When he’d sneaked out of the back window of the shared log cabin, it had been full dark, with only a sliver of moon visible through some drifting clouds. Ryan had used some fragments of charcoal from the old fireplace to draw a rough map onto a torn linen rag, showing Doc where he thought the guards might be encountered. He showed him the route back in the general direction of the redoubt, to the ruined restaurant, warning him to look out for the giant mutie rats.
“And the Apaches,” he’d reminded Doc.
“No problema, mi amigo!” had been the reply. Doc had to remind Ryan that he’d once spent time with a tribe of Mescalero Apaches and spoke a little of their language.
Doc felt another cough prickling deep in his chest, and he took out the trusty kerchief again.
He’d still been well within the settlement, only a scant thirty yards or so from their hut, when he’d been seized by a racking paroxysm.
He’d hastily pulled out the swallow’s-eye kerchief and crumpled it into his open mouth, muffling and cutting off the noise of his helpless coughing.
He crouched, feeling the damp of the sodden pine needles through the thin material of his ancient breeches, squinting to try to spot the sentries that Ryan had told him would be patrolling.
Doc moved on when he’d regained some measure of control, having to stop twice more before he was clear of the perimeter of Hopeville and out onto the winding trail.
“NONE OF YOU HEARD him go?” Disbelief rode high in the angry voice of Joshua Wolfe. Ryan answered for them all. “Nope. Reckon we were all totally bushed after the testing and all. Thought Doc was real sick, but the old coot sure fooled us.”
Owsley leaned close to the leader of the Children of the Rock and whispered something in his ear.
Wolfe listened intently, nodding a couple of times. Then he shook his head. “No. Not yet. Means a sort of delay in the plans. Best is to go after the old goat and bring him back here. Then things’ll be back on course.”
“But we—”
“No.” Wolfe held up his unmutilated hand as a warning to the sec man. “You heard me, Brother Jim. We play this one like I said. Understood?”
“If you say so.”
“I do. I say it with the backing of the Blessed Lord Jesus, Savior of the gun and the blade.”
“Amen, Brother Wolfe.”
Wolfe managed to claw a smile back into place. “Small and temporary victory, outlander.” He pointed at Ryan. “Trader used to say that he who shoots last shoots finest, didn’t he? Think about that, One-Eye.”
“We getting after the old man now, Brother Wolfe?” Jim Owsley asked.
“Right now. Double the watch on the rest of them.” He stared intently at Krysty. “But she doesn’t look like she’ll be going anywhere. Not for a while.”
DOC HAD TO KEEP reminding himself that he was supposed to be traveling light-footed. The temptation to use his ebony swordstick as a walking cane was very strong, but he realized immediately that the metallic tapping sound would carry a long way at night in the deeps of the forest, and bring any potential pursuers after him at a flat run.
He would have been a whole lot happier if he’d had his beloved Le Mat in the fancy hand-tooled Mexican rig on his hip.
Jak had offered to lend him one of his remaining concealed throwing knives, but Doc had turned down the offer. “Such a weapon would be as much use to me as a chocolate chamber pot, dear boy.”
The forest was showing the first signs of the false dawn. The sky above had become fractionally brighter, throwing Doc’s shadow on the winding trail. Twice he’d been stopped in his tracks, aware of something moving, ponderously, in the dark depths of the pines. But nothing had come near him, and he hadn’t actually seen anything.
He carried a gold half-hunter watch on a fob and he tugged it out, angling the face to try to catch enough light to read it. But it wasn’t yet possible.
By his own rough calculation he’d been traveling for five or six hours and was well over halfway toward his destination. The one thing that Doc couldn’t know was at what point his escape had been noticed. If luck was with him, he’d still have something of a clear run. If not, then the pursuers could already be closing in on his track.