“At once, Commander!” The man saluted.
Bare chested, Overton belted the Desert Eagle about his waist. “I’m going after Ryan personally.”
Chapter Fifteen
Daffer hobbled over to the small fire in his hut and tossed another handful of twigs on the flames. A whole chicken was roasting on the spit in his fireplace, crackling above the wood fire, but he hadn’t been able to force down more than a few mouthfuls. Mildred had claimed his stomach would have to stretch again, having shrunk from starvation. That sounded reasonable, but the sec man knew better. Wings resembled hands far too closely for him, what with all those little bones, and legs were legs. But Daffer had been able to spoon some of the rich drippings over a loaf of stale bread, and that was a fine meal. No complaints.
His wife had left him while he was gone, and moved northward to new territory. Daffer couldn’t blame the woman. She had little future except as a gaudy slut with her husband dead and so few unmarried men in the area. So his home had been deserted on his return, aside from a few rats and a miniature bear. How they had gotten inside, he had no idea. The walls were solid concrete, predark material as strong as granite, the windows had been bricked shut for some unknown reason by a prior tenant, and the door, although streaked with rust, was metal in a metal frame. These were the reasons why he had chosen it for their home in the first place, strong and safe. Sure was a hell of a lot better than a log cabin with winds cutting through the door as if it weren’t there.
The chimney! Cracking a smile, he studied the field-stone chimney he’d built so many years ago. The little animals had to have simply climbed down the open flue! Well, of course. Once you figured it out, the mystery was plain as a blaster in your face.
Situated by itself away from the other ruins of the predark ville, Daffer believed it was a jail or bunker of some kind. There were some letters set above the door lintel, but he never could figure out what DPW Substation stood for. Had to have been something special to be this well made.
Shuffling over to the table, Daffer poured himself a drink of red ‘shinemountain wine, as it was called and took a sip. The cool brew went down easy and took the pain from his joints. Mildred advised him to drink a lot to replenish his tissues, and that sounded fine by him. With the bag of bullets the outlanders gave him, Daffer could damn near drink himself to death. Sometimes at night, it was almost enough to stop the nightmares and make him sleep.
Pulling close a chair, Daffer sat down and continued to disassemble the blaster Lord Ryan had given him for protection. The internal parts were small and his fingers clumsy, but Daffer tried again to take the weapon apart to clean every nook and cranny. A Webley, he called it. Odd weapon. Instead of the cylinder swinging out from the side as normal, the blaster broke apart at the top, the cylinder staying with the barrel. At first it seemed as if the revolver had broken in two, but he was slowly coming to appreciate how easy it was to load the blaster with so much space for his hands. Damn thing was a real handcannon, too. The fat .44 cartridges were as thick as cigar butts. As an experiment, Daffer tried to load the blaster with just one hand, and a precious cartridge fell to the concrete floor and rolled away.
Mumbling in annoyance, he crawled under the table to reclaim the live round. Holding the blaster backward by the barrel, as Ryan had showed him, Daffer now easily dropped in the six rounds and closed the heavy blaster with a satisfying clunk. Aiming it across the room, he saw how the firelight glistened off the blued steel, the forward aiming fin streaked crimson with a dab of paint to make it easier to target. The monster should stop a bear in its tracks, much less a man. The bullet would probably go through the first guy and chill the one behind him before slowing enough to stop.