Chapter Eleven

 

 

Nobody made a hasty move, all of them watching Ryan to see how he was going to play it.

 

He sat still, both hands on the table, pushing the nearly full plate away from him, his one chillingly blue eye fixed to Ma's flushed face.

 

"You think this is worth any payment?" he asked mildly. "Really?"

 

"Sure. You did a deal, compadre . You had the food, and I want the bullets."

 

"Seven rounds of the 9 mm full-metal jackets? Was that it?"

 

"Yeah. Should make you trade double for the trouble." A broad smile stretched across her face. "Double trouble. Get it? Double for trouble."

 

Ryan was fighting against his anger, struggling to conceal the red rage that was seeping over his brain.

 

"The food was shit," he said.

 

"Takes a shitter to know shit, sweet one," Ma said with a snigger, pointing the gaping barrels of the 12-gauge into Ryan's face. "Ain't that the truth?"

 

"You're sowing seeds of blood," Doc warned, "and you'll reap the harvest."

 

"Shut up, you triple-old stupe!"

 

Ma turned to Ryan. "Instead of just a few miserable bullets, I'll take that pretty automatic you got on your belt, One-eye."

 

"All right." Ryan had it all under control now, his ice-cold combat brain offering him alternative plans of action, showing which was the best.

 

"Take it out of the holster, slow and easy. Or the wall behind you gets to be decorated with your blood and brains. Place could do with refurbishing."

 

Ma was smiling broadly at her triumph, the scattergun locked on Ryan's face.

 

His right hand reached down, feeling the butt of the SIG-Sauer, taking it out slowly and beginning to lift it toward the top of the table.

 

"Good, good," Ma whispered. "Real good. Keep the hardware coming."

 

At the far end of the table, J.B. stood suddenly, sending three plates of food crashing to the floor, knocking over the pitcher of water.

 

Ma was taken by surprise at the noise and half turned, her little sunken eyes flicking toward the Armorer, the barrels of the blaster wavering from Ryan for a crucial moment.

 

Ryan had been ready for J.B.'s action. He had sent him their secret hand signal that meant "stage a diversion," seconds before beginning to draw the automatic.

 

He brought up the SIG-Sauer and squeezed the trigger once, at the same time powering himself backward out of his chair at the end of the table.

 

As he rolled, the thunder of the shotgun rode over the flat crack of the 9 mm SIG-Sauer. He felt the warm blast pass over his head, the pellets smashing into an old lithograph of a mountain man's encounter with a grizzly on a narrow mountain trail.

 

Ryan did a back somersault and came up with the blaster in his hand, aiming at Ma.

 

But he saw immediately that he wasn't going to be needing a second round.

 

The bullet had struck Ma through the rolls of fat below her chins, drilling up and backward. It distorted and tumbled as it went, breaking the lower jaw away from the upper, splintering a mouthful of rotten teeth. Some of the shards of splintered bone exited through the side of the cheek, just below the staring left eye, ripping the flesh to scarlet tatters.

 

The full-metal-jacket round had continued its inexorable progress, tearing at the back of the right eye, forcing it out of its socket in a hideous parody of a wink.

 

Its power still not spent, the bullet carried on upward, scouring out the brain pan. It exploded through the top of Ma's head, lifting off what was revealed as a wig, splattering the ceiling with blood and brains.

 

In death, her fingers tightened on the triggers of the shotgun, as Ryan had guessed they might, and the blaster had gone off, the twin charges roaring over the top of Ryan as he tumbled backward on the greasy floor.

 

Ma took two clumsy, tottering steps, then dropped the scattergun, arms hanging limp by her side, head tilted to the right. She caught her heels in a crack on the linoleum, falling full-length on the floor with a resounding crash.

 

Everyone around the table was on their feet, blasters ready for action.

 

Ryan looked down at the corpse. "Food wasn't even worth that one bullet I gave you," he said.

 

 

 

THE BAT-WING DOORS to the kitchen eased open. Seven blasters moved their aim, centering on the frightened face of a little Hispanic girl, looking no older than twelve, with a dark bruise just below her left eye.

 

"Ma's Place is closed," Ryan said. "Best go quietly on home."

 

The child nodded and backed out of sight, leaving the doors to swing themselves shut.

 

"Jak, Dean," Ryan said. "Take a quick look out back and see what you can pack into a couple of bags for food. Might be some meat or cheese or fresh fruit. Grab what you think might come in useful for us."

 

Glenwood Springs seemed so deserted that there was a good chance that nobody would have heard the shooting. But it would be only a matter of time before someone stepped into the eatery and stumbled over the corpse. And the outlanders would instantly become public enemies number one.

 

Dean reappeared, carrying a hessian bag. "Mainly fruit," he said. "Peaches and apples."

 

"Anything else in there?" Ryan asked, busily reloading the spent bullet from his blaster.

