The man was gesturing toward J.B. with the rod, his mouth working. But Ryan couldn’t hear a word, relying on the hissing earphones.
“Says that they want water and food.”
“Want?” Ryan queried.
There was a short pause of ten or fifteen seconds. “He’s changed the word to ‘demand’ now.”
“Tell him from me to go take a flying leap into a brimming cesspool!”
“Want me to say that, partner?”
“Better not. Ask him who they are and where they’re going.” He had a fresh thought. “And what the roads are like up toward the north. That sort of thing.”
There was another pause while the conversation was relayed, then some talk among the penitentes. The one at the back, supporting an enormous rough-hewn cross, had slipped forward onto his face in the hot sand in a dead faint. But the remaining thirteen members of the sect totally ignored him.
“Says that talk costs in food and water.”
Ryan nodded grimly to himself. He swiveled the machine gun a little to the right and saw that every head followed the movement. He brought it back to center on the chest of the leader of the group.
J.R chuckled. “He saw that. They all did. He’s shouting again.”
The air-conditioning inside the LAV wasn’t functioning well, and Ryan was aware of a thread of sweat trickling down between his shoulder blades.
“Well?”
“Wait a minute.”
Time slithered by. Ryan looked at the side of the cab of the LAV, where someone, perhaps bored and hot, had scratched his name”Pete Haining.”
He wondered what the man had been like and how and when he’d died. But his train of thought was interrupted by J.B.’s voice in his ears.
“Name’s Apostle Simon, he says. His posse’s called the Slaves of Sin.”
“Pretty.”
J.B. laughed quietly. “Isn’t it? Says they’re heading south and east. Want to pick up a boat on the Gulf and go to India.”
“Say again? Sounded like you said they were planning to go to India.”
“Right. Not my business, Ryan. Said the road north is clear. Some villes pay them to keep moving. Doesn’t like being threatened by you.”
“Tough. Tell them to move their asses off the highway. We’re going through.”
“Think we should chill a few of them?”
Ryan considered the question seriously, knowing that the years with Trader lay behind it. “No. They can’t do any harm.”
“Apostle says to tell you that they have the power to bless or curse us.”
“Fuck them. They can curse me when I drive this baby smack over the top of them.”
He heard the Armorer passing that on, and saw the angry reaction. The leader, followed by his supporters, made an oddly threatening sign to him, forking the fingers of his right hand, like twin horns, pointing them straight at Ryan, hidden behind the arma-glass of the ob slit.
The gears engaged, and the machine began to rumble slowly forward.
For a dubious moment, Ryan thought that the religious maniacs weren’t going to move and that he would simply crush than under the 25,000-pound weight of the LAV. He ducked instinctively as the leader thrashed out at him with his staff, rapping it smartly against the steel plating just to the side of the driver’s ob slit.
The man’s mouth was open, caked spittle at the corners of his cracked lips. For a moment Ryan was close enough to hear the screamed words of hatred and anger.
“The God of Pain and the Virgin of Blessed Suffering curse you and your children and their children, yea unto the tenth generation of the unbelieving bastards!”
Then the road ahead of the wag was clear and Ryan eased it up into a higher gear. Over the intercom, J.B. called through to him. “Did the right thing. Wouldn’t have trusted them if we’d stopped to help.”
“Right.” In the rearview mirrors Ryan could see the tatterdemalion group receding fast behind them. “Last we’ll ever hear of them. Can’t do any harm.”
And that was a serious mistake.
Chapter Five
A bullet-pocked sign, a mile back, had warned Ryan and J.B. that they were approaching Huston Wells, altitude three thousand eight hundred feet, populationthat sign had been painted, repainted and over-painted so many times that it was now illegible.