Chapter Twenty-Three

 

 

 

The atmosphere in the stickies' camp was thoroughly miserable. Although nobody actually came and told the prisoners, they saw the corpse of the young man that Charlie had maimed being carried away in a crude litter, uncovered rain pattering down into his staring eyes.

 

"Guess he must have bled to death," Red Folsom said.

 

"Got what you wanted," Helga taunted, nudging Harold.

 

But the fat young man ignored her.

 

The day dragged on in a strange, desultory sort of way. There was a ceaseless rain, skirling around the canyon, making it hard to see more than fifty yards in any direction. It was coming off the cliff above the ancient dwellings in a solid sheet of dull silver, pouring down into the river that was widening among the trees.

 

Charlie kept away from them. Food was brought in what was probably the middle of the day. It was the same sort of hot, spiced stew.

 

"Get used to it, Ryan," Abe said with a cackling laugh.

 

"This all there is? Well, I guess I've eaten a lot less and a whole lot worse."

 

Red grinned mirthlessly. "Sure. The finest stew in the finest stickie camp in all Deathlands."

 

Helga wiped her metal dish clean with a hunk of corn bread. "This place serves beans well done, beans medium rare, beans over-easy, beans on the side, bean salad, chicken-fried beans and refried beans. I leave anything out?"

 

"Yeah," Danny said, lying awkwardly on his right side to take any pressure off his broken ankle. "You forgot something, Helga."

 

"What?"

 

"Just plain beans."

 

 

 

RYAN TRIED TO TALK to the other captives, weighing them up, trying to figure how they might react when the firing pin came down.

 

Danny, despite his pain, was more than ready to do what he could.

 

"Trouble is, Ryan, it's little I can do."

 

There was no doubt about Helga. Just put a sawed-off in her hands and a box of 12-gauge shells, and she'd take out an army of stickies.

 

"Heard trouble was around," she said, "but I didn't figure it for stickies. Neighbor to the west, away from Jak and Christina's spread, lost cattle and a couple of his men to a sickness. Wondered if there was lepers traveling through."

 

"Lepers! Fireblast, I haven't heard of them since I was in my teens. Thought they'd died off."

 

Helga shook her head, brushing away an importunate blowfly. "Nope. We get all sorts of crazies." She poked the Very Reverend Joe-Bob Jarman with her toe. "That right, isn't it, preacher man? Some real crazies."

 

He turned away from her, presenting his back in its tight broadcloth suit.

 

Helga grinned at Ryan, making a jerk-off movement with her right hand.

 

He grinned right back at her.

 

The preacher and Harold were no-hopers in any plan, not even of any potential use as a diversion. He wondered if chilling them would be a good or a bad move, then decided to let that lie awhile. They had at least two more days, according to Charlie.

 

Dorina Leonard slept most of the time, occasionally muttering under her breath in what sounded to Ryan like some sort of a Mex dialect. If it came to placing a narrow-bladed dagger in a man's groin while he was dreaming, then he guessed the waiflike woman would be a prime choice.

 

But she was so physically tiny and frail that her value in a knockdown drag-out fight was going to be a touch limited. And it didn't look as though she had the stamina to travel any distance cross-country if they made a break.

 

Red and his brother were prime candidates to enlist in any escape plan.

 

But when he managed to have a few private moments with each of the trappers, he found he hadn't been entirely right.

 

Bob Leonard shook his scarred head at Ryan's overture.

 

"Nope. Couldn't leave me wife. Dorina'd like die if I was to get went. Lost our little 'uns. She was wed before."

 

"How old is she?" Ryan couldn't believe that this woman-child was more than sixteen, tops.

 

"Near twenty, she figures, Ryan." His mutilated mouth tried for a smile and didn't miss it by much. "Don't look it, does her?"

 

"No."

 

"She wed. Lawman up in Kansas. July Randall. He was took by a breed in a knife fight. Blindsided him in the dark."

 

"No more children?"

 

"Sure did. One was dead-birthed. Other was four and the breed cut off its head."

 

Ryan whistled soundlessly between his teeth. "That does beat all, Bob. And I understand about Dorina. Not wanting to try anything without her."

 

One eye squinted at him, from under the furrowed mass of tumbled scar tissue. "Thanks, Ryan. Good on you."

 

There was also an unexpected problem with Red Folsom.