 

"Big pan fat starting smoke," Jak told him, carrying another sack of food. "Turn it off?"

 

"No."

 

"Set place on fire next ten minutes," Jak said, his ruby eyes opening wider as he started to grin. "Course. Fire cover chilling." He handed the food to Doc. "Go back and help fire."

 

"Have a look out the front door," Ryan told J.B. "Anyone looks like they're coming in here, either put them off or put them away. Whatever's needful."

 

"Ryan!" Mildred exclaimed. "You can't just kill someone because they happen to want to come eat at Ma's Place. It's plain murder."

 

He looked at the woman, surprised at her comment. "You been with us long enough to know which way the needle pricks. We get caught in here and the whole ville could turn into an instant wasps' nest, with us caught smack in the middle. Better by far we walk away clean."

 

"The girl might tell," Dean said.

 

Ryan nodded. "I thought on that. Decided she was probably too frightened to tell anyone anything."

 

"Otherwise she'd have been dead," Mildred said.

 

Ryan nodded. "Yeah. Otherwise I'd have gunned her down where she stood. If that had been the only choice to keep the rest of us living."

 

"Fat's ready to blow," Jak said, appearing in the bat-wing doors. "Back opens into alley. Walk along out of sight. Then past row ruined houses. Come out by broken bridge over Colorado. Best we go now."

 

The dirty kitchen stank of the simmering fat that sat in a large iron pot, with a haze of dark smoke wreathing above it. Jak had placed some old clothes near the stove, as well as a pile of kindling. The wood-framed building would go up in minutes once the fire started.

 

Ryan led the way through, holding the back door open for everyone, pausing to watch and make sure the fat was going to do the business for them.

 

The smoke thickened like a living serpent, roiling over the ceiling, lapping toward him. There was a dull whomp and Ryan ducked, closing the door behind him as the inferno of dark yellow flames erupted.

 

He ran quickly along the alley, past the rusted ruins of a predark automobile and a battered bicycle frame. The stores to his left were all derelict, and the houses that sloped away from him on the right were all clearly long-abandoned.

 

There was no sign of life.

 

"Wait." Ryan peered around the corner of the street, looking toward the desolate broken bridge and the silent rail lines. "Let's move it."

 

They moved across the makeshift bridge that had been thrown together parallel to the old crossing, deciding that it would be wise to be as far off as possible once the fire started in earnest. The companions walked together on the north side, along the redbrick ruins of the old hot springs.

 

"Stop looking around, Dean," the Armorer snapped.

 

"Mebbe the fire hasn't worked. It's got to be an hour since we left the place."

 

"It's six minutes," J.B. said, checking the time on his wrist chron. "There. Don't look around!"

 

Ryan stopped and stretched theatrically, glancing over his shoulder, across the weed-grown interstate toward the row of stores. He saw the darkness of smoke and the brightness of flame, heard the faint distant shouts as the locals of the ville became aware of the growing inferno in their midst.

 

"Burning like a paper house," he said. "Guess we can all look at it now."

 

It was spectacular.

 

Even as they all turned to stare, the fire cascaded through the shingle roof, sending the flaming wooden tiles floating into the still air.

 

Already a few men were trying to organize a bucket brigade from the river.

 

"Might as well piss on Mount Vesuvius," Doc said. "I rather think that the wretches will be exceedingly lucky to save anything out of the entire block."

 

"It was all empty buildings," Ryan said.

 

"Not that it would have made any difference if they hadn't been," Mildred said bitterly. "It wouldn't have changed your plan, would it?"

 

"Yeah, mebbe it would," Ryan replied, stung by her criticism. "If there'd been folks living close by, I'd have raised the warning myself to give them time to get clear."

 

She applauded him ironically. "Well, hurrah for you, Ryan Cawdor. Winner of the Nobel prize for humanitarian of the year. Children spared while you wait. Bar mitzvahs a specialty. Discount for groups."

 

"That time of month, Doctor?" Doc said mockingly. "Or did you get out of your little bed the wrong side this morning? Must be some explanation for your being more ill-tempered than you usually are."

 

"Enough," Ryan said, "Best thing we can do is get across there quickly. Make a lot of noise about arriving to help put out the fire."

 

 

 

DOC HAD BEEN RIGHT.

 

The whole block that had Ma's Place at its center was razed to the ground, reduced to smoking ashes in less than a half hour, with only the half-dozen brick central chimneys standing at the center.

 

"Like Jennison Gravestones," J.B. said. "What they called that sort of scene in the Civil War. After the man responsible for many of them. Specially around Kansas, bloody Kansas."

 

Ryan and the others had weighed in with a will, working flat out once it became obvious that no power on earth could save the buildings.

 

"Probably that prevert let his fat catch fire one time too many," said an old toothless woman, sucking on an empty corncob pipe. "Don't see no sign neither of that poor little girl who worked for him. Probably both in the ruins."

