Chapter Thirty-One

 

 

As the woman from the Brown Burro had told them, it was easy to find unoccupied cabins in Fairplay.

 

Carl showed them to one that he'd been using since he fled Harmony, which had enough space for Jak and Doc, while the place next door had two double rooms, ideal for J.B. and Mildred, and Krysty and Ryan.

 

There had been no argument that they'd start off toward Harmony, about a half day's brisk hike, as soon as the first light reached Fairplay. Carl would act as their guide, getting them as close as possible to the ville, where they would do what was necessary against the gang of killers.

 

"Remove them with extreme prejudice," was Doc's comment, when they talked over their plans.

 

 

 

RYAN HADN'T BEEN SURE whether Krysty would feel like making love and he held off, knowing how deeply distressed she had been at the news of her mother's bizarre disappearance.

 

But she had moved close to him as soon as they were between the slightly damp sheets, with a half-dozen thick blankets piled over them.

 

Her hand reached for his hand, holding him tight in silence. Then her leg moved against his, over his thigh, her knee nudging at his groin.

 

Ryan reacted instantly, and he could actually feel her smile at him.

 

"Ever-ready, lover?" she whispered. "I wasn't sure you wanted to."

 

"I thought you might not feel like it. After the news of all the deaths and of your mother."

 

Her other hand danced across his chest, pausing to tweak at his nipples, then moving lower, across the flat, muscular Wall of his stomach, grasping him.

 

"One of the great things that Mother Sonja taught me, from her store of wisdom, was to try not to allow yourself to be loaded with guilt over something you couldn't help. Leaving when I did was the right thing then. It's still the right thing. What happened doesn't alter that at all."

 

He kissed her, his lips butterflying over her cheeks, until he reached her mouth. The tip of his tongue probed gently between her parted teeth, then pushed harder as she responded to him.

 

"I don't believe she's dead," Krysty whispered, pulling away for a moment. "Like it was with Trader. Everyone figured he'd bought the farm, then he was back, almost as good as new. I think it'll be like that with Mother Sonja. I do, lover. I honest and truly do. One day we'll find her."

 

That was the end of the talk. Then the loving began.

 

 

 

THEY LEFT FAIRPLAY so early in the morning that the Brown Burrow wasn't even open for breakfast.

 

Carl Lanning had been difficult to rouse, rolling over irritably and pulling blankets up over his head like a fretful child who didn't want to go to school, complaining that it wasn't near dawn yet. J.B. had to threaten him with a bowl of meltwater before he finally struggled up and got dressed in jeans, a patched shirt and work boots.

 

"How about letting me have one of your blasters, Ryan? You got two, so has the skinny little guy with the glasses. You could give me one."

 

Ryan shook his head. "No. We all carry the blasters we do because they give us balance. Take anything away and the balance goes. Look after your blaster, and it'll look after you."

 

He had a momentary flash of when he'd been talking to Nicholas Brody about Dean's stay with the school. The headmaster had commented that the boy hadn't wanted to be parted from his beloved 9 mm Browning Hi-Power automatic. "But rules are rules, Mr. Cawdor." Brody had suggested strongly that Ryan should take the gun away with him but had finally agreed to keep it secure in the school's safe, against the time that Dean was finally ready to leave.

 

Now they were finally moving away from Fairplay.

 

Carl told them it had once been called South Park or Bayou Salado or Salt Creek, and it had been a summer hunting and trapping ground for the Utes.

 

"Bigger than all of Rhode Island, this valley," he said proudly. "Tyas McCann told me that."

 

Doc grinned. "That is somewhat akin to saying that someone is a very tall dwarf," he said.

 

Ryan noticed that the blacksmith's son kept glancing at Krysty as they followed the trail toward Harmony. And he twice brushed clumsily against her at places where the track had grown narrow. It was all too obvious that Carl still carried a blazing torch for Krysty Wroth.

 

Ryan filed the fact away, with the knowledge that it could prove potentially dangerous.

 

 

 

HARMONY LAY IN A shallow bowl of fertile land, around the ten-thousand-foot mark. They came around a bend in the overgrown blacktop and saw the ville spread out ahead of them.

 

"Gaia! I've come back," Krysty said, standing with hands on her hips, staring down into her old home.

 

"Someone coming," Jak warned. "Two men on mules. Think might be stickies."

 

The albino teenager's eyesight in the cloudy half-light of the morning was impeccable.

 

Everyone took shelter among the large boulders that were scattered on both sides of the highway, watching as the two unsuspecting figures drew closer, both riding spavined burrows, their long legs angled out, heels almost brushing the muddy trail. They were stickies.

 

Their clothes were ragged and torn, showing the sickly gray pallor of their skins beneath. They were both male, with stringy hair that seemed pasted to their bony skulls. Typically they both had weeping sores all over their faces, with clusters of yellow spots around their thin-lipped mouths. Each had a large handblaster strapped to his waist. As they drew closer, it was easy to see the circular suckers that marked their hands and fingers, giving them their Deathlands name of stickies.

 

One was singing a tuneless dirge as he rode along, his companion passing the time by practicing hawking up phlegm and spitting at rocks in the road.

 

Ryan had warned the others that it could be helpful to chill the first one silently, and take the other prisoner to try to extract information on the dispositions of the gang within Harmony ville.

 

Silent killing meant Jak and his leaf-bladed throwing knives.

