The others had also noticed the change. Dean took in a great, gulping breath, looking up and around.
“Hot pipe! Trees and a half!” he exclaimed, wonderingly. “Biggest I ever saw anywhere!”
Mildred had crooked her arm through J.B.’s elbow, and they were swinging along like a carefree pair of tourists. Ryan considered pointing out that they should all be still ready on condition orange, prepared for any danger. But there didn’t seem a threat at all, so he let it lie.
She glanced around at him. “I think I came here when I was a little girl. Daddy had been murdered by the Klan three or four years earlier. His brother, Uncle Josh, brought me up here to King’s Canyon with his family. In a big Winnebago camper, as I recall. He told me that the trees reached up to heaven. I asked if I could climb up to the top and meet Daddy. He laughed and said that maybe I could, when I got a little older.” Her smile vanished. “Never did,” she said quietly.
At that moment the two sentries who’d been keeping them invisible company emerged from the trees.
They both wore a sort of uniform. Both were in matching white shirts and maroon jackets, with some kind of silver insignia, while one wore black pants and the other dark blue. Both men had heavy-duty boots and were bareheaded, hair neatly trimmed to their collars. Neither of them had any beard or mustache.
Automatically Ryan looked to see what kind of blasters they were carrying. Both of the men, who looked to be in their late twenties, had belts with a holstered pistol in it. But it wasn’t possible to make out what they were, beyond the fact they looked like revolvers rather than automatics. Each of the guards also had a long blaster slung across his shoulders.
“Winchester 94s,” J.B. said. “Looks very much to me like the Magnum model. Holds ten rounds of big .44s. Dates from the late 1960s.”
At a first glance it looked like the firearms were all in good, clean condition.
The taller of the two guards nodded in a friendly manner. “Welcome to the Children of the Rock, brothers and sisters. You understand that we have to be a little suspicious about letting any strangers in.”
“You sec men?” Jak asked.
“No. Everyone takes a turn on all the duties. Tomorrow I might be in the kitchens. Not the way we run the ville to have sec men, kid.”
Jak’s face tightened. “Don’t call me kid. Got name. Jak. Use that.”
“Sure thing. Jak it is. I’m Josiah Steele. Partner’s called Jim Owsley.”
The shorter of the pair nodded tersely, not speaking, his face showing little sign of welcome. Ryan noticed that Owsley had a poor complexion with weeping sores around the mouth.
“You all got names?” Steele asked.
“Ryan Cawdor. This is Krysty Wroth. Young man’s called Jak Lauren. This is my son, Dean. Fellow in the hat’s J.B. Dix. Lady’s name is Mildred Wyeth.” He thought about giving her the proper medical title, and decided at the last moment against it. The less people knew about you, the better. “And the old guy with the nasty cough’s called Dr. Theophilus Tanner.”
“He a real doctor?” Owsley asked. “Don’t get many of them to the pound, these days, these parts.”
“I am indeed a real doctor,” Doc said in his finest, roundest oratorical voice. “But not of the followers of Hippocrates. I am of the philosophical and scientific persuasion, my dear fellow. With degrees from some of the finest centers of learning in the known world. Or, even, the unknown world, as well. Of the heartland of Christendom and of all Jewry. Harvard and Oxford are among the several educational establishments that have been honored by my presence.”
“I don’t understand but one fucking word in ten,” Owsley said, his mouth set like a line trap.
His partner, Steele, touched him on the sleeve. “Watch the language, Brother Jim. You know that our leader, Brother Joshua, likes not profanity.”
Owsley scowled at him, obviously parroting the words of their chief. ” ‘An obscene word in the mouth of a profane man is as unpleasant as maggots in a fresh wound.’ ” He sniffed. “Sure, I know it, Josiah.”