“And he has Mildred,” J.B. put in. “Kind of makes everything personal,” He cleaned his glasses and put them back on, the steel rims hard and shiny. “We aren’t going to leave without her.”
“We’re going to take Kirkland on,” Ryan said, “because we don’t have a choice. If we chill him, that’s fine, but it’s going to be because it happened, not because we planned on it.”
Anna sat back from the table. Her right hand was below the table, out of sight.
Ryan didn’t doubt for a moment that the woman had a blaster on him, just as he knew J.B. had her covered while he sat beside her. “If you people want your freedom—or this ville as your own—that’s up to you. Fireblast! You’re still going to have to go through Kirkland’s sec team to do it.”
“Man’s right,” Phillips said. “It isn’t his fight. Never was. Never will be.” He massaged his hump. “How do you plan on getting the woman back?”
Ryan swiveled his gaze to the old gunsmith. “I’m going to have to take a hand in Kirkland’s game. If we try to run, I don’t see that we’re going to get past his sec team without getting run to ground. Even with horses.”
“So what do you have in mind?”
“Make him bring his sec force back into the ville to contain an insurrection,” Ryan answered. “Provided you can persuade a few people to join up.”
Phillips shook his head. “Don’t see how that’s possible. There’s the plague to consider.”
“The plague’s a damn lie,” Ryan growled.
“I got your word on that,” Phillips said, “and I’m mostly willing to believe you. But those people out there, they’ve seen plague victims come in for a few years. They believe. Give me a week or so, mebbe I could make believers out of them. But not in one night. And we’ve only got half of that left.”
Ryan pushed up from the table. “I don’t aim to wait, Tinker. Kirkland’s going to shove it right up to the line in the morning, and I’m not going to back down from him. You want to make a difference, you’ll be ready to take a stand, too.”
Phillips shook his head. “Got to think about that.”
“You do that,” Ryan said. “I’ve got to get back to my people. J.B.?”
“I’ll be along in a bit. Another hour or two, and I’ll have enough shotgun loads for the M-4000 to last for a while.” He looked up at Ryan. “If you hear anything about Mildred—”
“I’ll come myself,” Ryan promised.
“You going looking?”
“If Doc comes up with something we can work on.”
“You’ll let me know?”
“Any way it goes, you’ll be the next man I tell,” Ryan answered. He took his leave from the gun shop, feeling the heat of the woman’s angered gaze.
In a way she was right. He was thinking only of his own skin. And knowing that didn’t feel comfortable.
He walked out onto the boardwalk, making certain the dead deputy across the street hadn’t been replaced. There was a time when he rode with the Trader on War Wag One he might have taken a firmer stance in Hazard. The Trader wouldn’t have put up with what was going on in the ville.
Any way it went down in the morning—if things saw fit to wait that long—there would be more than a few people catching the last train to the coast.
DOC MANAGED the recoil from the Le Mat with a little trouble. He’d squeezed off the shot before he was truly ready, and there had been the matter of footing. Still he readied another blast as the echoes of the first slammed against his eardrums in the tight confines of the room.
One of the two men broke away from the second trapdoor above, screaming hoarsely that he was hit and bleeding badly. The second man shoved the snout of a revolver into the hole and squeezed off rounds as fast as he could.
Doc dodged back, feeling one of the bullets yank at his coattails, creating another mending job for a time when things were decidedly calmer.
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