Numerous folks bundled against the night were scurrying from house to house, carrying wood for fireplaces or toting wicker baskets that steamed in the dwindling light.
High on the side of the slag pile was a wooden cabin, with a zigzagging staircase scaling the jagged slope to reach the small building. As Ryan stared, there came a brief wink of reflected light.
“Somebody with binocs watching us,” J.B. cautioned, glancing sideways.
“I saw,” Ryan replied, maintaining his stride. “Stay loose.”
“Indeed, sir,” Doc intoned in his deep stentorian voice. “We are coolness personified.”
Jak gave a noncommittal grunt.
“Hey! There’s the inn,” Mildred announced, hobbling along on her crude crutch. “About freaking time.”
Situated on a corner across the compound was a brightly lit building, with horses and bikes parked in front. A sign was suspended from the overhanging roof with an actual knife and fork nailed to the board.
“You tired?” Krysty asked, sounding concerned. It was obvious that the bad ankle hurt a lot more than Mildred was letting on.
Holding back a wince as her tender foot accidentally touched the uneven ground, Mildred forced a smile. “No, just starving.”
“Smells good,” Dean said, eagerly sniffing the cold air.
Walking slowly across the compound, the companions went around the sandbag nest, coming close to the gallows and the hanging men. Only heads were visible over the top of the ville wall. They could hear the anguished sobs of the live prisoner as the black crows pecked at the bleeding scabs on his cheek and neck. His left ear was completely gone, as were both eyes, the empty sockets oozing blood and a clear viscous fluid. The facial bones of his dead partner showed white through the gaping rifts in his tattered flesh.
Pausing in midstep, Ryan turned on a heel with his 9 mm Sig-Sauer in hand. The silenced weapon coughed once, and a hundred paces away the head of the prisoner exploded in a grisly spray of bone and blood. Gingerly picking the hot brass off the ground, Ryan pocketed the spent cartridge.
“Dad,” Dean began, sounding puzzled.
“That’s no way for anybody to die,” the elder Cawdor said in a voice of broken granite. “You got an enemy, you kill him. Torture only makes you worse than them.”
He looked hard at the boy. “The Trader taught me that. Now you know it, too.”
Not quite sure he fully understood, Dean nodded and decided to think long on this event since it was important enough for his father to waste a live round on a total stranger.
“Good shot,” J.B. commented dryly, walking abreast of his friend.
Holstering his blaster, Ryan merely replied, “The wind was with me.”
Past the compound, the muddy road displayed random patches of gravel and macadam under the thick covering of red dirt, showing that this had once been a paved street. A big man in a heavy bearskin coat watched them cross the avenue, with an expression of extreme dislike. Krysty paused to stare at the man, he turned to walk away quickly, his massive shoulders hunched against the mounting winds.
“Real friendly folks,” she muttered, checking the draw of her blaster as a precaution.
A couple of rusty bicycles leaned against the front of the inn, a lump of canvas in the street covering a mountain bike with studded tires. An old gray swayback horse was tied at a concrete post, the reins stretched to the limit so that the animal could slurp noisily from a mossy water trough. Its saddle was merely ropes and blankets, the reins spliced leather belts. A mangy German shepherd was asleep under the horse, and as the companions approached, the dog awoke with a start and growled softly, baring dingy yellow teeth until they went past and stepped onto the wooden porch.
A handmade sign bid guests Welkom Too Cords Tavern, but the companions were impressed that somebody in the ville could write at all. It was rather a lost art these days. Throwing open the door, Ryan found himself facing a rain-stained sheet of plywood and realized it was a buffer to cut the wind from getting inside.
“Pretty smart,” he said in admiration. “Got to use that trick myself.”