James Axler – Cold Asylum

“Want a hand, lady outlander?”

For a moment Ryan wondered whose voice it was, booming from the fringe of trees above him. Then he remembered Guiteau and the woman with black hair and the nearby ville.

And the butchered fugitive in the clearing.

“No.” Krysty was intent on what she was doing, pinching Doc’s nose and breathing deeply into his mouth. She beckoned to J.B. “Come and press on his chest when I tell you.”

Ryan sat up, finding that the sergeant was now at his side, steadying him with a hand.

“Mistress Marie was impressed, Cawdor.”

“Couldn’t fucking care less whether she approves of what I did or not.”

“Mebbe it could mean more than you know.”

“How?”

“Ah.” He placed a finger along the side of the nose. “Careless talk can get you chilled. Fancy a drop of a warming cordial?”

“Sure.”

The sec man produced a small glass flask, bound in silver and leather, with a screw top. It was beautifully made by the hand of a craftsman, and was part-filled with a scented, fiery liqueur that Ryan didn’t recognize. But it flowed down his throat and into his stomach, carrying its heat to every part of his body.

“Thanks.” He handed back the flask. “You collect predarkies like this?”

Guiteau laughed. “No. Baron does. Sometimes he gives a present to someone if he’s pleased with them. Gave me this for chilling an assassin, couple of years back. Bunch-backed half-breed, hopped about like a bottled spider.” He slipped the flask back inside his jerkin. “Looks like your friend is recovering. I thought that was well done, Cawdor.”

Doc was spluttering, coughing up what looked like half of the south fork of the Antelope.

“Take it easy,” Krysty cautioned. “Just lie still awhile, Doc. You came close to the last train to the coast.”

“I blameblame Master Cawdor for his foolish lack-brained advice for mefor me to change my horse in the middle of the stream.”

Ryan grinned. “Sorry about that, Doc.”

The rheumy eyes considered him. “By the soggy and disordered state of your clothing, I draw the deduction that, once again, I owe you my life, do I?”

“Sort of, Doc.”

The old man sat up, supported by Krysty on one side, the Armorer on the other. He was badly shaken by his ordeal and touched his bruised face with fingers that were trembling.

“The angel of death came damnably close this time, did he not?”

Mildred had appeared at the top of the bank, with Michael and most of the hunting group. Sitting her mare a little away from everyone else was the mistress of Sun Crest, her face quite blank, showing not a hint of any emotion.

“Oh, perdition!”

“What’s up, Doc?”

For some quite inexplicable reason, Ryan’s question made Mildred giggle, sticking out her front teeth as though she were impersonating a rabbit.

“My gun!”

“The Le Mat?”

Doc was right. The dark leather holster that had held the enormously heavy old blaster for so many adventurous months was empty.

“Fireblast!” Ryan himself had always felt great affection for the archaic weapon.

Doc gestured to them to help him to his feet, seeing Mildred picking her way over the muddy ground.

“I am well, madam, and have not the least need of your dubious professional skills.”

The black woman favored him with a wry smile. “If you can still talk to me in that waspish way, Dr. Tanner, then I guess you haven’t been much harmed by your unscheduled dip.” She turned to Ryan. “Next time it happens, try to let him go around for one more spin cycle, will you?”

J.B. was staring at the fast-flowing river. “If we could rig up a grapnel and cast for it, we might manage to snag the trigger guard of the Le Mat.”

Ryan patted him on the shoulder. “Seen any pigs flying by, lately? No? Nor me, J.B., so I reckon we can forget about trying to find the blaster.”

“I feel lost without it at my hip.” Doc was gradually reassembling a form of control over himself. “I shall no longer have that macho gunfighter’s swagger that made me irresistible to the ladies.”

“That’s the way the prune wrinkles.” Mildred grinned. “And that’s not a bad metaphor for you, Doc.”