Chapter Eight

 

"Can't shake them," Dean said, turning into the grade of the broken land outside of Hazard. Fear kept an edge on him like a skinning knife. "Going to have to take them." He carried the Browning Hi-Power in his fist. Glancing over his shoulder, he spotted the five tattooed men they'd picked up tailing them.

 

The coldhearts rode horses and carried long blasters across the pommels of their saddles. The intent and the wariness they displayed left no doubts about what they planned.

 

Despite the run through Hazard, Jak and Dean hadn't been able to throw their pursuers off the trail. The men had clung stubbornly, guessing where the two youngsters had headed. Finally, at the stables, they'd been cornered and driven out of the ville.

 

And that was the part Dean couldn't really figure. The five men hadn't tried outright to chill them, but they had left no doubts in his mind or Jak's. Still, there had been nothing to do except be driven before them.

 

Dean hauled up short behind a thick-boled oak, thinking about how his father and the rest of the companions had set to and chilled Liberty and his gang without warning. He wondered if these five men intended for a message to be sent to the rest of the populace of the ville.

 

He peered through the shadows and saw Jak only a few feet from him. The albino carefully worked a water bladder they had taken from the stables. Jak had emptied it in one of the stalls, then drained the oil from three lanterns before they'd climbed through the roof and escaped into the brush. That had been when they had first discovered that the men had at least two silenced handblasters among them.

 

"Not much time," the albino whispered. "This happen quick."

 

"What?"

 

"Take them," Jak said. "Chill them fast. Then find out why not try chill us fast, too."

 

The fact that the five men hadn't been trying to blast through the brush had bothered Dean some. The only time they had been fired upon had been back at the stable. With the silenced weapons, the coldhearts could have tried to blast them back at the gaudy house, maybe chilled them, too. But they hadn't.

 

"Say when," Dean agreed.

 

"Stay here," Jak whispered. "Wait for signal."

 

"What signal?" he asked hoarsely, as Jak melted into the shadows.

 

"Know when see it," Jak's voice drifted back.

 

Dean sidled up to the tree, took up a two-handed grip on the Browning Hi-Power and aimed at the riders. He braced his arm against the tree trunk.

 

A horse nickered tiredly, blowing fog out its nostrils in the chill air that had settled over the countryside with the coming of night. The coldhearts talked among themselves, obviously waiting for their quarries to break cover at some point.

 

Less than fifty yards away, Dean got a better look at the long blasters two of them carried. They weren't regular weapons, like his father's Steyr. The two blasters they had looked more like long, cylindrical tubes mounted on gun stocks. J.B. probably would have recognized the make and model, but Dean thought it was enough that he recognized they were compressed-air guns. More questions assailed his mind, but then time for thinking was well past.

 

A pale shadow drifted along behind the horses, cutting through the brush with an unnatural speed. A spark flared, then a flaming object slammed against the man in the center of the five, drenching him with dark liquid. The flames quickly spread across the dark liquid, though, licking eagerly at the man and the horse.

 

The animal panicked first, its hindquarters on fire. It broke into a sudden run, hindquarters buckling as it tried to drag its rear onto the ground. The sudden movement threw the man from the saddle. He hit the ground hard, rolling and screaming as he tried to slap out the flames wreathing him.

 

Revealed in the light given off by the burning man and the burning horse, Jak sprinted up behind the man on the outside, out of Dean's field of fire. The albino slapped his hands against the horse's rear and vaulted aboard. The animal whinnied in fear and reared. Jak reached around the rider and seized the reins and the pommel, holding himself and the rider on. His other hand wrapped up under the man's chin. Moonlight glinted on metal.

 

The rider didn't try to struggle, letting his arms go limp at his sides. The burning man's cries continued to shrill over the trail. "Chill him, Dean!" Jak ordered.

 

Dean swiveled his sights over the man closest to him. The other men jockeyed to control their horses and bring their blasters to bear on Jak. One of them ripped off three shots that missed.

 

Curling his finger over the Hi-Power's trigger, Dean squeezed off two shots that crunched through the man's chest, blowing out his heart. The body tumbled from the saddle, and the frightened horse thundered through the forest.

 

Realization that they were caught between their prey gripped the remaining two riders at once. Both put spurs to their mounts. One rode for Jak, while the other crashed through the brush where Dean stood.

 

Dean kept his position, standing his ground. He brought up his blaster and breathed out through his mouth to relax his arms. He centered the sights over his target's chest as the man raced toward him.

 

The attacker fired four shots that ripped bark from the tree beside Dean and the branches above. The man yelled loudly, hoping to rattle the youth.

 

Instead, the youngster fired coolly, placing two shots within a heartbeat of each other. The horse chose that moment to raise its head, and both 9 mm hollowpoint rounds struck the animal's skull, exploding its head.

