“The last time that I slept unclothed, as nature intended, bare-nekkid, nude, stripped, peeled My apologies for wandering a little. Not since I was in hospital for a minor operation when I was in my early twenties, in Egremont, Illinois. Then it was forced upon me.”
“What minor op, Doc?” Mildred asked.
He had colored, huffing and puffing. “I think that falls into the region of being my business.”
“Means it was either prostate or piles, Doc,” she replied, grinning wolfishly at his discomfort. “And if I staked the family fortunes on it, I think I’d go for piles. Were you riding tall in the saddle, Doc?”
The old man glared across the cabin at the woman, fists clenching. “It is truly no matter for jesting, you sneering harridan!”
“Doc!” Krysty admonished him. “You don’t have to”
But he was off and running. “I can tell you, madam, that it was far from amusing. One of the most severe pains that I have ever suffered. It was akin to having a child’s flayed fist protruding from my rectal orifice. Had you offered me a thousand dollars, Dr. Wyeth, to sit down, I should not have been able to do it.”
Mildred held up her hands, palms outward. “All right, all right, Doc. Mea culpa. Shouldn’t have made a joke about something like that. I’ve seen patients with that problem, and I know how agonizing it can be for them. Sorry.”
He looked at her, gradually relaxing. “I accept your apology. Ye knew not what ye spake. But I must insist”
Ryan laid a hand on his shoulder. “I think that’s enough, Doc,” he said quietly. “We got us plenty of trouble without any falling-out together.”
The Armorer nodded. “That’s true enough, Ryan. I can’t think of worse enemies in all of Deathlands to have against you than those two. The Magus and Wolfram.”
WHEN RYAN WALKED barefoot onto the dew-wet deck, the sky was just brightening from the east. He looked above him, toward the barricaded stateroom deck, and caught a glimpse of one of the hard-faced sec men, leaning over, staring down at him.
“Morning, friend,” Ryan called, waving his left hand. His right dropped to the cold butt of the SIG-Sauer, already holstered at his hip.
The man’s expression didn’t alter, and he slowly drew back out of sight.
“Yeah, and fuck you, too,” Ryan whispered to himself, resuming his watch over the river.
The great paddle wheel was turning at a good rate, the rudder holding the Golden Eagle safely in the middle of the Sippi, which was, Ryan calculated, close on half a mile wide at that point, up above Cairo.
The banks were wooded, with a mix of conifer and deciduous trees, and there was no sign of life anywhere on either side of the river.
Ryan was aware of someone moving behind him and he spun, seeing Jak a few paces from him. The teenager grinned at his friend’s speed of reflex.
“Fast as ever,” he said.
“Man gets slow, also gets dead,” Ryan replied, quoting one of the Trader’s most frequent sayings.
“Trader also said man moves too fast gets dead,” Jak said, the morning wind tugging at his tumbling white hair, blowing it over his ruby red eyes.
“Yeah, he did, didn’t he? Well, nobody ever said Trader was the most consistent man on this planet.”
“Think he’s alive?”
“Likely not.” Ryan considered it. “Think we’d have heard some word by now if the old lion was still living.”
A small boat shot out from the starboard bank, propelled by a couple of young boys, rowing together, heading toward the center of the stream.
Captain Huston, or whoever was on the bridge, spotted them and gave them a warning blast on the steam whistle. The loud, melancholy sound echoed across the Sippi, deadened by the thick forest all around.
The boys were both laughing and they stopped rowing, standing up in their rocking boat, dropping their breeches, mooning the huge paddle steamer.
Ryan leaned over the rail, watching the capering lads as their boat receded astern, into the tumbling waves caused by the passage of the Golden Eagle, then he caught a familiar soundthe muted cough of a silenced rifle, from somewhere behind and above him.