James Axler – Deathlands

“But still” he said aloud.

THE VILLAGE WAS READY.

J.B. had already set up a number of watchers, linked by line of sight, that could wave a message down the line to warn of the arrival of the gang.

Now that message had come, and the whole community was bowstring taut.

Ryan and the Armorer had spent nearly three hours with Itzcoatl and the elders when they returned from their own scouting mission. At the last minute Ryan had asked Jak to come along with them, explaining what he wanted. It turned out to be a good move, as the natives paid the utmost attention to everything that the young albino said.

He’d hammered home the vital importance of holding off any aggression until Ryan gave the signal by opening fire. “Must have them in village. Right in. Anyone shoot too soon and they run. Could be end for everyone.”

At Ryan’s suggestion the older women and the youngest surviving children left the village before dawn, following almost invisible hunting trails that wound south and east toward a cave hidden behind a waterfall.

The rest of the settlement was hidden in their appointed places, armed with what weapons had been availablealmost no blasters, but plenty of arrows and blowpipe darts.

“Will we win?” Itzcoatl asked.

“Winning, losing” Ryan said. “Just comes down to being caught on the wrong side of the line.”

“WE GO IN Jefe ?”

Bivar rubbed at the side of his nose, where he’d been bitten by an insect during the night. He turned and called to Manuel, his second-in-command. “Here, amigo.”

The fat man heeled his own horse forward to the head of the column, grinning at his chief, the gold teeth glinting in the sunlight. “Something wrong?”

“I keep thinking about the four men we sent out scouting. What happen to them?”

“They got tired and went for some funnin’ someplace, I guess. Who fuck knows, Jefe ?”

“Four of them. No message. No nothing from them. That sort of bothers me.”

Manuel looked around. “We just gotta collect a full hand from this village. Is all.”

Bivar sighed, wishing that he didn’t have the throbbing sick headache pounding away at his temple like the bastard drums that so many villages used.

“What happen to the drums?” he said, feeling his background suspicions rushing headlong forward.

RYAN LOOKED across the deserted open square, checking that there was nothing to arouse any doubts. Bivar had to be used to riding into villages where everyone rushed in panic into hiding. But there was still something wrong.

He turned to J.B. “Those bastard drums!” he exclaimed. “Fireblast!”

The Armorer picked up on him. “Course. Should be beating with the trumpets and all. If Bivar comes in and hears nothing, then we could be going down the tubes.”

“I’ll tell the chief, right now.”

MANUEL LIFTED A HAND to his ear. “Seems like I hear drums pretty good.”

“They only just started,” Bivar complained. “Seems kind of strange.”

“They only beat them and play those trumpets when the day’s started.”

“Guess so.” Bivar lifted his hand, then called out to try to attract the attention of his chattering horde. “Head ’em up! Ride ’em out! Let’s go!”

“SEE, RAIN FLOWER,” Itzcoatl called, pointing halfway up one of the tallest trees in the vicinity.

The woman stood on a branch as broad as a two-lane blacktop, waving a length of bright orange cloth.

“Here they come,” Ryan said.

THE GATES TO THE VILLAGE stood wide open, showing a few of the huts and a trio of abandoned cooking fires. But there was no sign of any life.

And the drums had stopped.

Bivar reined in the palomino. “Mebbe we wait and watch. Send in six or seven to look around the place.”

Very faintly, but very audibly, someone in the ranks behind him made the clucking sound of a chicken.

He spun, seeing that a number of the men were smirking, while others looked rigidly ahead. “You think I’m scared to go in? Do you? Anyone think that, then he come and tell me.” He waited a few seconds, hand on the butt of his pistol. “I think mebbe if’s not me that is the chicken. But we don’t wait. We go in. Follow me and keep all your eyes open.”