The path swung down into a dry arroyo with a lazy serpentine motion. Pebbles rattled noisily beneath the Land Rover’s wheels and chassis. J.B. suddenly slowed the vehicle to a crawl, hitting the brakes and downshifting.
It was late afternoon, with sunlight slanting through the dust. Children played in the warmth, mothers lay upon old mattresses on the ridge, dogs yapped and bounded all about.
The children, unnerved by the lion roar of the wag’s engine, ran squalling up the sides of the bank. Their mothers beckoned to them and stared at the wag with a combination of fear, hostility and open curiosity.
“I think this is the place,” Ryan stated.
J.B. urged the vehicle another two hundred feet into the arroyo and braked. The mothers and children stood above them on the edge of the ridge and stared down.
Turning to Krysty, Ryan asked, “Feel anything, lover?”
She narrowed her green eyes. “Not danger exactly, but certainly no friendliness. Curiosity mainly. Want me to get out and talk to them?”
“No, I’ll make the contact,” Ryan said, holstering his blaster. “Keep the engine running and your fingers on the triggers. Orange alert.”
Opening the door, Ryan stepped out, hands held well away from the butt of his blaster. One of the women was closer than the others. She was a slim, curly haired female dressed in a ragged shift with the hemline at her upper thighs. A little boy was trying to crawl up one of her legs.
“Afternoon,” said Ryan, pasting a friendly smile on his face.
The woman only nodded.
“Is this the way to Helskel?”
She nodded again.
“How far?”
She parted her pale lips. Her voice was creaky, as if she were unaccustomed to using it. “Half a mile. Less.”
“Thanks. Do you know a man named Zadfrak? We’re looking for his family.”
The woman’s small eyes suddenly narrowed. “Why?”
Before Ryan could answer, a whip crack split the air, and a fountain of dirt erupted from the arroyo floor a foot in front of him. Even as the dust spurted, Ryan hinged backward against the wag, the SIG-Sauer springing from its holster into his hand.
To jump back inside the Land Rover would require a couple of seconds, an eternity in which he would be exposed to bullets. Crouching behind one of the armored flanges protecting the wheel wells, Ryan peered up at the lip of the ridge. He saw the woman and children scuttling away.
The gun ports opened in the wag, and he heard the rear door handle turning. “No,” he commanded sternly. “Everyone stay inside.”
A second shot winged past, buzzing like a furious bee. Ryan looked over the wheel well, tracking for a target. He was angry at Zadfrak. He should have warned them to expect an attack, but then again, the one-eyed man should have expected one, as well. Ambushes were part and parcel of life in Deathlands.
A third steel-jacketed bullet spanged off the wag’s heavy metal hide, leaving a shiny smear on the bodywork to commemorate its impact.
“Hey, you crazy bastards!” Ryan shouted. “I’m not impressed!”
There was a rustling from the brush at the crest of the arroyo’s bank, and a hoarse voice inquired, “You armed?”
“Of course.”
“What do you want?”
“We’re returning a favor. Got a sick man here who says he’s from Helskel. We’re bringing him home.”
“What’s his name?”
“Zadfrak.”
There was a long period of silence, then Ryan could hear faint whispers. The voice shouted, “Okay, it’s cowboy time. Stand up, blaster by the barrel.”
The six-inch barrel of Jak’s Colt Python protruded from the gun port over his head, and Ryan heard the youth say, “Got in my sights. Three men rifles.”
Ryan stood slowly, holding his blaster by the barrel. As if waiting for a cue, three men broke out of the shrubbery at the lip of the ridge. Their beards and long hair were matted with dust and twigs, and they wore the ragged remnants of shorts. Battered tennis shoes covered their feet, and though their rifles looked as if they had seen better days, they used them carefully to cover him and the wag.
A burly man with a mass of curly dark hair confined by a leather thong leapt down the bank, cradling a bolt-action Remington mountain rifle in his arms. Though he was grinning, his eyes held the alert, wary look of a half-wild animal.