J.R had heard the bullet pinging against the outside of the wag, and he revved the throttle hard. He’d been able to glimpse Ryan running toward him through one of the viewers, giving him three-sixty vision from the driver’s seat.
Ryan jinked left, then left again, seeing more bullets hitting the packed earth to his right. He was so close to the wag that it wasn’t worth trying to draw the SIG-Sauer and return the fire. His instinctive guess was that the shooting was probably coming from the upper stories of the buildings, while the first-floor doors were blockaded against the threat of the merciless carnivores of Mistress Satana.
The Armorer put the LAV-25 into first gear and started to swing it around to the left, trying to give his comrade cover from the shooting. He also brought the Bushmaster cannon to bear on the ramshackle houses, offering a realistic threat to the band of hidden snipers, even though they were completely out of ammo for the huge blaster. But the enraged inhabitants of Wetherill Springs didn’t know that.
Ryan cut back right again, jumping for the body of the wag, feeling his hands slip, leaving his legs dangling, brushing against the ribbed tread of one of the tires. He fought for a grip, speeded up by a bullet hitting the metal less than two inches from his scrabbling fingers.
He was looking back over his shoulder as he battled to heave himself up, finally reaching the side of the turret, where the swinging barrel of the blaster nearly knocked him back off again.
“Shit.” He slid under the muzzle, feeling like the target in a crazy shooting gallery. Now he could hear the blasters, see bursts of powder smoke from what looked like every window of every building in the pesthole ville.
Ryan glimpsed the wags of the Kissoon family in the distance, moving at a steady rate toward the north, keeping clear of the main drag of the ville. As far as he could see, nobody was firing in their direction, reserving all their bullets for him.
“Get in, Ryan!” J.R’s voice cracked with the tension.
“I’m trying!” He rested a hand on the open hatch and slid down without his feet touching the rungs of the ladder.
It was like being inside a metal drum while a lunatic banged an irregular beat on the outside with a baseball bat. Ryan reached up and closed the hatch, swinging across the locking latch and picking up the phones and throat mike.
“I’m in.”
“Hit?”
“No.”
“Hatch?”
“Shut. Let’s get out this place, J.B., before some bright son of a bitch has the idea of putting a blockade around us and then lighting a big bonfire.”
The rotation had stopped, and Ryan heard the Armorer selecting a higher gear. They began to move forward. The ob slit in front of Ryan showed a tall, unpainted fence, which crashed over as they collided with it.
Eventually the firing faded away, and there was only the sound of the thirsty engine and the wheels, rumbling over the blacktop north.
THEY FOUND THEMSELVES behind the traveling animal show after only a mile or so. J.B. throttled back so that they could act as rearguard if anyone came out of Wetherill Springs after them. Ryan had opened up the hatch again, relishing the fresh afternoon sunshine and the smell of the pines around them. He kept a careful look behind, but there was no sign of any pursuit.
After nearly half an hour, the wags ahead of them signaled they were turning off into a scenic overlook and the LAV followed them.
Chapter Seventeen
“We owe you two.”
“What for?” Ryan asked.
Ellie stood in front of him and J.B., her face still pale from the recent ordeal and the shock of Rajah’s death.
“You helped us.”
“We didn’t even pull a trigger once.” J.B. wiped road dirt off his glasses.
“Didn’t need to,” Nell said. “Just by being there you gave us support.”
“It was the lions and the tiger that saved your bacon.” Ryan whistled between his teeth. “I suggest you don’t ever go within a hundred miles of Wetherill Springs again.”
“And keep away from buffalo hunters,” the Armorer added. “Some of them got long memories.”