The 9 mm hollowpoint rounds drove the man back, slamming him back through the brush. He stumbled and fell to the ground, sitting with his back to a warped oak tree.
Dean moved forward, the Browning leveled at his target. The man struggled to bring up his weapon. Dean fired again, centering the round between the man’s eyes. His face went bloody as his brain evacuated his skull and plastered the tree bole behind him. The corpse gave a spasmodic jerk and released the long blaster.
Staying careful and alert, Dean reached the corpse and kicked the weapon aside. The missing fragments of the man’s head assured that he’d never be back in this life, but Dean had seen too many people with a strain of mutie blood in them that rewired nervous systems. Folks who should have been dead got stubborn about it, like a snake with its head chopped off. He stripped away two handblasters, as well, tossing them to one side. The stink of blood filled the air. Mosquitoes descended in a swarm, settling over the bloody stumps of the man’s skull. Night crawlers slithered through the brush and across the ground. A fat, toad-looking creature plopped from the tree overhead and dropped onto the corpse’s face. Extending a prehensile tongue into the open mouth, it started feasting on the spilled blood.
“Dean?” Jak called softly.
“Yeah.” Dean went through the corpse’s pockets, his quick fingers identifying objects before his eyes could cut through the darkness.
“You chill him?”
“That’s an ace on the line.” One of the shirt pockets yielded a handful of 9 mm ammo that would fit the Browning. Dean appropriated it and shoved it into a pocket.
“You do, you tell. Get ass shot off, you no yell out.” Jak sounded irritated.
“Forgot.” Dean continued his search, turning up a fancy vinyl case not much bigger than his hand.
“Read nice on grave marker,” Jak offered. “Ryan pretty pissed off have to write it, though.”
“Okay, okay,” Dean said. “I get the message. Get off my back.” He popped the lock tabs on the small vinyl case. A small collection of feathered darts lay on a sponge pad, sheathed by leather straps. “Hot pipe! I found something here.”
“What?”
“Darts for those compressed-air guns.” Dean held one up against the full face of the moon. The liquid trapped inside the thin glass walls glowed vile amber.
“Tranks,” Jak suggested. “Shoot. Make go sleep.”
Dean looked at the liquid in the dart shell. “I don’t think so. Mebbe we got something a little nastier here. Those men opened up on us without warning. I don’t think they were intending to take us back to Hazard.”
“Got one here. Ask him.”
“Be there in a minute.” Dean finished up his search, turning up a box of 9 mm reloads in a thigh pocket of the dead man’s pants, a metal box of self-lights that looked waterproof and a packet of jolt. “We’ll ask him together.” He put the packet of jolt into his pocket. None of the companions used the narcotic, but in a lot of places it could be used in the place of jack for trade. Of course, a man had to watch his back when trading in those places.
Dean picked up the two handblasters he’d tossed aside and discovered one of them was a compressed-air pistol. He examined it in the moonlight. The pistol was a single-action, requiring a dart to be loaded into the breech each time it was fired. When he pulled the bolt back, he saw that it was empty.
Taking the pistol and the vinyl case of darts, he went back to join Jak. He reloaded the Browning’s magazine from the loose 9 mm rounds in his pocket. Firelight from the burning man on the ground played over the albino, his captured horse and his hostage.
“Anybody else?” Dean asked.
“No.” Jak nodded toward the man on the saddle in front of him. “Cover.”
Dean leveled the Browning, making the man flinch. “Sure. I got him.”
“He tries run, shoot legs, dick, not head or chest. Only need him live for little while.” Jak shoved the hostage to the ground. The horse, relieved of its burden and already spooked, reared and snorted in fear at the new sound. It tried to run, but the albino kept it under control.
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