The Armorer tried to pull the animal up short, but it was nearly dead, ignoring the pain in its mouth from the rough handling of the bit. The horse’s front legs went out from under it as it fell forward.
J.B. leaped off his dead mount, pulling the duffel clear. New pain flared through his bruised side when he hit the floor. He skidded across the wooden floor and smashed into a big chair. Bullets ripped through the fabric over his head. The strange thing was, the bullets came from inside the hotel.
“Hold your goddamn fire!” Mildred yelled. “He’s one of us!”
J.B. glanced across the room and saw the two women huddled behind the counter. One of them sat in a wheelchair, brandishing a huge blaster.
Muffling a groan as he pushed himself to his feet, J.B. reached for his fedora and clamped it onto his head. He gathered the straps of the duffel and pulled it over his shoulder. His side felt as if it were on fire.
Doc shoved the doors back together, then put the lock bar back into place. “John Barrymore,” the old man said, “I was not sure if we would see you again in this life.”
“I’m harder to get rid of than that,” J.B. declared. He stepped across the mess the dying horse left when its bowels evacuated across the wooden floor. “You get Mildred back?”
“The gods permitted me to perform that small task.” Doc took up a position at the window and blasted a charge of buckshot that elicited a scream of pain from outside. “But I fear I have escorted your dear lady from the frying pan into the fire.”
“You know my views on that,” J.B. said, joining the old man at the window. “Get a bigger frying pan.” He recharged the Uzi and hammered out a series of bursts that drove the advancing sec men back to cover. “Where’s Ryan?”
Then he heard the distinctive boom of his friend’s Steyr.
“Up top,” Mildred said.
J.B. crossed to the woman and gave her a brief kiss. “Keep yourself safe until we get out of this.”
“You do the same,” Mildred said.
The Armorer went up the stairs, talked briefly to Krysty and found out Ryan was on the roof. He located the inside ladder and went up. “Ryan.”
“Come ahead,” Ryan called.
Straining, J.B. barely made out the big man in the shadows. He heaved himself onto the roof with the duffel in tow. “Got good news and bad. Which do you want first?”
“The good,” Ryan answered. “Mebbe it’ll make the bad go down easier.”
“The good news,” J.B. said, moving painfully into a sitting position, “is Tinker was willing to part with some plas ex. Got a mighty big store of it for one man. Said he’s been saving it for a special occasion.”
Ryan nodded, scratching at the rough leather of his eyepatch. “Figure on boobying the building for when they decide to rush us?”
J.B. grinned. “Like that song Gimball used to play back on War Wag One. ‘Hotel California.’ Everybody’s gonna check in when they come for us, but nobody’s gonna check out. If they give us enough time, I’ll have the plas ex set so it’ll take out the bottom three floors and leave the structure standing. If we get godawful lucky, we can get away in the confusion.”
“Draw it up and let me know when you need me,” Ryan said. “I’ll get Dean up here with the Steyr. He’s good enough to snipe anybody who gets to feeling too lucky.”
“Give me a half hour.” J.B. felt the warmth sticking to his side, but knew the wound was already starting to coagulate. His eyelids felt grainy from lack of sleep and overexertion.
“What’s the bad news?” Ryan asked.
“If you’re expecting people in this ville to rise up with us and take a stand against Kirkland, it isn’t going to happen.”
“Tinker Phillips and his family?”
“Dealing themselves out of it.”
Ryan didn’t look surprised. “Can’t say that I blame them on the face of things. We’ll do what we can.”
J.B. nodded, reaching out to clap Ryan on the shoulder. “Over, under or around. One of them will get it done.”