Minds of Men

by Kacey Ezell

  I can handle it, Abram insisted and pushed at her barricade. It’ll be easier if we share the load.

  Evelyn could have held him off. He was only a man, and despite the practice he’d had on their many missions together, he was no match for a trained psychic. But the truth was, she was simply exhausted. From the injury and the fever that followed. From the fear and the cold. From the relief of finally finding one of her crew, at no longer being completely alone in the dark of the German forest. All of these factors had taken a terrible toll on her, and so, in the end, she acquiesced and let Abram share her pain.

  “All right,” she breathed, and she squeezed his hand once in thanks. He returned the squeeze and then turned back to the fire as she let her eyes drift closed. The tiny fire was starting to warm their little thicket, and it was almost cozy.

  Don’t sleep, he reminded her.

  I won’t, she promised. But with the link in place, I can rest more than I did. I will keep my alertness with you. Tell me what you’re doing?

  Can’t you see?

  I can, but this will help me stay awake. And it’s good practice, honestly, she said. Just keep up a running narration for me. That will help build the strength of the link, which we’ll need if we’re going to be traveling linked like that.

  All right, he thought. I’m getting out the sardines, and then I’ll...Shit. Ah. Sorry, Evie...

  Sir, she sent on a pulse of humor, at this point, I think it’s all right if we indulge in a little swearing. This is a hell of a fucking predicament, after all.

  Evie! he said, looking over at her with his dark eyes full of surprised mirth as he snorted a laugh through his nose. Where did you learn to swear like that?

  Evelyn giggled out loud, even while her face flamed up in a blush. Ugh, she thought, I hate it when I giggle. I sound like I’m twelve years old. I learned from ranch hand friends of my father. After we lost our farm in ‘32, we moved in nearer to the city. My father sought work on some of the local cattle ranches nearby. Sometimes my brothers and I would go out with him and do odd jobs. It was good money, while it lasted.

  Abram, too, was chuckling. You sound like a Brooklyn harridan. I love it. Now, we have one problem. I don’t have anything in which to boil water to make our broth. We’re just going to have to eat these sardines as is.

  I’m hungry enough to, Evelyn said, though she couldn’t disguise her distaste at the thought. Fish, unless it was fresh caught mountain trout, preferably from her own hook, had never been her favorite. Canned, salted fish, packed in oil seemed...unsavory.

  But hunger, as they say, is the best sauce. There were five of them, little silvery bodies packed in tight, glistening in the light from their fire. Abram insisted that Evelyn take three, and he swallowed the remaining two seemingly whole.

  Though it was probably the height of silliness, Evelyn felt obliged to try and eat like a lady. She propped herself up as best she could, using Abram’s assistance when he offered it. As they had no utensils, she was reduced to pinching one of the slippery fish between her fingers and lifting it to her mouth.

  It tasted like an explosion of salt under a thin slick of oil. Evelyn gave an experimental chew and found it to have a meaty, smoky taste. Of course, it was fishy and oily, too, but in that moment, she enjoyed it as much as if it had been a rainbow trout fresh off her own hook.

  Good? Abram asked, grinning at her as he sucked the last of the oil off his fingers.

  Delicious, Evelyn confirmed.

  Good. Eat them all. You need the strength, he thought. Evelyn would have liked to protest, but the combination of grinding fatigue and pain-laced hunger made her hesitate. Plus, one look at the pugnacious set of Abram’s jaw told her clearly he would hear no argument. So she ate, chewing slowly so as to make the two remaining sardines last as long as possible.

  “When I was a kid,” Abram said out loud, speaking softly, “my dad lost his job for a while. After the crash of ‘29. That was the first time us kids moved out to my uncle’s farm. First time I was ever in the country, just a scared city kid who’d never been hungry before. I learned what it felt like that summer, though. My uncle didn’t like us much. Didn’t approve of his baby sister marrying a Jew, I guess.”

  Evelyn looked up at Abram, but his eyes remained fixed on the tiny fire he’d made. She sent him a pulse of affection and support though the bond, but he seemed too lost in his thoughts to notice.

