Then, as she crouched, rubbing her ankle and wondering what to do, she watched as the sergeant unclasped Sweetness’ ankle and then both of them were...free. “You must run! Both of you! The Gomorrans. They’re here. Soon they’ll be in this tent. And they’ll kill you! You must leave! Now!” The sergeant tugged Sharon up, who was unsteady from so many days of lying down. And weak from eating so badly. And bruised and battered from her multiple rapes. He grabbed Sharon by the arm and pulled up. "I thought for a moment he was going to treat 'if you're ready' as an excuse to leave her hanging, but he gave me another kiss, then climbed out of the bed and went into the main room. He returned with Tarmant, and I could tell by her eyes and his that we were past the worst of the pain, for both of them.I waved them to the bed, and lay on my back, with them laying half on top of me, the way we'd awakened together for the first time. I kissed both of them, and held them tight for a moment, then. I assured him I wasn't laughing AT him, and it was just that I was sure I could do it any timeof night or day. He looked relieved. He was to become more relieved. He said his wife would go MAD, she would go ON an ON and on about how nuch she had to do towards it, all the medication she was having to inject herself with. She was normally pretty feisty he said, and withall the induced hormones coursing through her system made her absolutely incendiary. We talked about it some more, and he. Those towering, rocky peaks were even more beautiful than she'd pictured them from Arnie's letters, remote and forbidding, almost untouched by human despoilation, they rose silently on the far horizon, like the Great Wall of China, running as far north as she could see.Gus drove them up into the hilly meadows for an even closer look, and parked the jeep nearly ten miles from town, on a treeless bluff that afforded a picture-book view both of the river behind them and the majestic Mackenzies.