“Sounds like LAV-25s,” J.B. said to Ryan. “Like we thought.”
“They each had about a dozen men.”
Jak snapped his fingers. “No. Go back some. Before they arrived. What did you do? What did Christina do?”
“Confused now.” The young man buried his face in his hands. Everyone waited.
Jak half rose from his chair, but Ryan waved a warning finger at him and he sat down again.
“Take your time,” Krysty said.
“Two lots of dust. Right. Remember that all right. Wondered if one of them might be you coming back from a different direction. Called out and told Christina.”
“What did she do?” Ryan got no answer to his question. “What did she do, Michael?”
“Came out. Wiped her hands on a towel. There was that white mark on her cheek from the morning baking. Or, it might have been a different one. How could you tell? Nobody to ask. I think it was likely the same one.”
“Doesn’t fucking matter! Get on with fucking story!”
“Sorry, Jak. God, you just can’t believe how sorry I am about all this. Sorry for you most of all.” With a visible effort, Michael pulled himself together. “Christina saw the dust. Not sure she saw the distant one. The Navaho. It didn’t worry her. She wasn’t frightened or anything.” His voice rose. “If she’d been scared, then it would all I wouldn’t have been But she didn’t seem at all worried. Said it was probably packmen or just travelers. Said you got folk moving west every now and again. Said it was like the old settlers.”
“What did you do after you both saw the columns of dust, Michael? Did Christina tell you to do anything at all? Get blasters or anything like that?”
“No, Ryan. Nothing like that. Been different if Spilled milk. There was milk spilled in the kitchen, I saw it. Big pool of spilled milk. I didn’t cry over it.”
J.B. was close to losing his struggle for self-control. The anger bit into his words. “She said not to worry. So, what did you do then?”
“I went back to the barn. I’d had a wash and the lemonade. Went back to work in the big barn.”
Michael cleared his throat. “I heard trucks coming. Sounded like quite big rigs. Sometimes I saw them going past the highway below Nil-Vanity when I lived there. I didn’t take much notice. That was because of what Christina said to me.” He looked for the first time directly into Jak’s set face. “If she hadn’t said about not worrying, then”
“Go on, Michael,” Ryan urged.
“They stopped and the engines cut out. That was the first time I actually looked through the hayloft door. And I saw that something was wrong.”
Now the teenager was coming to it, getting to the very core of it.
“There were men with guns.”
“What kind of blaster?”
“I don’t fucking know, do I, J.B.? What they call assault rifles, I think. All the same. I counted eighteen men and a couple of women. All in uniform.”
“Uniform?” Mildred queried. “You mean like regular soldiers?”
“Yeah. They were real well disciplined. Oh, their uniforms were black or very dark blue. With a red stripe down the pants. Berets. Black combat boots. They fanned out immediately in a What’s the word I want?”
“Defensive perimeter,” J.B. stated.
Michael nodded. “That’s it. Like everyone knew what they were supposed to be doing. I thought a lot of them looked kind of like Mexicans. Mustaches and black hair. I’m sure the General was Mexican.”
“The General?” Jak stood. “You telling me this was done by General?”
Ryan interrupted. “Jak, you know something we don’t. Tell us about the General. Short and quick.”
“Didn’t believe in him. Stories. Raids on small villes. Mainly Navaho, Apache and Hopi. Came in after pueblos and took food and women. What he wanted. Like soldiers.”
“Go on, Michael.”
“Sure, Ryan. Not really much more to tell you. This General got out last. Loads of gold braid. Peaked cap. Tall, burly man. Looked very much in command. Christina had come out on the porch, and there was some talk. Couldn’t hear it. I was too far away. She went in the house with the General and about five of the men. Rest spread out and started a search. And some of them butchered some animals. I heard the noise, but I didn’t see it. I was hiding in the hay. Didn’t see much else.”
