KRYSTY HAD BEEN STANDING on the porch, staring out into the blackness, when she spotted the small figure of Ryan’s son panting his way toward her.
Before he’d even said a word, she called out to him. “I know.”
“What? How?” He wanted to lie down and recover from the cross-country dash, but he wouldn’t let himself show any weakness in front of the tall redheaded woman.
“Felt it. Where’s Doc?”
“Following. Couldn’t keep up.”
Even in that moment of extreme tension, Krysty managed a smile. “Well, he is around two hundred years older than you, Dean. Come in and sit down and have a drink of buttermilk and tell me what happened.”
Doc arrived less than ten minutes later, having fallen a couple of times as he picked his way through the arroyo. Part of him simply wanted the security of the front door of the house being slammed and bolted behind him. Another part of him kept hearing steps following him, and his back twitched at the expectation of a steel blade plunging into his spine.
“Dean has told you all?” he asked, sitting in an armchair, legs spread in front of him, wondering how long the pains in his knees were going to persist.
“Yes. They have a rifle and two handblasters now. We have more weapons.”
Dean was at the table, his upper lip bearing a pale cream mustache from the gulped glass of buttermilk. “They’ll chill them both, then come for us.”
“Probably,” Krysty agreed. She ran her strong fingers through the curling mane of fiery hair, feeling its sentient length respond to her touch, like a thousand incandescent feathers.
“Should we turn off all of the oil lamps?” Doc suggested. “We don’t know how long it might be before they decide to pay us a visit.”
“Right.” Krysty waved to Dean to turn the wicks down, plunging the house into darkness. “Now, we have to do some serious planning.”
KRYSTY REALIZED in the next half hour just how much she had always relied on Ryan when it came to the dealing of death. She was aware that the Slaves of Sin might take it into their crazed skulls to come after them before dawn, so the three of them sat out on the porch, with their blasters drawn, talking through a variety of schemes to rescue Mildred and Jak.
But none of their ideas seemed to hold together.
“They might have chilled them by now,” Dean protested. “And us just talking.”
“You have to talk before you act,” Krysty said. “You’ve heard your father quote Trader often enough.” She hoped the eleven-year-old wouldn’t spot that she’d only just made it up.
Doc rubbed at the silvery stubble on his chin. “My belief is that they won’t have harmed them. Not yet.”
“How do you figure that?” Dean stood and walked along the weathered planks of the veranda. “You saw what that triple sicko did to one of his own people!”
“Right. That is precisely the point that I’m laboring to make, young man. Having had their fill of religious torture and murder for the night, I would believe that they won’t want to waste two fresh victims too quickly.”
“Could be right.” Krysty sighed. “Ryan always said that it was better to be active rather than passive. Go at your enemy before he goes at you.”
“Attempt to get your retaliation in first,” Doc said. “Admirable in many ways. I’m sure that Marshal Ney would have approved. As would Nathan Bedford Forrest. The firstest with the mostest.”
“But they outnumber us four to one. The one strength we have is this building.”
“Can only watch three sides from four,” Dean argued. “Still sneak up on us.”
“I know, I know. Gaia! If we go out against them, we can lose. If we stay here we can lose.”
“Let me go scout.” Dean stood close to them, his outline just visible in the moonlight that was filtered through a bank of low clouds. “I could be there and back in no time and report what’s happening.”
Krysty didn’t answer, rocking gently back and forth. Finally she said, “No, Dean. That man Simon might be as crazy as a roasted scorpion, but he’s not totally stupid. He’ll look at it like this. They have two out of the five of us safe in the bag. We know about it pretty quickly, when Mildred and Jak don’t return. What do we do? Either we go in like the cavalry and try and stage a rescue, or we hole up here.”