 

Dean tried to realign his sights as the dead horse fell to the ground in a tumbling heap, but the uncertainty of the shot and Jak being behind the target stayed his finger. Before he could draw another breath, the man leaped from the saddle and dived into the brush, vanishing before Dean could take aim.

 

In that moment he knew that their trap had suddenly turned deadly again.

 

 

 

J.B. KEPT HIS HANDS raised as he looked across the barrel of Anna's blaster. He didn't say anything. Words weren't his forte. But he figured Mildred would be mighty angry if he got himself killed, especially since he'd turned down the offer of a roll in the hay to get his business with the gunsmith taken care of first. If it came down to it, he'd see the young woman before him dead before he allowed himself to get killed.

 

"Are you really J. B. Dix?" the man asked roughly.

 

"Yeah."

 

"The one rode with the Trader in the Shens on War Wag One?"

 

"Can't say there was ever any other."

 

"Saw you once, a long time ago, but the light's bad and my eyes aren't what they was."

 

"Hoping your good sense is. If I have to, I reckon I'm going to find out how good your girl here is. I'm not a man to sit for long under the barrel of a blaster. Comes time to shit or get off the pot."

 

Anna rolled the blaster's hammer back with her thumb. "You're about two pounds' pressure away from death right now, mister. I wouldn't go getting all puffed up about your situation and how bastard tough you are."

 

J.B. let a smile cross his face, as cold and hard as the drawn blaster in front of him. "You're just pushing me that much closer to taking the decision out of your hands. I got no backup in me when it comes to taking a hand in gunplay."

 

"Put that blaster away," Tinker Phillips ordered.

 

"Don't know that that's a good idea," Anna said. She kept her eyes locked on J.B.

 

"Long as you live under my roof," Phillips said, "you're going to be bound by my word. You don't holster that piece, I'll chill you and bury you myself."

 

With practiced efficiency, the woman lowered the hammer and twirled the blaster on her finger in a flashy display. The weapon found leather and snugged in tight. "Another time mebbe, Mr. Dix."

 

"Not if I have a choice," J.B. replied. "Be a shame to chill a woman who seems to know so much about firearms."

 

She looked amused.

 

"Okay if I put my arms down?" J.B. asked. "I'm losing feeling in my fingers."

 

"Go ahead," Phillips said.

 

J.B. lowered his arms but continued to move slowly.

 

At the other end of the room, a section of the wall popped forward and dropped into grooves on the floor and across the ceiling. As it slid to the side, it revealed a doorway beyond. A hunchbacked old man stood in the doorway, looking like he was carrying a pack on his back because of the deformity. But he carried an oiled MAC-11 in a gnarled fist that looked two sizes too big for the rest of his body. With his bent-over position, the man was barely five feet tall.

 

"Tinker Phillips?" J.B. asked.

 

"That's me." Phillips's face was covered by gray hair and a thick gray beard that didn't quite disguise the scarring that had eroded his features. "People tell me I'm an ugly old bastard to my face, but that don't mean I take kindly to it."

 

"Didn't come here to look at you," J.B. said.

 

Phillips seemed taken aback for a moment by the bald-faced statement, then he cackled. "Damn, but some of Trader must have rubbed off on you. That old fucker was pure mean through and through. Man couldn't handle what he had to say ought not ask him what was on his mind."

 

"I've got a line of credit," J.B. said. "Put up by Kirkland. Wanted to see what I could get for it." He was conscious of Anna falling into place at his back.

 

Phillips hung the MAC-11 in a specialty holster at his right side. He spit at his feet, then rubbed it away. "Kirkland's a smart man, but he's got the conscience of a rabid dog."

 

"You're the first person in Hazard I've heard speak out against him."

 

"That's because you haven't talked to everybody in our happy little ville." Phillips turned and walked into the room beyond. "Come on in and sit a spell."

 

J.B. followed the old man, noting how the hump was large enough and high enough that it almost made Phillips look like he had two heads in the darkness. He heard the movement around them and knew they weren't alone. He used his peripheral vision and noted at least three more bodies.

 

Phillips drew a self-light across a rough cover. Light flared to life and banished some of the shadows. He cupped the flame in his hands and moved it toward a lantern another man held out. When the wick was burning good, the man replaced the hurricane glass and adjusted the flame.

 

Light spread out over the room, illuminating tables and chairs and a couple sofas spread out across a generous living space. Barren walls enclosed the space, holding no windows and no decorations. Two long rectangular tables sat at one end. Four men sat around the farthest one. All of the men had handblasters on the table in front of them, close in beside the metal plates piled high with beans and meat, thick chunks of carrots and potatoes. A tray of yellow corn bread acted as a centerpiece for the table.

