Chapter Seventeen

 

 

 

If Dean hadn't been winded by the fall, there might have been some hope. Slender, admittedly, but there could have been the possibility of escape. A quick burst of shooting to bring down some of the armed sec men and panic the horses, then up and away into the surrounding woods.

 

But even that had drawbacks.

 

It would mean keeping together at the speed of the slowest member of the group, which was Doc, by a goodly margin. And there might be other hunting parties around the forest, all on their home turf, knowing the shortcuts and the streams.

 

A man on a horse could easily ride down a running man, even in a woodland like this one. And the sec men looked disciplined and tough.

 

Half a dozen blasters were pointed at the breathless boy, and Ryan knew that this was one of those times for talking rather than shooting.

 

He stood, showing both empty hands.

 

"No danger," he said. "There's six of us here. Okay if we come on down?"

 

The woman seemed least affected. She had looked up in surprise as the boy appeared from thin air and spooked her mare. But she had regained control, pulling on the bit, again using her spurs. Now everyone waited for her to speak.

 

"Why didn't you kill us, outlander?"

 

"Not our way."

 

She smiled thinly. Now that Ryan could see her more clearly he realized that she was older than he'd guessed, possibly a couple of years into her thirties. Her eyes were a dark brown and looked curiously up at him.

 

"That's a nice rifle and a quality handblaster at your belt. SIG-Sauer. The rest of you got weapons of that quality?" Dean had managed to stand and was staring intently at his father, waiting for a signal to dart for cover. The woman touched him with the braided tip of her quirt. "Don't, lad. Don't even think about it for Ah, I see the resemblance."

 

She looked at Ryan. "Your son?"

 

"Yeah."

 

"I see. I could have shot him, just by nodding my head. And you, too."

 

"Then you'd be chilled in less than a heartbeat, and half your pretty sec men with you." J.B. had shuffled silently a few yards to his right, still keeping in the dead ground behind the brow of the small hill.

 

"And the other half wouldn't last long." Krysty had her blaster leveled, just out of sight.

 

"More and more. You know you're on the hunting land of my father, Baron Nathan Mandeville?"

 

"No."

 

"Does it make a scrap of difference now that you know, outlander?"

 

"Not really."

 

One of the young men spoke up. He had a shallow, spoiled face and was, Ryan could almost swear, wearing women's makeup. "Why not just shoot them all, Mistress Marie? Or simply take them all prisoner?"

 

"I have long believed that all of your brains dwell in your cock, Anthony. And from what I hear of your more recent 'performances,' it means they aren't too profuse. Don't think of speaking again unless I tell you that you can. Which will not be until we're all back at Sun Crest."

 

"Want us to leave your father's lands?"

 

"Possibly. But no, outlander. You look more interesting than most of the border scum that come crawling up here from the mud of the Sippi."

 

"Then can we all come out?"

 

"Yes."

 

Ryan turned. "Stay on triple-red," he said quietly. Louder he added, "Everyone out when I give the word."

 

He turned back to the self-possessed woman. "After your sec men shoulder those Armalites, if that's"

 

"Of course." A wave of the gloved hand brought instant obedience.

 

Ryan led the way down the slope, leaning back to keep his balance in the loose earth. He was followed by Krysty, then Mildred and Doc. Michael came next, with J.B. cautiously bringing up the rear.

 

Ryan made the introductions, explaining the usual story they used. They'd been traveling around Deathlands, looking for any sort of work, leaving the suggestion that the "work" might have some connection with hired blasters.

 

"Our wag broke down five days ago. Gearbox just about dropped onto the highway. Been walking since."

 

He had the feeling that the woman on the horse, looking down at him with a cool disdain, didn't believe a word of it. But, oddly, it didn't seem to matter.

 

"Very well, Cawdor. My name is Marie Mandeville. My father is the Baron Nathan Mandeville, and he owns Sun Crest and all the land as far as you can see to west and north."

 

"That the ville over that way?" J.B. asked, pointing behind the riders.

 

"Yes, Dix, it is."

