“All of us,” Dean replied.
“No point in getting it going again.” Mildred stood, the beads in her plaited hair tinkling softly. “God, what time is it, John?”
The Armorer checked his wrist chron. “Little after five-thirty.”
“I could have used another couple of hours’ sleep.” She rubbed her eyes. “That’s one of the things I hate about Deathlands. You never get to sleep in.”
THEY ALL WENT DOWN to check on the river, finding it was still swollen, racing at five times its previous width, foaming and muddied, carrying all sorts of detritus in its jaws. Even as they watched, a dead animal was swept by, head lolling, its limp body destroyed by the force of the water.
“Wolf?” J.B. asked.
“Could be. Bound to be plenty of them in a forest this size.”
Ryan shrugged. “No way of getting over here. Best follow upstream until we can find a place to cross and carry on northward.”
ABOUT A HALF MILE upstream they heard the thundering of a cataract, and tasted the coolness of misty spray hanging in the rainbowed air.
The land had changed from open hillside to a steep gorge, with granite rocks gleaming in the dampness of early morning. The sun was peeking over the mountains toward the east, casting long shadows across the narrow paths.
Dean had gone a little ahead of the others and he came scampering back, breathless with excitement. “Hot pipe! Fish,” he panted. “Lots of fish!”
The ravine was around two hundred yards in length, filled with a thunderous torrent. The water raged over a series of falls, the steepest of them rising fifty feet in a number of minor jumps. And it was there that it was possible to see and appreciate the quantity of fish.
Even in dry times, in midsummer, it would have been an impressive sight. Here, after the heavy downpour, it was unbelievably spectacular.
“Steelheads,” J.B. announced, recognizing the silvered, iridescent scales of the trout. They watched as the fishes—thousands of them—swarmed their way upstream, battling the incredible power of the swollen river. Some of them were visibly muties, stretching out well over six feet in length, the sunlight catching their blankly incurious eyes.
“Is that not a truly remarkable sight?” Doc asked. “Nature at her most mysterious.”
“Good eating,” Krysty said. “Though I don’t see how we’re going to get close enough to catch any of them.”
“Shoot one,” Mildred offered. “Size of those bastards, one’ll feed us all for a month.”
Ryan nodded. “There’s a shallow pool under that next falls. If you can put a bullet into one as it’s making its leap, it should drop back there and we can grab it easily.”
“Good shot in all spray.” Jak was grinning widely at the prospect of watching Mildred’s ace-on-the-line shooting, as well as anticipating the succulent feast of tender roasted trout that would follow.
“Nobody’ll hear the sound of the blaster, even if they’re a hundred yards off.” J.B. gestured to Mildred. “Go for it,” he said, the sun glittering from his glasses.
The polished 6-shot Czech revolver, showing the engraved name of its makers from the Zbrojovka works in Brno, slid from the holster. Mildred thumbed back on the short-fall cocking hammer, the click inaudible against the roaring background of the white-foamed torrent.
She stood with feet slightly apart, perfectly balanced, holding the .38-caliber blaster in both hands, at arm’s length in front of her. Mildred looked along the barrel, keeping both eyes open, holding her breath.
Everyone stared at the tumbling water, watching the jostling steelhead as they fought their way toward their ancestral spawning grounds. Ryan was astounded, never having seen such a proliferation of fish anywhere in his life. And some of them were gigantic.
One of them, a good six feet in length, was making its third or fourth effort to negotiate the turbulent, rocky slope, powerful tail flapping with all its power as it seemed to hang suspended in the shining air.
“Now,” Ryan whispered.
Mildred squeezed the trigger and the blaster kicked in her hands, the explosion muffled by the roar of the falls.
“Missed,” Jak sniggered.
Mildred holstered the blaster and turned to face the teenager, slowly raising the middle finger of her right hand toward him. “Not,” she said.