A quiet word with Sleeps In Day revealed that the corpses were those of Thomas’s sister and the sister of his mother.
It took all of the Navaho leader’s persuasion, backed by the threat of the blasters of the Anglos, to prevent Thomas from galloping off to charge the gates of the enemy base.
THEY ALL AGREED to stop there, leave the horses and carry on to the caverns on foot.
The argument came when Ryan again appointed Dean to stay behind and watch over the animals.
“No.”
“Not asking you, Dean. I’m telling you to stay and guard the horses for us.”
“No, Dad. I’ve had enough of being left out of the action all the time.”
Ryan closed his good eye for a moment and struggled to control his anger. And failed. He suddenly swung his right hand, open-palmed, and knocked his son clean off his feet. “This isn’t some fuckin’ stupe game.”
The boy got unsteadily to his feet, unshed tears glistening in his dark eyes. The livid mark of his father’s fingers flared on his cheek.
“Bastard!” His hand fumbled for the butt of his big Browning Hi-Power.
“Draw that and I’ll kill you, Dean. You’re my son and I love you deeply, but never, ever go for a gun against me. And don’t ever argue with me when I tell you to do something. You hear me? Someone has to stay with the animals in case there’s a sneak attack, looping around us. You’re good with the horses and you’re quick and alert. I trust you with this, Dean.”
“You always give me shit jobs.” The hand edged away from the blaster.
“Not true. You don’t have the age or experience or simple physical skill for some situations. That isn’t the case here. You’re my best pick for it.”
The boy turned from his father, his face sullen, the narrow shoulders slumped.
Krysty reached and touched him on the arm, but he pulled away from her. “You have a choice,” she said softly. “You believe what you say, then leave us now. Go away on your own and don’t come back.”
He looked up into her green eyes and flushed. “You mean that, don’t you?”
“Course. I wouldn’t lie to you, Dean. I know Ryan is telling the truth. There isn’t time to go into this. So, do like he says, but without looking so pissed. Or don’t do it at all and go off on your own.”
Dean hesitated, looking around, face by face. Mildred nodded to him. Jak gave no clue at all what he was thinking, the crimson eyes steady on the younger boy.
“Doc?”
“The difficult part of growing up to be a man, Dean, my boy, is that being a man comes along a little before you’re quite ready for it. And before you quite understand what it all involves. We all learn that.”
Ryan looked down at his chron. “No time for any more of this talk.”
“Not just a matter of doing it,” J.B. said. “You’ve traveled long enough with us to know that. You do it. Do it as well as you can. And in the right mood. Sit here feeling sorry for yourself and you won’t pay attention. Could mean you get chilled. Could mean we all get chilled.”
“I understand,” Dean said, managing a small smile. “Sorry, Dad.”
“‘And I’m sorry too. For losing my temper. Not proud of that, Dean.”
The boy held out his hand and his father shook it firmly, grinning at his son.
“I’ll do it well,” Dean promised.
ALL OF THE HORSES, including the pinto ponies and the mule, were tethered in a dense copse of sycamores, a hundred yards east of the overgrown blacktop.
Ryan glanced back once, seeing that Dean had his blaster drawn and was cautiously patrolling just inside the perimeter of the trees, keeping a good watch.
He lifted his right hand in a farewell wave, watching the boy respond.
THE LAYOUT of the J. C. Wright Caverns proved to favor the attackers.
The blacktop dropped, then rose again quite steeply toward a low, single-story building on the ridge ahead of them. Then it cut down to the right and vanished around the flank of a frost-shattered bluff. The trail of the war wag’s wheels followed on past the building, out of sight.
With the death of Man Sees Behind Sun, the group had lost their best tracker. But the marks were so clear that even Doc could have followed them.
“Not even feet that way,” said J.B., who’d been out at point. “Looks like they got their main entrance around the back there.”
“Could there be a way in through that house?” Sleeps In Day asked.
“I reckon that must once have been the main Visitors’ Center for the caves,” Mildred said. “You figure it that way, Doc?”
“Possibly, madam, possibly.”
“Don’t risk coming off the fence, will you, Doc? If it is the Visitors’ Center, then I’d expect there to be an entrance to the caverns close by. Maybe an elevator or maybe a path from above. I visited Carlsbad and I Yeah, there was an elevator took you into the heart of the place. But lots of folks preferred to walk down a path. Maybe this is the same.”
“One way to find out,” Ryan stated.
THE CLOUDS HAD CLEARED away, and it was turning into a beautiful day. The only darkness was a bank of purple, far off to the south, lurking over the Grandee. The sunshine was bright, drawing the moisture from the ground, leaving a residual humidity that was fast burning off.
Once they’d left the blacktop, Ryan felt a sense of safety. It was as though the General and his forces had nothing to do with this particular part of the complex.
He turned to Krysty, close at his side. “You feel anything, lover?”
Her fiery hair was clamped tight around the back of her neck, a sure sign that there was serious danger in the area. But she smiled at him.
“Sure. It’s close” Krysty paused. “But it’s not that close. I felt it right up until we quit the highway. The evil lies in that direction, but not up here.”
“Looks like that diner we visited,” Mildred said, right at their heels. “As if nobody’s been here for a hundred years. No broken windows or anything. Like it was patiently sitting here, just waiting for us.”
“Perhaps like the notorious house of Roderick Usher,” Doc commented, trying to make his voice sound spooky.
“And what walks inside the caverns, walks alone,” the black woman replied.
The Navaho were tightly bunched together. Since the agreement to go the center, none of them had spoken a single word.
The glass in the long windows that ran the length of the front of the building was tinted black, shutting out some of the bright New Mexico sunlight. It also made it utterly impossible to see inside the center.
“Could be fifty men with gren launchers watching us from in there,” J. B. Dix pointed out.
“Thanks for that cheerful thought, John.” Mildred took a deep breath. “Well, we going in or not?”
“We’re going in,” Ryan said.
The door opened easily, and the air inside had the familiar Deathlands tang to it. It tasted like nobody had breathed it for a century. There was a flatness to it, a deadly stuffiness as if one were swallowing lumps of sun-dried cotton.
“Welcome to the J. C. Wright Caverns,” Krysty said, looking around her at the shadowed expanse of the atrium. “All we need now is to find that unforgettable experience that they promised us.”
“I’d like to find some food,” Mildred told her. “That’d be what Dean calls a hot pipe unforgettable experience. My backbone’s rubbing through my belly.”
“Nobody been here.” Jak moved across the dusty floor, so light that his feet hardly seemed to leave any mark. “Nobody forever and day.”
“Split up and check it out,” Ryan said.
He turned to the Native Americans. “Should be a way from here down into the caves. Way down to the General.”
J.B. had walked past the information desk, by a row of darkened vending machines.
Nobody spoke, the low-ceilinged building as silent as an Egyptian tomb.
Suddenly a voice boomed out, “Welcome to the J. C. Wright Caverns. The unforgettable starts now,” followed by an echoing peal of maniacal laughter.
Chapter Thirty
Everyone had dived for the nearest cover. Ryan found himself flattened under a long bench that was covered in some kind of artificial deerskin. The SIG-Sauer was in his right hand, the Steyr tight across his shoulders where the strap had snagged awkwardly as he moved.
“What the fuck was that?” Mildred asked from somewhere to his left.
The laughter had stopped, but the voice came blaring out again. “So much to do and so much to see. Fun and education for everyone, from nine to ninety. Want to know more? Just select the topic and I’ll be glad to oblige.”