“Hunters,” Jak said.
“Passengers,” Stephen corrected him. “The big guys are Clem and Bob. The others are the Johnson family,
Hector and Sara. Kid isn’t old enough for a name yet.”
“Only five, sir?” asked Doc. “I mean, four and a half?”
Jak sniggered.
“Hey, not many want to go anywhere near Front Royal these days,” Stephen answered in frank honesty. Then he quickly added, “In the winter, I mean.”
“Of course,” Doc demurred, keeping a neutral expression.
“And this is the convoy,” J.B. said, completing his circuit around the assortment of rickety vehicles. “Two trucks and two vans. All civilian wags.”
“More than enough,” Stephen stated huffily. “I have done this run a hundred times, and I always get through.”
“Passengers, too?” Ryan asked, lifting a hood to check the engine.
“Accidents happen. What are you looking for?”
“Engine seems okay,” Ryan announced, lowering the hood of the first truck.
“Told you so,” Stephen eluded, crossing his arms. “I take good care of my wags.”
“Well, we’re not going to take your word on it,” J.B. said, going to the second truck and lifting the hood. The latch was stuck and required some pounding to get free. “We are passengers and will check the air in the tires if we think it necessary.”
Stephen glanced out the barn at Monty, standing on the street corner. “But we’re losing daylight.”
“Ill-prepared is doomed from the start,” Doc said, sliding open the door on one of the vans. He climbed into the seat and started the engine. It rattled and knocked for a while, then steadied to a smooth hum.
“This one is okay,” he shouted out the window.
Dean slid into view from underneath a truck. “Springs okay. There’s some body rust, but the thing is repaired with wood.”
“Engine seem okay?” Mildred prodded, standing near.
Holding up the hood of the second truck with his hand, J.B. scowled at the greasy V6. “Yeah, I guess. No obvious problems. But I’ll wrap some of the heater hoses with duct tape as a precaution.”
“Tires seem in good shape,” Ryan commented, inspecting the rubber for critical defects. A blowout on one of the mountain passes could tumble them into a ravine and chill them all faster than a mutie attack.
“They got me here,” Stephen replied, sounding annoyed.
“Any spares?” Krysty asked.
“Two each, tied to the undercarriage.”
“Blasters?” Jak asked bluntly.
“What you folks brought, and there’s a brace of shotguns and a case of Molotovs.”
“Homemade firebombs and two scatterguns, that’s it?”
“Why would I need mercies if I had missiles and an electric minigun?”
Ryan accepted that.
Dean crawled over the trucks in a fast inspection. The first wag had the spare tires; the second truck carried all of the spare fuel. Big twenty-gallon military fuel cans were tied to the aft railing of the truck, which only made sense. They could always drop the cans as a bribe to stop folks chasing after the convoy. Or they could release the cans with a lit fuse to block the road with a wall of flame. Of the two tactics, he much preferred the latter. The best defense was making the other fellow dead, as his father always said.
“Plenty of juice,” Dean announced, jumping to the ground.
“Enough to get us there?” asked Krysty.
“Easy.”
“Where did you get the gas?” J.B. asked curiously, unscrewing a cap and taking a whiff. It wasn’t the condensed fuel they found in the redoubts, or regular gas, but something else. Not kerosene, either. Probably a mixture of gas, kerosene, alcohol and anything else that would run an engine. The Armorer hoped the man was smart enough to add some bullet shavings and a drop or two of used oil to the fuel to help maintain the engines internally.
“Where I find fuel,” Stephen answered, glowering, “is my biz.”
He accepted the rebuff. “Fair enough.”
“What’s in here?” Mildred asked, rattling the door of the second van. “It’s locked.”
“That’s just some cargo for the baron,” Stephen said in a measured tone.
“Blasters?” Ryan asked, wiping off his hands on a rag.
“Wheat.”
“In the middle of autumn?” Mildred asked, tossing in her medical satchel into the first van.