We drove to a designated mountaintop an hour south, west of the town I'd found them, when the younger woman, whose name was something like 'Til' got out and started shouting something like 'Buxter' in a stentorian voice. It must have resounded ten miles in the silent valleys below us.
We waited, all four of us leaning against my truck for most of an hour when we heard a rustling and a man in a ragged coat with a shotgun cradled in his arm emerged from the thick brush below us. He recognized 'Til' and her companion, saluted to me and we all sat in the dirt while a talk began.
'Til' told him of the demon attack, the loss of her 'kin' and my intercession. I tried to fill in the scant outlines of her grim account, about it being a robot and to be on guard, but not too much as I could see by his strained look that he wasn't comfortable with long explanations. So I got to the point and told him I was just here to drop them all off and that I'd trade him my guns and grenade launcher to take them in, along with all the camping gear and food they might carry.
He stood up and seemed impressed as I unfurled the tarp to my pickup bed and showed him all the goods, opening the case to the rocket launcher and explaining this was the only thing that could kill a robot. He stroked his unshaven chin, seriously considering the swap.
Then he spoke up: "Ya keepin the lil one. She make a fine wife".
This suggestion shocked me, that a ten year old might be the wife to someone in his early thirties. It made up my mind. I certainly wasn't going to leave her in such brute company and I spoke up right away: "Why thank you. I'd be glad to take her".
The deal was sealed as if both sides had made an equitable trade and were satisfied with their bargaining acumen. The man slung two more rifles over his shoulder and took the case while the two women loaded up with the camping gear and quickly disappeared with him into the thorn bushes below us. I took Kim's hand as we stood on this scenic outlook, silently gazing into the West as the sun was soon to set, as if the lingering day might contain some clue to our own futures.
After a long while I motioned her back to the cab and once inside, I asked her: "Kim, are you happy that you're coming with me?"
Now she spoke up, much more than before, as if forever free from the narrow limits her former masters expected of her.
She began with her history.
"I talked a lot at first, like I used to with my father. They always told me to 'shush' or 'tat'. That means the same thing, so I did."
"Did they spank you?"
"No, only twice, for not liking their food. I've only been with them the last six months."
'Why didn't they say this when I asked?' I thought. 'It's not that they can't reckon time, they just don't try. They starve themselves of any mental effort, of anything they're not interested in, which in their case is almost everything.'
"How old are you?"
"Ten and a half."
"Well, at least you can keep track of time. And that's a good thing. I'd like to talk with you much more and hear your whole story. I'll never tell you to 'hush'. And I'll talk a lot too. You can bet on that."
I glanced at her sitting quietly now beside me, not with a smile but a sort of thoughtful content, a face we have with the growing conviction that things might actually be looking up.
