Chapter Sixteen

 

 

After the horrors of the morning, the rest of the day drifted by in a haze of sunshine and overeating.

 

The roast pig was absolutely delicious, the crackling thick and crunchy, the meat pink and tender, flavored with the wood smoke. Mildred had found a tall tree in the old orchard with some ripe pears and another that dripped peaches. She sliced them all together and boiled them for a few minutes until they simmered down into a kind of fruit stew.

 

It was the middle of the afternoon before everyone had recovered enough from the enormous meal and was ready to embark once more on the raft, pushing off back into the fast-flowing stream of the Tennessee.

 

They took a pile of sliced and hacked pork with them, ready to eat when they camped for the night. They could wash it down with the clean water from the river.

 

Mildred had checked out Ryan's wound, whistling between her teeth at the amount of fresh blood and the deep bruising around it. She warned him that he couldn't afford to keep aggravating it, pointing out there was a serious risk of poisoning if he didn't take proper care.

 

"Don't tell me," he replied. "Tell that crazed son of a bitching priest!" He grinned up at the woman. "If you can find him."

 

 

 

" MAKE SHILOH AROUND NOON tomorrow," J.B. said, lying back alongside their fire as the sun sank to the west and a cloud of midges buzzed over the inlet of the river. "Long as we don't laze around stuffing our faces with roast pork all morning or set fire to some churches."

 

"That's if Shiloh's still there," Ryan stated.

 

"Not many people around. Only seen a few today." Jak had peeled off his shirt and was gingerly massaging the spectacular bruise that lay below his belt buckle.

 

Doc had been teasing him about the injury, comparing it to something in an old song about a tattooed lady. "Looks like a still life of plums on a golden blanket," he said. "Are you sure you don't have the guards in line, all along your spine, or a fleet of battleships all around your hips?" He cackled with laughter at the expression on Jak's pale face.

 

They had moored among the ruins of what had been a small village of riverside cottages, most of them very close to the water. It was, as Jak had noted, a strangely deserted region of Deathlands.

 

They had seen a total of five people all day, since leaving their overnight mooring.

 

There had been a pair of whiskered old men in a tiny rowboat, battling their way upriver against the current. They sat side by side, each with an oar, backs straining, hardly looking across at the clumsy raft as it rolled past them in the opposite direction, panting out a "Good day," watching them vanish south while they labored to gain a few precious yards.

 

A woman and child had been sitting on a shallow bank on the eastern shore of the Tennessee. She was blind, with smooth flesh covering where her eye sockets should have been. The child that played by her feet, picking up tiny pebbles and laying them in a mazelike pattern, had a look of blank idiocy on its face, not showing the least interest in the strangers that drifted by a few yards away from them.

 

Krysty had called to them, but neither the woman nor the child reacted in any way.

 

The last of the people they saw was a young man with delicate features and a halo of thick golden hair. He had been walking along a path that ran by the river, in the same direction as they were sailing.

 

Jak had called out to him, making him jump, oblivious to their silent approach.

 

"Good afternoon to you," he'd replied with a cheerful wave of the hand.

 

"We far from Shiloh?" shouted J.B. who was at the steering oar.

 

"Wouldn't know, friend. I have to get to market. Carrying a flock of sheep hidden up my ass."

 

The reply was so absurd and unexpected that everyone on the raft stared at him in silence.

 

He smiled and nodded merrily, keeping pace with the raft for about a quarter mile, with no more exchange of conversation, until the Tennessee bent away to the right and the path carried straight on.

 

Ryan had been lying on the deck, near the bow of the rudimentary boat, and he watched with the others as the cheerful young man vanished with a last, friendly wave of the hand.

 

"Few rounds short of a full mag," he'd said.

 

 

 

"STRANGE SORT OF REGION we've come through," J.B. said as they lay around their bright fire, with the shades of evening drawing down.

 

"I don't recall being anyplace along the Tennessee with Trader." Ryan yawned, reaching out and taking another slice of cold meat.

 

The Armorer nodded. "Me, neither. Rad count's safe in the green, but we haven't encountered anyone yet that you could call a norm. Not since leaving the redoubt."

 

"Least there haven't been any out-and-out muties. Just a few triple-strange." Krysty folded her hands behind her head and stared up at the velvet sky, watching the myriad stars winking into life. "Good air and grass and water."

 

"And tomorrow, Shiloh," Doc added. "A cousin of my father gave his life there." He blew his nose on his blue kerchief. "Fought in the Fifth Division of the Army of Tennessee, under William Tecumseh Sherman. Under Grant himself. You know that Sherman had a kind of breakdown in 1861, and Grant liked the bottle too well."

 

"I know the story," J.B. said. "Sherman said that Grant stood by him when he was crazy and that he stood by Grant when he was drunk."

 

"That is correct," replied Doc. "That is absolutely correct. I heard it from Cousin Wilfred himself, so it must certainly be true."

 

 

 

RYAN WAS AWAKENED a couple of times during the night by the dull pain of his wound, getting up once to piss among the stunted rosebushes that ranged around some of the silent, derelict cottages.

 

In the stillness he suddenly realized that be could hear J.B. and Mildred making love, a little way along the bank of the river.

