“Hard traveling.” Ryan shifted his burden.
“There ain’t no other kind.” Max ran the whetstone across the ax’s edge again. “Don’t worry about the price. Annie’ll be fair with you.”
RYAN SPOTTED Dean in the barn’s hayloft while he was sixty yards out. The boy had snuggled down in the loose straw there and was nearly invisible in the camouflage he’d chosen. Ryan hadn’t even seen the glint of gunmetal in the retiring afternoon sun.
Dean gave him a small wave as he got nearer, somehow knowing his father had seen him. Ryan lifted his chin and dropped it quickly, acknowledging the wave. The hayloft was a good choice for posting security. With its back and left side put up nearly against the palisade wall, the only attack that could come from inside the trading post could be covered from the hayloft.
The smell of fresh horse dung greeted Ryan as he strode into the barn. He noticed at once that the survivors from the coldhearts in Idaho Falls had separated themselves from the companions. Morse and his sons formed another small pocket against the wall opposite the horse paddocks. Elmore was the odd man out and obviously not happy about it. Jak kept him under guard, the albino sitting back on his haunches less than twenty feet from him.
“Did you get everything we needed, lover?” Krysty asked, coming up to help Ryan with the packages.
She looked washed out, thinner than he’d ever remembered. Dark circles hung under her emerald eyes. And for the first time since he’d known her, her sentient hair didn’t lie neatly in place. The strands were kinked in places, and uneven.
“Everything they had that we could use,” Ryan answered. He started passing the ammo out first, then parceled out the new clothing.
Mildred poured another bucket of water into the horse trough she’d selected to use as a bath. She’d laid a fire along one side of it, burned it down to coals so the heat would be there without an abundance of flames. “I filled it,” she said, “so I get the first one.”
No one argued with her.
J.B. took the bucket from her hands. “I’ll finish filling if you want to get in.”
Mildred started stripping off. The horse trough was partially shielded from view in one of the paddocks, out of sight of the Idaho Falls people. When she was naked, she stepped into the water, lying back gingerly. She sighed in satisfaction as she immersed herself. “Don’t bring that water on too fast, John,” she instructed. “Water’s feeling just short of too hot, and after all this traveling, I don’t want to miss out on it.”
J.B. worked the pump handle and quickly filled the bucket with only a few short strokes. “Well water,” he told Ryan. The Armorer dipped his fingers into the bucket and tasted them. “Heavy mineral content, and cold as a gaudy slut’s heart in January.”
“It’s not coming in off the river, then,” Ryan said.
J.B. shook his head, agreeing.
“Means they tapped an underground stream feeding into the river.” Ryan sat on a small farrier’s bench only a few inches off the ground. He stretched his legs out before him. Tapping the underground stream in more than one place, because he was sure there was at least one or two other hand pumps located in the main house, meant the trading post had no shortage of water. It could literally seal itself off from the rest of the world for months.
At least, they could do that as long as the walls held. Thinking of that, though, reminded Ryan of Annie’s mystery guest who’d taken up both guest houses. The thought coiled uneasily through his mind.
“What are you thinking about, lover?” Krysty sat cross-legged across from Ryan.
“Staying or going,” Ryan answered in a low voice. “Trying to figure out which would be less likely to get us chilled.” He gestured at the clothing before him, then broke open one of the boxes of 9 mm ammo and started filling his extra clips for the SIG-Sauer. “They didn’t take any jack for this stuff. Said we’d settle up later.”
“Jak and Dean ran a head count on the people here at the trading post,” Krysty said. “Besides Annie and her son, there’s nearly thirty other men and women here at the trading post.”