“This’ll do,” Ryan answered with a full mouth. Hunger was the best sauce.
“On the other hand,” J.B. added, gesturing with his head, “that huge roll of leather over there is the gator. They skinned the huge bastard and gave us the hide.”
“Guess it’s a reward for helping them.” Ryan grinned, wiping his mouth on his hand. “Make nice boots.”
“Weighs a ton.”
“So I would guess, but we can’t leave it. That would insult the chief.” Ryan laid the plate aside. “Just stuff it in the big duffel bag with some salt to keep the smell down. When we’re a couple of miles from here, we’ll throw it away.”
“Speaking of awful smells,” Mildred said, tossing a bar of soap on the ground at his boots, “you’ll find the spring a hundred feet to the north.”
Ryan tucked the bar into a shirt pocket. Breakfast had disguised the odors for a while, but now the stink of the swamp muck, mixed with dried gator blood and sweat, was returning strong. “Anybody else there?”
“Everybody washed earlier. It’s all yours.”
Taking his weapons, Ryan moved through the pine trees, easily finding the spring. Clear water bubbled from the ground, forming a still pool, and Ryan checked the area. The water was crystal clear, and nothing could get within ten feet of him without being seen first. Stripping, the one-eyed man washed his clothes to get out the stink of the swamp, then hung them over some bushes to dry in the sunlight. Next, he grabbed a handful of pine needles and rubbed them vigorously into his combat boots to remove the sour smell of sweat and sulfur.
Making sure his blasters were within easy reach, Ryan submerged his tired body in the pool and scrubbed himself clean using the tiny bar of soap from an MRE pack and some more pine needles. He was surprised at the amount of grime that came out of his hair, and on impulse decide to shave using his knife. When finished, Ryan felt enormously refreshed and lay on the bank of the spring to let the warm breezes dry him off.
There was a rustle in the bushes, and he drew the blaster with lightning speed as Krysty walked into view.
“Hi, lover,” she said, smiling. “Nice view.”
Immediately, Ryan felt himself stirring under her frank gaze. “You missed breakfast,” he said, clicking the safety back on.
She sat and kicked off her boots. “Had mine earlier. Doc and I have been on recce. Dean spotted some smoke drifting over the trees, and we followed it to a ville about five miles away. Good walls. No rads. Seems okay.”
His interest shifted to their mission. “Any chance of getting a wag there?”
Krysty stroked his cheek, tracing a fingertip along the jagged scar. The man wore his life on his body, the network of healed wounds telling more than anything else could. He was a stone-cold killer when necessary, and yet would share food with strangers—when there was extra. No starry-eyed dreamer who lived on wishes, he was the ultimate pragmatist, and yet many times during their travels they helped save villes he might never see again. Ryan only wanted to live in peace, but constantly shook the world until its teeth rattled. Krysty considered him the only real man she had ever known.
“Ask me that again later,” the redhead whispered, slowly unbuttoning her shirt.
THE SUN WAS HIGH when the companions left the pine island and headed for the mainland. They were carrying all of the remaining supplies, along with the gift from the beetle warriors. A narrow land bridge crossed the inlet, and soon they were walking through fields of scrub grass. Broken stone walls sectioned the landscape, showing that the area used to be farms at one time. Mountains rose in the far distance, the rocky crags seeming to support the ominous dark clouds filling the sky.
A beaten path wound through the grassy fields and windswept arroyos. Soon the companions reached a flattened dirt road leading toward the high stockade of a ville. The outer wall was made of logs and stones, rising to twice a man’s height, the top bristly with sharp sticks and a few strands of rusty barbed wire.