Autry swallowed hard before asking, “What happened?”
“Pretty much what you’d expect to happen. The muties chilled a lot of innocent people and took over the ville, used it as a base to launch their raids. Sound familiar?”
“What happened to the gang?”
Ryan waved a casual hand through the air. “Me and my friends chilled the whole lot of them. Didn’t take long.”
“Why not?”
“Because we were prepared.”
Autry blinked at the end of the story, not having realized there could be any connection. “Interesting analogy, Mr. Cawdor.”
Ryan didn’t respond. He was watching a young man on horseback gallop toward them from the direction of the pass.
“Mose!” he yelled as he reined his horse to an unsteady halt. “Got news!”
“What is it, William?” Autry inquired calmly, in deliberate counterpoint to the youth’s excitement.
“Hatchet Jack sent word! He wants to parley at noon!”
Autry’s face went the color of old ashes, but he showed no emotion otherwise. “Where?”
“In the pass. Said he’ll come under a flag of truce.”
Autry turned to Ryan. “Under the circumstances you’ll forgive me if I leave you to your own”
“Not with you,” William interrupted. His forefinger jabbed toward Ryan. “With him .”
Autry exhaled a surprised, startled breath. “With you, Mr. Cawdor. There’s no reason to meet with him, though perhaps you may be able to defuse any hostilities. I can’t force you, but I can ask. Will you meet with him?”
Ryan had plenty of experience of this sort of situation, and he needed the opportunity to size up the opposition.
“I’ll do it,” he said. “But the hostilities are already out in the open. I doubt a face-to-face palaver will close them up. Could make things worse.”
Autry combed nervous fingers through his beard. “I doubt that’s possible.”
Ryan turned back toward the hostel. “Believe me, Mr. Autry, it is.”
Inside the common room, Ryan told his five friends about Hatchet Jack’s request for a conference. None of them was pleased by the notion.
“Parley for what?” J.B. demanded. “He won’t let us leave.”
“Ryan, dear fellow, though your judgment is sound in most matters, meeting this man might be tantamount to pouring gasoline on a fire,” Doc stated.
“I agree,” Krysty said. “It’s probably a trap.”
“Gotta be,” Jak added.
Ryan nodded. “More than likely. That’s why you’re going with me. He might want to talk to me alone, but that doesn’t mean I can’t arrange for my own cover.”
The six companions spent the next two hours cleaning and loading their weapons. A few minutes shy of noon, Autry came to the door and beckoned to Ryan. When the others arose, his gaze narrowed.
“I’m certain Hatchet Jack meant for you to go alone, Mr. Cawdor.”
“I’ll talk to him alone,” Ryan replied, “but I want my back covered.”
“There are guards at the pass.”
“With bows and arrows and maybe a muzzle loader,” Mildred said, hefting her Czech-made ZKR target revolver. “I think our firepower will more than complement your own.” Autry opened his mouth to voice an objection, then shut it and smiled in resignation. “As you wish.”
Most of the population of Amicus seemed to be lining the street as they marched toward the pass. None of them spoke or so much as smiled.
“They’re scared,” Krysty said quietly, her hair shifting.
“I don’t blame them,” Mildred replied.
“Not of the Cadre, of us, of what we might bring down on them.”
A blond woman shouldered her way out of the row of onlookers. She was wearing a long, fringed dress of soft doeskin. It took Ryan a moment to recognize Felicity, with her hair combed, face clean and wearing clothes. She fell into step beside him.
“You’re going to talk to Hatchet Jack?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
Fingers tugging nervously at her skirt, she said, “Mebbe you can ask him to return my husband’s body.”
Ryan knew that most Plains tribes performed ceremonies for their honored dead, believing the rituals allowed their journey to the spirit world to be speedy and uneventful. Felicity evidently shared those beliefs.
“I’ll do what I can,” Ryan told her.
Felicity ducked her head and dropped back.