James Axler – Trader Redux

Not letting go of the mane with his right hand, he stretched up and grabbed hold of the animal’s pricked left ear with his own left hand. The powerful head jerked away, but he persisted, digging in his nails, pulling at it, making the horse whinny in angry, pained protest.

But it had some effect.

They veered a little toward the left, still staying on the road, but edging toward a screen of sagebrush that guarded the flank of the pasture.

Ryan tugged harder, feeling blood trickle over the velvety softness of the animal’s ear, over his own clenched fingers, down his arm.

Unable to shake him off, the horse had to follow, cutting to its left, vaulting the sagebrush as though it weren’t there. The noise of its hooves was instantly softened by the damp grass that brushed by, fetlock-high. Clouds of tiny insects, with iridescent wings, rose about them.

The horse was slowing from the full, flat-out gallop, but still going too fast for Ryan to want to risk throwing himself off his precarious perch.

The water was getting closer.

It was a large pool, roughly semicircular, fringed with tall reeds, looking to Ryan’s blurred vision to be about one hundred paces across. There was no way to judge how deep the water might be, or what kind of dangerous mutie creatures might dwell below the mirrored surface.

“Slow down, you bastard,” he grunted, hanging on desperately as the black horse tried to shy away from the tearing pain in its left ear.

Ryan banged his nose on the animal’s neck as it jerked away, bringing tears to his eye, and a trickle of crimson running down his chin.

Now the lake was very close.

As the horse reached the fringe of the water, it kicked up a rainbow spray. Ryan knew that this was going to be about as good a chance as he’d get.

“Yeah!” he shouted, letting go of the mane and the lacerated ear and bailing out.

He experienced a moment of flight, then the air became water. Ryan swallowed a huge mouthful of the large pool, nearly choking as he rolled, helplessly, over and over.

Light and dark and light again.

The fear of drowning receded as he kicked and struggled, finding that the lake was less than four feet deep. He stood, sucking in great breaths, seeing that the panicked horse had also been stopped by the water, standing belly-deep, less than twenty yards from him. It was trembling as though it had an ague, head drooping, sweat caked across its chest, a worm of blood inching down from the damaged ear.

Ryan waded out into the sweet grass and sat down to wait for the others to arrive.

“THINK WE’RE FAR ENOUGH from that howling posse?” Abe asked as he leaned forward to throw another couple of branches onto the fire.

J.B. had fieldstripped his scattergun and was carefully wiping it dry and clean with a cotton rag. “Must’ve covered eight or nine miles since we lost them. We’re way outside the ville now.”

Ryan nodded. He’d taken off most of his wet clothing, hanging them on an elaborate framework of sticks by the fire, while he kept himself warm in the afternoon sunshine, bustling around with a blanket across his shoulders, replacing the cut harness. “Agreed,” he said.

Trader was stirring some herbs that he’d gathered into a thick greenish ooze in a pot on the hot ashes at the edge of the flames. He was making himself a poultice that he swore Silver Light Feet, a Native American shaman, had shown him how to prepare, which would take away any risk of infection from the long, shallow knife wound across his ribs.

“Reckon we shouldn’t stay camped here for the night. If the sickheads really want us, they could be here in less than three hours.”

“They’ve had enough,” J.B. said.

“We thought that about the posse that nearly chilled me,” Abe insisted. “They kept coming after us and then kept on coming some more.”

They were all silent for several long seconds, each man preoccupied with trying to work out the degree of risk that they faced.

Ryan spoke first. “True, Abe.” He turned to Trader. “You were the one who taught me never to underestimate how triple stupe a vengeance gang can be.”