“We were thinking of passing through Wetherill Springs.” Ryan glanced at his partner. “What do you reckon? Might find some oil or gas there.”
J.B. sniffed doubtfully. “Nothing to lose. We’ve made good time so far. Still have at least five weeks to get to Seattle and find Trader.”
“Yeah, do it. Be nice to have some friendly faces in the crowd.” Ellie kissed both men on the cheek.
“How can we refuse now?” Ryan said, smiling. “And we can lend a hand if there’s trouble.”
The woman tossed back her ponytail. “Trouble! Me and the girls just laugh at trouble. There won’t be no trouble.”
Chapter Twelve
“Blood for blood!”
The yell followed Abe as be scuttled along, trying to keep up with Trader’s lengthy stride. Rain dropped off the low branches of the lowering pines as they moved quickly along the steep path, making for higher ground.
One of the inexorable rules of Deathlands about living and dying was that when the dying gets easy, then the living make for the high ground.
“Sure pissed on their ants’ nest,” Trader said over his shoulder.
“Sure did,” Abe agreed, clutching the biscuits and the jerky.
“Those shit-eaters won’t dare to come after us,” Trader added, beginning to pant and slow down as the uphill grade became much harsher.
“Sure,” Abe said, though he wasn’t at all certain that Trader was right about that one. From what he’d seen in the store it seemed more than likely that there might be a general posse headed after them.
The heavy-lidded eyes of the rednecks as they saw their neighbor bleeding to death on the filthy plank floor had shone with a malevolence that had startled Abe. It was a ferocious lust for vengeance on the pair of outlanders that wasn’t likely to be quenched just like that.
A garter snake slithered across the path right in front of Trader, making the old man stumble and nearly fall. He leaped clumsily to one side, coming close to dropping the Armalite.
“Bitching reptile!”
He paused for breath, resting a hand on the moss-slick trunk of a larch. Abe also stopped, swallowing hard, tasting the bitterness of bile rising in his throat. Below and behind them he could still hear shouting and screaming.
And the deep-throated barking of a pack of hounds.
“Getting the dogs after us,” he said.
“They’ll give up on it.” Trader hawked and spit in the wet mud at his feet.
THE TRAIL WOUND HIGHER, through chiffon layers of thin white fog. Every time there was a fork in it, Trader would unhesitatingly pick one and go baring up it. Abe was impressed at first at the way the old man’s memory had given him such a photographic memory for the valleys and hills.
Until he suddenly spotted what Trader was doing alternately picking right or left turns, regardless of whether they might be right or wrong for their headlong escape from the pursuers. “Sure you know which way we’re going, Trader?”
“Course. Got a gift like a homing eagle for finding my way through the wilderness.”
“Pigeon.”
“How’s that?”
“Homing pigeon, Trader. Not an eagle.”
“Who said anything about a fucking eagle, Abe? You losing the clapper out of your bell? Don’t go soft on me, Abe. Just don’t do that.”
They ran on.
THE COTTAGE WAS BUILT into a wall of gray rock, on the right of the path, with a sheer drop of three hundred feet, down through the trees on the left. It had two small windows on the first floor and three on the floor above. A narrow door stood open.
Trader slowed, glancing behind, making sure that Abe was still with him.
“Smell cooking,” he said.
“Yeah. But I don’t think we have enough time to stop for breakfast, Trader.”
The barking of the dogs echoed in the dark valley below them.
“Who’s there?” A woman’s voice, shrill and querulous, spoke from inside the little house.
The woman appeared out on the path, a dozen feet ahead of them, as if she’d been propelled there from a gigantic catapult. A broom made from ragged twigs was between her legs.
And she was naked.
The long blond hair that slithered over her pendulous breasts was plaited with all manner of herbs and wild flowers. Her face was smeared with streaks of soot, and her light green eyes were wide and staring, circled with yellow paint. She rode the broom as though it were a spirited stallion.