  “Anyway, he didn’t give us much to eat. I was the oldest, so it was up to me to take care of the little ones. I used to sneak them whatever I could squirrel away. My cousins helped, some. They’re good people. They didn’t like their mean old man much, either.” At that, he looked over at Evelyn with a grin that came nowhere near his eyes. Evelyn felt the deep sadness welling up inside him.

  “He sounds terrible,” Evelyn murmured.

  “He did his best,” Abram shrugged. “Ma said he was never the same after the war. He got shot up in Belleau Wood, came home, and started drinking. Never quit. He took us in when it counted.”

  It’s not your fault he didn’t like you, she thought to him. She never would have presumed to say something so personal out loud, but the intimacy of the psychic bond allowed for much more personal communications.

  I know, Abram said. It wasn’t his fault. It was just a hard thing. I tried so very hard, but I was just a kid. Just another mouth to feed.

  So how’d you get here? Evelyn asked, trying to change the subject.

  Abram shrugged. I was good in school. Especially math. I got a scholarship to NYU, studying cartography. When the war broke out, the recruiter said that with my background, I’d be a natural as a navigator, since I liked maps so much. So here I am. What about you?

  I was at the teachers’ college, Evelyn said. Captain Ledoux came by one afternoon and asked if any of us with talent would join up. “Do my part.” I talked to my parents, and we all agreed that it was only right that I go. I think my mother secretly hoped I’d be able to look after my little brother. He’s in the Marines.

  Where?

  The Pacific somewhere. I don’t know exactly. My parents got letters for a while...

  Doesn’t mean anything. You know how sporadic mail can be, and that’s assuming he’s got time to write. Those boys over there have a big job. I’m sure he’s fine. No news is good news, Abram thought, staunchly.

  I know, she said. Thank you.

  They finished their meager meal in silence, both physical and mental. After a while, Abram stirred himself from his contemplation of their little fire.

  “We’d better sleep,” he said, speaking out loud in order to break the spell of lassitude that had come over them both. “I’ll bank these coals so we’ll have heat all night. You should be warm enough that it’ll be safe. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day. We’ll head out at first light. I don’t think the crash site is far, so we’ll find a place nearby where we can hole up, get the lay of the land. See if any of our boys are around with the same idea we had.”

  We should have decided on a meet up plan before we bailed out, Evelyn thought, her eyes already closing. I’m sorry. I should have seen to it.

  We all had bigger problems on our minds at the time, Abram thought back. No use beating your head about it now. That will be good information for when we get back to Ridgeway, though.

  When we get back...she thought. And on that thought, sleep finally reared up and claimed her mind.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Nine

  Lina was frustrated. Another day down, tramping about this benighted forest with no sign of the psychic or any of the downed airmen. She knew Josef and the others weren’t bothered by their lack of progress, but she was. Deep inside, Lina felt a great drive to succeed, to find the Ami psychic, to interrogate her, and to gain the intelligence her countrymen so desperately needed to win this war.

  Patience, my Lina, Josef said into her mind for the thousandth time. This is the way of the hunt. We stalk our quarry, let her run herself out,
and then we move in for the kill. Our ancestors did the same, felling great herds of ancient deer and mammoths across this primeval land. Now we follow in their traditions. Though our quarry is weaker, she is craftier, but in the end, patience wins out over all. It is the hunter’s greatest weapon. No one can escape time.

  Lina smiled down at her boots as she stepped over yet another tree root. Poetic, my love, but what if time decides to ally with the Ami girl instead of with us? What if she uses this time to heal and escape? She’d been hurt. Lina knew that. It had taken her a while to realize it, but she had definitely felt the sear of pain, ragged and raw around the edges of the mysterious woman’s mind.

  Doubtful, he said. Wounded prey is easy prey. She will be slowed by whatever it is that you felt. We are healthy and quick. It will not be long before we find something.

  Lina had always heard that wounded prey was the deadliest, but she decided not to push any further. Josef sounded so splendidly confident in the essential truths of his argument, and she had no desire to create needless discord between them. Besides, if the Ami girl was going to be dangerous, it was likely going to be through her psychic powers, and Lina was more than prepared to deal with trouble of that kind.

