If they lived long enough to find out.
Ryan fell silent once more, trying to work the previous night’s sequence of events in his own mind into a semblance of logic. If he was going to lose the woman he loved, there had to be a reason beyond blind, stupid luck and a lost contact mine.
“What do we do now?” Mildred wondered aloud.
“No way to paddle. No oars.” Dean was sullen. “Guess we could swim back to shore.”
“Excuse the hell out of me for not packing oars,” J.B. growled. “I was busy finding us a safe way off the boat.”
“Too busy to grab some chow?” Dean queried.
“What? More of those shitty crackers? I didn’t see you snatching up stuff in the galley, Dean,” J.B. retorted. “You were clinging to Doc’s ass with both hands last time I looked.”
“The lad was merely giving me a push,” Doc protested.
“Enough!” Mildred ordered. “Not another peep, John! That goes for you, too, Dean. Doesn’t matter who got what and what was left behind.”
“At least everyone did have presence of mind to hang on to their blasters,” J.B. said grudgingly.
“Lot of good that does us now,” Dean grumbled. “Can’t eat bullets.”
“Bullets can chill your scrawny hide,” J.B. said.
“Bickering isn’t going to help a thing,” Mildred told them.
“Dean’s right. There’s no food, except for the emergency jerky rations in our pockets. No water, except what’s left in the canteens. Face it, people. We’re fucked blue,” Ryan said wearily.
The sound of defeat in the one-eyed man’s voice was much more upsetting than their current status. If Ryan was giving up, there was no hope for any of them.
“Bullshit, Dad,” Dean said. “That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you say to me?” Ryan asked.
“I said, bullshit. We’re not dead yet. You’re the one who always told me to not give up until I was six feet under. Well, I’m not, and neither are you,” Dean said angrily. “So, I’m not. I’m just griping because I’m hungry, and even some stale crackers would taste good right now.”
Ryan pondered that one for a long moment.
“I must be getting old,” he said finally. “You’re right, son. We’re not dead yet.”
“I do not want to hear a word about you claiming to be old, Ryan,” Doc said. “You have no earthly idea.”
‘What do we do?” J.B. asked.
“Nothing. For now. What can we do?” Ryan said. “But I’m not giving up yet.”
RYAN WAS HALF-ASLEEP and wanted to escape by dreaming. His body was drenched in warm sweat. There was no relief from the hellish sun that was now directly overhead and pounding down on the lost and drained group in the raft.
He was still too awake to dream. He wasn’t fully immersed in the type of REM sleep that would normally have kept him deep inside the images his mind was replaying, and he stirred restlessly.
Once again he was in the sea near the rapidly sinking Patch, attempting to find Krysty and Jak after they had been lost, but all he was surfacing with was handfuls of water. He couldn’t see a thing either above or below the waves, not even where the boat had been before he leaped into the churning waters. He knew his lifeline was secure as long as it was being held by J.B., so he went down and came up again and again, diving into the gloom and reaching out with both hands for an arm or a leg, but there was nothing to wrap his fingers around and save.
That was the way the search had ended—with empty hands.
A groggy Ryan opened his eye and half closed it again to escape the sunlight.
There was no way to cheat this one as he had cheated the odds so many times before, no way to pull a hidden weapon or signal a backup, no way to outthink or outfight a storm. Ryan had no control of nature, no way to smell a hidden bomb while wrestling in the middle of such weather.
She was gone. Krysty was gone, along with Jak. Ryan could feel no sense of loss for the athletic young albino, at least not now. The loss of Jak would be dealt with in time. Ryan had lost other loved ones and could still summon up an ache in his psyche for them when he dwelled in that forlorn section of his soul. Jak would join other companions that had been sacrificed to Deathlands. His bravery, his courage, his always dependable loyalty wouldn’t be forgotten.