Chapter Thirty-Four

 

 

 

"Fur hunters," J.B. announced.

 

There were three men in the group, creeping along the dead ground of a ridge opposite Ryan and the Armorer, invisible to the small diseased band of stickles, but in the full sight of the two friends.

 

They wore an indistinct mix of rags and tattered animal skins, and all of them were heavily armed. Each man had a single-shot hunting musket in his hands, as well as a brace of pistols stuck in his belt.

 

"Looks like we might get the job done for us." Ryan shaded his eyes against the freezing wind. "Think they know the muties got the shitting sickness?"

 

J.B. half turned toward him, lips peeling back over his teeth in a cold, wolfish grin. "Soon find out," he said. "If they stay outside, then they know. If they go into the camp, then they don't know."

 

It took less than five minutes to reveal that the trio of hunters wasn't aware of the lethally infectious sickness that was ravaging the stickies' settlement.

 

Two out of the first three shots were clean kills, knocking a pair of males off their feet, to roll and kick in the frosted mud. The third shot clipped another of the muties through the shoulder, kicking him off balance. He struggled, yelping, onto his hands and knees, one arm dangling uselessly, blood pouring into the dirt.

 

There was screaming and chaos, the hunters breaking from cover, running clumsily toward the ragtag camp. One of them paused by the wounded stickie and smashed the butt of his empty musket into the side of the angular skull. Even at a distance of fifty yards, Ryan and J.B. both heard the clear sound of crushed bone. The mutie slipped onto its face and lay still.

 

"Three done," Ryan said quietly, keeping the Steyr ready at his shoulder.

 

The noise brought the other muties out of their shelters, the oldest of them holding a crude spear. He thrust it toward one of their attackers, but the hunter fired his pistol into his chest at point-blank range. There was the dulled explosion of the flintlock and a cloud of black powder smoke. The spear flew into the air, spinning with an infinite slowness before landing point-first in the mud.

 

"Four," J.B. said.

 

The fifth and sixth stickie males were bludgeoned to death, sprawling lifeless in the shadow of the wall.

 

"Kid and the woman left." It crossed Ryan's mind to take out all three of the hunters, but he decided that he might just as well save his ammunition. Simply by breathing in the air of the cholera-infested camp the killers were fifty-fifty to take the last train west. If they got any closer to the muties, the odds would shorten to at least ninety-ten.

 

One of the norms grabbed the screaming child and cut its throat as easily and effortlessly as if he were gutting a rabbit, tossing the body away.

 

The woman had a knife and for a few seconds she held the trio of laughing hunters away from her. They circled around as she yelled and cursed, laughing at her, feinting to grab her arm, then pulled back out of range of the blade.

 

"One of them still got a charge in his blaster," J.B. said. "Looks like they aim to have themselves some fun before they chill her."

 

"Might as well jump in their graves and shovel the cold dirt in on top of themselves." Ryan laid the Steyr SSG-70 down, easing the action.

 

The woman was dragged into the largest tent by all three men.

 

As soon as they were out of sight, Ryan crawled back into deeper cover and stood. "Might as well get going," he said. "They won't let her live. And they'll have a fine, close-combat dose of dying."

 

Snow was beginning to fall as they set off on the four-mile hike to the ville. The screams had stopped before they'd even traveled a quarter of a mile.

 

 

 

ANDY SHEPPARD and a dozen or so of other citizens waited for Ryan and J.B. as they walked along the main street of Mitchell Springs.

 

"Boy, oh, boy! What happened? You didn't get to the camp? That it? That it?" A look of shock crossed his face. "You didn't get anyplace inside the camp? In the camp?"

 

Ryan told the careful truth. "Found the stickles, like you said, by the ruins of the hospital. Eight of them. All looking real sick."

 

"Yeah?"

 

"Yeah. There was eight. Now there aren't any."

 

"You chilled them all?" the old woman asked.

 

"I told you. When we left the camp they were all dead. Or down and dying. I promise you that your ville won't have any trouble with that group of stickies ever again."

 

Sheppard grinned, rubbing his hands together. "Oh, boy, that's good news."

 

"Now we're going," Ryan said, suddenly drawing the SIG-Sauer and leveling it at the man's belt buckle. J.B. had the Uzi cocked and ready.

 

"Hey, what is this? This?"

 

"This is the way we leave a ville where we've done a job and got paid in gasoline. And nobody wants any accidents happening to spoil things. Do they?"

 

Andy Sheppard turned around, his eyes settling on Maggie. "You told them. Oh, boy, oh, boy, you better watch your ass from now on in."

 

"We hear of any trouble for Maggie when we come back this way in a few weeks, then it'll mean some chilling," J.B. warned. "Starting with you, Sheppard."

 

"Hey! No hard feelings, feelings, feelings, now."

 

"Good." Ryan turned to his companion. "Go get the armawag started up, J.B., and bring her along here. I'll stay and keep an eye on our hosts for a while."

 

"Sure."

 

Maggie was smiling fit to bust, pulling a shawl up over her sparse silver hair to protect it from the steadily falling snow. "You did good," she said. "Saved 'em makin' decisions. Dirt farmers!" She spit in the street. "They don't need trouble. Too much sun and the crops fail. Too much rain and the crops fail. That's what they understand."

