Chapter Thirteen

Dean eased up out of the hole. His hair was matted with dog shit and his clothing covered with it. He sat the lantern down on the floor, then raked pieces off his face with his fingers. "Found the other end. Comes out about 150 yards away."

"The river?" J.B: asked.

Dean nodded. "Real close."

"Where's Jak?" Ryan asked.

"Watching the other end. Some coldhearts are out there. Coming this way."

"Toward the tunnel?"

Dean shook his head. "Didn't look like it. That tunnel isn't where anybody would want to go unless they had to. Looks like it hasn't been used by anything but dogs. Mebbe they've even been kept in there for a while. Triple bad going through there, Dad."

"We don't have a choice," Ryan said.

"At least, after a bit the smell kind of goes away." Dean brushed at his clothes some more.

"My boy," Doc said, "you are sadly mistaken."

"Mildred," Ryan said, "you and Krysty get moving. Dean, help keep these youngsters moving along."

The woman, Mary, started to protest, pulling at her son protectively.

"Let Dean take him," Ryan told her. "He'll stand a better chance with him than with you. Dean knows where to move and when to move." He flicked his gaze over to the other man holding his daughter. "Same for your girl."

"I know it," the man said. "Seen this boy in action myself. I've lived roughing it in the past, but it's been a while ago."

Ryan turned to his son. "Take them, Dean. Stay close to Mildred and Krysty. We'll stagger the rest of them out."

Dean nodded and called the two youngsters to him. The boy went reluctantly, needing threatening from his father to get moving. His eyes filled with tears, but he went along. The girl, older than him by a couple years, took his hand and guided him as Dean helped them down into the tunnel.

Mary tried to go after her son.

"Wait," Ryan ordered, swinging the SIG-Sauer enough so that she caught the movement.

"That's my son," she protested.

"I know it," Ryan said. "And you need to stay back a ways. You crowd up on him, Dean won't be able to get him back to you if something goes wrong."

"He's right, Mary," her husband said, putting his hand on her shoulder. "Man knows what he's doing. Staggered line like this, we can cover for each other."

Ryan waited a bit, feeling the humidity press in through the windows.

"Cawdor!" Naylor sounded more anxious.

"Doc," Ryan said, "take the next group through." He pointed at Mary and her husband, then at one of the remaining women.

"I surely will, my dear Ryan, and how long before you join us on that road less traveled?" Doc grimaced as he peered into the tunnel.

"A few minutes," Ryan said. "J.B. and I are going to shut things down here."

"Do not tarry," the old man warned. "In her present state of mind, I know Krysty will want you by her side." He took another lantern from the shelves and lighted the wick, adjusting it until it burned well.

"Get it done, Doc."

Doc dropped into the hole, then turned to help the women down. "Dear ladies, I do so apologize for not doffing my jacket as a true gentleman would to make the going more palatable, but I fear it would be but a waste of my raiment."

The women ignored him, not liking what they were having to do, but clambering into the tunnel all the same. Survival pushed most people through life, Ryan knew. The husband followed them, then Doc crawled through, as well.

"Cawdor!" Naylor called again.

"What?" Ryan asked.

"It appears to me that we're both in a bad place."

"Man's kind of slow, isn't he?" J.B. asked with a mirthless grin. "Hadn't been so single-minded about getting Elmore back, he could have waited to see if we were going to throw in with him, then chill us when we were least expecting it."

"Already knew that," Ryan called out to the sec chief. He motioned at Elmore and lowered his voice. "Take the rest of them through."

Elmore nodded, then climbed up from the floor. He took a lantern from the wall.

"If you aren't at the other end when I get there, you can bet all your jack that I'll come looking. And I'm good at hunting men." Ryan tossed the man the weapon they'd taken from him.

Elmore caught the blaster and nodded grimly. "Figured you would be."

"And I also don't intend to see anything happen to that woman."

"I'll get you to Donovan," Elmore promised. "If we get out of here." He dropped down into the tunnel after the others.

"Cawdor?" Naylor called, sounding less sure than he had before.

"I'm listening," Ryan answered.

"Wasn't sure."

"What's your plan?"

Ryan gestured to J.B., pointing at the pockets where the Armorer kept his grens. "We'll leave them a going away surprise."

J.B. nodded.

"There's safety in numbers," Naylor said. "Why don't you and yours come out, then we can get past those damn coldhearts."

"Convince me." Ryan caught the gren J.B. tossed him. He walked to the door and pulled the gren's pin. Working the gren, practiced in what he was doing, he jammed it between the bottom of the door and the floor, wedging it into place with a knife he got from one of the dead men. The gren balanced precariously, the plunger pressed tight against the door. Once it was opened, it would send the grenade spinning away, the 3-second delay fuse inside burning.

