Brody didn’t keep tabs on the staff as tightly as he did the students. If an instructor became remiss in his or her duties, that was duly noted and addressed. He referred to the list of the missing boys. “All of these boys were a part of Mr. Solomon’s pet group, were they not?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Except for Mr. Cawdor.”
“Only kitten in a litter of skunks,” Jake agreed.
“Have you talked to Mr. Conover? I believe he was hurt yesterday morning.”
“Talked to him. Told me Mr. Solomon was running some special maneuvers last night with his group.”
“Without my authorization?”
“If you didn’t authorize it, he did it without your authorization.”
Brody placed his hands flat on the desk. “I didn’t authorize it. Could you attempt to track these people down, Jake, and would you be willing?”
“Yes, sir,” the sec man answered. “On both counts. But it’s going to take considerable from the sec crew here, and I’ll probably have to hire in some help from Leadville. Got some hardcases there do odd jobs when the jack’s right.”
Brody didn’t like the idea of dealing with fiddle-footed ruffians, but circumstances had left him lacking in choices. “I’ll defer to your esteemed judgment in that matter, Jake, and I’ll place whatever amount of jack you need at your disposal whenever you say. As far as the sec around this institution, we’ll limp along without you for the time it takes. Just bring those boys back safe and sound.”
The sec man nodded and clapped on his hat. “I’ll see it done, sir.”
Brody watched the man go and tried not to think of what might be happening to the missing boys. God forbid that he should have to tell any of their parents that he’d failed to protect them as he’d promised. Especially Dean Cawdor’s father. He’d heard numerous stories about the way the man had left Leadville after dropping off his son.
The man wasn’t forgiving, Brody knew. Rather, Ryan Cawdor was the epitome of a mythological Greek warrior camouflaged in flesh and blood.
SUNDOWN HAD BEGUN in earnest as Ryan reached the foothills of the low mountains surrounding Honey Lake. The dry heat of the Smoke Creek Desert had sapped him all day long, drawing the moisture from his body. Now, with the long shadows of night coming on, the wind blew cold, erasing the desert’s heat.
The sound of chanting off to his left, brought to his ears by the wind, sent him diving for cover. He waved the rest of the companions to cover behind rocks and boulders.
The chanting grew steadily louder, filled with ululating wails that seemed a cross between agony and ecstasy. Dozens of voices, male and female, young and old, took up the hue and cry.
Ryan took out his night glasses and trained them in the direction of the chanting. The land fell away from his position, settling into a bowl-shaped depression where a handful of camp fires burned embers against the night. Tens of dimly lit figures surrounded the fires, chanting, none of them really hitting a harmony or a tempo. All of them were gazing up at the starry sky.
“Muties, lover,” Krysty said, crawling up on her elbows next to him.
Ryan nodded, trailing his night glasses over the rad-blasted stick figures clad in tatters of human clothing and animal pelts. Many of them were nearly bald or were patchy from the radiated lands they’d spent years in. None of them had any weapons beyond a club or a knife, though some wore cow and buffalo skulls on their heads as armor. A few others had worked rib bones into decorative chest protectors.
All of them were misshapen from leftover nuclear bombardment, covered with scabs and weeping, open sores that leaked vile green pus. Most of them looked to be scabbies, but there were a few stickies among them.
“Odd to see so many different kinds of muties gathered together in the middle of nowhere,” Krysty whispered.
“Yeah,” Ryan replied quietly. “And causing all this noise seems out of place, too. Draw down the bigger predators on them in no time.” He glanced back toward the others and waved them forward, signaling to Jak and J.B. that they were to come quietly.