“Perspiring, madam, if you please. Horses sweat and men perspire.”
“While ladies merely glow.” Mildred grinned at him. “Sure. I know that. Couple of days feeling like death and you should start getting better.”
“How about the testing?” Dean asked. “Doc’ll let us all down if he’s sick.”
He was greeted with an angry harrumphing sound from the old man. The boy was eager to be out into the fresh air. Ryan had agreed that they could carry out something of a recce. They’d checked with Wolfe, who’d been happy to grant them his permission. He’d offered them a half dozen of his finest sec men to escort them among the monstrous trees.
“No. Be fine, thanks,” Ryan replied. “Be back here before dusk.”
“Watch out for Apaches,” Josiah Steele warned. “Constant thorn in our side.”
“They’ll likely see you, before you spot any sign of them,” Owsley added. “Nobody like Mescalero for hiding.”
Ryan laughed, untroubled. “Lots of them are good as the Mescalero at an ambush—Cheyenne, Oglala, Pawnee, Huron, Creek, Arapaho. You name me any rad-blasted tribe, and I’ll have been attacked by them. Dense forest like this, any stupe stickie could hide well enough.”
“Hide a cavalry regiment,” J.B. added, slinging the Uzi. “Herd of buffalo. Platoon of grandmothers. Township of deaf beavers. Whole army of par-blind priests.”
Owsley spit in the dirt and turned away from them. Steele watched his colleague depart. “Not a good man for an enemy,” he said quietly.
“I already figured that,” Ryan stated tersely, instantly regretting it. “Sorry, Brother Steele. Didn’t mean to snap at you. Grateful for the warning.”
“Sure. Take care out there, now. Get back and eat well and sleep good. Need to be at your best for the testing tomorrow afternoon.”
“GOD’S COUNTRY,” Ryan said, sucking in several deep, chest-filling breaths. They’d gone about a mile and a half from the center of Hopeville, leaving behind the oppressive, crazed fanaticism of the Children of the Rock. The weather was perfect, with just the faintest breeze from the north stirring the smaller branches of the great pines. After starting along the ribboned blacktop, Ryan led the companions toward the west, up a spur trail that showed only the hoofmarks of a herd of deer.
“Seems like the hot spot’s in this direction,” he said, checking with his miniature rad counter, which had shifted imperceptibly from orangy red to a reddish orange.
A tiny mountain quail, followed by eight bundles of downy feathers, scampered across the narrow side track, ignoring the interlopers into its territory. “Looking for game?” Jak asked. Ryan shook his head. “No need. Seem real well supplied back at the ville.”
They crossed a vivid strip of open meadow, surrounded by the towering black corpses of burned-out trees. The grass was lush, speckled with a variety of colorful plants. Krysty identified mimulus and collinsia, with the delicate orange of columbine and the flaming daggers of the Indian paintbrush.
“God’s country,” Mildred said, stretching her arms out wide, smiling broadly for sheer pleasure of being alive. “Air like this should be nectar for poor old Doc.”
“You worried about him?” Ryan asked.
“Not exactly. There’s this bizarre temporal anomaly about how old he really is and how old he seems to be. Two totally different figures.”
“I always think of him as being old.” Dean waved his hand to disturb a swarm of tiny gnats that had gathered around his head.
Mildred nodded. “Sure thing. Looks to be somewhere around the middle of his seventies.”
“Eighties on a bad day,” Krysty said.
“No. Nineties on a real bad day,” Mildred insisted.
“How old is he? There was all that time-jumping fucked up his body and mind.”
Ryan had often thought about that particular puzzle and had the answer ready. “Born Theophilus Algernon Tanner, South Strafford, Vermont, February 14 in the year of Our Lord 1868. Married his beloved Emily in June of 1891. Children came along for them in 1893 and 1895.”
“Rachel and Jolyon,” J.B. added, fanning at the warm air with the brim of his fedora.
“Right. Then those sick whitecoat bastards time-trawled him forward to 1998, 102 years into his future.”
“Not surprising his brain’s gotten scrambled.” Mildred took a drink from one of the water containers that they’d been given by Steele.