Here, deep in the South, humidity and a clinging, sweating heat seemed the order on most days. Fortunately, it was cooler inside the motel. Looking out the window, Ryan saw huge insects, wings iridescent, dart over the warm streams. Far to the north, there was the familiar jagged lace of purple lightning. The rumble of thunder never reached him.
Realizing that the double-paned windows might also prevent him from hearing warning shots from Krysty and the others, he moved quickly to the main entrance, pushed open the stiff glass doors and emerged into the warm damp morning. Immediately he heard the harsh sound of swampwag engines. It came from the suburb of West Lowellton, not too far away, where his three companions had gone scavenging.
He spun on his heel, sprinted into the echoing lobby and shouted for J.B. and Doc. Returning to the arched entrance, he flattened himself against the red brick wall.
“What is it? Shots?”
“No. Listen.”
“Wags. Those swamp buggies. Real close. Half mile, mebbe less.”
Doc Tanner approached briskly, his cane clicking on the stone floor. His Le Mat pistol was tucked into his belt in a piratical manner, and his hat was at a rakish angle.
“I fear I slumbered, andI can hear engines. It sounds like those”
“Swampwags, Doc. Yeah.”
“Go or stay?” snapped the Armorer tersely.
“Stay,” was Ryan’s immediate response. “It figures they’re mebbe searching for us. With six of us running round, they double their chances of getting us.”
“And halves the odds,” said J.B.
“Yeah, it does. But we stay.”
“Should we not be looking for a defensive position?” asked Doc. “In the event of their coming here?”
It was a difficult decision. Judging by the noise of the engines, there were at least a half dozen of the floundering buggies in the vicinity. That could mean thirty or forty men, maybe more. It didn’t much matter if they were Cajuns or the baron’s sec guards. A firefight out in the open would have only one ending. But if they waited in the motel, they could cause untold havoc among any attackers, perhaps stand a better chance.
Overlaying the rumbling of the swampwags was the noise of gunfire. It sounded like thin material ripping as the high velocity bullets exploded in short bursts. J.B. looked at Ryan.
“If they got ’em cold, they’re chilled by now. If not, they’ll make it out of there. Best we can do is wait and see.”
“That’s how I see it, too.”
Doc Tanner pounded the stone wall. “Those young girls! Stouthearted Finnegan! By the three Kennedys, gentlemen! Can we stand here and allow them to be slaughtered?”
“Yeah, Doc, we can,” replied J.B.
“Yeah, Doc, we can,” repeated Ryan. “We go after them , and we’re there with too little, too fucking late. Don’t think I don’t care about Lori or that fat tub of guts Finnegan. And you know how much I care ’bout Krysty Wroth. But in this life there’s only one real certainty. Fuck up and you lose.”
“But they may have died.”
“We all do, Doc,” said J.B. quietly.
GUNFIRE CRACKLED for about two and a half minutes. Then came the unmistakable sharp cracks of a couple of stun grens, then more gunfire for around a half minute.
Then just the swampwags throaty roar and the shouting of a confusion of orders.
“Best find a place where we can blast ’em if’n they come this way,” suggested Ryan.
“You think they might have beenkilled, Ryan? Or taken?”
“Yeah. Mebbe they’ll take what they got and pull out. Mebbe not. All we can do is listen and wait. If they aren’t here in an hour, then I guess it means they’re not coming. Not yet, anyway.”
RYAN CHOSE THE KENNELS. Partly outside, they were connected to the motel and also gave them access to some low scrub that concealed a dry river bed stretching southwest. The three of them went there, waiting and listening, their blasters cocked and ready.
There was no further shooting, and the shouting faded. Soon the buggies could be heard drifting away, seemingly toward the main part of the swamps.
Within half an hour, the natural sounds of insects and the wind in the live oaks had resumed. The clouds that had threatened rain earlier in the morning had broken up, leaving only a veil of high thin mist that filtered the sun into an orange blur.