Chapter Fourteen

 

Ryan spotted the deputy across the street from the gun shop long before the man knew the one-eyed warrior was there. He knew from the man's stance that he was watching the gun shop, and that he'd gotten bored with it. He also saw moonlight kiss the deputy's star on his chest.

 

Ryan stayed in the shadows as he turned the corner. He walked casually, as if he were a man with another place to get to and in no real hurry to get there. It fit in with the handful of other men he'd seen on the streets.

 

The deputy gave him a quick scan, then turned his attention back to the front of the gun shop. He kept his hands folded across his chest.

 

While doing a recce around the building, Ryan found the second man working backup. The second deputy sat high on a balcony over the general store, surveying the street from a folding canvas chair. The station was a good one for watching over the man at street level, but it left the man on the balcony vulnerable.

 

Ryan circled the building and found a plastic drainpipe bolted to the wall beside the balcony, leading down into a rain barrel that was half-full. Though the pipe wouldn't hold his weight, the rain barrel did put him within reaching distance of the balcony.

 

He shed the Steyr, knowing it would be too hard to move while carrying the big weapon, then thumbed the restraining strap over the SIG-Sauer. He stepped onto the porch quietly, then moved up onto the rain barrel. Straightening himself and maintaining his balance, he caught the support struts of the balcony.

 

Gently Ryan eased his weight from the rain barrel to the balcony struts. He knew the deputy was facing away from him, so all he had to do was remain silent. Holding all his weight on one arm while he moved the other higher was a strain, but he managed it.

 

He drew his head up slowly, maintaining the illusion of the shadows. He peered between the bars and saw the deputy still facing away from him. Chilling the man was optional; keeping him from yelling a warning wasn't.

 

He pulled himself up over the edge of the railing and onto the balcony. The deputy never heard him coming. Ryan reached for the man's head, gripped it firmly, then twisted hard before the man could cry out or start to struggle.

 

The harsh crack signaled the separation of the man's skull from his spine. Flatulence ripped through the man's pants as his bowels released.

 

Ryan left the corpse where it lay in the chair and climbed back to the ground. In a matter of less than a handful of minutes, he'd recovered the Steyr and crept up on the other deputy.

 

With the man out in the open the way he was, Ryan had no choice but to take him quick. The one-eyed warrior bolted around the corner and came at the deputy at a good stride.

 

The deputy came around to face Ryan, uncertainty in his movements. He was young, used to handling an area that didn't have much rebellion in it. Too much power took the edge off a man. "Can I help you?" he asked.

 

Ryan said, "Sure," then kicked the younger man in the crotch. The deputy doubled over, grabbing for his groin. Ryan swept the Steyr around to buttstroke the deputy, breaking the back of the man's head. He died in a single breath.

 

Crossing the street, Ryan knocked on the door to the darkened gun shop.

 

"What do you want?" a young man's voice asked, so quiet it didn't drift more than a few feet.

 

"To see J. B. Dix," Ryan replied. "And make it bastard quick. I've already chilled two men coming this far. One of them gets discovered, we're going to be up to our ears in Kirkland's sec teams."

 

"I'll be back."

 

Ryan waited, staying in the shadows. He didn't know how long it would be before someone came along to change the guards.

 

"Ryan," J.B. called less than two minutes later.

 

"Here." Ryan stepped in through the open door, noting the woman and the two men that flanked the Armorer, their hands on their weapons. "There's a lot of things we've got to talk over."

 

 

 

DOC SAT on his haunches and watched the barn. The wag carrying Mildred had disappeared inside almost a half hour before. Cloaked in the shadows of a nearby residence, crouched behind some bushes, he kept his Le Mat blaster across his knees. He held the slim volume of Robert Frost poetry in his free hand, forcing himself to be patient by trying to recall all he could of the poet's work.

 

He was torn between going back to Ryan and the others to let them know where Mildred had been taken, and not wanting to desert the woman.

 

His mind conjured up torture scene after torture scene, refusing to give him any rest. Too many of the vulgar violences that traveled through his brain were too clear, too much a part of what he had lived through.

