Everyone in their party had been quiet, shaken by the savage, brutish violence of the ceremony, and nobody had felt like staying up late.
Now it was time to rise and face another day in the jungle. Ryan lay still, flat on his back, wondering whether they should leave and make their way back to the gateway and jump out, return to Deathlands.
Despite the savagery of the killings, Ryan’s sense of morality pressed him to try to do something for Itzcoatl’s tribe, caught between a rock and a very hard place.
Between their warlike Jaguar neighbors and the slavers away to the north.
“I think we could help.”
Krysty had spoken without opening her emerald eyes, without giving the least warning that she had awakened.
“Reading my mind again, lover?” Ryan said, grinning sideways at her.
“Not exactly. Last thing we talked about last night.” She touched him gently on the chest. “Last thing but one that we talked about. So I realized you were lying awake and I figured it was a fair bet you were still puzzling over whether we should go and jump back to Deathlands or stay. I think we should stay a couple more days and see what we can do.”
He nodded slowly. “Guess so.”
FISH STEW WITH TORTILLAS followed by fruit started the day for everyone.
Itzcoatl, two priests, Rain Flower and a dozen older men joined the outlanders for breakfast.
“You feel better this morning, Jak?” the chief asked.
“Yeah.”
“You are not used to the way we pay our gods?”
“No.”
“You did not like it?”
“Not much,” the albino teenager admitted, helping himself to a second helping of the stew, ladling it into his wooden bowl. “No, not much.”
“It is our way,” one of the priests said. Some blood remained in his hair from the previous evening’s ceremony, though he’d obviously made an effort to try to clean it.
“Saying that doesn’t make it right,” Doc pronounced. “Every religion in the damned world thinks it’s the one that’s got it right. None of them has. You haven’t. To butcher those three helpless, drugged men was murder in any language. And trying to gift wrap it in mumbo jumbo and ancient ritual Well, truth is, it makes me sick to the pit of my stomach, Chief. And that’s the fact of it.”
Itzcoatl looked at him for a dozen heartbeats. “There is a word for going against the gods.”
“Blasphemy?” Doc suggested, while everyone else remained silent.
“I think that is it. In our people there are many bad things. Murder is bad. To force a woman to love is bad. Stealing is bad. Witching is very bad. Blasphemy is a bad thing. A very bad thing. You could feel the noose tighten about your throat if you speak things against the gods.”
There were warriors standing behind each of the Anglos, something that was already making Ryan uncomfortable. At their chief’s words, the men had tensed as though they were readying themselves for violence.
Ryan decided that it was time to make things clear.
He stood in a single easy movement, drawing the SIG-Sauer, cocking it and pointing it at Itzcoatl’s head at point-blank range. “Best you know what’s going down,” he said.
“If I die, then your blood will flow upon mine,” the chief said calmly.
“This is one of the most powerful blasters in the world,” Ryan replied. “I pull the trigger and you get a 9 mm full-metal-jacket round through the side of your head. Hole going in’ll be about as big as that girl’s little finger.” He pointed with his free hand at Rain Flower. “Bullet going out would take half your skull and most all of your brain, Chief, and put it in the grass. All I’m saying is, don’t try and threaten us and don’t push us. Because we don’t like it.”
“I see that.” His voice remained steady, his dark eyes locked to Ryan’s face.
“I’ve seen more blood than any of you. Blood doesn’t bother me. Death doesn’t frighten me, Chief. He’s been riding at my shoulder since I was two years old. Understand this?”
“Yes. Are you going from us?”