James Axler – Road Wars

She was crying.

“Bastards,” she said. “Those drunk bastards. Deserved what they got.”

J.B. was looking at the backs of the buildings of the main street of Wetherill Springs. “Won’t be long before they recover their courage and come out here. And blow away you, your daughters and the animals.” He paused. “And probably me and Ryan. Best move fast.”

Ryan nodded. “Armorer’s right, Ellie. The tiger’s finished. You can see that. No reason to lose the other animals as well. Never mind the risk to all of us. Come on.”

Nell shouted from the barred wag as she slammed home the iron bolt to lock in Balthazar and Rosa. Both animals were slobbered with blood. “Move it, Ma!”

There were already blowflies gorging themselves on the flayed, disemboweled body of the big buffalo hunter who’d started the massacre.

Ryan noticed that the bald barkeep was among the dead, lying facedown in a pool of crimsoned mud. Unlike most of the other corpses, he didn’t seem to have been raggled and torn by the wild beasts.

The metal jackbox was missing, and he guessed that someone in the screaming mob must have picked it up and taken it into the Shangri-La for safekeeping. He was slightly surprised that anyone would have had so much presence of mind in the face of the ravening big cats.

His eye was caught by something on the back of the man’s black vest and he stooped to look at it. A thread of bright turquoise silk was caught in a deep, narrow cut, below the barkeep’s left shoulder. The wound didn’t look much like a claw or a bite. Much more as though the man had been stabbed.

But that wasn’t Ryan’s business.

His business was simply keeping himself and J.B. alive, in a situation that was threatening to become positively terminal at any moment.

“We’re getting our wag,” he said to the kneeling woman. “Got to go.”

“Do it for me, Ryan.” she said, lifting her tear-stained face to his. “Please.”

“Rajah?”

“Do it.”

J.B. was already moving out of the orchard of death, toward where they’d parked the LAV. “Move it, Ryan. They’re goin’ to be pissing steam when they come out.”

“Please,” Ellie begged. “Then we can go.”

“All right.”

The three daughters were waiting. The engines of their wags were fired up, exhausts smoking.

Ryan stood over the dying tiger and pressed the barrel of the SIG-Sauer against the side of its skull, just behind the right ear. “Best move,” he said to the woman. “Full-metal jacket could easily go clean through and into you, Ellie.”

She kissed the tiger on the forehead, lowering it gently to the floor. “Goodbye, Rajah.”

“Now?” Ryan asked.

“Now.”

The blaster had its own built-in baffle silencer, developed during the arms races of the late nineties. But extended use meant it didn’t work quite as efficiently as it once had. Even so, the fur and flesh of the tiger acted to muffle the noise of the explosion as Ryan squeezed the trigger.

There was a tiny flicker of pale fire as the muzzle-flash ignited the golden fur. To Ryan’s alarm, the effect of the 9 mm round was spectacular.

Rajah gave a coughing roar and exploded into the air, one of his rear paws knocking Ryan flat in the dirt. The tiger’s powerful body tensed in midair, as taut as a bowstring, its muscular neck arched, blood gouting from its open jaws. A rainbow of rank urine jetted from the big cat.

By the time it dropped to earth, it was quite dead.

Ellie managed a half smile for Ryan. “Thanks.” She sniffled and wiped her nose on her brocaded sleeve. “Meet ten miles north of town, if you want,” she said.

J.B. HAD THE six-cylinder turbocharged engine warmed up as Ryan ran toward it. Someone had screamed incoherent abuse at him as he passed along an alley behind the saloon, but he hadn’t been able to catch what had been said.

Now he was only a few yards from the wag, ready to vault on top and slide into the safety of the turret.

He never heard the blaster. Dirt and pebbles exploded by his boots, followed by the dying whine of a ricochet bouncing off the armor. Ryan saw the bright splash of lead, just above the second set of wheels.