“Oh, I trust so, my dear fellow. Just a spasm in the tendon behind the right knee. No, nothing to concern yourself about. Personally I would rather like to leave this rest area behind. As you so rightly commented, the noise of the bullets might attract unwelcome company. The sun is already sinking, but the animal inside there will not smell any sweeter. Perhaps a fresh campsite for the night? What think the others?”
Krysty glanced at Ryan, answering first. “Leave this place of death and blood and find a good camp for the night. The smell of the corpse could attract other predators, and there isn’t much shelter with the roof and door gone.” She shooed a fly away from her face. “Kind of pretty site, but it’s tainted, lover.”
Mildred nodded. “I agree.”
“And me,” added Jak Lauren, who’d been quietly honing the blade of one of his taped throwing knives on a convenient stone held in his lap.
“I’m up for moving on, Dad,” Dean piped up.
J.B. had been checking over Mildred’s blaster, carefully cleaning it and reloading the two spent rounds. “Move on,” he said gently.
Ryan grinned. “I’ll make it unanimous, friends. Let’s go along the blacktop.”
THERE WAS ANOTHER road sign, broken in two, three miles down the highway. It looked like it had once given the distance to Sequoia National Park. Someone had painted something across it, but the weather had faded it so far that it had become illegible.
But there was fresher graffiti, neatly done in capital and lowercase letters, painted in gold, with no spelling errors:
Entering the Land of the Children of the Rock. Come in Peace and be Loved. Come with Anger and encounter Eternity.
“Ring any bells?” Ryan asked.
“No,” the Armorer replied, while the others shook their heads in silence.
“Quite recent.” Ryan rubbed at it with his right hand, almost expecting it to smear. “Must be some kind of ville or group, I guess.”
They saw two more hand-painted signs for the mysterious Children of the Rock: Come with open arms and the Children of the Rock will make you welcome. Come with a closed fist and we will break you.
And: The Children of the Rock will bear witness for the Blessed Savior, but first we will bear arms against followers of Shaitan.
“Bible-punchers,” Mildred said. “Used to be a lot of them around, in the tense years before skydark. Part religious crazies and part racists and part redneck rifle carriers. Fundamentalist paramilitaries.”
J.B. moved his fedora, driving off some persistent insects with bright green bodies and purple, multi-eyed heads. “Read of them. Some of them got triple paranoid and became bitterly antigovemment. Some of them turned to bombers.”
“Best keep a good watch,” Ryan said. “Mebbe we should walk along in a skirmish line, on condition orange.”
“I have the feeling we’re being watched,” Krysty murmured, looking at Ryan, keeping her eyes fixed on him. “Don’t look now, but there’s someone up on the ridge to the south of us. Horseman. Take a casual glance.”
“Nobody else look,” Ryan snapped, rubbing at the back of his neck, spitting in the dirt. He turned slowly with his good eye to look up where Krysty had pointed.
For a moment he saw nothing, just the ridge, lined with the tops of pines. Then he caught the glimmer of movement and focused on the horseman, astride a pinto pony. The distance was too great to be sure, but he thought the man was riding bare back in shirt and pants of light-colored cotton, with long hair and a bandanna tied across his forehead.
“Native American,” he guessed. “Looks like an Apache, but he’s sure a long way from home.”
Mildred turned and looked at the figure, blurred on the hogback ridge. “You got better seeing with your one eye than most folks with two good eyes, Ryan. I can make out a man on a horse, but he could be the Emperor Napoleon for all I can see.”
Doc laughed. “At least you can see the rider, Dr. Wyeth. I can see some tall green trees and that is all. No more.”
The sun was beginning to slide down behind the western slopes, giving the sort of light where Jak with his albino eyes came into his own.