Doc was thinking about the plan as they walked briskly through the Shens. Part of it had been his, but he kept forgetting bits of it. He was to be a traveling quack who was calling at the ville to treat any minor ailments and to draw teeth. But he’d lost his bag of tools. He could re-member all of that. But Nathan hadn’t liked the idea.
He’d wanted to wait and see, to try to sneak some news from those in Shersville who were still loyal to him. But even the young man had admitted that there had to be a real risk that Ryan’s cover had been blown inside the ville. Doc had asked how long he thought Ryan would live once Harvey knew who he was.
Nathan had replied by simply snapping his fingers once.
So, that was why Doc and Lori were going in. For news. And if that turned out bad, for a try at a rescue.
“How?” Doc mumbled to himself. And after a little while he realized he didn’t have an answer to that ques-tion.
The swordstick helped the old man over some of the rougher parts of the trail, and Lori was always at his el-bow with encouragement.
“Path here goes through a swamp, so step careful. Mud’s near bottomless on both sides. And we’re closest
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we come to my home village. Fast and careful and quiet’s the way.”
Ironically it was Nathan Freeman who nearly brought disaster upon them al l. He had looked back to make sure that his two companions had safely negotiated a tumbled willow tree that was rotting across the path, when his own foot slipped and he crashed to the ground. In falling he clutched at a low branch of a stunted elm tree, which broke in his grasp with a loud report that sounded like a Magnum going off.
“That you, Beau?” called a voice. It was a thin, whin-ing sort of a voice, like a querulous old man asking when his supper would be ready.
Nathan drew his blaster from his belt, a double-action Smith & Wesson Model 39 handgun. Dropping into a crouch, he waved to Doc and Lori to take cover behind him.
“Beau? You fallen in the fucking water ‘gain? I’m not pulling yer out if n…”
“Hi, there, Tom,” Nathan said, straightening up, holding the pistol on the hunched little figure that had appeared out of the rags of mist that hung over the muddy water. “Thought I knew your voice, my trusted old friend.”
Doc and Lori also stood up, seeing that the other vil-lager was paralyzed with fear. The old man was literally shaking in his boots at the sudden appearance of the man he’d betrayed.
“Ramjet! Nathan, is… ? I didn’t know you was going t’come back. Me an’ Beau…”
“Here,” Nathan said quietly, beckoning to Tom. “Come here.”
The little villager stumbled toward Freeman, wringing his hands like an abject penitent. “Didn’t mean trouble,
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Nate, you know that. Hell, we bin friends longer than most. I taught you to shoot an’ told…”
“Shut up, Tom,” Freeman said. “Kneel down here, in front of me.”
“I’ll get my breeches fouled in the dirt, Nate. You know what Becky’s like if’n I get muddied up. I’ll just stand.”
“Kneel. That’s good. Now get your mouth open real wide, Tom.”
“What for? I don’t… Urrgh…”
Doc looked away, knowing what was going to happen. Lori also guessed, and she clapped her hands together delightedly, eyes sparkling in the moonlight. “Yeah,” she said. “Do it, Nate.”
The little villager knelt in the slime, hands together, looking up at Nathan Freeman. The muzzle of the heavy automatic pistol was jammed in his mouth between his broken and stained teeth. His eyes were as wide as sau-cers, and he was moaning to himself.
“Close your lips, Tom. Suck on it, real good, like it was mother’s milk. Good. So long, Tom.”
The gun bucked, the sharp edge of the foresight cut-ting open the man’s mouth. The explosion was muffled, sounding no louder than a man slapping a mosquito off his wrist. Out of the corner of his eye, Doc saw a hunk of bone burst out of the back of the scrawny villager’s skull, landing with a plopping noise in the water on either side of the trail. A fine spray glittered in the moonlight for a second, like a ballooning fountain of fireflies, mush-rooming from the hole in the head. The dappled mess of blood and brain tissue pattered in the dirt. The body jerked violently backward, legs kicking in the air, the mouth hanging open.