 

Doc had witnessed the evil that lurked in the hearts of men. He stifled a burst of laughter that threatened to tear free inside him, not knowing what had sparked it.

 

Voices warned him that men were coming back out of the barn.

 

Doc drew back into the shadowy embrace of the hedges beside the house and curled his finger around the Le Mat's trigger. He had it set for the massive .63-caliber shotgun load. If all hell was going to break loose when he had to use it, he figured on clearing the decks as much as possible beforehand. Kirkland walked out of the barn in the company of two other men, all of them illuminated by the lantern the healer carried. One of them Doc recognized as being one of the men aboard the wag that had taken Mildred. Kirkland led the way into the back of a large manor house that showed evidence of skilled carpenters who had built it.

 

When the men disappeared into the house, Doc waited a little while longer, then eased out of hiding and took long steps toward the barn. The door was left unlocked, so he crept inside.

 

The stink of hay and the animals filled his nostrils as he passed inside. He used his cane much as a person without sight would, feeling for uneven surfaces ahead of him.

 

With a dull thunk he found an object before him that turned out to be one of the wag wheels. He pocketed the Frost book and whispered hoarsely, "Mildred! Mildred! Dear lady, it is I, Doc. If you can hear me, please let me know." He searched frantically, feeling across the buckboard, sorely afraid that Mildred's corpse would be the only thing left lying there.

 

Thankfully, in a sense, the buckboard was empty. That still left finding Mildred almost an impossibility. Doc prayed as he searched, hoping that the woman was still alive.

 

A sliver of moonlight above him caught his attention as it threw a narrow shaft onto the stalls in front of him. It vanished a moment later, obviously having been reflected from some other surface outside. Still, it presented possibilities.

 

Working from the brief glimpse he'd gotten, Doc found the ladder leading up to the hayloft and climbed it. When he gained the top, he used the sword stick again to search the area before him, making his way to the small doors fronting the barn. The moonlight rimmed them, drawing them into squares almost three feet across.

 

When he reached the doors, he pulled the bolt back and opened them. Moonlight invaded the barn, falling down over the horses below. Most of the stalls contained animals. With the unaccustomed light invading the barn, some of the horses started nickering restlessly. Still, the natural light flooding the barn would be much less obvious than lighting a lantern.

 

Doc climbed back down the ladder and rounded the buckboard. A quick check let him know that Mildred wasn't in any of the stalls. His mind flew, racing with possibilities. He glanced upward, seeing nothing but the hayloft above.

 

He then moved to one side of the stall near the barn door and started stamping his foot. All he encountered for a long time was the dull splat of his boot striking nothing but hard ground.

 

He was beginning to think that if there was an underground room, it was buried so deep that he wouldn't be able to hear the difference. Fearful disappointment filled him, and the madness seeped into every chink such negative thinking created.

 

Then the sound changed when he stamped. Instead of a dulled thud, he heard a hollow thomp .

 

Marking the area with the sword stick, Doc sprang for the pitchfork hanging on the wall near the tack and harness. Determined effort and some work allowed him to track the underground room to the rearmost stall on the right. The stall was empty, and straw covered the floor. Doc scraped the straw away and found the square-cut door beneath, collared by two-by-fours. He grasped the steel ring set in the door and yanked it open to reveal a yawning black abyss below.

 

He felt inside and found a ladder built onto one of the walls. Voices outside startled him, coming closer.

 

Quiet as he could be, Doc climbed inside the doorway and pulled it closed behind him. He waited for a moment, hardly daring to breathe.

 

And the voices came closer. "I don't care what Kirkland says about that bitch," a man said. "Damaged goods isn't gonna keep her from being worth just as much to the bastard outlanders. I see Kirkland took a woman from the gaudy house tonight, so I know he isn't needing relief the way I do."

 

"I don't know about that, Harold," another man said. "You go messing with that woman, Kirkland's liable to chill you over it."

 

"Fuck him. I'll just tell him she's lying. I don't think he's going to be handing her back to those outlanders alive anyway. Never saw him be overly generous about such things, and they got something he wants or he would have killed them outright anyhow."

