KRYSTY WROTH WAS STILL ANGRY with herself. If she’d waited, then a better chance might have come. A chance to chill the baron himself and go out on that. Or even a glimmer of a break. Now she’d have to invent a story that the men had freed her and that she’d been lucky enough to take them by surprise. It would be some hours before her strength would return.
Her acute hearing caught the noise of Tourment’s clumsy braces creaking outside; then the bolt grated back. She held tightly on to Lori’s hand to keep herself from trembling.
Chapter Nineteen
THE LIGHT FROM THE MOVIE PROJECTOR lanced through the humid darkness of the Adelphi Cinema, West Lowellton, centering on the glittering screen. Jak Lauren sat in the middle of a row of plush seats, with his top fighters in the rows around him. Ryan sat next to the lad, with Doc on one side, and J.B. and Finn a few seats down on the other side.
The albino had insisted they watch this, telling them it would last only about ten minutes. “It’s all we got left. We watch special times. Like now. Kind of gives heart. How it was ‘fore the winters came.”
Though he was desperate to get on with the task of saving the women, Ryan knew that there was little point in rushing in like headless muties. The baron wouldn’t have risen to his pomp and power if he were a stupe. That meant caution. He’d also captured Jak’s father, so it would take a good plan to beat him.
Doc was astounded to find that some of the vid-house’s equipment was still in working order. Jak showed them a booklet, dated January 2001, listing the attractions on at, the Adelphi. They’d been in the middle of a retrospective season, with movies from the 1970s and 1980s. And even earlier. Names that meant nothing to Ryan or the others, but that brought a sparkle of enthusiasm to the rheumy eyes of Doc Tanner.
“John Ford and Sam Peckinpah,” he exclaimed. “They were showing The Wild Bunch and Ride the High Country . With She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and The Last Hurrah the same day. That was Clint’s final movie, ‘fore he took up with all that politicking.”
“We got bit of one left. Culpepper Cattle Company . Heard of it, wrinkly?”
Doc ignored the insulting nickname from the snow-haired lad. “Heard of it, sonny! By the three Kennedys! You’ll ask me whether I’ve heard ofof, what’s his name? Damn, it’s left me.”
“All else was gone. But in top shelf of closet was single round tin, and in it was piece of vid. Means a lot, Ryan.”
So they sat and watched it. Doc was the only one there who knew what it was about, but his memory was sadly selective and imperfect. All he could recall, to the dumb fascination of Lauren and his gang, was that it was about a lad leaving home on a cattle drive and how he grew up and became a man. That a local land baronthe word aroused a mutter of hushed whisperingwas going to drive some settlers off. There were some gunmen in it, and they finally came to the aid of the boy and the settlers.
It began with a scratching sound and much jerkiness, but it gradually improved. The volume was weak, coming through a single speaker, wired to the side of the screen. But it was enough. Ryan watched the flickering images with a naive wonderment. He was in a movie house, watching a film!
There were some wagons being dragged into a line by the gunmen. The settlers, kneeling in prayer, were singing “Amazing Grace.” In the distance was the unmistakable outline of the local baron and his own team of blasters.
“Comes back to me,” whispered Doc, along the row. “Names and the faces. Gary Grimes is the kid. That’s Geoffrey Lewis with the kind of squint. Bo Hopkins, giggling there, with the smooth face. Man with long hair don’t know. Could have maybe been Wayne Sutherlin. He was in it. The other man’s an actor called Luke Askew. One of my favorites. What happened to”