Chapter Twenty-One

 

 

After an excellent and sustaining breakfast, Ryan had a last brief meeting with Nicholas Brody.

 

The big bearded man was alone in his study, and as Ryan entered the room, he was doubled over his desk with a horrendous coughing fit. He had a white handkerchief pressed to his face, and Ryan thought that he glimpsed a dappling of crimson before the headmaster quickly put it back into his pocket.

 

"Are you all right? Should I get someone?"

 

"No, no, no, my dear fellow. Something I ate must have slipped down the wrong way. Foolish of me. Do forgive me for that histrionic impersonation of the Lady of the Camellias." Seeing Ryan's puzzled expression, he added, "A fine book, my dear Mr. Cawdor. Perhaps we can introduce it to the boy. He seems to have settled in wonderfully. His dormitory prefect said he slept well and was no trouble at all. Excellent."

 

"Just looked in before I left to make sure all was all right about Dean."

 

"Better than all right, I think, Mr. Cawdor. The lad is obviously bright. We have been observing him. He is the most self-sufficient eleven-year-old I think I've ever known in my long career as a pedagogue."

 

"Not many eleven year olds have lived like Dean has. Not many chilled as many people as he has."

 

"Chilled many? Oh, I see. It is a joke, Mr. Cawdor. Slightly ghoulish, and not perhaps in the very best of taste, but none the worse for that."

 

Ryan realized he shouldn't have mentioned that fact. But he was going to get away with it.

 

Brody was laughing, managing to smother the onset of another coughing fit.

 

"One thing, Mr. Brody."

 

"Yes?" He paused. "If it's the teaching of intrapersonal relationships and human hygiene, I think you can rest assured that we handle this with great sensitivity and"

 

"Not that. I'm heading for Leadville, then on across the tops to the next valley along, up to the head of that to Fairplay. One of my friends comes from Harmony, near there. Heard stories of trouble."

 

"I fear so. We too have heard such tales. Which is why our highway was being patrolled with more than usual zeal."

 

"Any details?"

 

"How long since your companion was in Harmony? Does he visit often?"

 

"She."

 

"I'm sorry?"

 

"The particular companion we're talking about is a lady. And she hasn't been back for many years. Her mother lived there, but she has lost touch."

 

Brody steepled his fingers. "Alas and alack! That this happens so frequently in Deathlands." He peered out the window. "The sun seems to be showing us his merry face today."

 

Ryan pressed on. "What kind of trouble was it?"

 

"Ah, yes. We heard of a gang of bounty hunters and general bandits. The odd part of the tale was that there were norms and muties riding together."

 

"We ran into three killers on the road here from Glenwood Springs. They'd slaughtered an old man with a mule and a girl."

 

Brody sighed. "And did the perps of this evil act sleep last night in the bosom of Abraham?"

 

"You mean did we chill them?"

 

"I do, indeed."

 

"We did, indeed."

 

"They might have been a rotten branch off that same corrupt tree, Mr. Cawdor. Take the greatest of care. We would not want our newest pupil to suddenly become an orphan."

 

The two men shook hands and parted.

 

Ryan was shown down the corridor to where Dean waited for him.

 

The boy was looking out a window, across the lake. He turned and grinned at his father. "Hot pipe, Dad!"

 

"What is?"

 

"You've saved me from doing English grammar with old Coco Copeland. The boys reckon he's a real bastard."

 

"Watch the language, Dean, please."

 

"Sony. Anyway, you've got to go now, haven't you, Dad? Give my love to all the others."

 

Dean was being unnaturally bright and perky, with a forced smile pasted uneasily on his face.

 

Ryan nodded. "I'll do that. Remember, if there's serious bother, a message will eventually find me and we'll all come running."

 

"Sure, sure. Thanks, Dad. But from what I seen so far, I don't mind it too bad."

 

Ryan put a hand on the boy's shoulder, and the defenses crumbled and the floodgates opened.

 

It took several minutes for them both to recover some degree of self-possession and wipe their eyes and blow their noses.

 

"Sorry about that, Dad," Dean muttered. "Promised myself I wasn't going to"

 

"Me too, son, me too." Ryan took a deep breath. "Right, I'm going now."

 

"And I'll go and do grammar. Then Krysty won't have to moan at me again." Dean's voice trembled, and Ryan turned away quickly, opening the door into the passage.

 

Ryan knew that Dean had led a hand-to-mouth existence with his mother, Sharona, for several years. He'd faced a lot of adversity in his short life, and now he had a chance to settle down to a regular life for a year or so, in relative peace and quiet. He'd gain some education and acquire some life skills. Ryan couldn't deny his son that, though it tore at his heart to leave him behind.

 

"In a year, if not sooner," he said, and closed the door firmly behind him.

 

 

 

AHAB AND JOEL WERE both back on duty, and they escorted him for a couple of miles along the road away from the school. As Brody had said, it was a fine morning, with a few bunched clouds to the northwest that held the possible threat of a storm later in the day.

 

They recognized that Ryan wasn't in a talking mood, and the three of them walked along, mainly in silence.

 

At the crest of a rise in the trail, Ryan turned and took one last long look at the buildings. He thought that he might have glimpsed a little figure waving something white from a second-story window, but he couldn't be sure.

 

 

 

"LEAVE YOU HERE, outlander," Ahab said. "Get back to our patrolling."

 

"Thanks. Guess I feel all right about leaving my son in the school. Seem like nice kids and teachers. And Brody himself. Real bad cough he's got, though."

