Climbing back into the cab, it took Ryan two tries to finally get the engine running, the whole vehicle shaking from the effort of the struggling diesel. Sounded like a seal might have broken, but at least the fan belt was still holding.
With the gauges rapidly climbing back into the red zone again, Ryan drove the wag over the boundary marker heading toward the main murder alley of Rockpoint ville and the large open door.
Chapter Ten
The mounted sec men led the way through the murder alley and into the gate. Keeping to a crawl so the horses could stay in front, Ryan drove the rattling truck through the opening, the heavy gate rambling shut behind to leave them trapped inside a short tunnel that penetrated the wall. The sides were smooth and plain, without decorations or even blaster ports for defense. On the other hand, the wag was barely able to traverse the passageway, the canvas awning less than a foot from the ceiling with the tall radio antenna loudly scraping along overhead to the obvious annoyance of the sec men. Any vehicle slightly larger than the GMC would never be able to gain entrance, much less make it completely through.
“An ambush by any other name,” Krysty muttered, glancing around them on every side.
“Indeed, dear lady,” Doc agreed. “I do believe the operative phrase, quote sitting ducks end quote, would be in order here.”
Born and raised in a ville protected by a drawbridge, Ryan agreed with that assessment. To any invaders on foot, the tunnel would be a death trap with nowhere to run or hide from the blasters of the ville sec men.
The tunnel was dark with the front gate closed, but there was no need to switch on the headlights as dim sunlight showed at the far end. As the companions drove into a sunny courtyard, the ville spread before them in disorganized rows as if each house had been built wherever the owner felt like it.
“This is a maze,” Mildred stated under her breath, and drew a pencil and notebook to start tracing their way along the twisting streets.
Stretched between the adobe brick buildings were sheets of cloth that rippled with the desert breeze, but the material effectively reduced the devastating effects of the noontime sun to a tolerable level.
An adobe brick machine gun nest stood directly in front of the tunnel, with two more off to the sides to give cross fire. Stout pylons of gray rock jutted from the blue cobblestone street, and the companions recognized them as tank traps, designed to bust the treads on an APC, rendering it immobile.
As the horses turned into a side street, the wag followed and the milling people stopped whatever they were doing to stare in wonder at the vehicle. The effect was unnerving until Ryan remembered that Hawk said the place had no wags. Just simple curiosity, then. Or was it something more? In spite of the apparent wealth of Rockpoint, there seemed to be a lot of fear in the faces he saw.
The crowds parted before the armed sec men to keep from being trampled by the unshod hooves of their mounts. But they avoided even looking at Hawk. The sec chief rode like a baron through the streets, the iron-clad hooves of his stallion ringing loudly against the cobblestones, announcing his approach.
The people were sensibly dressed in loose clothing of varied stages of cleanliness, the usual mixture of salvaged clothing from predark days and tanned hides. Shoes were ragged and repaired into faded patchwork that resembled the deliberate camou patterns of military fatigues, with children going about bare foot. Nothing that could be a weapon was in sight, and no machines, even nonfunctioning devices.
In the shade of the rippling cloth roof, a legless leather smith was tanning the hide of a mountain lion, while a young assistant stitched a saddle. A dwarfish woman was sharpening knives of a whetstone, and drunken laughter sounded from the second floor windows of what was obviously a gaudy house. Situated on a corner, an old potter was palming red clay into the shape of a bowl. Behind him were wooden racks filled with drying plates and pitchers. On the top shelf, the better plates carried the detailed design of a scorpion.