“Make no mistake. There may be a little snow on the roof, madam,” he replied. “But I can assure you that a fire still glows deep in my belly.”
She laughed. “Sure admit you can put away the food all right. Leave a space for the baked apples with cloves and cinnamon sugar, won’t you?”
“Indeed I will.” He stood and bowed to her, oblivious of the large trailing linen napkin that dangled from his collar. “And I should say that you are a genius among cooks, Joanna.” He kissed the tips of his fingers to her.
She snorted with amusement and flounced delightedly back into the kitchen.
THEY TOOK TWO ROOMS at the Palace Hotel, ready to start soon after dawn, though everyone agreed that breaking their fasts at the diner was an essential prelude to the day.
The night was quiet and uneventful, though heavy clouds were gathering toward the north.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The light was fading fast, and Ryan picked his careful way down the steep trail. The path wound and doubled back on itself, so that it wasn’t possible to see the source of the smoke that was coiling skyward from some distance farther on.
A highway was just visible at the bottom of the valley. It was in deep shadow, but Ryan paused in the stillness and thought that he saw riders heading toward Fairplay. And he thought that his ears caught the high-pitched sound of a small armawag running at full throttle.
But he couldn’t be sure of that, and the shadows grew deeper by the minute.
Behind him he heard the rumble of far-off thunder, turning to see the silver pattern of chem lightning streaking across the western sky.
Night seemed to sweep around him like a horseman’s cloak.
The moon was obscured behind banks of cloud and he slowed to minimize the risk of taking a tumble on the rutted trail. The smell of burning grew stronger, and he thought that he could hear human voices.
Around the next sharp gooseneck bend Ryan finally saw the flames.
A Conestoga wag blazed brightly in the middle of the track, with a small group of men and women clustered helplessly around it. He was able to approach within fifty yards before anyone noticed him.
“They’re back!” a woman screamed.
Ryan stopped where he was, his hand resting on the cold butt of the SIG-Sauer, holding up his left hand in a gesture of peace.
“I’m alone!” he shouted. “All right with you if I come ahead?”
There was frantic conversation, then a white-haired man moved to the front of the group. “If you’re one of them, mister, then I can tell you that we flat got nothing left for you to take. Exceptin’ for the poor lives of us that’s left.”
There were four men and two women alive. Only one of the men was under the age of fifty. The women were both well into their sixties.
Scattered around the blazing rig were eight corpses five young males, two little children and a young woman with the back of her head blown away. The muzzle of a small revolver was still clenched between her teeth.
The white-haired man spoke for the others.
“We’re Quakers from back east, coming into the mountains to bring the word of God to outlying communities. Been on the road for close to a year. Had some hard times in the past couple of weeks. Provisions ran low, and we got the rig bogged down to the axles in mud.”
Ryan had never seen such a sorry lot. All of them were gray-faced and haggard, eyes sunk in sockets of wind-scoured bone, prominent teeth and fingers crooked like claws.
“Then the murderers came on us like wolves on the fold. We were helpless. Sister Rosalind there chose to take her own path from this vale of tears. She also slew her own children to spare them being taken.”
Ryan looked across the valley into the blackness. “Thought I saw some men on horseback and heard a small armawag. Was that the gang?”
The old man nodded. “A mix of normal men, though some looked from south of the Grandee. And several stickies among them. I had never heard of such a racial mix before.”