“Trap or no trap,” he told the companions, “we’ve got to follow the cook smoke, or we’re going to starve in this bastard forest.” He slung the Steyr and unholstered his SIG-Sauer P-226 pistol. “Triple red, everybody,” he said. “Dean, middle of the file.”
The boy didn’t protest his position in the column, but watched with undisguised envy as Doc drew a massive revolver from the front of his frock coat. The gold-engraved LeMat was a Civil War relic. It fired nine .44-caliber lead balls through a six and one half inch top barrel. A second, shorter, big-bore barrel hung beneath the first, chambered for a single scattergun load of “blue whistlers”—odd bits of scrap metal and glass that added up to close range mayhem. Dean left his own weapon, a 9 mm Browning Hi-Power, buckled down in its holster. He was under standing orders from his father not to draw the weapon unless they came under direct attack, and not to shoot unless he had a clear lane of fire.
With Ryan in the lead, the companions headed downslope. If anything, as they descended the winding trail, the canopy became more dense, and the air more humid. As Ryan rounded a turn, harsh sunlight backlit the groves of oaks ahead. Through the trees came the sounds of high pitched, chattering speech and the rustle of movement. The one eyed man dropped the blaster’s safety and pushed on.
No command to the rear was necessary.
The companions reacted as one, spacing out along the path as they continued to advance. They dropped to their bellies and crawled the last few feet to the edge of the forest.
The clearing before them bordered on a sluggishly moving green river fifty yards wide. The activity was down by the water’s edge. A group of three dozen people, men, women and children, all with straight black hair and skin the color of cinnamon bark, were tending thick, hand braided ropes that stretched back from the river almost to the trees. The children were naked; the men and women wore short kilts.
Inbreeding was common in Deathland’s isolated, primitive communities. Noting the uniform distribution of low foreheads and underslung jaws, Ryan decided that these folks had been at it for a very long time.
Back from the river’s muddy bank, nestled in the protection of the ironwood canopy, stood a ragged row of translucent yellow shacks made of tanned hide or skin that was stretched and tied over curving supports that looked like gigantic rib bones. Cooking pits lined with red hot coals had been dug in the soft earth. Whatever food had been roasted over them earlier had already been polished off.
Jak tersely summed up the cinnamon people’s armament. “No blasters, just knives.”
Ryan nodded. Their weaponry consisted of bows and arrows, spears, knives and short swords. And the edged weapons weren’t made of metal, or even flint. To Ryan the blades looked like bone. Serrated bone. Given the twentieth century firepower he and the companions carried, the villagers presented no real threat.
The breeze shifted suddenly, swirling along the bank. Cook fire odors were overpowered by a terrific stench.
“Smells like dead fish,” Dean choked. “Tons of dead fish.”
“Ugh, I just lost my appetite,” Mildred said.
“Don’t trouble yourself over that, my dear,” Doc stated pleasantly. “If past is prologue, it will return to you shortly, and tenfold…”
At one time, Ryan would have expected the black woman to go ballistic over the snide remark. Not because she was the least bit sensitive about her weight, which was appropriate for her body type, but because of the outrageous presumption that being a woman, she should have been sensitive about her weight. Mildred had learned to fight fire with fire when it came to dealing with the bony old codger’s needling.
“And how’s the tapeworm doing today, Doc?” Mildred asked back sweetly.
Ryan pushed to his feet. “Come on, let’s introduce ourselves,” he said. “Stay alert. Watch the flanks.”
The companions emerged from the forest, fanning out with weapons up and ready. The river people were startled at first, but they said nothing. None of them made a move to approach or to retreat from the armed intruders. After a moment or two of standoff, the villagers surprised Ryan and the others by pointedly turning their backs on them, and refocusing their attention on the murky river and their braided ropes, each of which was strong enough to tow a war wagon. When Ryan advanced and opened his mouth to speak, a man wearing a translucent fish skin vest held up a hand for silence. There was a warning in his extremely close set black eyes. He pointed at the river, which silt and algae had turned the color of pea soup. Stretched across its width were floats made of clusters of blue plastic antifreeze jugs, tied together by their handles. The villagers had a fishing net out.