Chapter Twenty-Two

"My favorite author, dear lady?" Doc asked, gazing into the woman's eyes.

"Yes." Annie sat across from him at a little table on a patio in back of the main house. A semicircle of wildflowers grew in the space provided between the wooden timbers used to make the patio and the path that led to the vegetable garden a little over fifty yards away.

"That would have to be Shakespeare," Doc answered.

"Why?"

The stripped down, no-nonsense question caught Doc off guard for a moment, but he appreciated it for its honest intent. In his travels after being trawled to the future, he'd seldom met those who could hold forth a proper discourse of Shakespeare's work. "Why do I like it?"

"Yes."

"How familiar are you with his work, madam?"

"I've read all thirty-seven plays," Annie said. "I've even got annotated versions of some of them. I'm familiar, though I'm no expert."

"Truly," Doc said, "I am impressed."

"I like the stories he tells. But why do you like him so much?"

"For several reasons actually," Doc said. "The stories themselves, though couched in archaic terms and words, considering our present state of affairs, are always timely. They are about the struggle between good and evil inside men and women, about the way they relate to their families and friends and the societies that surround them. Then there is the wordplay itself. Once you have gotten a grudging respect for this language we share, it is a marvel to see it used in the hands of a master. And Shakespeare isn't meant to be read, dear lady. It's meant to be heard. Have you never heard it read?"

"Never," Annie admitted.

"And never read it aloud to yourself?"

"Doc, I've got a dictionary. The words I didn't understand I looked up, but that doesn't mean I can make them sound right. And most of those lines seem like they're put together for a certain sound. Kind of like a song."

"Which is most true," Doc said. "There is a cadence in all of the immortal bard's works. His work was meant for the stage, and even so, more meant to be heard than to be seen. Would you mind if I borrowed a volume from your library and gave a dramatic reading from it?"

"I wouldn't mind at all," the woman replied. "Which play would you like?"

Doc held forth a hand. "Move not, dear lady. I know the way back to your sanctum sanctorum. I shall go get it myself and be back in but a moment. Perhaps, though, you could get us some water. Something cold and clear to drink. Something that will soothe the vocal cords."

"Tea with honey?" she suggested.

"That sounds divine." Doc excused himself from the table and walked back into the patio door. They'd come through the kitchen to get to the patio, but the book room was beyond that.

He deliberately took the wrong turn at the T juncture and snapped the swordstick open in his fists. One thing Ryan had always been insistent on was knowing as much about the terrain as was possible. His detour could add to their small store of knowledge about the trading post.

The corridor ran straight and true, then butted up against a locked door. Working the layout of the house in his mind, Doc knew a lot of space yet remained on the other side of the door.

Glancing at the lock, he knew it would take more time than he had to get past it. He turned and retraced his steps, then went into the book room. Searching the shelves, remembering where he'd seen the Shakespeare volumes, he selected a hardbound edition of Macbeth that had several scars in the leather binding.

He was the first to return to the table. He didn't take his seat immediately and turned his attention to the garden. Memory filed the names of the wildflowers as he stared at them.

"What?"

Doc turned, seeing Annie standing there with a teapot in one hand, a honey bottle and two cups held by their handles. "I am sorry, madam, what were you saying?"

"I asked you what you were saying. Sounded Greek to me."

"Latin, probably, dear lady," Doc said, realizing he had to have been talking out loud. "I was just admiring your garden."

Annie placed the teapot, cups and honey on the table. "I like the garden, but I made it where it's self-sustaining. Every year or two, I introduce something new or add a little more ground. The vegetable garden is the most important, so that's where I spend most of my free time."

Doc sat at the table across from her, taking the proffered cup of tea. "Thank you, madam."

"Add honey to taste. I've got some milk sub if you want."

Doc waved the offer away. "You manage the garden by yourself?"

Annie shook her head. "Two families help me tend it. Planting, weeding, harvesting and canning would keep me too busy to run the post. They get part of the harvest in exchange."

"But they do not live here?"

"You ask a lot of questions, Doc."

"That's because there is so much to ask questions about," Doc pointed out. "You'll note that I have not asked about your guests."

