Chapter Thirty

 

 

Rodrigo Bivar sat a palomino mare, standing in the stirrups, staring all around him. It was a fine morning, though some high clouds gave a warning of the possibility of rain later in the afternoon. The dawn sun was low on the eastern horizon, away to the left.

 

The flat-topped pyramid was about a hundred yards ahead of the attacking party, the bright morning light showing the ominous black stains that streaked the topmost stones.

 

Bivar pushed back the brim of his panama hat, wiping sweat from his forehead, checking that all thirty-five of his men were still in a raggedy line behind him.

 

His head ached from the copious amounts of pulque that he'd downed the night before.

 

It had been a pleasant enough ride through the opalescent early dawn, enjoying all the sights and sounds of the wakening emerald jungle.

 

One of his men had shot off a ripple of bullets at a strutting bird of paradise that had emerged across the trail in front of them, spooking half the horses in the column. If Bivar had been able to get hold of his own Combat Magnum, he'd have blown the cretin out of his saddle.

 

But he was too busy fighting for control of his own horse, which had reared on its hind legs, nearly spilling him onto the trail.

 

They were now so close to their destination that even the biggest triple stupe among the gang would know better than to fire a blaster and risk giving the natives any warning of their arrival.

 

Bivar felt real fine, top of the world, ready for anything, despite the small nagging doubt about the disappearance of his scouts.

 

They were four good men, men he'd trusted with the mission of going on ahead to recce the village. It had bothered Bivar a little, meeting that small group of outlanders. They had the cold-eye look of mercies, hired guns. But two of them had been women, and one was only a young boy. Not the sort of group that would bother with the village or the dirt-poor natives.

 

"But still" he said aloud.

 

 

 

THE VILLAGE WAS READY.

 

J.B. had already set up a number of watchers, linked by line of sight, that could wave a message down the line to warn of the arrival of the gang.

 

Now that message had come, and the whole community was bowstring taut.

 

Ryan and the Armorer had spent nearly three hours with Itzcoatl and the elders when they returned from their own scouting mission. At the last minute Ryan had asked Jak to come along with them, explaining what he wanted. It turned out to be a good move, as the natives paid the utmost attention to everything that the young albino said.

 

He'd hammered home the vital importance of holding off any aggression until Ryan gave the signal by opening fire. "Must have them in village. Right in. Anyone shoot too soon and they run. Could be end for everyone."

 

At Ryan's suggestion the older women and the youngest surviving children left the village before dawn, following almost invisible hunting trails that wound south and east toward a cave hidden behind a waterfall.

 

The rest of the settlement was hidden in their appointed places, armed with what weapons had been availablealmost no blasters, but plenty of arrows and blowpipe darts.

 

"Will we win?" Itzcoatl asked.

 

"Winning, losing" Ryan said. "Just comes down to being caught on the wrong side of the line."

 

 

 

"WE GO IN Jefe ?"

 

Bivar rubbed at the side of his nose, where he'd been bitten by an insect during the night. He turned and called to Manuel, his second-in-command. "Here, amigo."

 

The fat man heeled his own horse forward to the head of the column, grinning at his chief, the gold teeth glinting in the sunlight. "Something wrong?"

 

"I keep thinking about the four men we sent out scouting. What happen to them?"

 

"They got tired and went for some funnin' someplace, I guess. Who fuck knows, Jefe ?"

 

"Four of them. No message. No nothing from them. That sort of bothers me."

 

Manuel looked around. "We just gotta collect a full hand from this village. Is all."

 

Bivar sighed, wishing that he didn't have the throbbing sick headache pounding away at his temple like the bastard drums that so many villages used.

 

"What happen to the drums?" he said, feeling his background suspicions rushing headlong forward.

 

 

 

RYAN LOOKED across the deserted open square, checking that there was nothing to arouse any doubts. Bivar had to be used to riding into villages where everyone rushed in panic into hiding. But there was still something wrong.

 

He turned to J.B. "Those bastard drums!" he exclaimed. "Fireblast!"

 

The Armorer picked up on him. "Course. Should be beating with the trumpets and all. If Bivar comes in and hears nothing, then we could be going down the tubes."

 

"I'll tell the chief, right now."

 

 

 

MANUEL LIFTED A HAND to his ear. "Seems like I hear drums pretty good."

 

"They only just started," Bivar complained. "Seems kind of strange."

 

"They only beat them and play those trumpets when the day's started."

 

"Guess so." Bivar lifted his hand, then called out to try to attract the attention of his chattering horde. "Head 'em up! Ride 'em out! Let's go!"

 

 

 

"SEE, RAIN FLOWER," Itzcoatl called, pointing halfway up one of the tallest trees in the vicinity.

 

The woman stood on a branch as broad as a two-lane blacktop, waving a length of bright orange cloth.

 

"Here they come," Ryan said.

 

 

 

THE GATES TO THE VILLAGE stood wide open, showing a few of the huts and a trio of abandoned cooking fires. But there was no sign of any life.

 

And the drums had stopped.