 

Ryan smiled. "I know it."

 

Behind him, he heard the clang of the main hatch being thrown back on the LAV-25, followed a few moments later by the throaty roar of the powerful engine.

 

"Mind if we go inside?" Andy Sheppard asked, shuffling his feet, rubbing his hands together. "It's oh boy cold out here, out here."

 

"I bet they took our gas and never done what they did the deal on," said a thin-faced man in a heavy trench coat. "How do we know the stickies are dead?"

 

Ryan turned the blaster toward the speaker, his voice calm and gentle. "Stupe. We have the firepower to just take the gas and chill anyone who tried to stop us. We aren't in the business of playing games." He looked at Sheppard. "No, you can't go in. Just stand there and wait. We'll be gone soon enough."

 

The hills around were vanishing as the snow fell more heavily, with every sign of turning to a full-blooded blizzard. The temperature was falling fast, and Ryan couldn't wait to get himself snug into the shelter of the wag. And safe out of the little Washington ville where treachery waited behind every watery, insincere smile.

 

The LAV was rumbling up the grade behind him, but Ryan didn't turn to watch it. He kept his eyes ranging over the group of people, also checking out the windows and doors of the nearby houses for any attempt to coldcock them.

 

"We didn't mean Oh, boy, not a thing, not a thing," Andy Sheppard stammered. "Don't need to chill me, mister."

 

"Not about to do that," Ryan replied. "Water's flowed under the bridge."

 

"All right, partner," J.B. called. "I got them covered now. Climb aboard."

 

Ryan backed away, giving a casual wave to the old woman, who dropped him an unsteady curtsy. The metal of the wag was icy to the touch, covered in a thickening layer of fresh snow. He swung himself up and into the main hatch on the turret, the automatic still firmly gripped in his right hand.

 

"Ready?" the Armorer asked.

 

"Yeah. Let's go."

 

He eased himself quickly down the short metal ladder and into the main compartment, dropping the hatch and locking it securely in place.

 

"Let's go," he repeated.

 

They'd only driven a mile when the weather closed right in around them, dropping visibility to zero. J.B. had eased down through the gears, but he finally brought the armawag to a halt, calling back to Ryan, just behind him.

 

"No point going on. Might easily drive straight off the side of the world."

 

The interior had only just had time to warm up, but the Armorer switched off the engine to conserve their precious fuel and closed the ob slits to keep out the penetrating wind and the driving snow.

 

They waited in near darkness, as the wag became colder.

 

 

 

"EASING," J.B. said, breaking a long silence between the two old friends.

 

"Good." Ryan stretched to get some of the stiffness out of his muscles.

 

"Fancy going up top to keep an eye out for any road problems, Ryan?"

 

"No."

 

J.B. laughed. "But you will?"

 

"Yeah."

 

 

 

RYAN WRAPPED his long white silk scarf around his throat, tucking the weighted ends inside his collar. He hunched his shoulders and blinked into the freezing wind. The snow had almost stopped, but the temperature was still way below freezing and the highway was icy and treacherous.

 

He glanced down at his chron, seeing that it was already more than three and a half hours since they'd left the ville of Mitchell Springs.

 

The turbocharged six cylinders roared into life again, and they were once more moving northwest.

 

They'd only gone a mile or so along the snaking blacktop when Ryan spotted movement ahead of them, three figures, slipping through the rutted snow, about a hundred yards in front.

 

"I see them." J.B.'s voice crackled in the earphones that were helping to keep Ryan's ears warm.

 

"Slow right down. I got a feeling that I can guess who they are and Yeah."

 

It was the trio of hunters that they'd seen carrying out the massacre at the stickle's camp. One of them stepped out into the middle of the road, waving his arms over his head. J.B. slowed and stopped fifty paces away from the man.

 

Ryan called out to him, making sure that the Steyr was very visible. "What do you want?"

 

The man was flushed, and one hand kept touching himself across the stomach, as if he were in some kind of discomfort. "Supposed to be a ville close by, friend."

 

"You mean Mitchell Springs?" Ryan kept a careful eye on the other two men.

 

"Yep, that's it. Far?"

 

"Take you a good hour in this weather."

 

"Got caught in the snow. Seems warmer now." He wiped sweat from his pale forehead.

 

Ryan thought it had actually grown much colder, but he kept quiet.

 

"Think we can get beds and food there?" one of the other men asked.

 

"Reckon so."

 

"They got a medic there?" the third man, who seemed to be breathing unusually hard and fast, queried.

 

"Don't know." Ryan stared at him. "You sick?"

 

"We all feel crooked, friend. Some sort of fever. Headaches like the worst of a jolt downer. And we all got us churned up bellies."

 

"Shitting sickness?" J.B. called from behind the driver's ob slit.

 

None of the three hunters answered him, looking at one another in silence.

 

Ryan lowered himself farther into the hatch. "Could be you good old boys been rooting where you shouldn't."

 

"What the fuck's that mean, mister?"

 

"Have a real good time in Mitchell Springs. Your sort of folks." Ryan lowered the hatch again, giving J.B. the signal to move on.

 

The wag started up, past the three dying men, leaving them behind. Ryan watched them out of the rear ob slit, until a bend in the road concealed them from him.