“Oh, Jak, we can’t accept this. It’s a fortune in ammo,” she said and pushed it back. “Here.”
He folded his hand over hers. “Keep, and think of me,” he said. Then quickly added, “Gift. Not payment.”
“I understand,” Lily said, smiling, and kissed him again, this time long and hard on the lips.
“Goodbye.” Jak lifted his satchel of supplies onto a shoulder.
“Good journey,” she sniffed, and turned her back on him to start clearing the table.
As he walked from the building, Jak had the oddest feeling that he would be seeing them again soon, but under terrible circumstances. Irritably, he shook off the notion as nonsense. He was no doomie able to see the future. Probably just missing them already. Twins! What a night that had been.
Outside, the morning was damp and chilly, and Jak spied the others were already past the sandbag nest of the ville. Shifting into a ran, he hurried along to catch them, the pocket of his jacket sloshing softly with every step.
“Wags are in there,” Stephen said, gesturing toward a large splintery bam near the front gate. “I hired a boy to stay awake for the night and start the engines once an hour to keep them from seizing in the cold.”
“Pretty smart,” J.B. admitted reluctantly. The unlit stub of a cigar jutted from the corner of his mouth. The tiny nubbin was his last, and the Armorer wasn’t going to light the tobacco until he found more. Shouldn’t be too hard, this was Virginia.
“I have done this many times before,” Stephen boasted proudly.
“So have we,” Krysty stated, not impressed. Standing on a corner near a brick building, Monty watched them walk by, four of his armed sec men flanking him on both sides.
Wearing a bright red jacket, the squat man resembled a fireplug to Dean, but the boy wisely refrained from making that comment aloud.
“RCMP,” Doc said, pausing for a second in the street. He snapped an odd palm-out salute to the security chief, and Monty reluctantly returned the gesture. “What was that about?” Krysty asked. “RCMP, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police,” Doc explained, twirling his swordstick. “Also known as the Mounties. His family must have wandered down here during the long winter.”
“The great-grandson of a predark cop,” Ryan said. “No wonder Monty is such a good sec chief. It’s in his blood.”
Undoing a padlock, which squeaked in protest, Stephen opened the long door of the barn and threw it wide. Hurrying inside, the companions followed.
Empty horse corrals lined both sides of the structure, with a giant stack of hay at the rear of the building, and parked in the middle area were four predark vehicles standing side by side forming a tight square.
Stephen gave a small can of food to a boy who immediately bolted outdoors with the prize as the companions inspected the wags.
“A self-heat. You pay pretty good,” Mildred said. “Have to.” The fat man sighed. “He’s a cousin.” The front vehicles were large industrial trucks, flat-beds with wooden side rails festooned with bulging canvas sandbags, making them mobile forts. Behind the trucks were two rust-streaked vans with solid sides, no windows, with large sliding doors in the aft and huge windshields.
“Delivery vans.” Ryan frowned. “Can’t imagine a worse wag for fighting.”
“Hopefully there won’t be any,” Stephen replied, hitching up his belt.
Krysty shot the man a look. “Ever done the journey without a fight?”
“Well, there’s always a first time,” he shot back.
“Idiot,” Mildred said under her breath. Footsteps crunching on the frozen ground announced the arrival of some people at the barn door.
“Just a tick, folks,” Stephen shouted. “We’ll be rolling soon.”
“Okay, Mr. Stephen,” a young man replied. Standing close to him was a young woman, no more than a girl, suckling a newborn baby under her blouse. There was a pile of patched duffel bags at their rag-wrapped boots.
Leaning against the barn door was a gruff pair of men dressed in clothes made entirely of animal furs, including their boots and hats. Large unsheathed knives were stuck in their belts, and each was smoking a homemade cig and held a muzzle-loading rifle as if it were part of them.