"You have now."

Doc gave her a small smile. "Touché."

"Ryan doesn't seem to be a man to let much pass him," Annie commented. "I suppose he'll be asking Max questions, as well."

"Ryan is not a man to let much pass him," Doc agreed. "Otherwise, he would be dead and buried in some nameless and forgotten grave. But he won't pry. That's not his way."

Annie drank her tea like a woman well accustomed to her own appetites, and not embarrassed about them at all. "He wouldn't get any satisfaction if he did. Max doesn't say much anyway, and our guest demands that his privacy be upheld."

"I see."

"Not yet, but you will tonight. In the meantime, read to me, Doc. Then we'll talk about a piece of strawberry pie I've been keeping back in the cold house in the cellar."

Doc opened Macbeth, cleared his throat and began, setting the stage with narrative exposition based on the play and adding to it from his store of memory of stages he'd seen and the performers who'd put the story on.

THE TRADING POST also had a large assortment of clothing and footwear. Ryan and J.B. knew the sizes of all the companions, as everyone in the group did. Scavenging meant knowing what was needed without guessing, without having to pack around extra gear that might or might not fit.

They got everyone a change of clothing, sticking with jeans and shirts in the same colors the friends preferred. They even found fatigue pants, something Mildred favored. Strangely socks and underwear seemed to be in shortage, but Ryan and J.B. managed to get enough to go around.

Max didn't say anything about the quantity they were taking. In fact he didn't say much about anything. Ryan was of the opinion that outside of J.B., Max was about the most taciturn man he'd ever seen.

They put their selections in plastic bags, double and triple bagging them to insure that they didn't break and drop through.

"What about the price?" Ryan asked Max when they were finished.

The man worked a whetstone across the hand ax's blade. "You need what you got there?"

"Wouldn't have taken it if we didn't," Ryan said.

"Saw the shape of your crew," the big man said. "I think you need it, too. Looks like you been needing it for a while."

"Hard traveling." Ryan shifted his burden.

"There ain't no other kind." Max ran the whetstone across the ax's edge again. "Don't worry about the price. Annie'll be fair with you."

RYAN SPOTTED Dean in the barn's hayloft while he was sixty yards out. The boy had snuggled down in the loose straw there and was nearly invisible in the camouflage he'd chosen. Ryan hadn't even seen the glint of gunmetal in the retiring afternoon sun.

Dean gave him a small wave as he got nearer, somehow knowing his father had seen him. Ryan lifted his chin and dropped it quickly, acknowledging the wave. The hayloft was a good choice for posting security. With its back and left side put up nearly against the palisade wall, the only attack that could come from inside the trading post could be covered from the hayloft.

The smell of fresh horse dung greeted Ryan as he strode into the barn. He noticed at once that the survivors from the coldhearts in Idaho Falls had separated themselves from the companions. Morse and his sons formed another small pocket against the wall opposite the horse paddocks. Elmore was the odd man out and obviously not happy about it. Jak kept him under guard, the albino sitting back on his haunches less than twenty feet from him.

"Did you get everything we needed, lover?" Krysty asked, coming up to help Ryan with the packages.

She looked washed out, thinner than he'd ever remembered. Dark circles hung under her emerald eyes. And for the first time since he'd known her, her sentient hair didn't lie neatly in place. The strands were kinked in places, and uneven.

"Everything they had that we could use," Ryan answered. He started passing the ammo out first, then parceled out the new clothing.

Mildred poured another bucket of water into the horse trough she'd selected to use as a bath. She'd laid a fire along one side of it, burned it down to coals so the heat would be there without an abundance of flames. "I filled it," she said, "so I get the first one."

No one argued with her.

J.B. took the bucket from her hands. "I'll finish filling if you want to get in."

Mildred started stripping off. The horse trough was partially shielded from view in one of the paddocks, out of sight of the Idaho Falls people. When she was naked, she stepped into the water, lying back gingerly. She sighed in satisfaction as she immersed herself. "Don't bring that water on too fast, John," she instructed. "Water's feeling just short of too hot, and after all this traveling, I don't want to miss out on it."

