Just a shadow of a motion, a whisper of sound, a breath—someone was coming along the path on the other side of the bushes.

Steven's lips curled back to reveal decayed teeth. He brought out his knife from his belt and stood utterly still, waiting for the steps to go on so he could trail along behind his quarry, off to one side, judging the other's stature from glimpses through the bushes, and ascertaining whether he was carrying anything worth killing him for.

But the footsteps didn't pass. They stopped on the other side of the bushes. Then leaves rustled as whoever it was bent to come through the bushes. Steven hugged his tree trunk, and saw a short thin figure coming toward him through the green leaves, a bent-over figure. He raised the knife, started to bring its point down in the short arc that would end in the back of the other's neck...

He dropped the knife.

Wide-eyed, not breathing, he stared at her.

Knife in hand, its point aimed at his belly, she stared back.

She was dressed in a man's trousers, torn off at the ankles, and a yellow blouse that might have belonged to her mother, and new-looking shoes she must have found, or killed for, only a week or so ago. Her face was as sunburned and dirty as his.

A squirrel chittered over their heads as they stared at each other.

Steven noted expertly that she seemed to be carrying no food and had no gun. No one with a gun would carry a drawn knife.

She still held the knife ready, though the point had drooped. She moistened her lips.

He wondered if she would attack. He obviously didn't have any food either, so maybe she wouldn't. But if she did—well, she was only a little larger than he was; he could probably kill her with her own knife, though he might even get his own knife from the ground before she got to him.

But it was a woman, he knew ... without knowing exactly what a woman was, or how he knew. The hair was long—but then, some of the men's hair was long too. It was something different—something about the face and body. He hadn't seen many women, and certainly never one as little as this, but he knew that's what it was. A woman.

Once he'd seen some men kill another man who'd killed a woman for her food. By their angry shouts he 

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