“For Gaia’s sake, shut it, Doc!” Krysty snapped. “Ryan doesn’t bring death, but it sure seems to seek him out.”
He half bowed to her. “Mea culpa, my dear lady. The blame is mine, and you are quite correct. It is just that I am tired, and I had not looked to end the day at the center of a charnel house. And I’m old and foolish.”
“Going for the sympathy and self-pity vote, Doc?” Mildred asked interestedly. “Not like you. Must still be the effects of the altitude.”
J.B. and Jak had finished a hasty look around the slaughter scene.
“Way I read it,” the Armorer began, “and correct me, anyone, if they think I’m wrong. Wag stopped here.” He pointed with the muzzle of the Uzi. “Deep ruts. Ambushed. Probably shots fired from cover to stop them. Then there was talk after two men arrived on horseback. Leading a third animal that isn’t here. Though there’s hoof marks leading up the trail to the east. Must’ve gotten away.”
“Can’t tell who started it. Ryan or Dean or driver shot pinto through head. Another bullet took him out,” Jak said, pointing to one of the corpses. “Wag rolled over that one. Last one chilled was trapped by horse.”
J.B. nodded at Jak’s recreation of the scene, walking to the gouged ruts that showed where the rig had finally toppled off the trail, pointing at the marks.
“Shooting spooked the mules. Something like that. Could be the bandits shot Lemuel. Just before it went, you can see two sets of prints. Small ones are Dean’s. Stake my life on that. Other marks are probably Ryan jumping for it, landing awkwardly and rolling over. Just here.”
“And afterward?” Krysty had walked past the bodies of men and beasts. “These are their prints, aren’t they? Heading on up the track.”
Jak joined her, stopping for a quick glance. “No doubt,” he said. “Both up and walking good. Almost certain not wounded. Fine.”
“We should go on a little farther and then find somewhere to camp for the night.” The Armorer looked around at the carnage. “Hope we don’t find any more corpses.”
THE BODIES OF THE GIRL, the old man and the donkey were only a little farther up the trail.
The vultures were there again, one of them standing its ground when its fellows flew away, beak jutting out as it squatted on the girl’s chest, its crimson eyes glaring at the human invaders.
“Fuck you,” Mildred said, drawing her Czech target revolver and shooting it through the skull, sending it toppling over in a flapping bunch of feathers.
“What in God’s name is happening on this benighted mountain?” Doc said. “There is death rampant wherever one looks. What villains committed this crime?”
J.B. answered him. “My guess is that these bodies are a little older than the three men and the animals. Way I read it” he peered at the trampled hoof marks and boot prints. “way I read it those three guys did this. Raided the old man and took their funning with the girl. Then they were moving down the trail when they ran into Ryan and Dean and the wag, and found themselves all buying the farm.”
“Serve them right,” Krysty said. “And Ryan and Dean passed by here?”
Jak had walked a few steps farther on, checking the ground. “Been hailstorm. Ground marked. But here’s Dean walking and over here’s Ryan. Both moving up.”
“Could they not have paused to inter these two wretched cadavers? It is so unseemly and beastly to lie here like discarded rubbish.”
Mildred had been checking the bodies. “Difficult to be sure, but I put their passing an hour or so before the three men down the trail.” She straightened. “The girl was raped and then butchered. You said why not bury them, Doc? Look around. We got bare rock and thin ground cover. Bracken and then the trees. Unless Ryan had been carrying picks and shovels, they could have taken a week over grave digging.”
The old man blew his nose on his kerchief. “You are correct, my dear Dr. Wyeth. As you so often are.”
“Why, thank you, Doc.”
“But it makes scant difference to my sickness of spirit and despair of the soul. To see such scenes makes one realize that Deathlands is damnably well named.”