 

Bivar reined in the palomino. "Mebbe we wait and watch. Send in six or seven to look around the place."

 

Very faintly, but very audibly, someone in the ranks behind him made the clucking sound of a chicken.

 

He spun, seeing that a number of the men were smirking, while others looked rigidly ahead. "You think I'm scared to go in? Do you? Anyone think that, then he come and tell me." He waited a few seconds, hand on the butt of his pistol. "I think mebbe if's not me that is the chicken. But we don't wait. We go in. Follow me and keep all your eyes open."

 

He set his spurs into the flank of the horse and led his men through the gates.

 

"They been doing some work, Jefe ," observed one of the slavers a moment later. "Look at them walls."

 

"Sure. I see them. They been working hard. Shame it's all for fuckin' nothing," Bivar said, laughing.

 

Now that they were actually inside the village, his doubts had evaporated. The fact that it seemed deserted didn't worry him at all. There'd be plenty of them in the trees, as easy to trail as a three-legged sow. And once you got a few of the peons, you only had to use the flame or the steel on them to bring the rest out of the forest.

 

Bivar gestured for his men to form a rough half circle on both sides of him, covering the whole open area of the village. Smoke from one of the fires blew toward him, making the palomino skittish. He cursed it, striking the mare between the ears with his clenched fist.

 

He hadn't bothered to draw his blaster. Since there was nobody around, there didn't seem very much point.

 

When he was sure that his men were ready, he called out, "Hey, peasants, you lost your cojones ? Come out, come out wherever you is."

 

His voice echoed around the open area.

 

"I think they all gone, Jefe ." Someone giggled, his voice thin and high with nerves.

 

"I try again." Bivar shouted louder, "Hey, you come out and you don't get hurt! Stay hidden and we get mad."

 

 

 

RYAN LOOKED along the row of huts, catching the anxious eyes of Itzcoatl. He grinned at the native to reassure him, putting his finger to his lips to reassert the need for quiet.

 

At his side, J.B. was blowing on a length of slow fuse that he and Doc had made, ready to apply it to the first of the line of thermite bombs.

 

Ryan watched Bivar, who seemed to be losing authority with some of his men. "I give you one more chance!" the slaver yelled. "Then me and my amigos start doing some shooting."

 

Ryan stood and showed himself, eye raking the group of thirty-six slavers, ready to duck back behind cover at the first sign of a threat.

 

Bivar leaned forward on his saddle horn, smiling with what seemed genuine amusement. "So, the outlander! I should've known, when my men didn't come back to me. Yeah, I should've fuckin' known."

 

"They got to be dead," Krysty said, matching the slaver for calm. "And real soon you all get to join them."

 

J.B. was beside Ryan, and he whispered a warning. "Watch him with that hat. He take it off and likely uses it to mask drawing his blaster."

 

Ryan nodded almost imperceptibly, concentrating on Bivar. "You got one chance."

 

"And what's that, amigo?"

 

"You all get down. Drop the blasters. Strip naked and you'll be walked through the forest for three or four days. Come back and you're dead."

 

Bivar stood again in the stirrups. "Hear that, brothers? This gringo say we're all trapped. Us, by him."

 

He turned to Ryan. "But figure you got your friends with you. The women and the little boy. I tell you, amigo, I'm real fuckin' terrified by you."

 

"You should be," Ryan said. "You got no choice, Bivar. Unless being dead is a good choice."

 

The men were getting restless, with hands dropping to the butts of their blasters, and Ryan could almost taste the bitterness of anger.

 

"This goes long enough," Bivar spit. "You think these pissy little walls keep us out? Well, they fuckin' don't, compadre . Because we already in."

 

"The walls weren't built to keep you out, Bivar. They're here to keep you in, so we can cut you all down."

 

"Like a lot of big oak trees? You hear that one, my friends? This man with no ax is cutting us all down to the ground. We like to see that, huh?"

 

"Shoot him, Jefe ," Manuel muttered.

 

Bivar waved a hand at his lieutenant. "Real soon," he whispered, talking out of the corner of his mouth. "How come he so certain of himself? Where the fuck the others?"

 

"Don't matter," Manuel insisted. "Just terminate him and it don't matter."

 

"Yeah."

 

Bivar took off his elegant panama hat in a generous, sweeping gesture, half bowing toward the lone man, bringing it back across his body.

 

"Soon," J.B. breathed.

 

"This run too long. You give me two choices. I give you one choice, my one-eyed friend. Mebbe you like to know what that one choice is?"

 

"Not particularly," Ryan replied. Though he stood behind the wall, looking calm and relaxed, every muscle of his body was taut and tense.

 

"I tell you." Now the hat was over Bivar's lap, covering his right hand and the butt of the Smith amp; Wesson 66. "Bring your people and every one of these shit-suckin' natives out here before I count to ten, or you all die. That's the choice of Rodrigo Bivar. One, two, three, four"

 

At the count of four his hand moved quickly under the cover of the panama and emerged with the big blaster, and he started shooting at Ryan.