 

Embarrassed, Ryan limped farther alongside the Tennessee to relieve himself, moving as silently as he could through the dew-damp grass, leaning heavily on his makeshift crutch. He spent a little time sitting on the bank, back against a beech tree, watching the river flow. He thought about the crazed priest that he'd sent off to knock on heaven's door and about the serene beauty of the countryside around them.

 

To his surprise, he actually dropped off to sleep, waking with a start, shivering and cold. He glanced down at his chron, but it gave him no clue as to how long he'd been dozing. It was an indication to him of the way a wound could weaken a man, far more than he might expect.

 

He levered himself upright again, with the help of his stick, drawing in a whistling breath at yet another stab of pain burning through his leg.

 

An owl swooped out of the starry darkness, wings spread, eyes like saucers, veering away at the last moment as its keen sight picked up the motionless human.

 

Ryan watched it go, floating low over the calm surface of the river. There was a sudden ripple, and he spotted something lithe and silver leap clear out of the water, hanging for a moment, the patchy moonlight gleaming off the scales.

 

The owl had seen it and veered sideways, jinking like a running back heading for the end zone, but it was a heartbeat too late and the fish disappeared in a burst of foam.

 

Ryan grinned at the closeness of the escape and hobbled back to sleep again alongside Krysty.

 

 

 

DURING THE LATER PART of the night, the sky became cloudy and the dawning was gray and overcast. Ryan sniffed the air, tasting a fine drizzle on his breath.

 

"Might as well get moving early," he said. "No point in sitting around if there's rain on the way."

 

There was a brief shower as they were launching their raft, pitting the surface of the Tennessee, the rising wind ruffling the branches of the trees around.

 

 

 

AROUND TEN O'CLOCK the river narrowed dramatically, steep bluffs rising on both sides, raising the pace of the current to something close to twenty miles per hour.

 

Jak joined J.B. on the steering oar, while Doc and the women also took an oar each, ready to aid in the struggle if the raft got out of control. Unable to do much by way of steering, Ryan propped himself up at the front of the craft, struggling to balance on the spray-soaked logs, keeping a watch out for any dangers in the rapids ahead.

 

"Bridge!" he shouted, sporting a spidery edifice of strung ropes that dangled low over the foaming surface of the Tennessee, around six hundred yards in front of them.

 

"And people!" the Armorer yelled, pointing with his right hand to movement at the top of the cliffs.

 

Ryan stared up, seeing about a dozen men, all of them gesticulating and running, moving fast toward the narrow bridge. Peering through the spray, he made out that some of them were carrying coils of rope with what looked like long hooks attached to their ends.

 

"Aiming to catch us!" he yelled.

 

"Off the bridge," Krysty said. "They'll try and snag us from the bridge."

 

Ryan dropped to hands and knees and crawled back into the cabin, emerging with the Steyr. The raft was pitching so much that it would take an amazingly lucky shot to hit anyone until they got real close. But a few rounds buzzing around their ears might make them cautious.

 

"Steer to the right, away from them!" he shouted, pointing with the muzzle of the bolt-action SSG-70.

 

"Can't!" Jak replied, his wet hair matting around his long, narrow skull. "Too fast!"

 

They were closing on the bridge at an amazing rate, rocking from side to side. Ryan steadied himself against the roof of the makeshift cabin, trying to draw a bead through the scope on the scampering men.

 

But it was impossible.

 

The roaring of the torrent made conversation hopeless. All of them could see the danger as the group ahead was already moving out onto the swinging bridge, allowing the iron hooks to dangle below them off the looping ropes. A couple of them had long guns strapped across their shoulders, but most seemed to be armed with daggers, swords and axes.

 

But the pitching of the raft totally negated the value of the blasters.

 

They had closed to less than two hundred yards and they could see the faces of the men who hung to the bridge, agile as monkeys, gesturing toward their prey.

 

There were eleven of them altogether, mostly bearded, with thick, shaggy hair, swinging hand over hand, mouths open as they yelled their hatred at the oncoming outlanders.

 

Ryan tried with the Steyr, squeezing off a couple of shots. But they had no visible effect, beyond seeming to anger the men on the bridge.

 

"Try to cut ropes if we get hooked!" Ryan shouted to the others.

 

The raft seemed to be moving faster and faster, and the noise of the pounding waters in the gorge was deafening. Ryan tried another snap shot, snarling with delight as he saw one of the waiting men lose his grip and fall lifelessly into the Tennessee, fifty yards or so ahead of them, a crimson rose blossoming on the front of his white shirt.

 

The closer they drew, the more Ryan realized that the weight of the locals on the bridge had dragged it down until it was barely a dozen feet above the foaming breakers of the river. It was going to be more than possible for some of them to jump onto the raft, easier if they could snag it with their hooks and hold it for a few moments against the ferocious tug of the current.

 

Ryan heard the pop of Mildred's Czech revolver, the sound of the shots almost drowned by the river. He counted three rounds, seeing another of the waiting men throw his arms wide and fall from the bridge, dropping his hook and coil of rope as he slumped to his death.

 

The one-eyed man turned and gave the woman the thumbs-up, getting a grin in return.

 

But there were still nine of them, several already lowering their iron grapnels, swinging them to the surface of the river, ready to try to hook onto the raft.

 

Ryan threw the rifle inside the cabin and drew the SIG-Sauer. The pain in his leg seemed to have disappeared into the background, and all his combat reflexes were tight and ready.

 

"Here they come!" he yelled.