 

The sec men exchanged glances. Ahab answered him. "Worries us, as well. Head was supposed to be seeing some top doctor back east could have been Kansas City way. But he never went. Some days he seems fine, but on cold, wet days it can grip him."

 

Joel nodded, whistling between his teeth. "Days when there's a blue norther. Bad as well."

 

"Brody told me a bit about this gang of norms and muties," Ryan said.

 

"That's what we heard," Ahab agreed. "Pickin' on some of the frontier pestholes and taking them over. Suck them dry and move on. Like fuckin' locusts they are."

 

"Think twice about coming our way," Joel said. "Need sharp teeth to bite us off."

 

"You know a ville called Harmony?" Ryan asked.

 

Ahab looked puzzled. "That up Nebraska way?"

 

Joel shook his head. "No, that's the place beyond the divide, couple of valleys over east. You know that swank old ski place, Breckenridge?"

 

"Oh, yeah. Head of the valley there, isn't it? Beyond, what do you call it?"

 

"Fairplay," Ryan suggested.

 

"Right on the money, stranger. Fairplay. Harmony's beyond that. Is that the ville you're heading for?"

 

"Yeah. Meeting friends there."

 

Joel patted the Steyr rifle on Ryan's back. "Need that and some more like it if that gang sees you."

 

Ryan nodded. "You're right."

 

After shaking hands with the two men, he turned eastward and began the long, lonely walk back onto the main trail.

 

 

 

MILDRED WAS LAST of the companions to enjoy the deep tub, brimming with hot water. She poured in the contents of one of the many bottles of subtly colored, scented foaming oils.

 

Each successive bath seemed to take longer for the water to heat properly, and Krysty was beginning to get edgy at the delay.

 

J.B. and Doc reassured her.

 

"Ryan'll likely spend a little time at this school before he leaves Dean there. We know they were both safely through that ambush. And we've got a place fixed for a rendezvous." The Armorer had been reading through a pile of magazines from the predark days and he picked up another Reader's Digest . "He'll be fine, Krysty. You'll see."

 

Doc had been listening to some classical music on headphones. Now he took them off and smiled at her. "Worry not, dear madam. The bullet has not been cast nor the blade forged that bears the name of Ryan Cawdor. Another couple of days and we shall all be reunited together once more. Will we not?"

 

Krysty had been reassured by that.

 

All of them had noticed that the electricity had begun to fail. Several lights had gone out, though replacement bulbs from a bag in the garage had kept some going. The microwave oven and stove had both ceased to workin the case of the former, with a loud bang and shower of orange sparks that had nearly taken Jak's hand off when he tried to heat a mug of coffee.

 

"Come on, Mildred!" Krysty shouted up the stairs. "Be dark before we get going. In fact it's getting dark already."

 

"Only a little after two," J.B. said, checking his wrist chron. "But it does seem gloomy."

 

"I'll take look," Jak offered, getting up from the corner, where he'd been flicking through a book on handblasters.

 

He went out the front door, where the security light failed to snap on, then walked around the far, northern flank of the building. He stood there for several seconds, then returned briskly to the front door.

 

"Big storm on way," he called, as soon as he was inside the house again.

 

"Snow?" J.B. asked.

 

"Probably. Sky like lead. Wind's rising. Whole mess coming this way."

 

Everyone except Mildred, who was still relaxing in the tub, rushed out to look.

 

Jak's description had been accurate. The sky was dark, slate gray, with heavy clouds squatting over the mountaintops a few miles away.

 

"Moving this way," J.B. said.

 

Krysty stamped her foot. "Gaia! Mebbe if we get out now we can outflank it. Looks from its path like it might not reach farther up the trail."

 

Doc looked doubtful. "I do most earnestly comprehend your reasoning, my dearest Krysty. To be reunited with Ryan is the wish of all of us. But that" he pointed with the tip of his cane at the approaching storm, "to be exposed on the hillside in the teeth of that"

 

J.B. finished the sentence. "When we can sit it out in warmth and comfort and safety. Seems like close to suicide to run against that. It's going to be a real triple-big blow, Krysty. Real big."

 

Nonetheless, Krysty insisted that Mildred complete her bath and get dressed as quickly as she could.

 

"I'd finished soaking, anyway," she replied, somewhat pettishly. "Though I don't believe I had anywhere near as long as anyone else. Including you, Krysty."

 

"We have to try and get going. Please. I'm getting more and more worried about what's happening to Ryan."

 

 

 

RYAN WAS FIFTEEN or twenty miles east of them, striding steadily toward the township of Leadville. He'd seen no further signs of human life, though the forest seemed to teem with activity. A pack of thirty or forty gaunt coyotes snarled at him until he unslung the rifle and shot the leader, sending the rest of the animals scattering. He also saw moose, and once a black bear lumbered quickly across the highway, about eighty yards ahead of him. And there were enough deer to keep a man going for years.

 

At a sharp turn in the road he looked back and down, wondering how far the others were behind him, or whether they might have passed by while he was at Brady's school and be ahead of him.

 

Staring behind, Ryan was able to see the huge storm that looked as if it would cut the trail about ten miles below him. The silver lace of lightning crackled around the tops of the clouds, and he could see at the base that it was either snow or unimaginably heavy rain. "Hope they're free of that," he said aloud.

 

 

 

EVERYONE WAS PACKING and ready to go. The land around the house was almost invisible in the gloom, and they could all hear the rumblings of thunder.

 

"We can do it," Krysty said, opening the front door, staggering a little in the wind as she looked out at the first whirling flakes of snow.

 

"No," J.B. stated. "We can't." And closed the door again.