 

The teenager waited until the stickies had passed him, then rose from his hiding place and let fly with one of his concealed blades. It whined through the air like a loosed arrow, striking the second of the stickies through the side of the throat, just below and behind the right ear. It severed the artery, sending him toppling off his donkey, hands grabbing at the sharp pain of the wound, unaware that he was already dying.

 

Blood fountained high in the air, pattering in the mud as the mutie crashed to the ground.

 

His comrade was starting to turn, a sickly grin strung across his face as he thought his comrade had simply fallen from the back of the burro.

 

"Wrong move and you get to be dead," Ryan said, appearing in front of him, holding the rifle at his hip. J.B. came into sight on the other side of the trail, the Smith amp; Wesson scattergun covering the stickie.

 

Krysty, Mildred and Doc also showed themselves, as did Carl Lanning, a few moments later. He was gripping a short-handled sledgehammer that he normally carried tucked in his broad belt.

 

The mortally wounded mutie was kicking and scrabbling in the dirt at the side of the trail, the flow of blood already eased to little more than a trickle.

 

"Why you chill Jimbob?" the other stickie asked, looking puzzled. "You gonna get chilled when word gets to rest of us." He spit in the dirt near J.B.'s boots. "Triple stupes all soon chilled like Jimbob."

 

"Get off the burro," Ryan ordered. "Want to ask you some questions."

 

For a moment it looked as if the stickie was going to ignore the command, sitting negligently on the back of the burro, hands holding the dangling reins. Finally, slowly, he dismounted.

 

"Sit down there," Ryan said, pointing with the rifle to a shelf of rock set among the bracken and heather. "Look after the animals, Jak."

 

"You chill me?"

 

"Mebbe. Depends on you telling us what we want to know about the rest of your friends."

 

"Friends?" The brutish face showed bewilderment. "I ain't have no fuck friends."

 

The rest of them gathered around the prisoner, Carl standing just behind him.

 

"The rest of the gang. Where they're living. Where you keep the gas wag. Weapons. That kind of stuff."

 

The stickie's hands were knotting and fumbling at each other, the tiny suckered circles in the palms and along the strong fingers opening and closing like nervous mouths.

 

"I don't tell you that."

 

Without warning, Carl hefted the hammer and struck the mutie a single cracking blow across the back of the skull. There was the unmistakable, unforgettable sound, like a large apple being crushed underfoot. The stickie slumped forward, rolling onto the trail, the looseness of his hands and feet the sure sign of his death. A thread of crimson blood oozed from his right ear, from his nose and mouth, and leaked from the corners of his watery eyes. One hand tapped on the cold, mud-slick pebbles for a few seconds, then became still.

 

Ryan turned the Steyr toward Carl, filled with one of his sudden murderous rages, his finger tight on the trigger of the rifle.

 

"You! I said not to hurt him."

 

"We was goin' to chill him anyways. Bastard had it coming, didn't he?"

 

"Sure he did and sure we would," J.B. said, sensing Ryan's rage, stepping in close. "But we all knew he wasn't to be harmed until we'd questioned him. Now" He gestured at the corpse with the scattergun.

 

"You dumb bastard," Ryan snarled. "I should gut shoot you and leave you like a dog in the dirt. One more stupe move like that and I swear"

 

Carl had backed away, his drinker's eyes swimming with fear, hands in front of his chest. "I just thought"

 

"Thinking was what you didn't do!"

 

"You haven't seen what those bastard chillers been doing around these parts," he said, stammering with fright.

 

"I've seen the dead and I've seen the dying and I'm going to make sure that the cold hearts don't get away to do it again. I mean it, Carl" His temper eased a little. "One more step out of line, and you either leave us or you end up dead as a beaver hat. Understand?"

 

"Yeah, sure. Sorry. Got carried away, Ryan." He wiped his sleeve across his mouth. "Wouldn't nobody have any drinkin' liquor, would you? Krysty?"

 

She shook her head and turned away from him, looking at Ryan. "So, what do we do now, lover?"

 

Ryan shouldered the rifle. "Now we have to get in close and careful and have a good recce. Mebbe go in during the night hours. Can't go walking in shooting. They'll butcher us from hiding. Have to find out where they are."

 

"And go in at dawn?" the Armorer asked.

 

Ryan rubbed the side of his nose with his index finger, looking down into Harmony. They were too far away to make out any details, but they could see the smoke of cooking fires and hear a dog barking.

 

"Likely dawn'll be the choice. Best turn the burrows loose and drag this scum off the trail, out of sight."

 

"Animals might find their way back to town," Carl said hesitantly.

 

Ryan suddenly spun, making the blacksmith's son start. "You're right. Good thinking. I hadn't Getting careless. The animals come from Harmony?"

 

"Believe so," Carl replied.

 

"Cut their throats, Jak."

 

"Oh, surely they could" Doc began, stopping as he saw the flickering flame of anger still smoldering in Ryan's eye. "Perhaps you're right."

 

 

 

A WIDE DRAW RAN in close to the northern flank of Harmony and Ryan led them along it, guided by Carl at his shoulder. They kept well out of sight of the ville, until they reached a stand of cottonwoods within a couple hundred yards of the nearest house.

 

"What time is it?" Jak asked.

 

"Little after three." Ryan sat down and lay back, closing his eye. "Might as well all take a rest. Won't be moving for a good while."