Ryan could visualize the scene. The disabled woman had been taken by surprise, faced with an armed military gang of renegades. She must have hoped to talk her way clear.
But it hadn’t been enough.
Dean coughed. “Michael?”
“Yeah?”
“How do you know he was called the General?”
“Heard his men talking about him when they came in the barn. They weren’t bothering to search too hard, like they already knew there was nothing to worry about.”
Krysty was sitting forward, on the edge of the seat. “You reckon that Christina didn’t tell them that you were around the place?”
“Don’t think she did, or they’d have been searching properly. They didn’t even come into the hayloft.”
“So, you had .38 and could’ve gone down without being seen?”
“Sure, Jak. But I didn’t have any spare ammo. Just the six rounds in the gun. And I’m not a shootist. There were twenty or more of them, with rifles and machine guns and stuff.” His voice rose two octaves. “I couldn’t have done a fucking thing to help them! Can’t you see that?”
Jak stood, fists clenched, staring at Michael. “Can’t see that. No, can’t see that. See you hiding in hayloft. Christina raped and chilled. Jenny hurled against barn wall, brains everyplace. I see that!”
“Let’s try and keep calm,” Ryan said, also standing up and placing himself between the two teenagers. “What’s happened is over and down the pike. We need to know all we can so we can decide what to do and how best to do it.”
“Sure.” Jak’s voice was flooded with a bitter anger. “Sure. Any more to tell, Michael?”
“I hid and waited.”
“Waited while”
“Jak!” Ryan’s voice cut across the room like a lash of a whip. “This isn’t the way. You know it and I know it. Michael isn’t a born fighter like you and me. Deathlands is a strange and deadly place to him. You know how we all feel for you. For what happened. But taking it out on Michael does nothing to change things.”
“Yeah, Ryan. You told me Trader said that talk’s cheap and action costs.”
“Right.” He sighed. “Michael, let’s finish this. You see or hear anything else?”
“Nothing for a bit. Not a sound from Christina. She must’ve kept real quiet while Then they found Jenny. Heard her cry. Just the once. That was when I think Christina knifed one of them. Maybe two of them. Saw a lot of blood, and I squinted through the gap in the door. Saw the soldiers carrying what looked like a body. Thought one more might’ve been wounded but I couldn’t see properly.”
“After that?” J.B. asked. “No clue about where they were going?”
“They headed south.” Michael reached for his glass and found that it was empty. He glanced at Dean, who deliberately ignored him. “I saw that. Someone shouted there was horsemen coming. That was the Navaho. I think that the General must’ve raided an Indian camp, and that this was a revenge party, hunting them down. Couple of the men wanted to stay and fight them. Said they got massive firepower over them. Blaster advantage that would have chilled them. But the General came out of the house buttoning up his his pants. Ordered them to withdraw.”
“The Indians go into the house at all?” Mildred asked.
“No. I watched the soldiers get back in their wags with their butchered meat. Drove off fast. The horsemen came in, past the corral. Sort of rode around a couple of minutes, shouting and arguing with one another. Then they just went off, fast toward the south, after the armored trucks. And I waited and waited.”
“Scared?” Jak asked with a sneer. “Too scared to come see what happened to wife and baby?”
“I figured that they were both dead.”
“Sure. You figured that out and stayed in hayloft, shitting your pants.”
Krysty stood. “Gaia! This is enough, Jak. Michael was alone, with a 6-shot handblaster. It doesn’t matter how angry and upset you are, you have to believe that there would have been nothing that he could have done. Nobody on earth could have saved Christina and little Jenny. Nobody.”
“No!” Michael’s cry was torn from the deeps of his soul. “That’s fucking shit, Krysty! I could have come down and chilled as many as I could of the bastards.”
“And then died,” Ryan said quietly.
“Better. Better than this. Better than sitting back while someone you you cared for gets murdered. And a helpless baby! Jak’s right in his contempt and his anger.” Michael started to cry. “It’s against my being a man!”