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"Mebbe."
She persisted. "But it was a train. Like the old locomotives before Deathlands
got itself born. Is that what you heard, lover?"
Ryan stopped a moment, the buzzing flies becoming more insistent. He flapped
at them irritably, looking ahead up the rise where Doc and Mildred were
stalking along, side by side, obviously involved in a heated argument. J.B.
was a few paces behind them, and Jak picked up his own path farther along to
the left.
"Lover?" Krysty said.
"Sorry?"
"The sound."
"Trader used to say there's no point in talking about something that may
happen tomorrow."
She smiled. "And Mother Sonja used to warn me never to get involved with a
one-
eyed man. She said they saw too little and thought too much."
Ryan tried to think of something witty to say in response, but a call from
Doc, now at the top of the hill, put it from his mind.
"What is it, Doc?"
"Come and see for yourself, my dear friend," the old man replied.
His boots slipping in the soft sand, making three paces forward and two paces
back, Ryan moved to join the others.
"Look," Mildred said, pointing across the featureless plain that stretched
ahead of them.
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"Where?"
"There."
Shading his eye with his right hand, Ryan peered into the heat-blurring
brightness.
"Wags," he said doubtfully.
"Ox-drawn wags," Krysty clarified, her sight that much better.
"Dozen or so," Ryan offered.
"Fifteen. Can't count people. Too much dust getting kicked up."
"They're not heading south. Looks like it's a train moving west."
Krysty nodded. "You got it, lover. If we step out, we could be with them by
evening. They can't make more than three, four miles an hour. Not over this
kind of trail."
"Then let's go."
It's often the case in a vast wilderness that judging distances is difficult.
It was well past dark before the six friends finally closed in on the wag
train. Their progress had been slowed by Mildred's suffering a violent
headache. She'd complained of pain around her right eye. After an hour she had
to take a rest, saying that the sun was surrounded by a great shimmering halo
of light, and she thought she was going blind. While they stood helplessly
around, she crouched in the dirt, doubled over, eventually throwing up in the
sand. Gradually the attack subsided, and they were able to resume their
journey toward the distant wagons.
But by now the evening had come and gone and they could only trace the camp by
the sparkling specks of red and orange that were the fires.
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"Fifteen ox wags going west," Ryan mused. "Could mean something like your
train, Krysty, when you was young."
"
Were young, lover. Not was. But I guess you're right."
"How many in each wag?"
J.B. answered. "Just before I fell in with the Trader I had a job swatting
flies away from an ox train like this one. Most had a family. Man and woman
and anywhere up to six kids."
Ryan nodded, eye locked to the pinpoints of bright light a quarter mile off in
the darkness. "Probably reckon on twenty to thirty men able to fight. Same
number women and young women. And& and a shitload of kids."
"You thinking of taking them on, Ryan?" Mildred asked, sitting with her back
against a large boulder.
"No. I'm thinking about this man Christina called Skullface. If he's around
here with some chillers, then I just wonder how strong and prepared that train
is down there."
"Best take care," J.B. suggested.
"Sure. They'll have guards out. Place like this, miles from anyplace, there
could be
Indians, muties, or "
"Skullface," Jak said, finishing Ryan's sentence.
The loss of the Armorer's long gun was bad news for them. Now they had only
Ryan's G-12 assault rifle for distance shooting. Everyone had a hand blaster,
but there were times when a rifle was needed.
There was a sailing moon that sometimes peeked out from behind tattered shreds
of high cloud, which provided enough light for them to see that the wag train
had
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found a reasonable place for its campsite.
The trail dipped and there was a wide plateau, close to two hundred yards
across that sloped toward the riverbed. Whether anything of the flash flood
was now left was questionable. But at least it wasn't possible for anyone to
come at the wags from cover. And whoever was in charge of the train had taken
reasonable precautions.
"Four guards," Jak reported after he'd bellied forward to scout the camp.
"Walk around. Two left and two right. Could get in easy."
Though he'd said nothing to any of the others, it had crossed Ryan's mind to
get in by force of arms, take the travelers by surprise and then break out
with a couple of the wagons. If they'd been horse-drawn, then the temptation
would have been stronger. But oxen lumbered at their own tedious pace, and
they would easily have been overtaken.
No. It had to be done straight. Straight and very careful.
He led them forward until they were within fifty yards of the nearest guard.
Motioning for everyone to keep under cover, Ryan stood and cupped his hands to
his mouth.
"Hello, the train!!" he shouted, then ducked under a fusillade of bullets.
Chapter Ten
"HOLD YOUR FIRE!" Ryan shouted.
The gunfire was spasmodic and mostly ill aimed, coming, Ryan guessed, from
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some hoarded M-16 carbines and a variety of self-mades and patch-ups, which
was the usual kind of weaponry that was found in the frontier wilderness of
Deathlands. A lot of the ammunition was poorly charged, and even at short
range was barely reaching them.
"Hold your fire, you double-stupe brain-dead bastards! Think we're goin' to
tell you we're coming if we want to chill you?"
The shooting slowed but didn't stop. It sounded like every man or woman with a
blaster on the wag train had come rushing over to use it. Ryan considered that
any intelligent attacker would have caused this kind of diversion and then
marched in the far side of the defense perimeter and shot everyone in the
back. Easy as taking jack from a dead mutie.
Suddenly they all heard a voice, rising above the noise of the firing.
"Hold your guns, men!! Hold your dad-blasted guns! Some of you get over the
other side! Harry and Buck. You get there. You're supposed to be on watch. Now
stop that piss-ant useless shooting!"
One by one the guns ceased.
The angry voice bellowed again, this time without the biting edge. "You people
out there! You hear me?"
Ryan answered. "Yeah, we hear you."
"Name's Major Ward. This here's my train aiming for the west. Over the
Sierras."
"Not too much over the Highs except a lot of sea, Major," Ryan called, making
sure he kept his head well below the level of the ridge.
"I heard that, son. Also heard there's Americans up there in space. Right now.
Been there, circling and breeding for a hundred years. You heard that, son?"
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"No."
"How many of you boys out there, son?"
"Six of us. Name's Ryan Cawdor. Got three men and two women. We were heading
for the Grandee when the flash flood took our horses and the pack mule after
noon today."
"You lost everything?"
"Kept our clothes. Most of the blasters. Not a lot beside."
"We're good Christian folks here, Mr. Cawdor. If you and your friends would
like to come in you're right welcome to share any vittles we got. Stand slow
and easy and walk in the same way. Best you keep your hands out where the boys
can see
'em. You'll have likely noticed some of them are real edgy."
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