Ryan sipped at the tea, shuddered and said, “There’s got to be a back door.”
“There is,” said a voice from the doorway. “But it won’t solve the immediate problem.”
Mose Autry leaned against the door frame. His face was drawn and pale with worry. “The Cadre hasn’t made any overtures yet, but the guards at the pass tell me the fleet is tied up a quarter mile away.”
“So why can’t we go out the rear exit?” Mildred asked.
“If it’s you Hatchet Jack is after, he’ll take vengeance on Amicus for providing you sanctuary. Whether you’re here or not, he’ll expect blood to be paid in blood.”
“I thought you said he was afraid of pissing off the local Indians,” J.B. said.
“He’s more afraid of losing face with his crew,” Autry responded dolefully. “As it is, even our resident tribesmen are afraid to leave town and go hunting. He might decide to sit tight and try to starve us out.”
Ryan nodded. “A typical tactic. But let’s hear what he has to say before scaring ourselves with ‘what-ifs.’ ”
“Yes, but what if he wants you six in exchange for leaving us alone?”
Ryan favored Autry with a slit-eyed stare, and steel slipped into his voice. “Let’s hear what he has to say.”
Standing, Ryan said, “Show me around so I can get an idea of how defensible this place is.”
“That will not take long,” Doc remarked.
After visiting the outhouse behind the hostel, Ryan went with Autry through the ville. Amicus lay in fairly open country, in a swale between several broad, low hills. There were no walls, and the only barrier to an incursion from the rear was a great, tangled heap of mottled bones, the remains of all kinds of animals, from trout to muck-sucker to buffalo.
The people they encountered gave Ryan sullen, up-from-under stares. There were many Amerindians in the settlement, but most of them appeared to be old women and children.
They completed the circuit at a low, squat adobe building. Inside was a forge, a crude smelter, work-tables and a clean, ruddy-faced old man Autry introduced as Hasslich. His alert face shone with sincerity, only to be betrayed by the avarice in his eyes when he spied the SIG-Sauer at Ryan’s hip.
His English was broken, his voice thick and raspy. “Make you gun and give you powder and ball, hokay? Make you trade for your blaster, hokay?”
“No hokay,” Ryan said. He examined one of Hasslich’s rifles from a stack propped up in a corner. It was a home-built, single-shot flintlock, made of cold-rolled steel, a few brass-alloy fittings and a walnut stock. On a table lay several flintlock pistols. The workmanship wasn’t spectacular, but it was adequate. Ryan had seen better and far worse, though J.B. might disagree.
“What other kinds of blasters are in town?,” he asked.
Hasslich screwed up his forehead in thought. “I t’ink Bobby Mayhew has old AK-47, no ammo for it, though. Mrs. Red Bear used to have a Ruger Blackhawk revolver, an’ a HK VP-70. No, dat’s right, she sold it.”
Ryan returned the rifle to the stack and surveyed the rest of the stock in the workroom. Three casks of charcoal and sulfur and a few sealed kegs of processed gunpowder were aligned against the north wall.
“Make you trade,” Hasslich said again.
“You ever trade with the Red Cadre?” Ryan asked.
Hasslich shrugged. “Sometimes. Sometimes de Hatchet Jack don’ wanna trade, wanna take.”
“You let him?”
The old man ran his finger across his throat. “I let ‘um take hokay.”
As Ryan and Autry returned to the street, Hasslich called after him, “You wan’ make trade, you come back, hokay?”
Autry was silent for moment, then commented quietly, “Not much to work with, is it?”
“Not much, no.”
“Then you can understand why we never made a stand against the Cadre.”
“It’s never a bad idea to have an idea of your available arsenal.” Ryan paused, then said, “Not too long ago a gang of marauding stickies took over a ville in Colorado, a placed named Harmony. The folks there knew the gang was coming, but they didn’t prepare. I guess they figured if they didn’t prepare, the gang would leave them alone. An old friend of mine used to say, ‘Ain’t no virtue in hoping for the best when the worst is on its way.’ “
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