 

It was bizarre that they were having a civilized conversation within ten feet of the stiffening corpse of the hunted man, butchered in as brutal a manner as Ryan had ever witnessed.

 

There was a long silence, broken by Ryan. "Well?"

 

She lifted her head, glanced at the four young men, silencing their whispering. "I am not used to having anyone speak to me in that tone of voice, Cawdor. My father is a baron of considerable wealth and power."

 

"That's good for you, lady. Doesn't impress me all that much. Guess he eats and shits just like I do. Like he did." Ryan pointed at the body.

 

"This person broke a number of rules and was legally tried and sentenced. And executed."

 

"Sure. Now, you want us to come with you or go our own way? Just tell me."

 

He could almost hear the wheels spinning in what he figured was a sharp little brain.

 

"This isn't a place of dramatic landscapes," she replied. "You sit down and the land seems to surround you like a bowl. My father has always been a man to try to relieve this monotony in any way he can. Outlanders like you and your companions might inspire him. Come and be our guests."

 

Ryan glanced around at the others. None of them showed any great enthusiasm for the idea. But none of them showed any marked resistance, either.

 

"Sure," he said.

 

 

 

FOUR OF THE SEC MEN reluctantly gave up their mounts, trudging disconsolately along behind the hunting party.

 

Ryan rode with Dean perched in front of him. Mildred and Krysty doubled on a tall gelding. Michael clung on with extreme unhappiness, arms locked tight around J.B.'s waist. And Doc rode in solitary splendour on a fine Appaloosa, grinning back at the four dismounted guards.

 

"Story of warfare through the ages," he called to Ryan. "Cavalry never much cared for ending up with the poor bloody infantry."

 

 

 

ONCE THEY WERE EN ROUTE for the ville of Sun Crest, Marie Mandeville virtually ignored them, riding ostentatiously at the front of the column, surrounded by the quartet of sycophantic and elegant young men.

 

The trail was well marked, though it occasionally narrowed among the trees, forcing them into a meandering single file. But most of the time it was possible to ride in pairs or threes.

 

Ryan found himself alongside the most senior of the sec men, a grizzled veteran with three golden stripes on his sleeve.

 

"Name's Harry Guiteau," he offered. "I seen you someplace, Cawdor."

 

"Could be. I been most places. Looks like that could be true for you as well."

 

The man nodded. His left cheek was badly scarred, as though he'd once been on the wrong end of a charge of buckshot, and two fingers were missing from his left hand. He noticed Ryan appraising him.

 

"The hand was a woman. Hunkpapa, up in the high plains. I was sixteen years old and drunker than a skunk. Pain woke me up, but she got away. I always wondered what it was that I'd done to make her so sore."

 

"How about the mark on your face?" Dean asked, unable to quench his insatiable curiosity.

 

"I rode a time with Gert Wolfram."

 

Ryan glanced around to see if J.B. had picked up on the notorious name from their joint past, but the Armorer was arguing with Michael about not holding on so tightly.

 

"You knew him?" Guiteau asked.

 

"No. Know the name. Used to run a kind of mutie freak show around some of the northern pestholes. Must be ten or fifteen years ago. Mebbe longer."

 

They were moving steadily down a gentle slope, with clumps of stately cottonwoods on both sides of the trail. Somewhere not far ahead Ryan could hear the sound of fast-flowing water. The sun was sinking rapidly, and the shadows clustered more closely around the riders.

 

Guiteau heeled his mount through a narrow gap between a pile of jumbled stone and a fallen pine.

 

"Used to be a vacation cabin," he said, gesturing with his thumb at the ruin. "Some vid star. Locals say she topped herself with a straight razor when her tapes stopped selling. Supposed to be triple-famous. I can't remember what she was called."

 

"How long before we reach the ville?" Ryan asked.

 

"Hour. Got to cross the south fork of the Antelope. Had some rain lately, so it's up at the ford." He looked back at the one-eyed man. "I've sure as shit seen you before. You was saying about Gert Wolfram?"

 

"No. You said you rode with him. I said I'd heard the name before. Years before."

