Life Expectancy

wounded, the zing of a ricochet off a rock. Something whined past my head, and I knew that it wasn't a bee.
        The profligate use of ammunition might be a mistake. Even an extended magazine would quickly run dry at the rate he was tapping it.
        If he emptied the rifle without bringing me down, he would have to pause to reload. When he paused, I'd keep moving. He'd lose track of me.
        Having lost track of me, he might go directly to the Explorer and kill Lorrie.
        That thought tripped me. I fell over the unthinkable and landed hard on one shoulder, face in the cold reality of snow prickled with evergreen needles.
        I rolled, not by choice, propelled by the momentum of the fall.
        Tumbling downhill, I knocked knees and elbows against stones, surface roots, and frozen earth.
        Although I had fallen into this tactic, staying low and in motion seemed to be smart. After a few revolutions, however, I realized that if I rolled into a tree at the wrong angle, I might break my neck.
        The clumps of undergrowth were sparse and widely separated, but if I thrashed through one, a stiff dead stick could put out an eye.
        Thereafter, I'd be half as likely to see that plummeting safe when at last it dropped on me.
        I came out of the roll, grabbed at tufts of dead bunch-grass, at a tangle of withered ivy, at rocks, at anything that might slow me down.
        Scrambled to my hands and knees. Got to my feet. Ran in a crouch for a distance until I wondered if I needed to run anymore, and stopped.
        Disoriented, I scanned the woods, found the colorless landscape as deceiving to the eye as ever, and tried to quiet my breathing. I didn't know how far I'd come: most likely far enough to have escaped him for the moment.
        I couldn't see him, which I figured meant he couldn't see me, either.
        Wrong. I heard him running toward me.
        Without glancing back, I hurried south once more, across the face of the slope, following a serpentine path through the trees, repeatedly stumbling, skidding, recovering my balance, staggering from side to side, hurtling forward.
        When he didn't at once open fire, I assumed he was either out of am munition altogether or hadn't taken time to reload. If he no longer had the advantage of the weapon, it might be smart to turn and charge him. He wouldn't expect such boldness.
        A sudden field of loose stones provided bad footing but gave me an idea. If we were going to wind up in hand-to-hand combat, he might have a knife or a lot of training. I needed an equalizer. Among the stones underfoot were larger rocks.
        I stopped, stooped, at once put my hand around a rock the size of a small grapefruit. But as I stooped, another burst of gunfire shattered my fragile plan.
        Even as those whistling whispers of death spoke inches above me, I left the rock where I'd found it, crabbed in a crouch across the shifting stones, slipped between two trees, dodged left, dared to stand in order to gain speed, and ran off the edge of a cliff.
        Cliff is an exaggeration, but that's what it felt like when my right foot met empty air, and then my left.
        Falling, I cried out in shock and dropped about fifteen feet into a bristling yet soft mound. On impact, I recognized the sound of rushing water, saw surging torrents laced with phosphorescent foam, and realized where I was. And knew what I must do.
        The assault rifle had been cutting the night when I stepped off the brink, and if the gunman had heard my shout, he might have thought I'd been hit. To encourage that misperception, I screamed once, as horribly as I could, then again, weaker and with what I hoped sounded like agony.
        At once I sprang up and, staying close to the bank, hurried ten feet uphill.
        Goldmine Run, which is bigger than a stream and smaller than a river, originates from a hot artesian well that forms a steaming volcanic lake in the mountains to the east. Hawksbill Road bridges it; this western slope receives it.
        The channel is narrow, no more than twenty feet wide, forcing a deep stream twelve to fourteen feet across. By the time it gets here, the water is no longer warm, but because the bed of the run is so steep, the rapid currents resist freezing even in an unusually cold winter. An almost whimsical fresco of ice, formed from spray, appears only along the edges of the run.
        A gunshot