  Up ahead, Werner came to a sudden stop. Halt, he thought, the order crisp through the lines of Lina’s net. Make no sound.

  Lina held her breath, her body quivering with tension. Slowly, so slowly, she pushed her mind outward, using Werner’s awareness as a springboard, and with the lightest of touches, scanned the area immediately in front of them. Through Werner’s eyes she could see a break in the trees ahead. A clearing, though it didn’t smell like a meadow. It smelled like hell and burnt metal.

  Werner crept closer, moving slowly and quietly between the pine trunks. The ground underfoot changed from soft, snow-wet leaf-fall to crisp, dry ash. Something had burned here. Something large.

  A moment later, he saw it. A twisted, scorched shape of metal that may have once been something magnificent. It had impacted near the treeline ahead, shearing off the tops of the pines on the other side of the clearing before gouging deep furrows in the earth as it came skidding to a halt.

  The cockpit was gone, buried in the earth and compressed beyond survivability by the impact. The entire wreck reeked of smoke, and black char lines ran along the entirety of the shape. Werner squinted, and he could barely make out the shape of a woman’s body painted on the side. Beneath that, he could see the letters P-R-E-T-T-Y C-A-S-S.

  He started to form the shape of the sounds, reaching back to the English he’d studied in grade school when something else caught his attention. Movement, there in the grass by the wreck.

  We have reached the wreckage of the American bomber, Werner thought back through the net. I can see the scorch marks through the trees.

  Someone is alive there, Lina reported, not the psychic. A man. I dare not probe deeper. If he has been working with the psychic, he may feel me should I try.

  Can you get a location? Josef asked, all trace of affection gone from his tone. This was the hunt. This was what they’d come for.

  Directly ahead, Lina said. About a hundred meters from Werner’s position.

  Fan out, the stabsfeldwebel ordered. Let us take him alive, my brothers. But we need not be overly gentle in doing so.

  * * *

  The journey wasn’t pleasant, but it was infinitely better than struggling along on her own. At first, Abram wanted to carry her, but Evelyn convinced him that they’d be better off if he didn’t completely exhaust himself. So he walked ahead, scouting their route, while she hobbled along behind with the aid of her stick. They stopped frequently. Abram said it was so that they could look and listen, be prepared for what lay ahead. Evelyn didn’t need the psychic link to know it was so she could rest.

  I can go farther, she protested at one such stop.

  Certainly, and so can I, but I’d rather not blunder into your group of Nazis, Abram replied breezily.

  They’re hardly my Nazis, she shot back, allowing her mind touch to carry a sting of asperity. His humor came back at her in a wave that washed over her. She gave him the mental equivalent of a shove in return. She was hot and sweaty from her exertions, and her leg ached abominably, and while she appreciated the rest, she didn’t need him coddling her. His good-natured response just served to ratchet her annoyance factor up higher. Evelyn had been taught to be sweet and to control her emotions, but the events of the past few days had served to fray her patience into oblivion. She just wanted to find the rest of her crew and go home.

  If any of them lived.

  And if she could escape the Nazis. Her Nazis. The ones she’d alerted just as surely as if she’d flown a banner over the forest. Perhaps, she realized, it wasn’t really Abram with whom she was angry.

  She started to say something along those lines when he started moving again. So Evelyn settled for reaching out down the psychic link with a feeling of apology. She felt his acceptance and reassurance. In much better spirits, they moved on.

  Abram had found a game trail that wound westward through the forest. It was far easier for them both than cutting through the trees. For one thing, Abram could see farther, and for another, there was less in the way of obstacles for Evelyn to negotiate. The trail took them up to the top of a ridge and then followed along the crest of it. Here and there, Evelyn could look out and see the forest spreading along the valleys on either side. It really was beautiful country. So very different from her own Black Hills. She was used to craggy granite mountains and forests of green-black pine. Here, the hills seemed rounder and the trees greener.

