“So?”
J.B. shook his head at Ryan. “Doesn’t make sense. Think about it. They want to betray us, then they wait until we sleep and try to take us all out. No point going to tell the General where we are. No advantage in that.”
Unheard by either of them, Jak had ghosted up behind the two men. “Agree with J.B.,” he said. “No point.”
“So, where’s he gone?” Ryan asked, feeling vaguely annoyed with himself for overreacting the way he had.
The light outside had quickly faded close to darkness. The albino teenager called across to the Navaho. “Sleeps In Day?”
“What?”
“Where’s Man Sees Behind Sun gone?”
The Indian didn’t answer immediately, and Ryan felt the familiar faint prickling at his nape. Then it passed with the chief’s reply. “We think that the wags could have trouble on last part of journey home with the weight of rain.”
“And boy’s gone look?”
“Correct. He will be back before the middle of the night to tell us.”
Ryan was suddenly angry. He slammed a fist on the nearest table, making it shake and rattle. “What the fuck do you think this is? Some bastard sun-dance game with a white buffalo and all your mystic shit?”
All of the Navaho were on their feet, gripping weapons. The Anglos had stopped what they were doing and stood frozen, hands on blasters.
The only exception was Doc, who was out in the kitchen, oblivious to the tension, singing loudly to himself.
“It is wise what he has done,” Sleeps In Day protested. “You know that.”
“I don’t know shit!” He was aware of a vein pulsing across his temple, the livid scar flaring from the chillingly pale blue eye, down to the right corner of his thin-lipped mouth. “We fight together or we split up, now. The kid might get caught and betray us all. Could be they’ll see him and follow him back here. Then we all get to be fucking dead. You should have stopped him. You’re the leader!”
Krysty was staring at him, mouth half open, as if she were going to say something but didn’t know what.
Sleeps In Day sighed. “No. Your ways are not the ways of the people. True, I am leader of this hunting party of warriors. But I do not command and order my brother to do anything. We all do what we wish. After the slaughter of our sisters and brothers by the General, we all wish his death. We see that we are stronger with you Anglos. That is all.”
Ryan licked his lips, passingly surprised at just how dry they’d suddenly become. He blinked and rubbed the back of his hand across his eye, feeling the tension ebbing from him, the red mist lifting his mind.
“I’m tired,” he said. “Best keep a watch. Your men want to share it with us?”
Sleeps In Day translated the suggestion to the rest of his group, and all seven nodded agreement. “Yes,” he said. “We will wait and watch together.”
At that moment, Doc pushed through the swing door, singing the last lines of the song. He stopped, sensing that there had been a tension in the diner in his absence. “Have I been missing something? Is something wrong?”
Ryan grinned. “No, Doc. Not a thing.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Man Sees Behind Sun reappeared between midnight and one o’clock in the morning.
Ryan himself had been on watch, along with Two Dogs Fighting, patrolling the area of scrub around the building. There was a clump of saltwater cedars at the edge of what had been the parking lot, and Ryan spotted the blur of movement that was the returning young Navaho.
The Steyr SSG-70 was ready in Ryan’s hands, and he brought it slowly to his shoulder, knowing how easily a sudden movement could be detected in darkness. The Starlite night scope fixed to the bolt-action rifle, with its laser image enhancer, showed the details among the shadows of the bosk with a shimmering clarity, picking out the crouched figure of the warrior working his way cautiously toward the diner.
“Come ahead,” Ryan called, having checked to make sure that nobody else was close by.
“How you know he there?” Two Dogs Fighting asked, appearing from the blackness behind Ryan, who had realized some time ago that all of the Navaho spoke English to some degree.
“Blaster sees behind night,” Ryan replied.
DESPITE HIS PROTESTS, Dean was awakened and sent out on watch with Young Pony Runs, while everyone else gathered in the dining section of the time-trapped eatery to listen to the report from Man Sees Behind Sun.
Doc, sleepy-eyed, was trying to fold the fragile paper napkins into an infinitely complex shape that would result in a perfect chrysanthemum, but the great age of the material kept defeating him.
Krysty had asked Ryan whether he intended to take the young warrior to task for creeping off without letting them know where he was going, but he’d already decided there was no point in pursuing the matter. Better by far to simply accept what had happened and let the matter drop.
Trader always used to say that wasted words were as much good as pebbles dropped down a dry well.
The pretence of incomprehension was gone, and Man Sees Behind Sun spoke in his own words, not bothering to let Sleeps In Day translate for him.
“The rain was bad and I thought, when we saw the wags at a distance, that there might be trouble in climbing the hills. They are steep ahead.”
Doc crumpled up another failed piece of origami and threw it on the floor.
“I went through the night, following where I was able. There was enough of the moon to see the trail of the wags. It was as I thought. One had gone. The other had not.”
“What do you mean?” J.B. asked, leaning forward. “You mean there’s a stranded wag out there?”
“Yes. It is so.”
“Where?”
“South.”
The Armorer clenched his fists in irritation. “We know it’s south. We don’t know how far.”
“Between one and two hours.”
Ryan caught J.B.’s eye and nodded to him. “Call it around seven miles. That would tie in with what we saw there.”
He turned again to the Navaho. “You have a chance to see if the men were with it? Or whether the General’s taken the crew along with him, back to their base?”
The thin-faced teenager took his time in answering. “I cannot be sure,” he finally said.
“But?”
“But I think some had gone and some had not. I crawled close to where they were buried above the What is the word for the rod between the wheels?”
“Axle,” Jak said.
“Yes. The mud was thick, completely above the axles of the wag, and it will take much digging to free it. As it starts to dry, so it will harden.”
Ryan tapped with his fingers on the plastic tabletop. “How many men?”
“Four or five. One is a woman.”
“You heard her?” Krysty asked.
The young Navaho hesitated a moment, seeming to be embarrassed at the question.
His own chieftain pressed him. “You heard the voice of a woman, Man Sees Behind Sun?”
“I saw her.”
“How?” Mildred asked.
“She climbed out and made water close to where I was hiding. Very close.”
Jak grinned. “Means she pissed on you?”
“It is not good to ask that,” Sleeps In Day said sternly. “Not good.”
The albino stared at him, holding the eyes of the older man with his own ruby gaze.
Ryan broke the moment. “Four or five and one a woman. That’s all we need to know.”
“Why didn’t chill her?” Jak asked. “That close.”
“It would have raised an alarm,” Sleeps In Day replied. “He did right.”
“Guess so.”
Jak looked at Ryan. “Start vengeance tonight.”
THEY WERE READY TO MOVE in less than fifteen minutes. The only thing that held them up was an argument over the animals. The Navaho wanted to take their ponies with them, while the Anglos preferred leaving them behind at the diner.
“They’ll raise the alarm,” J.B. said. “Specially the damned mule.”
“Then leave them. But our ponies are trained in war. They will not betray us.”
Everyone was up on their feet, except for Doc, still struggling with his paper-folding. At the very beginning of the discussion he’d made clear his preference.
“I’d walk barefoot across the hot plate of Hades rather than have to willingly climb aboard that razorbacked, whoreson creature again” had been his comment.
But the Native Americans were united in their decision. In the end, Ryan decided that there was no point in sustaining the division. Time was passing, and it would be a meaningful victory if they could destroy one of the General’s wags and take out some of his force before dawn. But to delay their combat plans by even a half hour more could jeopardize the entire deal. First light comes early in the Southwest.