 

"Have you ate since you been in the ville?" Phillips asked.

 

"No."

 

"You're welcome to our table." He gestured toward the small wood stove in the corner. Two big pots sat on the surface, steam still rising up from both. "Bread's fresh, just out of the oven."

 

J.B. noted the design with interest. He'd seen many like it, had even helped build several when he'd been a kid back in Cripple Creek. The residual heat from the wood stove was channeled up through the flue, and a baking box was built off the main pipe. But the flue on this stove didn't run straight up as most did. Instead, it ran off to the side and disappeared through a wall.

 

"Got it run so it can't get blocked off?" the Armorer asked.

 

"Out back of the main building," Phillips said, nodding. "Tapped into a fireplace of the glassmaker. He runs his ovens most of the time because he's always making glassware. Folks use it for canning what goods they raise, and for being sociable. We don't cook unless the glassmaker is working."

 

"And if he gets sick or takes a day off?" J.B. asked.

 

"Hardtack," one of the men at the table said, "and cold biscuits. You think we don't say some prayers for that old glassmaker come sick season in winter, you got yourself another think coming." He had a full beard and a thick scar over his left eye that had blue tattooing from a gunshot fired close.

 

"Nobody notices you don't have a smoke flue?" J.B. asked.

 

"We got one," Phillips answered. "Even run smoke through it on occasion. But tying it into our main system here and letting Kirkland and his people have us at their mercy isn't exactly what we're willing to risk."

 

"I'll take a plate," J.B. said.

 

Phillips reached up into a cupboard and took down a metal plate. He dipped a large portion of meat, beans and vegetables onto the plate, then took a big spoon from a glass near the sink area and passed it over with the plate.

 

J.B. walked to the table where the other men were and sat down. One of them shoved the bread over. "Got your own well, too?" the Armorer asked. He broke a corn bread square and swabbed it through the bean broth.

 

"Of course. Have to be self-sufficient for the necessities."

 

J.B. bit into the corn bread, savoring the salty grease flavor of the bean broth. The taste took him back, just as the company of rough men around him, to a time long past. He understood the siege mentality, if not the why of it. As he ate, he began to get a different picture of Hazard, and he didn't like what he was looking at.

 

Phillips sat across from him, getting into the chair with difficulty. "None of Kirkland's people have been this far into my gun shop since we rebuilt it."

 

"What have you got against Kirkland?" J.B. asked. He ate with both hands on the table, watching the company he was in. Anna stood against the wall to his left, deliberately on the wrong side for him to make a quick draw against, and in a position that gave her a full field of fire without endangering anyone else in the room.

 

The five men in the room besides the gunsmith were all hard and rangy. They kept their eyes on him.

 

"Same as most other people in the ville who kind of want to run their own lives," Phillips replied. "He keeps us here, won't let us go."

 

J.B. swept his gaze around the room. "Seems like you got yourself a small army here. Don't see how you could be kept from leaving if that's what you decided you wanted to do."

 

"Looking on the face of it, that's what you'd think. But that's just looking on the face of it. My momma, God rest her soul, popped me out of her belly after being exposed to a hot-rad area on an overland trip my daddy took when he should have been seeing to it she stayed comfortable. You look at me now, you see a man been down some hard roads. Can you imagine what I must have looked like while I was some pissant newborn? I mean, we're born into this world ugly anyway. But me?" He barked harsh laughter.

 

"Must have been a sight," J.B. agreed.

 

"Damn straight, it was." Phillips rubbed his hump as if trying to massage away the old memory. "My daddy, he was all ready to stove in my head and be done with it. Only Momma didn't let him. Said she'd buried enough dead births, and I was the first one born live. Figured she had something wrong with her insides. He left her, but she managed to keep us both alive. Turns out I was real good with my hands. By ten and twelve years old, I was helping feed us by working on things other people brought to us."

 

J.B. nodded. "You going to eat, or did I take your plate?"

 

"We eat in shifts," Phillips replied. "Against getting poisoned."

 

J.B. understood immediately. "You trade out for food?"

 

"Yeah. No room for a garden down here, and got no place to raise beef, either. Gives us a certain vulnerability."

 

"So you eat far enough apart that the symptoms would show up?"

 

"Yeah."

 

J.B. scooped up more beef and beans, chewing it thoroughly. "And if somebody gets poisoned?"

 

"Simple. I blow up the building and go out of business. Want some coffee sub to go with that meal?"

 

J.B. nodded.

 

Phillips looked at one of the young men, who got up and took the coffeepot from the stove. He poured a ceramic cup full, then handed it to the Armorer.

 

"So what's keeping you here?" J.B. asked.

 

"The plague," the gunsmith answered. "You mean to tell me you haven't heard of it?"