“She’s dead?”
“No. Yeah. I mean, we don’t know.”
She was on her feet again, pointing an accusing finger at the fumbling man. “You may have turned into a fat old drunk, Carl, but you better just tell me what happened, clear and careful. Now.”
To everyone’s surprise and embarrassment, the blacksmith’s son put his head in his hands and started to cry, sobbing, his broad shoulders shaking, tears trickling down his cheeks and dripping onto the table.
The woman owner of the Brown Burro went and patted him on the back. “There, now, Carl, there now. It wasn’t your fault. You weren’t the one up and ran away and broke the heart of a whole ville,” she soothed, staring angrily at Krysty.
Ryan was also standing, hands braced on the table in front of him. “Fireblast! Will someone just tell us what exactly happened to Krysty’s mother?”
“Nobody knows. Few months after you left her, it seems she left Harmony in the mid of the night. Abandoned her home and all her possessions. Left no note. No message. No word. Nobody seen or heard from her since.”
“Nothing?” Krysty’s face was carved from living marble, showing no trace of any emotion.
“Nothing,” Carl said, wiping his nose and eyes on the back of his sleeve.
“Oh, Gaia help me,” Krysty breathed, sitting again and closing her eyes.
IT WAS A SHORT TALE, simply told.
Sonja Wroth had walked out of her life and walked out of the ville and nobody had seen a glimpse of her. Nor had there been any word of a sighting. She had disappeared off the face of the earth.
“Not even a whisper. We asked packmen and traders and travelers to look out. She was kind of distinctive to recognize. But we never got a word. By the gods, Krysty, sweetheart, I’d have given all the jack in all the villes in Deathlands not to have been the one told you this.”
“I wanted her to be alive,” Krysty said haltingly. “So I could make it up to her for Or, if she’d been dead, then I could have mourned her and made my peace that way. But with her gone. Just gone”
Nobody spoke for several long seconds. Finally Ryan broke the silence.
“Least we can do something to clean Harmony ville from its plague of rats. You want to do that, lover?”
Krysty sighed and smiled. “Yeah. I think I’d like that very much.”
Chapter Thirty-One
As the woman from the Brown Burro had told them, it was easy to find unoccupied cabins in Fairplay.
Carl showed them to one that he’d been using since he fled Harmony, which had enough space for Jak and Doc, while the place next door had two double rooms, ideal for J.B. and Mildred, and Krysty and Ryan.
There had been no argument that they’d start off toward Harmony, about a half day’s brisk hike, as soon as the first light reached Fairplay. Carl would act as their guide, getting them as close as possible to the ville, where they would do what was necessary against the gang of killers.
“Remove them with extreme prejudice,” was Doc’s comment, when they talked over their plans.
RYAN HADN’T BEEN SURE whether Krysty would feel like making love and he held off, knowing how deeply distressed she had been at the news of her mother’s bizarre disappearance.
But she had moved close to him as soon as they were between the slightly damp sheets, with a half-dozen thick blankets piled over them.
Her hand reached for his hand, holding him tight in silence. Then her leg moved against his, over his thigh, her knee nudging at his groin.
Ryan reacted instantly, and he could actually feel her smile at him.
“Ever-ready, lover?” she whispered. “I wasn’t sure you wanted to.”
“I thought you might not feel like it. After the news of all the deaths and of your mother.”
Her other hand danced across his chest, pausing to tweak at his nipples, then moving lower, across the flat, muscular Wall of his stomach, grasping him.
“One of the great things that Mother Sonja taught me, from her store of wisdom, was to try not to allow yourself to be loaded with guilt over something you couldn’t help. Leaving when I did was the right thing then. It’s still the right thing. What happened doesn’t alter that at all.”