She froze like a pointer, and her right arm straightened, pointing almost directly at Ryan, a little to his right and above him.
He saw the tiny crimson flash from the muzzle as she squeezed the trigger, the blaster kicking in her hands, and he felt the warm blast of the bullet as it passed within a few inches of his head. Ryan spun to see the effect of her shot.
Josiah Steele was about thirty yards away from him, standing in the entrance to one of the houses, the Winchester rifle drooping from his shoulder. His white shirt was dappled with scarlet, just above the breastbone. His jaw had dropped with surprise, and he looked as if he were trying to speak.
But the .38-caliber shot was mortal, and he slipped to his knees, the rifle clattering on the porch. Mildred still held the SKR 551 aimed at him, hesitating a moment, considering a second bullet, but she saw almost immediately that it wasn’t going to be necessary.
Within a few minutes they’d made their way, unchallenged, to safety, a good half mile from the edge of the settlement, on a rising point in the buckled trail, where they could pause and look back at the smoking ruins of Hopeville.
“Seems like given up,” Jak said, shading his eyes with a long white hand.
“Surely do,” J.B. agreed, pausing to wipe splattered dirt from the lenses of his spectacles.
“I’m glad we’re out of there,” Dean added. “Sure hope Doc’s okay.”
There was activity around only one of the burning buildings, the large house that belonged to Joshua Wolfe. There was a feeble bucket-chain operating, and one man was at the top of a rickety ladder, directing water from a hose into the inferno of bright orange flames.
Coils of dark smoke enveloped him, and it was impossible to make him out clearly. Then the wind suddenly dropped and veered, and everyone recognized him.
“Wolfe,” Mildred said.
With his left hand missing, the leader of the Children of the Rock was struggling to hold the hose while keeping himself steady on the swaying ladder. Ryan stared across the hazy distance, balancing against a small aftershock, squinting at the figure of his bitter enemy. Krysty laid a hand on his arm.
“Said you’d leave him be, lover,” she said quietly. “We can walk away.”
“Sure, only Trader used to say that when you walked and left an enemy alive, you were storing up future trouble for yourself. Know what? He was right.”
He slowly unslung the Steyr bolt-action rifle from his shoulder, then took Doc’s ponderous Le Mat from his belt and handed it to J.B. “Mind this for me, friend. Just while I do me some hunting.”
The Armorer took it and jammed it into his own leather belt. “Wind’s dropped,” he said. “Still about ten miles an hour, left to right.”
Ryan levered a 7.62 mm round into the chamber, then hefted the rifle to his shoulder and peered through the Starlite nightscope with the laser image enhancer. The scope brought Joshua Wolfe much closer, the crosshairs centering on his chest. Though he couldn’t see it at that range, Ryan knew that a tiny red dot would have appeared on the man’s shirt, almost invisible.
“Good half mile,” Mildred said. “Way beyond my blaster’s range.”
Ryan remembered her advice on classic target shooting: hold your breath, and keep the rifle well braced into the shoulder. He didn’t need to close one eye. Mildred claimed that all great shots fired two-eyed anyway. His finger took up the slack on the trigger, and he readied himself to shoot, taking account of his heartbeat, aiming to fire between beats for maximum efficiency.
At the very last moment Wolfe seemed to sense his danger and turned on the ladder, staring directly toward Ryan. He spotted the red dot on his shirt and brushed at it with his good hand, his mouth opening as though he were about to yell for help.
Too late.
Ryan corrected his aim a fraction, centering the sight on Wolfe’s mouth. He then squeezed the trigger, bracing himself against the buck of the walnut stock.
Eye locked to the sight, he saw a crimson rose blossom from the centre of the man’s chest.