 

As soon as Ryan started to talk, very casually, about what their hopes might be of escaping, the tough red-head grabbed him by the arm, jerking on the links of the cuffs that joined him to Harold.

 

"Hey, why do" The complaint was stillborn as his neighbor glared at him.

 

"Get away from me, Harold. Far as you can."

 

"Why pick on me, Red?"

 

"Because you're the best there is, fat boy."

 

The one-time candy seller shuffled away, until his chained arm was out straight, nearly four feet along the ledge from Folsom.

 

"Trust him far as I can piss into a hurricane, Ryan. Get me?"

 

"Sure. Think he'd betray us to Charlie?"

 

"Do barons screw virgins?"

 

"If he did, Charle'd chill him just the same. Wouldn't make any difference."

 

Folsom grinned. "You know it. I know it. But does Harold know it?"

 

Ryan nodded. He'd already picked Lord as one of the two possible traitors. The Very Reverend Joe-Bob Jarman was the other.

 

"What is it you don't want him to hear?" he asked the big man.

 

"We know that the strawhead stickie bastard got plans to send us off to buy the farm with a big bright bang. Couple of days. Got his men watching us." Folsom made the word "men" sound like something he'd picked up on his front fender.

 

"So? Sooner we get a plan worked out, the better it is."

 

Folsom shook his head. "Sorry, Ryan. Not much of a man for other folk's plans. Just take you a good long look at the others. You might be fine, and your woman seems like she'd swim most rivers and climb most mountains. But Danny's lost. Abe's old, and his breath's not good. Helga might not go without Danny. My partner won't move unless Dorina goes too. Minister and fat boy are out. Never was good at numbering. But it seems to me that if you take nine away from ten you get one. Comes down to me."

 

Ryan wasn't surprised. Nor could he honestly pick many holes in Folsom's thinking. A man alone would often have the edge on a group.

 

"Sorry to hear that," he said finally, staring out across the rain-swept camp.

 

"Way it is." Flat and final.

 

"Sure. Figured we might get our blasters back and do some damage. That way we mightonly might have a chance of getting the others sprung."

 

Folsom spit. The white globule landed in the slippery mud and immediately vanished in the pitted, orange slime.

 

"Hear what you say, Ryan."

 

"You got yourself a plan?"

 

Folsom laughed. "I've known Bob Leonard there for around seven years. Spent some hard winters and harder times with him. I haven't told him what I intend, Ryan."

 

And that was just about the end of the conversation between them

 

.

 

CHARLIE PADDED OVER near late afternoon, the Uzi kept dry under a long slicker. He was bareheaded, the water flattening his hair to his scalp.

 

"Had a good day, pilgrims?" he asked cheerily.

 

Helga gave him the finger. "Stick it in your ass, freak."

 

"I'm going to think of something special in the way of lonely, humiliating, agonizing deaths, lady," Charlie said, smiling, his tongue darting out to lick his lips.

 

Most of the cooking fires had been extinguished by the torrential rain, but several of the Anasazi dwellings now had the scent of cooking drifting from their openings.

 

"Going to be a hard night." Charlie laughed. "Those kivas are all around three feet deep in water. You norms come on like gods. See how you are at floating off to sleep!"

 

He walked away, shoulders shaking with merriment at his own joke.

 

Danny shifted, trying to get more comfortable. "Still aren't real used to a fucking stickie with a sense of humor," he said.

 

 

 

BY THE TIME THE LIGHT began to fade the gloom of late afternoon to the darkness of early evening, everyone was utterly miserable.

 

Though the massive cliff gave them shelter from the direct force of the rain, the wind had blown it into a fine, drizzling spray, which had seeped through to every corner of the camp.

 

A thin veil of water lay on top of the stew, cooling it. The wrist cuffs were taken off for them to eat, with a ring of guards watching carefully.

 

"Them muskets can't be too reliable in weather like this," Folsom said to Ryan. "Flash in the pan they will, even if they tried to keep their powder dry."

 

Ryan wasn't about to risk his life on that possibility.

 

Once the huddled meal was over, the ankle cuffs were also removed and the stickies started to shepherd them away from the shelter, along the raised walkway, toward the row of kivas. Ryan and Folsom helped Danny along, supported between them.

 

They stopped near the entrance to the partly flooded kiva, while Krysty led the rest down inside.

 

Folsom looked across at Ryan. "So long," he whispered.

 

And made his break.