J.B. and Mildred had loosened the mooring lines on the larger of the pair of crude rafts, checking there were long oars aboard to propel them along. They beckoned for Ryan and the others to come aboard.
The villagers were following them, like a pack of snarling curs, raging in anger, waving weapons at the outlanders. None of them dared to actually attack.
“We gave ye food and ye take our lives! We could’ve slain all of ye.”
Ryan shook his head at the disabled chief. “Not true. We all know it. One wrong move and this stinkin’ pesthole would cease to be.”
The river was a hundred feet wide, flowing fast and clear. To the north were high cliffs and gorges, but the way south was between open bluffs, tree lined.
Ryan stepped aboard, followed by Krysty. Doc came next, stumbling and nearly losing his balance on the rocking logs. Jak hopped agilely on to help the old man. Mildred was already in the bow, J.B holding the single stern line.
“Let her go,” Ryan said, watching the villagers.
Someone threw a jagged flint that hit Jak on the shoulder. He swung around and instinctively opened up with his Magnum, and the blood spilling began.
Chapter Eleven
The raft was about fifteen feet square with a crude cabin of logs, chinked with mud, at its center. There was a long steering oar fixed in a notch at the stern and four oars to help control and drive the vessel.
J.B. had jumped on, pushing the raft off from the muddy shore with his boots, grabbing for the steering oar as the current immediately picked at the bound logs, swinging them out into the main stream.
The thrown stone and Jak’s instant retaliation took everyone, including Ryan, by surprise.
It had looked as though they were going to get away with it.
Now there was murderous mayhem.
On the slowly moving, rocking raft, Ryan and his companions were at a great disadvantage. The villagers, most of the men with firearms, were able to open fire at close to point-blank range, pouring lead at them.
Ryan saw Jak hit in the center of the stomach, folding over and writhing in pain, his legs kicking on the wet timbers, yelping in shock.
J.B. had let go of the steering oar and unslung the Uzi, readying it to retaliate, but he hadn’t yet opened fire. Krysty and Mildred had both been heading for the small cabin and were unable to start shooting straightaway.
Ryan snapped off a couple of rounds before he felt a devastating blow in his right thigh and he went down, grabbing at the wound with his left hand, feeling the warmth of spilling blood against his fingers.
It was a bad moment, with musket and pistol balls slashing at the water, some of them thunking into the wood, tearing off strips of white timber.
Doc saved the day, turning as Jak opened fire, his Le Mat already unholstered. He braced himself against the movement of the raft while it gathered pace toward the center of the stream, leveling the hand cannon and firing the .65-caliber round at the enraged mob. The buckshot starred out and blasted a gap in the packed ranks of the villagers, leaving two dead and half a dozen down, screaming and bloodied, at the side of the water.
It gave J.B. and the women the few seconds’ respite they needed to get their act together and open fire themselves. The single barking explosions of Mildred’s ZKR 551 and Krysty’s double-action Smith amp; Wesson were counterpointed by the Armorer’s lethal 9 mm Uzi.
It was a lot easier to fire from land against a moving target than it was to fire at stationary targets from a moving raft. But Ryan’s company had vastly superior weaponry and decimated the enemy while they were still struggling to reload their single-shot blasters.
Ryan himself was lying flat near the edge of the raft, ignoring the bullet wound in his leg, shooting from the prone position at the scattering villagers.
Jak was still hunched up and moaning with pain from what looked like a triple-serious wound. A musket ball in the belly could easily turn out to be enough to book him a place on the last train west.