 

A few of the locals asked Ryan and the others what they were doing in Glenwood Springs, and received the stock answer that they'd been trading but their wag had fallen apart a couple of days earlier. Now they were stranded on foot, heading over the pass toward Leadville.

 

Was anyone, by chance, going that way?

 

The smoke-dark crowd of forty or fifty people considered the question.

 

"What did you want to go to that dead-alive crap-hole for, mister?" barked a trapper.

 

"Heard of a good school for my son," Ryan answered, following Trader's rule of telling the truth unless it seemed more convenient to lie.

 

"And we thought we might stop by Harmony, as well," Krysty added.

 

"Be Nick Brody's school," one of the deer hunters said. "Heard it was good for book learnin'."

 

"What we need," Ryan said, smiling pleasantly. "Where exactly is it?"

 

The man scratched his soot-smeared nose. "Now, that's a fair question. Not many folks go that way. Trails are all broke down. Doubt there's a man or woman been beyond Leadvillewhat used to be Leadvillethese long months."

 

His partner, a thin little man with a pocked face who looked as if someone had once made a hearty attempt to scalp him, nodded. "Even more true of Harmony. Bad things up there. Nobody takes the old high trail to Fairplay and beyond."

 

"What kind of trouble?" Krysty asked.

 

"Bounties up there, so they said." The man rubbed at his puckered forehead. "Gang of swift and evil bastards. But there's only been whispers. Haven't heard of anyone actually going all the way up to Harmony for like you said about going beyond Leadville, Ezekial. Not for months."

 

A third man pushed to the front of the small crowd. He was extremely tall, and wrapped in a buffalo-hide jacket and pants that smelled as if they hadn't been within a country mile of any sort of curing process. They were still caked with dried blood and reeked of urine and dung.

 

"The name's Lemuel. I'm driving a mule team up to Leadville," he said. "Got to deliver a piano to the old opera house up there. The Tabor place. Going in an hour or so. Aimed to eat at Ma's, but I'll have to pass on that." He looked at Ryan. "Point is, I could take a couple of you folks up with me."

 

"Only two of us?" Ryan queried.

 

Krysty tugged at his sleeve. "You and me. Got to get to Harmony, lover. Find out for sure whats going on up there. Mebbe some of my kin could be in danger. My mother"

 

Ryan ignored her, speaking instead to Lemuel. "Any other wags or teams we could hire?"

 

"Probably some around the ville that you could take if you wanted. Population's dropping. Livery stable's got animals going cheap."

 

"Ryan!"

 

"What, lover?"

 

"If he'll take two, then it has to be you and me. Find out what's happening."

 

He shook his head. "Doesn't make fighting sense. If there's bad trouble in Harmony, we have to be together. Then we could need a fast run out of the place. Might not be time to get Dean up to this Brody school."

 

"You're going with the boy and leaving me behind with the rest? I don't believe you, Ryan."

 

"He's right," J.B. said. "Only sensible plan. Ryan can drop off the boy and meet us all at Fairplay. That way we have a united attack."

 

"I need to get to Harmony, so butt out, John!"

 

"It's been years and years, lover," Ryan said, trying to calm her. "What's with waiting another day? Two days more at the outside?"

 

Krysty was suddenly close to tears. "I left on such bad terms. We'd fallen out and we nevernever got to say goodbye to each other. I want to see Mother Sonja again and tell her that I love her. That I always loved her."

 

"You can do that, Krysty." Ryan put his arms around her, and she began to pull away. But he held tighter and Krysty melted, sobbing, into his arms.

 

"I have to see her, Ryan."

 

"Sure thing. But if Sonja's in deep shit, then it'll take us all to get her out of it. Agreed?"

 

"I guess so," she said, then thanked Doc as the old man passed her his precious swallow's-eye kerchief to blow her nose and wipe her eyes. "I guess you're right."

 

Lemuel had watched the emotional scene without saying anything. Now he coughed, hawked up some dark brown phlegm and spit it onto the sidewalk. "You comin' with me or not, mister? Another blaster or two could be useful up that trail. But I ain't waiting while you argue the toss. Just up sticks and leave."

 

Ryan nodded. "Sure, sure. Me and the boy's coming with you on the wag."

 

"And you help me unload it the other end? That's a part o'the trade."

 

"Yeah. Why not?"

 

He turned to Krysty. "Meet you up in Fairplay, or somewhere on the trail. Look out for me."

 

"When?"

 

"Fireblast, I don't know, do I? Guess it'll likely be two or three days."

 

"J.B., you sort out a couple more wags and get the teams for them."

 

The Armorer touched his finger to the brim of the fedora. "Sure thing, bro."

 

Dean had been standing apart from the others, waiting to see which way the bones fell. Now he moved to stand by his father. "That mean I got to say goodbye to everyone? Mebbe for a year or so? That's like forever."

 

J.B. shook his head. "Wrong, Dean. When you get a little older you'll know that forever is forever."