Naylor seemed at a loss for words, but he struggled through it.

J.B. slipped his gren onto one of the support struts at the back of the room, tying it into place with a rag he picked up from the floor. "When your blast goes off," the Armorer said, "it should free this one. Second blast will catch anybody coming through that door after the first one, or give them more cause to think about coming through so quick."

"Either way," Ryan said, "it'll buy us some time we need." Before he could drop into the tunnel, blasterfire erupted outside. He returned to the window, puzzled when he didn't hear the slap of bullets against the building. As he watched, he saw misshapen brutes weaving between the stacks of wrecked wags.

"The ghoulies," J.B. said. "Guess they got tired of waiting for dinner."

"Bastards move through that wreckage smooth and quiet," Ryan said. "Good thing we didn't get caught out there."

J.B. silently agreed.

The ghoulies shattered Naylor's defensive line, driving his men out from cover. They fired into the muties, but it was almost like shooting at shadows. The ghoulies were too quick for the sec men, and they swung their axes and makeshift weapons with deadly accuracy.

Without warning, the sec men broke from cover and rushed toward the building where Ryan and J.B. were. There was nowhere else for them to go. The ghoulies stayed hot on their heels.

"Time to go," Ryan said grimly. He ran for the tunnel and dropped through the hole in the floor. The stench of the dog shit and wet fur filled his nose as his feet squished across the tunnel floor. He reached up to close the trapdoor, shutting the Armorer and himself into the darkness. Working to keep the Steyr clear of the muck below, he put a shoulder against one of the walls and started forward.

The first gren exploded behind him before he'd gone twenty paces. Screams of wounded and dying men rushed down into the tunnel, and the vibrations of the explosion rattled clods of earth from the tunnel's ceiling. Then all those sounds were temporarily swallowed up by the explosion of the second gren.

Ryan kept going forward as fast as he could. Even if Naylor's sec crew didn't find the tunnel in the building, there was a chance the ghoulies already knew about it.

HARSH SUNLIGHT lanced into Ryan's eye as he emerged from the other end of the tunnel. He followed the SIG-Sauer out of the hole, coming up in a blind created behind stacks of wags. "Anything?" he asked.

Blasterfire still sounded in the distance behind him. Baying hounds punctuated the noise, along with the screams of men.

"We appear to be well out of sight here, my dear Ryan," Doc said. The humid wind whipped at his grayish locks, brushing them across his shoulders. "But I fear that such harbor is fleeting at most. We would best be served by setting about our course again. Whatever that is."

"The river," Ryan answered. "Double quick." He glanced at the men, women and youngsters he'd promised to help, resenting their presence now that he realized they would only slow the companions' efforts at saving themselves. "Saw some boat docks during an earlier recon. Mebbe we'll take one for ourselves, see how far we can get."

"J.B., I want you and Jak walking point. Keep each other in sight, with a forty-yard lead on the rest of us."

J.B. and Jak took off at once, already knowing from the sun's position which way the river lay.

"Elmore," Ryan went on, automatically redistributing his gear and weapons, "you go next. Dean, I want you on him. He makes a move to break free of the group, put a bullet in the back of his head."

Dean nodded.

Knowing he was putting his son in considerable danger, Ryan went on, "And if he makes a move to hurt you, chill him on the spot."

"Don't worry, Dad. I'll see it done."

Despite the argumentative look on his face, Elmore moved out, staying the agreed upon distance back from J.B. and Jak. Dean fell in behind him, the Browning looking big in his hand.

"The rest of you fall in if you're going with us," Ryan said. "Keep up or we'll leave you behind. We're only going to live as long as we can move quick."

The group hesitated only a moment, then got under way. Ryan had Krysty and Mildred fall in next, and he brought up drag himself.

Even with the children, the group moved quickly. Jak and J.B. moved quicker, racing through the junkyard until they reached the high wooden wall securing the back. Most of the wall was constructed of old planks, but sheets of rusted tin and boards that looked different than the original wood covered areas where men or animals had broken through.

Jak and J.B. chose one of the tin covered areas and hacked their way through with a camp ax. The blasterfire had died away, and no matter what had happened between the coldhearts and Naylor's sec team, Ryan figured it only meant bad news for the companions.

"Clear!" Jak called, throwing aside the last piece of tin. The albino led the way through.

Ryan hunkered down under cover, gazing back along the two aisles he could see between the wag wreckage. Perspiration clung to him, making the feces stuck to his clothes and skin feel even worse.

