Trader reached out suddenly and pulled both men to him, hugging them with a fierce grip. “Couldn’t have chosen better company for this,” he said, his voice nearly breaking with emotion. “Not even if I’d planned it.”
Ryan nodded. “Thing is, Trader, if you had planned it, then it would have turned out better than this.”
All three of them laughed, stopping as they heard howling from the hunting posse, a little farther down the hillside.
“Here they come, friends,” J.B. said, levering a round under the hammer of the scattergun.
“Take some of the bastards with us.” Ryan stood foursquare and waited, holding the SIG-Sauer loosely by his side.
After the initial yelling, to build up its own courage, the gang advanced in silence, more slowly, none of them keen to be the first at the tower.
In that menacing stillness, it was J.B. who first heard the noise.
“There’s horses coming.”
Ryan moved to the gap, keeping out of any line of fire, listening. “Yeah, I can hear harness jingling. Wheels rattling on the blacktop.”
“Abe?” Trader gave a whoop of delight. “Well, that runty little son of a bitch came through.”
“Best get out there to give him some cover.” The Armorer squinted around the broken door. “Friends down the hill’ve heard it. But they can’t see him yet. The rig’s behind us, still in dead ground.”
Now the sound of the hearse was much louder, Abe whooping at the leaders, cracking his whip, lashing at the backs of the team with the reins.
Ryan was first out, J.B. giving Trader a supporting hand into the open.
He heard a cry of anger, and a musket boomed, but the ball flew high and wide of them, striking chips of stone from the top of the old tower.
Once he was around the corner, Ryan saw the hearse, speeding toward them, like some creation out of a horror vidthe black horses, with their hooves striking fire from the pavement, the polished glass hearse gleaming in the morning sunlight. Abe saw him and stood on the box, flourishing the long whip, the swaying of the rig nearly throwing him off.
Ryan waved a hand to him, turning and firing two careful rounds from the automatic at the rushing mob, seeing the pair of men at the head both go down, rolling into the gutter in a tangle of arms and legs.
“Nice,” Trader said dryly, as he hobbled past Ryan, taking cover with the Armorer behind the flank of the building. “I’ll have a piece of the action with this” he held up the Armalite, “before we get out of this place.”
Abe was wrestling with the galloping, foaming horses. For a dreadful moment it looked to Ryan like the little gunner had completely lost control and was going to simply gallop past them, ending up in the middle of the posse.
But Abe pulled it off, slowing the team and starting to swing them around in a wide circle in the graveled drive of the water tower.
“Good man, Abe!” Trader shouted.
“Company down the hill,” Ryan called, running to open the rear door. “Trader’s taken a hit. Soon as we have him aboard, light out for the country.”
A high-velocity rifle bullet whined off the blacktop, less than a yard from the rear wheels of the rig, the noise making one of the horses buck and rear.
Abe stayed up on the box, fighting for control. He looked over his shoulder, watching as the Armorer unlatched the rear door of the hearse and, helped by Ryan, heaved Trader inside.
“Leave it open,” the old man yelled. “I can slow the fuckheads down from here.”
“Whip ’em up, Abe!” Ryan shouted, standing for a few moments in the classic pistol-shootist’s stance, arm extended, looking down the barrel of the SIG-Sauer. He fired several carefully spaced rounds at the advancing mob, putting down at least three men, sending the others scattering to find cover among the bushes and trees.
J.B. climbed quickly onto the box alongside Abe, hanging on the side rail, waiting for Ryan to join them.
The little gunner was poised, whip in hand, watching as the one-eyed man swung onto the foot plate. He didn’t try to climb up alongside J.B. and Abe, knowing that he would only have impeded the driving of the team.