The horse was huge. It was chestnut-coloured, with a distinctive white flash on its face, and stood around sixteen hands high. Kate had no chance of getting her foot anywhere near the stirrup that bumped against its fat middle. She’d nodded when Simone asked if she could ride, but she hadn’t been on a horse for twenty-five years at least. She remembered trotting around a paddock on a compliant piebald pony at the age of about ten rising up and down obediently in the saddle on the command of the instructor, calling ‘Walk on!’ in a shrill voice.
This was a whole other kettle of fish.
Simone locked her fingers together and stuck them near Kate’s knees. ‘Hurry. I’ll give you a leg-up then I have to go, and so do you. Angelica will kill me if she sees us. Turn left out of the gate and keep going for about three miles – you’ll come to a place called Feverfew. Keep out of sight as much as you can.’
Kate grabbed the saddle, put her left foot into Simone’s hands, and just about managed to swing her right leg over the horse’s back, scrabbling to slide into the saddle properly. She still only had one foot in the stirrup, and was practically lying on her stomach across the horse, clutching handfuls of its mane, when Simone slapped it hard on the rump and it set off at an unfocused canter towards the ranch gate. Kate didn’t have time to thank Simone, and didn’t dare swivel round to wave her gratitude – all her energy was concentrated on not falling off.
‘Egypt!’ she gasped. ‘Slow down!’ It felt like she was on a bucking bronco in some Western movie. She managed to grab one of the reins and pulled, but Egypt immediately started to turn – back towards the ranch. ‘Shit! No, not that way!’ she begged, gathering up the other rein and heaving on them both. Egypt snorted furiously at her, but straightened up and slowed to a trot. Kate made a monumental effort to get in synch with her mount. ‘Up, down, up, down, up, down,’ she chanted to herself, as Egypt careened out of the gate and turned left of his own accord, much to Kate’s relief, as she was pretty sure that, had he wanted to go in the other direction, there wouldn’t have been much she could have done to persuade him otherwise.
She pondered Simone’s words, as she and Egypt settled into an uneasy sort of rhythm on the empty road: Keep out of sight. How the hell was she meant to do that, on a horse this size, if a car came by? Forest pressed in on either side of the road, too dense to try and manoeuvre a big horse through.
After a few minutes, during which time Kate’s thighs and buttocks started to ache violently at the shock of the unfamiliar exercise, she saw a road sign: FEVERFEW – 1 MILE.
‘OK, good, nearly there,’ she panted, risking taking both reins in one hand to give Egypt a brief pat on the neck. ‘Good boy.’ His flesh felt hot, as did hers – the sun was beating down on her bare head and forearms. She allowed herself a moment to relish freedom and the great outdoors after days of being locked up at the ranch and, before that, stuck in the lab. The air was so fresh up there, especially after the grim taint of Junko’s final breaths, and the too-recent memory of all the other deaths she had witnessed over the past week. Poor Junko, she thought again. She vowed to do whatever she could to give her a proper funeral, when all this was over. If it ever would be over …
Shaking off the maudlin thought, Kate forced herself back to the present. What did she need to do when she got into town? She had no money, phone or ID on her – would there be a police station there? All she needed really was a phone, to make a reverse charge call to Paul. But then how would she get to him? Were buses and trains still running? She hoped he had escaped from California and had somehow got to Dallas to be with Jack. ‘We might have to ride to Dallas, my friend,’ she said to Egypt. ‘Best conserve your energy.’ She refused to even allow the thought that Paul might be sick, or dead.
She heard the sound of a car engine behind her in the distance, and froze in the saddle. Were they coming after her already?
Desperately she yanked on Egypt’s reins, trying to haul him off the road but, as she’d already suspected, the forest was too thick. Egypt couldn’t figure out what she was doing, and reared up angrily, catching Kate’s arm on the spiky point of a branch, ripping a long deep cut across her forearm near her elbow. There would be no point in trying to outrun them on horseback. There was nowhere else to go.
Kate was about to jump off the horse and run into the forest when suddenly the vehicle rounded the corner and was upon her, a rattly old pick-up truck driven by an enormously fat man wearing a face mask and denim overalls. He slowed down and stared curiously at Kate, but did not stop, leaving her shaking like a leaf, blood dripping down her arm, feeling as though she was going to throw up. She spurred Egypt into a canter, praying that there would be no more unexpected surprises.
The forest began to thin out, and Kate turned a corner to see a valley below her, with a few blocks of houses on either side of what passed for a main street. There was a crossroads, and a railroad track, and not a lot else. The chances of finding a police station were slim to none, she decided.
‘Stay still a minute,’ she instructed Egypt, pulling on the reins. He shuffled his big feet, complaining, but obeyed. Kate examined her arm, which was beginning to throb badly. The cut was oozing blood at a steady rate, soaking through the beige three-quarter sleeved top that Brandi had brought her when she first came to the ranch and that, along with the matching beige cotton pants and espadrilles two sizes too large, she’d been wearing ever since. She needed a bandage.
She yanked hard at the seam on the blood-stained sleeve, but nothing happened. Cursing, Kate tucked the reins under her leg to keep them at hand, and peeled off the top, clenching the saddle hard between her aching thighs to maintain her balance. She was past fretting about whether anyone would see her sitting on a horse in her bra – in the current circumstances people had more important things to worry about, like trying to avoid catching Watoto. At least that was one problem she didn’t have. This was the second time she felt grateful for having caught it as a kid, after she’d discovered that Gaunt tried to kill her with it at the Cold Research Unit.
Using both hands, Kate was able to tug hard enough to rip the sleeve right off the thin top. She wrapped it several times around the cut, tying the ends and using her teeth to pull the knot tight. The fabric smelled of the ranch – a sweet, faintly cloying scent of lily and incense, and it made her shudder. She tried to pull off the other sleeve too, but the stitching held firm and wouldn’t budge, so she put the top back on as it was. Feeling more conspicuous than ever in her one-sleeved top, she picked up the reins again, kicked Egypt into motion and rode into town.
The clip-clopping of Egypt’s hooves was the only sound penetrating the eerie silence. Kate felt like a cowboy in a Western movie. Main Street was deserted. Every establishment she rode past was closed. There was a small restaurant, a bank, a drug store, a store selling crafts and – ah! She spotted a phone booth on the corner outside a tiny cinema.
She steered Egypt towards it, throwing the reins over the top of the Perspex hood of the booth to tether him, and leaned down in the saddle far enough to reach the receiver. Wedging it between her shoulder and ear, she managed to punch in the numbers 011 8000 REVERSE that she had taught Jack to use in case of emergency, though she had never had cause to do it herself during all those years she lived in the US, gripping on to the hood with her free hand to keep her balance while Egypt fidgeted beneath her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a white Porsche pull up behind her, but paid no attention to the muscly woman with short dark hair who climbed out of the car, and didn’t notice how the woman’s cold eyes fixed unmovingly on her back.