J.B. worked the pump handle and quickly filled the bucket with only a few short strokes. "Well water," he told Ryan. The Armorer dipped his fingers into the bucket and tasted them. "Heavy mineral content, and cold as a gaudy slut's heart in January."

"It's not coming in off the river, then," Ryan said.

J.B. shook his head, agreeing.

"Means they tapped an underground stream feeding into the river." Ryan sat on a small farrier's bench only a few inches off the ground. He stretched his legs out before him. Tapping the underground stream in more than one place, because he was sure there was at least one or two other hand pumps located in the main house, meant the trading post had no shortage of water. It could literally seal itself off from the rest of the world for months.

At least, they could do that as long as the walls held. Thinking of that, though, reminded Ryan of Annie's mystery guest who'd taken up both guest houses. The thought coiled uneasily through his mind.

"What are you thinking about, lover?" Krysty sat cross-legged across from Ryan.

"Staying or going," Ryan answered in a low voice. "Trying to figure out which would be less likely to get us chilled." He gestured at the clothing before him, then broke open one of the boxes of 9 mm ammo and started filling his extra clips for the SIG-Sauer. "They didn't take any jack for this stuff. Said we'd settle up later."

"Jak and Dean ran a head count on the people here at the trading post," Krysty said. "Besides Annie and her son, there's nearly thirty other men and women here at the trading post."

"Where are they put up?"

"In the guest houses."

"Any sign of the guest?" Ryan asked.

"No."

Ryan turned his attention to the albino. "Jak."

The teen shifted his focus to Ryan. "Yeah."

"How good a look did you get at those men in the guest house?"

"Thirty, forty feet at closest. Could see plain enough."

"Sec men?"

"Move like. Got organization. Got man checking posts regular."

"Any markings?"

Jak shook his head. "Stripped clean. Saw places where mebbe had them before."

Ryan thought about that. It wasn't unusual for a sec force to have markings to identify itself in a more heavily populated ville. The effort saved on having to kill ville inhabitants who didn't recognize the local authority standing before them. It also meant that the mystery guest was probably a baron, which didn't sit well with Ryan at all. Barons nearly always meant trouble.

"HOWS YOUR HEAD?" Ryan asked.

"Still hurts, lover," Krysty answered after a minute. "I can still feel Phlorin crawling around back there. Every now and then, I can hear her voice. But I think I'm getting better at blocking her out."

Even if Krysty was, Ryan knew the effort was quickly sapping her strength. He'd seen her hands shaking as she'd worked a self-heat to get Vienna sausages for both of them. Ryan kept himself centered, but it hurt him to watch her struggle to keep it together. He and Mildred had decided that any attempt at exorcism would have to be postponed, given the uncertainty of their situation at the fort.

"We could leave at dusk," Krysty pointed out. "That's not more than a couple hours away."

Ryan shook his head. "Sky's darkening up. The old woman was right about the storm coming." He'd spotted the clouds brewing when he'd scanned the trading post, wondering when Doc was going to make his way to them. "And we have no way of knowing when Doc's going to make it back."

"Do you think that woman's holding him hostage?"

"Mebbe."

"If she is doing it to keep us here, why?"

"They have thirty blasters," Ryan said. "We make another seven. Upscaling their forces by twenty-five percent, that's reason enough."

"Nearly forty weapons," Krysty stated. "What can they be up against?"

"I don't know. But I figure we're going to know soon enough." Ryan touched her face with his fingers, trying not to show that he'd seen her involuntarily draw back at first.

She captured his hand in hers, then kissed the center of his palm. "Mebbe the night, wherever we spend it, won't be all bad."

Ryan nodded, but he wasn't able to ignore the threat that hung over them all. He pulled Krysty to him, knowing she needed the feel of him against her. He captured one heavy breast in his palm, out of sight of the others, and kneaded it until he felt her nipple grow erect in his fingers. His thoughts drifted back to Doc despite Krysty's presence. But he knew it was because her being there made the thought of escape even more enticing.

Only they couldn't leave without Doc. Wherever the hell he was. Ryan cursed beneath his breath and kept holding Krysty.