carry you, if you like." Even if she didn't like. We were already conspicuous; I wanted to be back at the trailer before dark.

"Like a baby!" Enough energy for scorn.

"Aslan carried Lucy."

"You're not a lion."

"No, but I can talk, not like a horse or a car."

She considered that. "Okay. But piggyback."

"Of course." I shifted the Glock to the front of my waistband and squatted. My knee was visibly swollen. She climbed onto my back. "Wrap your legs tightly because I need one hand for-No!" I pulled her legs down a little. "No," I said again, more softly, "not there."

We set off again, her arms around my neck tightly enough to choke. If Mike's weight hadn't reopened the wound, hers probably wouldn't. After a while she relaxed. A little while after that, the pain in my knee notched up from burning to searing.

Now that she wasn't walking, Luz was more talkative. She talked about Button a lot.

"He's okay. Not as smart as me but he's good, I mean he's good when he can be. When Aba tells him, Don't leave the yard, he doesn't leave the yard on purpose, he just forgets. So it's my job to remind him."

"But he has tantrums." I was getting very thirsty.

"When he's upset. Because he doesn't always understand things."

"Does he ever hit you?"

"On purpose? No! But once when I was little he was wiggling about and I tried to hold his hands and he knocked one of my teeth out. But it was just a baby tooth so it was okay. It was falling out already."