Chapter Thirteen

 

 

 

They all ate ravenously from the dead deer, Trader in particular stuffing himself with roasted meat until he could hardly stand.

 

"Not good for your health," Mildred said reproachfully. "Starvation and then gluttony are a classic prescription for gut trouble."

 

"Trader had some real bad kind of rad cancer in his belly, didn't you?" Abe grinned at his old chief, until be saw from the expression on Trader's face that be wasn't particularly amused by the discussion.

 

"Yeah. But that was long times ago."

 

"You still get problems?" Mildred asked with a professional interest.

 

Trader controlled himself with a visible effort. "Know you're a doctor and all that, but what goes on inside my clothes is my own business and everyone else can mind their own. Is that clear?"

 

Mildred grinned and nodded. "Course. But if you do get trouble, you know who to come to."

 

"Yeah, thanks."

 

 

 

THE AFTERNOON DRIFTED BY, with several of the group snatching at the rare chance of safety and stillness to catch up on lost sleep and relaxation, allowing their bodies to recuperate from the physical and mental horrors of making the double jump.

 

Dean wandered to the lakeside, picking out flat pebbles and flicking them underarm at the serene water, whooping occasionally at a specially long duck-and-drake skimmer.

 

Ryan and Krysty were lying together in the shade of a feathery blue spruce, watching the sylvan scene.

 

He broke the silence. "Know what you're thinking, lover."

 

"Probably."

 

"Shall I tell you?"

 

She smiled, her emerald eyes fixed to his face. "I love you so much, Ryan Cawdor," she said. "Now, go on and tell me what I was thinking."

 

"First you were thinking how much you loved me, which made me remember that I felt something kind of similar about you."

 

"Bastard." She gave him the finger. "Wish I hadn't told you my secret. Go on."

 

"You were thinking that this seemed like a nice place to settle and raise a family."

 

Krysty's smile vanished as quickly as a late frost off a summer pasture. "Yes," she said, the single word flat and dull, like a spade full of wet earth on a coffin lid.

 

"Well," he said defensively, "you were. I knew you would. Anytime we come across somewhere like this woods, water, sun, mountains and all that shit"

 

"All that shit ?"

 

"You know what I mean, Krysty. And don't get pissed at me, because I feel the same."

 

"Do you, Ryan?"

 

" 'Course."

 

"But?"

 

"But what?"

 

"There always has to be a 'but,' doesn't there, lover. What is it?"

 

Ryan sat up and looked around. "You used that word" He thought about it. "Sounded like idle?"

 

"Idyll?"

 

"Yeah. Something that's triple ideal. Way this region seems. But it never has been. All of the other times and all the other places."

 

"There's always a worm at the heart of the apple, you mean, lover?"

 

"Something like that. Evil and death. A rotting skull underneath a pretty Mardi mask. I've had my hopes raised a few times in my life. Don't like the feeling."

 

"Fair enough." The smile was back again, tenderness in the fathomless green eyes. "Let's spend awhile in this particular paradise and see how it goes."

 

"Sure. It's such a good place, brimming with game, fish in the lake. Could stay here a week or so."

 

"That would be What?"

 

Ryan had jumped to his feet, staring through the fringe of trees toward the lake. "Heard something."

 

Simultaneously they both heard the sound of Dean's voice, calling out in alarm, and a sinister, snarling noise.

 

"Wolf?" Ryan asked, drawing the SIG-Sauer and running to the side of the lake, looking to the left. Krysty was at his heels, Jak close behind. The others only just started to waken from steep.

 

The boy was at the edge of the water, backing away toward the camp, crouching, his right hand held out defensively. He was around a hundred paces off, but Ryan could see the bright flash of silver off the blade of the knife and the sparkle of the turquoise from the hilt.

 

The animal facing Dean was nearly as big as a full-grown timber wolf, but it looked to Ryan more like a German shepherd. It was belly down, looking ready to spring, its red-rimmed eyes fixed on its prey. The brindled coat was marked by three distinctive white blazes on its chest, like stars. It was growling deep in its throat as it crept closer to the boy.

 

"Get the rifle," Ryan said to Krysty. "Best chance."

 

"No," Mildred breathed, arriving with Trader, J.B. and the others. "Mine."

 

Trader had his Armalite, and he shouldered the woman aside. "Boy's part in line of fire. Won't do anything with that fucking little gaudy toy. I'll take it out."

 

Ryan glanced sideways, seeing that Mildred had already drawn the six-shot revolver she always carried, the Czech ZKR 551, chambered to take the big Smith amp; Wesson round.

 

He'd watched J.B. fieldstrip the weapon, admiring the solid frame side rod ejector and the practical shortfall thumb-cocking hammer.

 

And he'd seen what Mildred could do with that special blaster.

 

"She shoots, Trader."

 

"Does she fuck?"

 

Dean had jabbed out quickly at the dog, holding off a charge, making it wait a little longer. But time was passing and time was lifeblood.

 

Ryan felt the old familiar crimson mist of blind anger seeping over his mind. He cocked the 9 mm P-226 and jammed it into Trader's side.

 

"She shoots," he said through gritted teeth, knuckle white on the trigger.

 

Trader said nothing, his whole body stiffening, eyes narrowing, lips peeling back in a feral snarl of anger. But he didn't try any movement.

 

"Do it, Mildred," Ryan whispered.

 

"Killing your son," Trader breathed.

 

Mildred stood very still, shuffling her boots in the shingle to gain a sure purchase. She lifted the revolver in her right hand, staring down the barrel, two-eyed, took a single breath and held it for several seconds.

 

Ryan also held his breath, seeing the way the big dog's haunches were quivering with barely repressed tension, ready to spring at the boy's throat.