  Stop! Abram’s command whip cracked down the lines of her link, and Evelyn stumbled to a halt in response. He stood perhaps fifty feet in front of her, and slowly, as she watched, he sank to his knees and then flattened himself to his belly. Fear skittered along her nerves, tightening low in her belly. Abram inched forward in his prone position and then looked back and waved her forward.

  She moved slowly, hoping that by doing so, she would minimize the noise of her clumsy, hobbling steps. When she came up to where Abram’s feet lay, he motioned to her to get down as well. It hurt, pain stabbing through her ankle and up her whole leg as she first knelt, then carefully lowered her body down to lay beside his. When she did so, he handed her the miniature field glasses he’d found in his parachute survival pouch.

  There, do you see? he asked her silently. Through the trees, down into the valley. A line of smoke...

  The Cass! Evelyn said, her mind both exultant and horrified. The fuselage of the ruined Flying Fortress was recognizable, but only just. Her form had been grotesquely twisted and torn by the impact with the trees and the ground, and all that was left of her cockpit was a crumpled ruin. If the pilots had been in that space when they hit, Evelyn didn’t see how it could be possible that they survived.

  Yes, Abram thought back, his mind echoing her sadness. Now look aft, toward the tail. Do you see?

  Evelyn obeyed his instructions, scanning the glasses back toward the mostly intact tail section. As she did so, her eyes caught it, a tiny movement in the long grass of the field and a shape...

  A human, a man, lying on his side, facing away from them. He wore a leather jacket, much like the one on Evelyn’s own shoulders, and what looked like it might have been the remains of a parachute harness. It was hard to see at first, but when he moved his head, Evelyn caught sight of a red curl.

  Sean.

  Her breath caught, and only Abram’s hand heavy on her shoulder kept her prone. She wanted to struggle up to her feet and push her way through the rest of the ragged fringe of trees. The bond pushed at her, urged her to reach her consciousness out toward the man sleeping beside the embers of a fire.

  It may be a trap, Abram told her.

  It’s Sean! Evelyn’s mind wailed at him.

  You don’t know that, he said, repressively. It could be one of them dressed in his clothes. They could be lying in wait nearby. I don’t like it. I
t looks too neat. And Sean would know better than to light a fire in a clearing that could be seen for miles away.

  He could be hurt! He could be feverish, like me. I know it’s him, Abram! The bond is pulling at me so hard, it can’t be anyone but him! We can’t just leave him!

  No, we won’t leave him. But neither will we go blundering in there like a bunch of fools. Link with him, tell him we’re here, see what he can tell us. If it’s a trap, he’ll know.

  That made sense. Evelyn pulled in a breath of relief. Abram wasn’t going to suggest that they back away, leaving Sean alone and scared. Having felt the hell of that fear-soaked loneliness, Evelyn couldn’t imagine sentencing anyone, let alone one of her crew, to that.

  The instant she let her control relax, the bond leapt from her, as if it were some sort of invisible predator. Her awareness stretched out, arrowing through the trees and across the tall grass toward the twisted metal and the man who lay beside it.

  Sean! Evelyn exulted as the link, now a true net, clicked into place. The familiar contours of the flight engineer’s mental landscape filled her awareness, sending pleasure flooding through her brain and down the net to include Abram as well. In the snow beneath the trees, Evelyn shivered in near-ecstasy.

  Evie? Sean’s thought was weak and thready, as if he were in tremendous pain. Evie, no! Go, run! And then, with all the force she’d taught him to use, he shoved her out. She gasped out loud, unable to stop herself as his unexpected push broke her concentration, and with it, her link to the lieutenant as well.

  “Evie?” Abram murmured, alarm in his tone. Nearby, snow crunched under a footfall.

  A single man stepped into the clearing. He was tall and fair and dressed in the green of the Luftwaffe’s winter uniforms. On his chest, he wore the badge of an eagle clutching a swastika. He held his empty hands out from his sides.

  “Miss Psychic,” he called in accented English. “We know that you are out there. I give you my word that if you reveal yourself, no further harm will come to this American airman.”