Two of the sec men stepped forward and dragged Gummer across the bloodied sand and rolled him unceremoniously into the grave, picking up the spades and starting to bury him.
Mildred took a half step forward, then caught the flat, incurious eyes of the countess and moved back into line, shrugging her shoulders.
“What?” J.B. asked, as the hole rapidly filled up and the sec men prepared to march back to the mansion to resume their normal duties.
“Nothing. Best get back to see how Doc’s getting on. Hope he’s sleeping.”
But the Armorer pressed her, knowing that there was something she wasn’t saying. “Tell me, Millie.”
“Well, that method of killingexecuting murdering call it what you like. It was bad enough. Brutish and unbelievably cruel. But when it was over and they put him in the grave and filled it in”
“Yeah. He was dead. Wasn’t he?”
She looked at him, her dark eyes brimming with unshed tears. “His wounds were still bleeding freely. Meant he wasn’t dead, John. The bitch had him buried alive.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Doc was still sleeping when they trudged back to the mansion. But he woke up, looking and sounding drugged, sighing at a sudden stab of pain, clutching at the bandages around his stomach. “If I die, Dr. Wyeth, then I shall never forgive you. Do they still have multimillion-dollar medical-malpractice suits here in Deathlands?”
“Don’t think so, Doc,” Mildred said, grinning. “Just have to come back and haunt me.”
He smiled. “Truth be told, my dear madam, I think I am beginning to feel a little better. I could even manage a drop or two of clear soup, with a brace of coddled eggs. Or some steamed cod with a tiny portion of creamed potatoes. Thinly sliced bread and butter with the crusts cut off. A crystal dish of strawberry conserve. A well-cooked portion of veal Holstein and some lightly boiled cabbage with apple and cinnamon. Fresh-made vanilla ice cream with stewed pears. A schooner of director’s port.” Doc stopped the list of food and drink as he realized that everyone else was grinning at him. “Well,” he said defensively, “it is surely a welcome sign of my impending recovery, is it not?”
THE COUNTESS DIDN’T SHOW for supper that night, choosing to stay in her own quarters.
Straub took her place at the head of the table, in good spirits. “I am delighted to hear that the admirable Doc Tanner is recovering from the emergency operation.”
“Should be up and about in a couple of days,” Ryan said. “I’d hoped to be on our way before then, but Guess we’ll have to impose a while longer.”
“Give you a little more time to change your mind about what she wants you to do for her.” Straub was twiddling the silver disk around, and Ryan found his eye was caught by it, feeling sucked toward the whirling center, his mind becoming numb, his hearing fading into fuzziness.
Jak broke the spell and jerked him back to the dining room. “You got time tell us about end of Trader,” he said. “Don’t see much wrong your mind, Straub.”
There was a clear threat, overlaid with anger, and it made the bald man start uneasily. His black eyes met Jak’s crimson gaze. “Trader? He and I were on a beach with muties. Ignorant armies clashing by night. I recall that. Another man. Small, with a mustache.”
“Abe,” Ryan said, taking a couple of deep, slow breaths to bring himself back from the brink of mesmerism. The experience warned him yet again how dangerous Straub could be and how one ignored him at one’s peril.
“Abe?” Straub tested the name as though it were an unusual cheese. “Perhaps.”
“So, what happened? Don’t believe you can’t remember. Tell us, Straub.”
Jak’s threat was palpable, but it had little effect. “You must understand I have been through deep and mysterious changes in becoming slave to the countess. Not just in my body, but in every part of my brain. Presume not that I am the man I was, Jak Lauren. I can only operate at her will. Perhaps if she gave me permission to explore that closed room of memory”