Doc, more prudish than the others about his bodily functions, had gone deep into a tangle of chokeberry bushes, vanishing totally from sight. They could all hear an exclamation of surprise and a thrashing around in the undergrowth.
“You okay, Doc?” J.B. called.
“I am in the very best of health, my dear fellow. Tiptop. Top of the tip-top. Top of the world, Ma. Top of the morning to you, Seamus. Spin the top” The voice faded away to a preoccupied mumble.
Everyone else had long finished before he came lumbering out of the bushes, cursing under his breath as the tangles plucked at his frock coat.
“What you got there?” Ryan asked, seeing that the old man appeared to be holding an arrow.
A peculiarly long arrow.
“There was the body of a deer in the brush. Well, to be perfectly specific, it was little more than a skeleton. Bones and a few fragments of its skin. And this was jammed between two of its ribs. Poor animal must have been shot and fled, eventually finding its surcease in hiding.”
Ryan took the arrow, measuring it against himself. “Least four feet long. And the feathers aren’t goose, are they? Look more like a heron, or something like that.” Realization dawned on him. “Fireblast! Course. It’s like one of those Japanese arrows, isn’t it?”
“That was my thought,” Doc admitted. “They certainly get around, our mysterious Oriental brethren, do they not? From the condition of the deer, I would hazard a guess that it met its doom at least six months ago.”
Ryan examined the arrow, which was beautifully made, far better than most of the hunting arrows that he’d seen from the Oglala and the Chiricahua, from plains to mountains. And he wondered again where the samurai came from and how they traveled so easily through Deathlands.
In all the years of riding with the Trader he’d never even heard a whisper of slant-eye killers with long arrows and honed swords.
“No sign of any others, Doc?”
“Absolutely none, John Barrymore. The deer could have run for miles before expiring. And, as I said, it was a long time ago, in another country and, besides, the wench is dead.” Doc’s face wrinkled with puzzlement. “What in hades made me say that? I believe it is from some play or other.”
“Time we were moving on,” Ryan said. “Need to get through Glenwood Springs before dark and up to the redoubt.”
“No kind of shortcut?” Jak asked. “North?”
J.B. had slid behind the wheel of the small four-wheel-drive wag. “No, afraid not. Have to go right into the ville and then dump the wag. Rest on foot.”
The highway was in worse condition than they’d expected, and they had to take bone-rattling detours over muddy rutted trails. By the time they saw the pale yellow lights of Glenwood Springs in the distance, the sun was already setting beyond the endless forest.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
A strange mutie creature galloped across the road in front of the armawag, casting a long, grotesque shadow on the highway. Ryan had taken over the controls, and he swerved and braked to avoid it, staring in disbelief.
The body was a large deer, though with shortened, stubby legs that ended in furry, clawed paws. The neck was short and muscular, supporting a head that looked like a cross between a wolf and a pig, a rooting snout and a double row of wickedly curved teeth that glinted red in the setting sun.
It turned as it reached the edge of the pavement and snarled at the vehicle, glaring from the three split-pupil eyes. There was such an aura of hatred from it that Ryan flinched. Instinctively he dropped his hand to the butt of the blaster on his hip, even though he knew that the layers of armored steel that surrounded him would protect him from any attack, even from a monstrous creature like that.
“What that?” Jak asked, peering out one of the side ob slits.
“Don’t know,” Ryan said, setting the pedal to the metal, making the engine roar. “Just hope I don’t ever meet it on a moonless night.” The wag vibrated as they built up speed and roared into the ville of Glenwood Springs.