 

Doc explored the floor below him. The sword stick quickly touched walls on all sides of him, letting him know he was in a very small room. Kneeling, he dragged his free hand across the floor, spreading out his fingers so he could cover more ground. He found another steel ring and pulled it up.

 

The footsteps coming from above continued their approach, growing louder.

 

Doc took the second ladder down, sensing movement too late above him. And below him was the sound of breaking glass.

 

 

 

AGAINST THE SHELVES now, Mildred shoved hard. Her shoulder met a gallon jar with considerable force. The jar rocked across the shelf and collided with another from the sound of the breaking glass. Liquid ran down her arm.

 

Twisting in her chair, Mildred let the liquid run onto her other arm, drenching her wrist where the leather thong had grown more loose. She knew leather also stretched when it got wet. The water that had been dumped on her earlier had probably loosened the thong as much as it had.

 

The liquidbrine, from the smell of itthoroughly soaked the thongs holding both wrists as bits and pieces of vegetables slid across her fingers. She pulled against her restraints, finally able to get her hands free.

 

Then she felt along the floor for a chunk of glass to use on the thongs binding her ankles. She found a piece only a few inches long that had razor-sharp edges. While she was picking it up, she accidentally sliced her thumb. The brine burned the cut, but she ignored the pain while she cut herself free.

 

A muted banging noise sounded above her where she judged the trapdoor to be. In the darkness it was hard to tell, hard to remember. Using both hands now, she gently searched through the glass fragments until she found a bigger one that she could use as a weapon.

 

She dragged her knuckles across it, keeping the softer parts of her hands protected from the edges. The piece she held was nearly eight inches long.

 

The banging from above repeated, louder this time. Men's voices also drifted into the room.

 

Mildred ripped a shirtsleeve free, then wrapped it around the bottom four inches or so of the glass shard she'd picked up. The cloth wrapped around enough times that the glass didn't immediately slash through. She fisted it, feeling somewhat better for having it.

 

The glass shard wasn't much of a weapon, but she could make do.

 

The trapdoor opened. More darkness greeted her, this slightly more gray than the shadows filling the underground room. She didn't know why the man entering the room wasn't carrying a lantern.

 

Reaching out, she touched the ladder, making sure of the distance. Then she tightened her grip on the glass shard and waited.

 

The footsteps continued coming down the ladder for another few rungs, then halted. "Mildred?" whispered a voice she recognized.

 

Positioned behind the old man, Mildred halted her blow just in time. She'd intended to slash across whoever was hanging from the ladder. Legs or back, the wounds would have given her an edge.

 

"Doc?" Mildred whispered back.

 

"It is I, dear lady, come to your rescue I had thought. But I fear we are not going to be alone for much longer."

 

Without warning, light appeared around the edges of a second door above Doc. The weak yellow illumination flared down through the sides of a second trapdoor above the one Doc was halfway through.

 

"Somebody's been here, Harold," a man said in a quiet voice that barely got through the muffling effects of the trapdoor. "All the straw's been moved."

 

"I can see that, Miner. Get that lantern over here and let's take a look before we get anybody else."

 

"Betwixt a hard place and a rock," Doc whispered, "that's surely where we find ourselves in this quandary."

 

"Haul your bony butt down off that ladder," Mildred ordered. "All you're doing up there is making a fine target."

 

Doc clambered down.

 

The shadows drew back as the light from the lantern above filtered into the room. Dust particles raced like wild comets through the haze drifting through the trapdoor above.

 

"Your blaster, Doc," Mildred prompted. "That scattergun of yours is good in close quarters. And those bastards aren't going to have many places to run." She hung on to her anger, using it to force her fear away.

 

Doc's Le Mat clicked as he made the adjustments necessary to swivel the shotgun barrel into the active role. "Stand back, dear Dr. Wyeth, because those concrete walls are going to be just as hard on us as they are on them."

 

Then the trapdoor above opened.

 

Pulled back against the wall, Mildred suddenly went deaf and blind as the Le Mat discharged. Shotgun pellets bounced wildly, and men started to scream.