 

The sound of the blaster was surprisingly flat, out in the open.

 

"Told you" Trader growled, still braced against the muzzle of Ryan's SIG-Sauer.

 

The animal didn't move for several seconds.

 

"Again?" J.B. asked.

 

Jak answered the question. "No need. Chilled it."

 

The dog's head went back as though it had been distracted by a bird flying near by. It gave a strange, growling bark, then its muzzle dropped to the shingle, its flanks shivered, and it was motionless.

 

Mildred bolstered the revolver.

 

She began to walk toward Dean, who was still carefully watching the dead animal. Jak and the others all followed her, boots crunching in the quiet.

 

Neither Trader nor Ryan moved.

 

"Well?" the older man said.

 

"Mildred won a silver medal in the free-shooting pistol event at the last ever Olympic Games, in Miami. She's the best shot with a handblaster that I ever saw."

 

"What 'bout three-eyed Charlie, lived near the Sippibackin"

 

"The best," Ryan insisted firmly. "I knew she could pull that shot off and save Dean from, at best, a bad mauling. Better than any of us."

 

"Could've said. Didn't have to ram that blaster into my ribs like that."

 

"No time." He sniffed. "Reckon I can put it back in its holster now?"

 

"Sure."

 

Ryan put away the SIG-Sauer, every nerve on the alert for Trader swinging the butt of the Armalite at his head. But there was nothing.

 

The others had gathered around Dean, but Ryan noticed that Krysty was watching the dramatic scene behind her, and her hand was on the butt of her own five-shot Smith amp; Wesson double-action 640.

 

"That dog had a collar on," Trader said.

 

"Didn't notice."

 

His laugh turned into a cough. "Never did see everything, Ryan, with only one fucking eye."

 

"See more with one than you do with two."

 

Trader grinned. "That'll be the day, pilgrim. Yeah, that'll be the day."

 

They walked together across the sloping beach. Ryan thought that the moment of extreme tension had passed, until Trader grabbed him by the forearm, his fingers like steel traps.

 

"Just before we get to the others, partner."

 

"Sure."

 

"Known me a long time. Know that not many men stick me with a blaster and ever eat another meal."

 

"I'd do it again, Trader. If I had to, I'd do it again, just the same."

 

"I know you would. Just so's you know I might not react so slow next time."

 

"If there is a next time."

 

The fingers relaxed their grip. "Let's go see how pretty a shot the lady is."

 

The dog lay on the beach, surrounded by the rest of the group of friends. Ryan walked up and patted Dean on the back. "All right, son?"

 

"Sure," be replied, though the pallor of his cheeks told a slightly different story. "Came out of the woods at me. I reckon I could have taken it with my knife."

 

"You thanked Mildred?"

 

"Yeah, he did," she replied.

 

"Good-looking animal," Ryan said, noticing that Trader had been correct. There was a metal collar around its throat, above the three white stars.

 

"Real big." Abe bent down to stare at it. "I don't see the bullet hole, Mildred. No blood."

 

She leaned over to look, nodding, so that the beads in her hair clattered softly. "Yeah. Where I aimed. I couldn't see much, because of Dean being in the way. Just part of its head. So I shot it through the right ear."

 

Trader laughed. "You hit a dog in the ear at a hundred yards! With a fucking handblaster!"

 

"There," Krysty said, pointing with the chiseled toe of her boot. "See the tiny trickle of blood. Absolutely perfect shot."

 

"Told you." Ryan grinned.

 

 

 

BEFORE RETURNING to the campsite, Ryan unbuckled the collar from the dog's throat.

 

"What does it say?" Doc asked. "Mayhap that his name was Rover and he lived at Sunnydown Cottage?"

 

"No. I reckon it was called Three Stars," Abe suggested.

 

"Killer Bastard" was Dean's own offering for the dog's name.

 

"Well, lover? Tell us?"

 

"According to this collar tag, the dog was called '279792493A.' Funny sort of a name, isn't it?"

 

"Shows a sad lack of the romantic. Why not Stoutheart or Valiant?"

 

"There wasn't any other marking on it, was there, Dean?" Ryan said.

 

"The three white patches. One foot was white, as well. And the collar."

 

"Nothing else?"

 

"No, Dad. I can't go and look because I threw the body in the lake."

 

"That wasn't very ecologically correct," Mildred said. "Couldn't you have buried it?"

 

"No, 'course not, Mildred. That's a pretty triple-stupe sort of idea, isn't it, Dad?"

 

Ryan hesitated. "Well, different people have different ideas. Truth is, I'd probably either have left the body where it was oror I'd have thrown it in the lake."

 

"Well" The boy beamed at Mildred, who rutted in disapproval.

 

"Point of fact, son, I wish you hadn't heaved it in the water. There was something about it that made me wonder."

 

"Wonder what, Ryan?" J.B. asked. "About how healthy it looked? And that weird collar?"

 

"Yeah. I'll go and walk along a ways, see if it's still floating where I can get at it."

 

"I'll come," Jak offered.

 

"Sure thing." He looked at the sky. "This is such a good place, I think we'll camp here for the night."

 

They made their way toward the spot where the dog had come out of the undergrowth and menaced Dean. The afternoon was wearing on, and the shadows were lengthening. Out in the middle of the lake, a huge trout leapt and sparkled in the spray. And across the far side the two men saw a small herd of deer, browsing quietly.

 

"Could live forever here," said the albino teenager.

 

"Nobody lives forever, Jak." Ryan looked around. "Was it near here?"

 

"Think so. Before bit of land sticking out."

 

Ryan stood with his back to the forest, trying to make out the corpse of the dog, which should still have been floating, sodden, in the lake.

 

Then be heard a noise that raised his hackles, a deep, menacing growl.