"The dogs," Krysty whispered from nearby as Doc urged his charges through the wall. Her green eyes looked haunted, fever bright.

"What about the dogs?" Mildred prompted.

"They've picked up our scents," Krysty said.

"How do you know?" Ryan demanded.

"I can.. .feel them." She shook her head, as if she didn't like the sensation. "It's Phlorin, lover. Her being in my head is affecting my powers, making them stronger."

Her words cut into Ryan's heart, but he shook it off. It was a waste of time worrying about something that he couldn't do anything about. Getting out of the ville—that would give them the breathing room they needed. Then they'd see what needed to be done.

Mildred and Krysty squeezed through the hole in the fence, and Ryan followed. With the dogs getting their scent, presumably the smell of the dog shit over all their clothes, as well, he knew there'd be little chance of throwing them off track.

THE LAND BROKE AWAY from the ville, falling into a rapid decline as the group neared the river. Judging from the amount of damage from water erosion, Ryan guessed that much of the surrounding land had been submerged at one time. The nukecaust had reshaped much of North America. Besides breaking off much of what had been California, it had also created a huge lake in the northwestern section of the Deathlands. The tidal waves that had rolled in as a result of the earthquakes and tsunamis that had swallowed the West Coast had continued on into the interior and created a huge lake. The overflow from that had evidently rolled through Idaho for a time.

Small wooden docks made of cast-off lumber jutted into the water. Some were higher than others, indicating the water level was subject to change. Judging from the docks he saw, the river was sometimes as much as thirty feet higher than what it was now, and pushed back over some of the tumbledown wreckage left of Idaho Falls.

Tall grass and cattails, still yellow and trying to make a comeback from the earlier flood stages of the river, lined the sharp incline leading to the river. A handful of boats was tied up at the docks. The morning fishing was done, but men remained at the docks mending equipment and nets. Women and children stood around fifty-five-gallon drums filled with burning wood, smoking the fish that had been caught.

Wag engines roared in the distance, growing closer.

None of the boats, however, were equipped with engines. Masts stood proudly in all of them, the sails furled. Only two were big enough for the companions and the hangers-on they'd picked up.

Knowing they had no choice, Ryan commanded the others to ground behind the ville debris lining the riverbank, then waved Jak and J.B. to him. They went toward the long boat Ryan chose, walking in a loose triangle.

The afternoon sun beat down on the riverbank. The sand deposits scouring the sides of the incline were already nearly dry, as if the rainstorm that had come earlier had never happened at all.

The women and children spotted Ryan and the others first. They were poorly outfitted, dressed in patched homespun that had faded from hard wear and too many washings. Their faces carried scars, physical and emotional. Boning and scaling knives filled their hands, but they backed away. Mothers sent small children scampering to hide in the debris or in the nearby weeds.

Ryan didn't say anything because there was nothing to say. Even if the people didn't know what he was there for, they knew he was there to take something that wasn't his.

The sailboat had a tall mast that advertised plenty of room for sailcloth. With the wind blowing strongly and in the right direction, Ryan hoped it would be enough to push them quickly against the sluggish current of the greenish river.

Ryan brought up the Steyr, shoving the business end toward the bearded man mending a net on the rickety dock beside the sailboat. "Move away from the boat."

The bearded man was squat and powerfully built, probably not up to Ryan's shoulder, but almost half again as broad. He wore a faded gray sweatshirt with the sleeves hacked off, perspiration stains beading across his upper chest, and striped overalls that had been cut off at midthigh. His hair was dark brown but glinted red where the sun had washed the color out, the same as his beard. He wore a baseball cap that bore a picture of a leaping green fish.

"This is my boat, mister." The man motioned to the two teenage boys helping him with the net.

"Not now, it isn't," Ryan said. "Now it might be the only chance at escape my friends and I have got."

"My boat's the only way I got of making a living for my family. Take that from me, might as well shoot me right here."

"It'll be done," Ryan said. "I plan on dying last if I got a choice. And you stopping me now's the same as pulling a blaster on me."

The sailor stood slowly, a long gutting knife in his hand that looked like a short sword. Scars on his face and arms showed that he was no stranger to fighting or bladework.

The wag engines sounded closer, and Ryan knew they were running out of time. His finger tightened on the Steyr's trigger. He knew he'd kill the man if he had to. The boys spread out around their father, taking up defensive positions. Ryan had yet to see a blaster on any of them, but he didn't doubt he'd have to kill the boys if he killed their father. It didn't sit well with him.

But that boat was the companions only way out of the trouble they were in. There was no choice about passing it up.