Krysty pulled on her silken bikini panties, adjusting them across her hips, easing the flimsy material from the cleft between her buttocks. She hoisted her trousers and tugged on the elegant western boots. The water had splashed her hair, and she ran her fingers through it, let-ting it float across her shoulders.
61
“Come out, lover. You’ll freeze, and the cold’s doing nothing for that…” She pointed at his shrunken geni-tals, giggling at him.
“It’ll warm up,” he said, some of the toughness easing from his face once more.
“Get dressed, Ryan. Then come and sit here by me. There’s another hour or more before we need be heading back to join the others.”
He got dressed, leaving his chest bare, relishing the feel of the sun on his skin. Ryan held up his brown shirt, shaking his head at the stain on it, which was nearly black.
“Poor Hennings,” he said.
“Seems years past. Can’t be more’n a few weeks since he bought the farm. One too many mornings…” Her voice trailed away.
“Mebbe we should settle on going west and try to find some of the Trader’s old crew.”
Krysty rested her hand on his bare shoulder, feeling the skin still chilled by the stream. “What about Virginia?”
“And the Shens?”
“Sure, lover. And the ville at Front Royal where some-one’s the baron… someone who owes you a debt.”
Ryan breathed deeply so that his ribs became promi-nent against the skin of his chest. “It’s too many years. Like you said, Krysty. A thousand miles behind. Best leave it there.”
But he couldn’t hide the note of doubt in his voice. The girl lay stretched out on her back, hands behind her head, looking up at the harsh planes and angles of his face.
“You aren’t sure?”
“No. No, I’m not.”
“Talk about it.”
“You know the story. You heard it down in the swamps.”
62
“I want to hear it from you, Ryan. Now. Your story, your words. There’ll never be a better time.”
Ryan folded the bloodstained shirt and placed it on the grass, then lay down at the girl’s side.
Beginning to speak…
Chapter Seven
“plant A bullet anywhere in the domain of Front Royal ville and it’d grow a blaster. That’s what folks used to say. By the long winter! It was a good, rich land, Krysty. The biggest ville in all of Virginia. My father said he figured it might be the biggest in the whole of Death-lands. But I don’t know ’bout that. The nukes came so thick the sky was black. But they were short half-life mis-siles, most of ’em. My great-great-grandpa took what he saw and held it fast. Great-grandpa got more. Timber and water and grazing. Cattle and horses. Even a few hogs. Deep in the Shens there was sheltered hollows where the rad didn’t reach. Great-Grandpa Ryan built and stole and killed and kept.”
“You were named after him?” Krysty asked, not wanting to interrupt the flow of words from the man at her side. She felt that he wanted to talk it out, and like she’d said, now was the time and the place for it.
“Surely was. He had chill-cred, did Great-Grandpa Ryan. His son just held what there was. By then, around the mid of the century, there was some trouble from the Walkers and the Takers.”
Krysty nodded. “Heard my Uncle Tyas McCann speak of them. Said they was the descendants of the Levelers and the Diggers.”
“Never heard nothing ’bout them.”
64
“Go on, lover.” She reached out to touch his left hand and felt a reassuring squeeze from Ryan.
“My father took it over around 2050. By then the power was established. There was a rising of the workers on the west side of the ville. Wanted rights to the land they worked. Father put it down. Lots of dead, gibbets on every hill from Nineveh to Oak Ridge.”
It had been a dreadful, awesome sight that struck fear into the hearts of every man, woman and child who worked for the Front Royal ville. The bodies hung there, tied with waxed cobbler’s twine that didn’t rot. The birds picked at the soft tissues of the faces first. The eyes and the lips went, then the cheeks and the tender flesh around the neck. As the slashing wind and rain tore the thin clothes away from the corpses, more of the weathered meat was revealed for the crows and the ravens to feast on.