 

The sergeant had a chew of tobacco in his cheek, and he loosed a thin stream of dark liquid onto the trail. "Yeah, that's right. Your kid asked me about this." He touched the deep scar tissue that disfigured his cheek, tugging the corner of his mouth up into a perpetual quirkish grin.

 

"Shotgun?" Dean offered.

 

"Yeah. One of Gert Wolfram's fucking star attractions done it to me."

 

"Mutie?"

 

"Right, Cawdor. Kind of half-breed. Stickie mother and a swampie father. Least, that was the story."

 

"Bad mix." Now the noise of the river was growing much louder, making it more difficult to hear the sergeant's story.

 

But Ryan wanted him to keep on talking so Guiteau lost interest in whether or when he might have seen him. There were places with long memories where the Trader and his men and women were concerned, places that had encountered the iron fist inside the iron glove.

 

"Bastard got hold of a sawed-down. Wolfram used it in part of his show. Only loaded with rock salt. Fired it at the muties when they pretended to attack him from right across the cage. Course, it made a hell of a bang but it didn't do no harm. Not at that range from a sawed-down. This mutie had a woman, and I was younger and I'd have fucked anything that didn't have hooves." Guiteau laughed. "Fact is, even that's not totally true. Long nights our riding the lines and that little sheep starts looking about the prettiest thing you ever But that's not the point."

 

Now Ryan could glimpse the river ahead of them, about eighty feet across. Upstream, the water was swollen, dark and deep, tinted crimson by the setting sun. Below the point of the shallow crossing was a long run of menacing rapids, white water over jagged stone.

 

Behind them, Doc was having increasing trouble in controlling his horse, shouting at it and trying to punch it across the top of the head.

 

Guiteau turned in his saddle and his grin widened. "That Comanche's a vicious sun-bucking star-fishing bastard. The old man best watch her across the ford."

 

"The mutie and the shotgun?" Dean shouted, leaning half off the back of the horse.

 

"Oh, it weren't nothing. When he seen the body of the woman I didn't mean to, but I was wild then. That night he decked old Gert and grabbed the scattergun. Might've been salt, but it nearly took my fucking head right off my shoulders, kid. Hurt like a bastard."

 

"You kill him after?"

 

"No."

 

"No?"

 

"No. Not after . Killed him right then and there. Broke his neck. Then passed out. Wolfram said it got the biggest cheer he ever heard from an audience. When I got better he wanted to try and work it into a regular sort of act. That was when him and me parted company. Well, here we are at the Antelope. Best make sure that Mistress Marie gets over without her pretty little boots getting splashed."

 

Everyone reined in and Guiteau spurred on to the front. Dean nudged his father.

 

"He seems kind of all right, Dad."

 

"Seems to me to be one of the coldest-hearted bastards I ever saw."

 

 

 

GUTTEAU CAME BACK to rejoin Ryan. "Taken a look and there's a shitload of water going down the pike right now. I suggested to Mistress Marie that we could go a few miles upstream where there's an old stone bridge across the Antelope."

 

Ryan smiled at the expression on the sergeant's face. "And she didn't warm to that idea?"

 

"You're all right, Cawdor. No, you could say she didn't take to the suggestion."

 

"So?"

 

"She ordered Anthony to go first."

 

"Who is he? All four of them look like preening pretty boys. Are they"

 

Guiteau held up his disfigured left hand to silence Ryan. "One thing you'd best learn right here and now, Cawdor. Worst enemy a man can have at Sun Crest is Mistress Marie. Sure, Baron Nathan runs things tighter than a beaver's ass. But you know where you are with him. Word gets back to her" he jerked a thumb to the woman, who was watching the young man picking his way into the river "that someone spoke wrong or looked wrong, then they'd do well to swallow their Armalite."

 

"I get it."

 

"No, you don't, Cawdor. You think that you've talked to me and you and me are a lot similar. Sure we are. I can judge a man, and you and me ridden a lot of the same trails. But that don't mean I'd piss on you if you were burning to death. Understand me? I ride for the baron. And all that means."

