“Didn’t get any shells for the M-4000,” J.B. announced. He squatted next to Ryan with the shotgun across his knees. He was a wiry man scarcely more than five and a half feet tall. He kept his hair cut short and wore a battered fedora.
“They didn’t seem to favor shotguns,” Ryan said.
“Our bad luck.” J.B. removed his steel-rimmed glasses and wiped them clean on his shirt. “Hey, Albert.”
The dwarf looked up, still nervous in spite of the fact that the companions had let him live for the past forty minutes. “Yeah.”
“Hazard got anything in the way of an armory?” J.B. asked.
“They got Tinker Phillips and his boys,” Albert replied.
“What kind of hardware do they deal in?”
“He kept Liberty and his group supplied. Tinker’s pretty good with most weapons. He’s got a shop hooked up next to the blacksmith’s. His brother runs that, but they share the forge. Out here in this country, a man needs a blaster and a horse.”
Ryan silently agreed with that. He’d watched over the nearby surroundings since the ambush and had seen no signs of any interest.
“We can go back to the redoubt, lover,” Krysty said. She stood on the other side of Ryan. Dean and Mildred were taking care of security for the moment. “Mebbe make another jump and take our chances there. Or we can avoid Hazard altogether and live off the land.”
“With either of those choices,” Ryan said, “we need to be better equipped than we are now to handle ourselves. The ville’s the only sure way to get the things we need to restock. We’re almost flat out of self-heats and ring-pulls, and if we can’t eat and drink when we need to travel light and quiet for a while, we’re in trouble.”
“I know.”
“Ville’s best bet,” Jak agreed. He sifted through the assortment of knives the gang had carried. Most he threw away, but some of them he saved.
Ryan knew from experience that the albino was interested only in the blades he could break apart and use to make more of the leaf-bladed throwing knives he’d lost in North Carolina. There wasn’t always time to recover them during the heat of battle.
He pushed himself to his feet as a dark shadow skated across the ground in front of him. When he looked up, he saw another crow had joined the ones that patiently waited in the trees above.
He checked the sun. After the jump into Kentucky, he’d adjusted his chron according to darkfall the first night, but he didn’t know how accurate the time was. “Let’s finish it, get something to eat and get on the road.”
He raised his voice. “Albert.”
“Yeah,” the dwarf replied.
“The way I got it figured, the ville’s about a couple hours away on foot.”
“Mebbe a little less if you really stretch your legs.”
“How do they feel about people coming into the ville at night?”
“As long as you’re with me,” the little man said, “I reckon you’ll be fine.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do.” Ryan took up a portion of the gear they’d salvaged and hid it away in his clothing. He’d filled his extra magazines with the 9 mm ammo they’d found, as had Dean and the Armorer. The .38 Special ammo used in Krysty’s and Mildred’s weapons had proved plentiful, and J.B. had been the first to point out the cartridges had been reloads. Even before Albert had told them about the gunshop in the ville, they’d had an idea. There hadn’t been too many .357 cartridges for Jak’s blaster, but the cylinder easily accepted the .38 cartridges. They just packed less bite for the change.
They left the dead where they lay and went up on the hill. Crows dropped on the bodies before the companions even made it out of the clearing.
“Sure made a hell of a mess in these trees,” J.B. commented as they hunkered down at the crest. He gazed at the broken branches left by the tree trunk they’d hidden for their trap.
Ryan sat on his haunches and took a ring-pull from his pack. He pulled it open and drank half the contents, then passed it over to Krysty. “Main thing is it worked.”