Trader straightened, wincing and holding the small of his back. “Bastard rheumatiz! Not a thing worth removing from these stupe kids.”
J.B. had brushed himself down, taking off his spectacles and peering closely at the lenses, making sure they hadn’t been muddied or scratched by his fall. He replaced them on the narrow bridge of his nose, then checked the action of the Uzi.
“I hear right?” Trader asked.
“What?” Ryan had also reloaded his SIG-Sauer P-226 with two more rounds of 9 mm ammo, slotting them into the mag with its push-button release.
“They say they ran a ranch?”
“They told us they had horses,” Abe said excitedly. “Could use transport to get us down to New Mexico.”
“If that’s where we’re going.” Trader gazed at Ryan, his face showing no hint of any emotion.
The one-eyed man knew his old leader, knew that this was one of his typical tests. He was pushing to see what sort of a response he’d get from Ryan.
“It’s where I’m going,” he replied. “Not saying you have to come along.”
Trader threw back his head and gave a short, barking laugh. “Haven’t changed, you son of a bitch, Ryan! Let’s go find this spread and then we can talk.”
Chapter Two
By midafternoon they’d found the ranch, precisely where the two teenagers had described it.
Trader ordered a careful approach, in case of a further trap. He went around the back to the left, with Ryan doing the same from the north. J.B. and Abe worked their way up the main trail, past a stubbled field, a pair of barns, an empty corral and a neatly maintained vegetable garden to the white frame house that stood foursquare on the side of a gentle hill. Smoke seeped from its chimney.
But there was nobody home.
Trader kicked in the back door, Armalite at the ready, Ryan covering him from behind a water trough four inches thick in ice. The others waited for the shout, hunkered down at the side of the larger barn.
A rich stew simmered slowly on the stove, great chunks of meat, so sinewy that they all agreed it had to be buffalo, with carrots and pieces of unidentifiable root vegetables. There was fresh bread in the larder and a crock of butter. Jars of preserves and pickles lined the shelves in the cool walk-in pantry, and a smoked ham dangled from an iron hook.
“Never seen such a tidy house,” Abe said. “Curtains are clean and there’s spotless sheets on the beds. Everywhere polished so you can see your face.”
There was a stripped-pine dresser that looked at least two hundred years old, with a set of matching crockery. A drawer in the kitchen table filled with silver-mounted cutlery. Glasses twinkled on another shelf, along with a row of sized copper pans.
“Dark night!” J.B. laid his fedora on one of the chairs, shaking his head as he looked around. “Just the neatest place I ever saw.”
Ryan was admiring a row of rifles and shotguns, each on its own set of brackets, alongside a superb wall clock that he reckoned was even older than the dresser.
“Wish Krysty and the others were with us,” he said. “And Doc. They’d all appreciate this.”
Trader sat on a maroon chaise longue, resting his muddied boots on a fringed white cushion. “Could stay here a few days. Plenty of food.”
“I want to get back to New Mexico as soon as we can,” Ryan said.
“We’ll see about that, Ryan.”
“No. Best get this sorted now, Trader. I can’t tell you what it means to me, and to J.B. here, to meet up with you again after all those long months. But the tide’s been in and out a few times. No war wags with crews to back us up, parked around the last bend in the highway. Right here and now there’s just the four of us.”
The silence stretched on and on.
Ryan stared at Trader, unwilling to shift his gaze, knowing from long experience that the older man would interpret it as a sign of weakness.
“Ryan’s right, Trader,” J.B. added.
“Now which one is the bear and which one is tugging on the bear’s chain?” Trader asked, nodding to himself. “Guess it never mattered much, and it doesn’t matter much now.” He stood and took two steps toward Ryan, then stopped and sniffed. “Likely we’ll talk about this again, soon. But for now, I think I’m going to put a light to that pile of logs waiting in the hearth there.”