 

Ryan nodded. "Sure, Guiteau. I understand."

 

"Be sure you do." He rubbed a hand over his cropped scalp. "I know I seen you before. But it's so long ago. This scar of mine makes folks remember me. Same with that lost eye of yours. How did you lose it?"

 

"Stupe way. Taking a rabbit from a snare. Wasn't dead. Kicked back and popped my eye out of its socket as neat as any doctor's knife."

 

Guiteau gave a roar of laughter. "Good one, Cawdor! Nearly as good as my waking up to find my fingers missing. Only good part of that was she didn't slice off my dick."

 

Anthony had finally succeeded in getting his mount across the Antelope, with much splashing and squeakings of alarm. He now sat on the far side of the ford with a complacent grin on his soft, vacant face.

 

Marie didn't hesitate for a moment. In went the spurs and the horse shot forward in a clumsy, spread-legged leap. For a moment Ryan thought that the woman had lost it, as she vanished in a welter of brown spray. But it was no surprise to see her emerge, hair dripping wet, breasting the river and emerging alongside Anthony. Her face showed no sign of any emotion, as her eyes locked on Ryan.

 

Doc was close to the one-eyed man, still battling his stubborn horse. "By the Three Kennedys! I would rather make a dozen mat-trans jumps than face this, Ryan."

 

"You'll be fine, Doc. Look, I'll come in with you. Get alongside and then, if anything happens, you can leap off and hang on with me."

 

Doc managed a smile that was more a rictus of trepidation. "The graveyards of history are littered with those poor souls who were persuaded to change horses in midstream, my dear fellow. And you want me to do the same."

 

"Just in case. Come on, everyone's going for it."

 

There was shouting and cursing as the hunting party began the fording of the south fork of the Antelope.

 

One of the sec man nearly lost it as his gelding stumbled, going clean under water. But the man was good, staying with the horse, rising with his arms clasped tight around its dripping neck. He eventually made it to the far shore amid a chorus of ironic cheers.

 

Guiteau had remained with the outlanders, possibly to make sure they remained safe, possibly to make sure that nobody changed their mind about accepting the invitation from the chatelaine of the ville of Sun Crest.

 

"Over you go," the sergeant said, his finger not all that far from the trigger of the Armalite.

 

Krysty went first, Mildred holding her around the waist, followed by J.B. and Michael. Ryan watched anxiously, but both horses were strong and had no trouble with the crossing.

 

Now there was only Ryan, with Dean at his back, Doc and Sergeant Guiteau, who shook his head at the worried look on the old man's face. "I'll lead your horse and you can swing off and grab on my stirrup. I'll drag you over safe."

 

"Safe, perhaps, my good fellow. But with some concomitant loss of my precious dignity. No, I shall pay the price to live with myself on my own terms. Come on!"

 

He went so fast that Ryan was taken by surprise, heeling his own horse in a little behind the frothing wake of the spirited Appaloosa.

 

There was time to shout a warning to his son to hold on tightly, then the cold water was foaming around his thighs, the horse bucking and rolling as it fought desperately for a footing in shifting stones.

 

Ryan was aware of Guiteau, pushing confidently along a little to his rear, holding the Armalite above his head in his mutilated left hand.

 

The danger was very real, with the sawtooth rapids only a few yards to their right.

 

But it was exciting, and Dean gave a sudden piercing rebel yell of delight, slapping their horse on the flank with the flat of his hand.

 

"Don't let go!" Ryan shouted, half turning in the saddlein time to see the threatened disaster become a reality.

 

It might have been that Doc's horse was already nervous of the surging water, or it might have been the old man's own fear communicating itself to the animal.

 

The reason didn't matter.

 

Ryan saw the mount rear, as though it scented danger. Doc's cracked boots slipped from the irons and he went over backward, vanishing under the dark river.

 

The horse recovered its balance and galloped out onto the opposite bank, where it stood trembling.

 

But Doc hadn't surfaced.

 

Ryan caught a fleeting glimpse of a clenched fist, breaking through the white froth at the brink of the rapids.

 

Then it disappeared.