Ryan lowered the SIG-Sauer. “Think I’d rather leave you here for the wolves to find. Won’t be long, and you can spend the last few minutes of your life watching them unwind your guts.”
Fear replaced the defiance in the pirate’s eyes. A gut-shot man could live for a long time, consumed with agony, provided the scent of blood and ruptured internal organs didn’t draw predators. A death inflicted by razor-keen fangs and rending talons might be quick, but it was by no means painless.
The freebooter coughed again, this time deliberately, hawking up from deep in his lungs. He spit a jet of blood directly into Krysty’s face. She cried out and recoiled in disgust. Ryan lifted his blaster, stepped forward and fired once. The pirate’s broad forehead sprouted a neat blue-ringed hole. The back of his head broke apart, sending skull shards, blood and grayish pink brain matter splattering against the bark of the tree.
Ryan shoved the blaster back into its holster. The scar on his face glowed lividly, like a bolt of angry lightning. Krysty wiped away the blood from her face, repressed a shudder and whirled away. “Let’s get back while we still have some daylight.”
They led their horses through the trees, neither of them speaking. Krysty moved quickly, as if she didn’t want to walk beside him, and Ryan knew the reason why.
More than once she had cautioned him about allowing a quick flare of rage to consume him, to control him. Ryan had agreed with her that surrendering to murderous fury was contrasurvival, and he had gone to great effort to bring those surges of berserk anger under control.
However, he couldn’t and wouldn’t tolerate the kind of swaggering scorn displayed by the likes of the pirate. In the past, especially during his years with the Trader, men had died under his gun or knife, and sometimes his bare hands, for far less. He knew his rare bursts of homicidal rage frightened Krysty, and sometimes even himself, and he also knew his swift execution of the pirate bothered her. Though Ryan and Krysty shared more similarities than differences, she would never commit murder unless her life, or the lives of those she loved, was directly threatened.
When Ryan and Krysty emerged from the grove, they saw that all the corpses had been moved to the far side of the little valley. Mildred was doing her best to make the woman comfortable, though she was still unresponsive.
J.B. looked up from examining the fuel tank of the wind wag’s ancient diesel motor. “It’s about a quarter full,” he said. “It holds twenty or so gallons, and it probably gets about that many miles to the gallon, so they haven’t strayed too far from the fleet and their supply boats.”
Ryan nodded as he walked toward Mildred and her patient. “Is she hurt?”
Mildred shrugged. “A few bruises and abrasions, nothing serious. She’s in shock, though.”
“We need to know where she came from and if she lives with one of the Indian tribes in the area.”
Without looking at him, the woman spoke in a clear, toneless voice. “Amicus. We came from Amicus.”
Easing to a kneeling position in front of her, Ryan put a friendly smile on his face. “That’s where we’re headed. We weren’t sure if it really existed.”
The woman said nothing.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
The woman’s eyes were blank. Ryan recognized the symptoms of a person who had undergone such terror and witnessed such horror that all emotions were frozen, locked deep within the soul. He could see the pain in her eyes, the memory of it fresh and frightful. She held her body in the stiff posture that came as a result of pain, and of a fear that it would return.
“Look,” he said, “we need our questions answered. You need to guide us to Amicus and to tell us how and when the Red Cadre jumped you. That’ll give us an idea of how close the rest of them are.”
The woman didn’t react to his words or his tone, so he slapped her openhanded across her right cheek. Her head jerked back, and Mildred hissed in anger.