the Darks. It’s an insane idea to head up there alone. She wouldn’t stand a
dog’s chance.”
“Looks a tough cookie to me.”
“Not the point.”
The Trader pushed a hand back through his grizzled hair, sniffed and spat. He
jammed the cigar, now dead, back into his mouth.
“Up to you.”
Below, J.B. was climbing the hillock followed by the lanky, long-haired Abe.
J.B. stared up at Ryan through his steel-rimmed glasses.
“See the flash?”
The Trader grunted.
“What say we give ’em a little present?” said Abe. “What say a rocket up the
ass? Huh? Huh?”
“It’s not them I’m worried about,” said J.B. darkly.
Ryan caught his eye.
“What’s the problem?”
The thin little guy stared at the ground, then glanced to the east where
darkness was reaching out toward them.
“Should’ve made sure of that mutie bunch.”
“Man, we destroyed ’em!”
“Could’ve been more in the rocks. Could’ve cleared out long before we started
looking.”
“We were there most of the day, J.B.”
Dix’s shoulders twitched. “Don’t like it. Should’ve sanitized the place.
Scorched earth.”
Abe looked uneasy. Ryan felt uneasy. The Trader’s face was blank. J.B. looked
up, his sallow face coloring slightly.
“Okay. We don’t kill for the kill. Even so. Guy who ramrodded that band had
brains. Thought he could nail us, which was stupid. But he went about it the
right way. That’s what counts.”
“He’s dead,” said Ryan. “Gotta be. The girl, Krysty, said a sticky chased him.
The sticky came back but the scaly guy didn’t. What more d’you want?”
J.B. said, “His head.” He added, “I just got a feeling.”
Ryan felt he’d known J. B. Dix for a long, long time: an age, a lifetime. He had
joined the Trader’s band only a year or so after Ryan himself had signed up, and
had proved himself utterly indispensable as the Trader’s weapons master. Thin
and intense, slightly melancholic, he rarely said much; what he did say was
short and to the point. Whereas others might yell and rage to push their
argument, J.B. just got gruffer, his sentences more clipped. Ryan respected this
incisiveness, his singular mind.
Even so…
“Ah, come on!” Ryan punched him on the shoulder lightly. “If that mutie can take
the train solo, he can have it. He’ll have earned it. We oughta sign the bastard
on!”
They began to move off down the slope, Abe veering left, the others heading for
the small convoy on the road.
The Trader yelled, “Don’t forget. Every hour, on the hour.”
Abe waved. “We’ll be there.”
The Trader said, “Hey, J.B., you tell the guys to check their boots?”
Dix didn’t reply.
IN A HUGE, HIGH-CEILINGED ROOM with a gallery running around its walls midway
up, and tall windows now cloaked with rich, wine-red velvet hangings, and a door
at the far ead similarly masked, lit by light lancing down in an intense cone
from a single spot concealed in one of the corner angles high above, a man of
indeterminate age, clad in a faded and filthy black coat that reached to his
thin shanks, and black pants, cracked knee-length boots, a shirt that perhaps
centuries ago might have been white but now was a mottled brownish-yellow, and
with a tall hat on his head, the brim chipped and worn, the crown sagging
sideways as though it had half-snapped off, capered and danced and recited in a
cracked tenor:
The shades of night were falling fast,
As through an, ah… something, ah, ah, Alpine— yes!
Alpine village passed
A youth who bore, ah, ah… something-ice,
A banner with a—no, the… the strange device,
Excelsior!
He skipped a couple of steps, jerked off his hat so that greasy locks trumbled
over the back of his neck, and waved it. Then he jammed the hat back on, took it
off again and bowed away from the door, facing into the spotlight’s glare,
sweeping the hat around with a flourish. He straightened slowly, a nervous smile
on his stubbly face. His lips came back, revealing unexpectedly white teeth. His
eyes were narrowed against the light.
“Come on, come on. That ain’t the end!”
The voice came from the darkness, impenetrable to the man in the ragged black