James Axler – Starfall

With a squall of real pain and fear, the boy jerked his head back, raising a hand to his face. When his fingers came away bloody and he saw it, he screamed again.

Morse jumped to his feet, turning toward Ryan in rage. “Cawdor, what the fuck are you doing?”

“Your boy’s nose was getting too long for his own good,” Ryan said. “Took a bit of it off for him.”

Morse grabbed his boy when he came close enough, peering in consternation at the wound. Maybe a quarter inch of the boy’s nose had been removed at the end of his face, sliced cleanly, giving it a whole new tilt.

“You had no call to do that!” Morse screamed.

“Could have chilled him then and there,” Ryan said. “Still can if I want to. The boy’s eyes were wandering too much for his own good. I could have had those taken in­stead of a bit of his nose.”

Morse glowered at Ryan, then bellowed at his other son to go get water and rags.

“Use some kerosene on his nose,” Ryan said. “You don’t want infection to set in. His face’ll rot off if you’re not careful.”

Finished with her bath, and maybe self-conscious because she figured out what the event had initiated, Krysty got out of the trough, dried herself and dressed. “Ryan,” she called out when she finished.

“Be there in a little bit,” Ryan called back. “Want to take a look around first.” He turned to his son. “Dean, you go on down and get a bath.”

Dean didn’t look happy about the prospect.

“Go on,” Ryan said, “and make sure you get clean.”

Reluctantly Dean clambered down the ladder leading up to the loft. He hooked his feet on the outside edges and slid down.

No longer worried about being spotted by the sec men roving through the trading post, Ryan stepped out of the hayloft and grabbed the outer edge of the roof. He pulled himself up onto it with a smooth roll of muscle. Gaining his feet, he carefully moved across the sharply slanted roof. In winter the slant would aid in keeping snow off the roof, but now it made the way treacherous. Still, the roof got him close enough to the boardwalk around the interior of the palisade fence to jump the distance.

He landed hard, one hand still clutching the Steyr. He kept walking toward the river side of the trading post, knowing he’d drawn the attention of the roving sec men. His new boot heels gripped the rough bark of the half-cut trunks making up the boardwalk, and the sound of them hitting echoed around him. As he neared the river, he heard the thunder of it, louder than he remembered when they’d put in at the small pier at the bottom of the drop-off.

When he reached the palisade wall, he peered down.

The river had swollen a lot more since they’d arrived at the trading post. The water level was now up high enough to run over the top of the pier, spilling whitecapped runnels across the surface like a spiderweb. The boat yanked at her mooring lines and anchor, bucking restlessly, like a live thing in a trap as it sought to follow the river’s course.

Getting away from the trading post by boat was out of the question, Ryan knew. Even if Junie survived the effort, there was no guarantee that they would be able to stay aboard and work the sails.

He turned away from the river and made his way back to the barn. At the moment, they were all trapped by their needs.

He wondered what was keeping Doc.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Annie’s quarters inside the main house included a huge bathroom with a large tub. The walls maintained the same wooden finish as the rest of the house, but here scented cedars had been used, creating an atmosphere that was im­mediately different than the rest of the house.

The tub had been crafted of colorful ceramic tiles no bigger than two-inch squares, some of them broken and chipped to create the contours for the corners. The tub was over three feet deep and over nine feet across.