The old man was alone. “I fear you’ll find it difficult to ask young Master Lauren anything, my dear Cawdor.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s disappeared.”
“Where?”
Doc shrugged. “You can knock me down and step on my face, but I will still be unable to provide an answer to that. Just not there, is all.”
“YOU WANT TO TALK, General. How do we do this without someone getting coldcocked?”
The amplified voice laughed politely. “I like the sound of you, stranger. You have a name?”
“Ryan Cawdor.”
“Ah. One-eyed man. Used to ride with the late and lamented Trader?”
“That’s me. I know you?”
“Long ago, Cawdor. In another part of Deathlands. Years past. Doesn’t matter where. Well, I think you and I are men of honor. I’ll step out in thirty seconds with one of my people carrying a white flag. No need to come too close to converse. You do the same with one of your people. Perhaps the pocket-sized J. Rix No, Dix, wasn’t it?”
“No,” Krysty whispered. “Never heard a man’s voice I trusted less than him.”
“Mildred,” Ryan said, “cover me with that revolver. Krysty, you and Doc watch and get ready. But keep a look out behind you. Any threat to me and J.B. and you shoot. No hesitation at all. Understand?”
Everyone nodded.
“I’ll have the Uzi on full-auto,” J.B. said. “First breath out of line, and I cut them down.”
The voice of the General echoed across at them. “Are we ready?”
“Yeah,” Ryan replied.
THE TWO SCOUTS SQUATTED on their heels and looked down at the sleeping boy and the tethered animals less than a hundred yards away from them. One took off his black beret and wiped sweat from his forehead.
“Take him from here?” he said in border Spanish.
“Pretty boy,” the other replied. “General didn’t say nothing about us not havin’ no fun if we could.”
The other grinned, showing a mouth filled with spectacularly rotten teeth.
“Sure,” he said. “Why not? No danger to us and some good sport as well. Let’s go get him.”
THE WHITE RAG, tied to the barrel of an assault rifle, was carried by a woman. Over six feet tall with flat, brutish features, she was dressed as the rest of the General’s people had been. Her black hair had a beautiful sheen, like the underside of a raven’s wing, and hung down past her waist. She emerged from the shadowy darkness of the far passage, walking out five slow, measured paces and then stopping.
The crackling voice of the General followed her. “I think it only fair that you reveal a token of your good faith, Seor Cawdor, by coming out yourself, or sending out John Dix. Then I can appear myself.”
“I’ll go,” the Armorer said, holding the Uzi loosely at his waist.
“Cover you.” Ryan had his eye to the sight of the Steyr, alert for any trap.
“Sure you will, friend.”
After ten seconds, the General himself strode out, holding a silver-topped malacca cane, remarkably similar to that carried by Doc.
He was slender, with an olive complexion, sporting a trim goatee beard. There was a blaster holstered at his belt, and he wore a black uniform identical to the woman’s.
“I await you, Cawdor,” he called.
Ryan looked at Mildred, Krysty and Doc. “Watch behind as well as in front. I’m triple worried about Jak. If they got him, then they’ve got around the back of us. First sign of danger, start blasting.”
He took a deep breath and walked out, having handed the rifle over to Krysty,
Trader had always preached the importance of never, never taking any chance that you didn’t have to take.
Standing there, knowing that an unknown number of Kalashnikovs were trained on him, sent the short hairs prickling at Ryan’s nape. His hand gripped the butt of the SIG-Sauer, and he was careful to keep it pointed toward the oil-stained floor of the old garage. It had already been agreed that J.B. would spray the tunnel where the General’s forces waited, and Ryan would try to chill both the General and the woman with the flag of truce.
The man seemed totally at ease, despite the obvious razor-edged situation.
“Now, what is all this, Seor Cawdor? I should have known there was trouble. Scented it on the wet wind. Yet I didn’t. My stranded wag and my relief crew All chilled.”
It seemed to be more of a statement than a question, but Ryan nodded. “Right. Gone where they belong.”
“Ah, do I detect the bitter note of sought revenge here, Cawdor? There were Indians with you. Why should a man like you associate himself with people like that?”
“Get on with it.”
“A sensitive nerve, perhaps, amigo? Well, what is this holy quest that brings you so far on my trail? Its roots must lie far north if there are Navaho involved.” A smile of recognition flickered across the serene face. It was at that precise moment that Ryan realized he was dealing with a totally amoral madman, who would have to be chilled. There wasn’t going to be any possible way of riding around this one.
“Think it’s funny, General?” J.B. asked. Ryan had known his old friend long enough to be aware that the Armorer had also realized just what it was that faced them.
“Amusing, Seor Dix. Yes. I have ridden these parts for two years eight months and four days. Since the makeshift crew of rurales and so-called federales harried me from my ancestors’ home below the Grandee. Since then I have lived off the land. This has meant the spilling of blood. But, we should not talk about chilling scum. Less than flies. Not men like you and I, Cawdor. It might even be blasphemous.”
The temptation to open fire on the neatly urbane lunatic was almost overwhelming. But Ryan knew it would instantly produce a murderous burst of lead that would rip J.B. and himself to tatters of flesh.
“You been here in the caves long?”
The General nodded at Ryan’s question. “One year and eight months and twenty-two days. It is an excellent base. There is nothing to attract pack rats and mercenaries to this desolation. But for me there was good shelter and a hidden supply of gasoline. My wag there is fueled up and ready to go. After we have reached our agreement, I shall go from here. Perhaps back over the border.”
“What agreement?”
The General was making a weaving motion on the stone floor with the ferrule of his cane, the thin scratching noise the only sound in the oppressive stillness.
“You go away. I had not known it was possible to reach me from the other side. I never bothered. Lazy, perhaps. Get your horses or whatever you have and leave. I shall take my nine loyal comrades and depart in the other direction. Everyone lives and nobody dies. Is that not the best of endings?”
“Debt to be paid,” Ryan said, finding it hard to force the words past his blind rage to kill.
“Indians? Or could it have something to do with gimpy old slut with the mewling brat? Ah, yes, that might be it. The venerable western Anglo tradition of guarding the sacred virtue of women and children. A man must do”
Something that the General had said had rung a warning bell in Ryan’s mind. But he couldn’t spot what it was. There was a sudden, flaring danger. Jak? Where was Jak? But it wasn’t the albino teenager that was
“Horses,” Ryan whispered.
J.B. turned to him. “What?”
Ryan couldn’t swallow, his mouth was so dry. He breathed the words. “Horses. Bastard’s sent someone to circle out front. Never thought of that risk. Hasn’t rolled out like I wanted. Find Dean and horses. Chill him out there. Trail us in here, all the way from Visitors’ Center. Feet in the dust. Get us like meat in a sandwich. Fuck it.”
The frenzied, suicidal charge of Thomas Firemaker and Two Dogs Fighting had thrown away all his careful plans. The original idea had been to work their way in through the labyrinth of caves and try to chill the enemy without the risk of a major confrontation. Now things were horribly different.
Ryan was certain in his heart that his young son was under an immediate threat. And Jak could easily be dead. Otherwise, where was he?
It had gone appallingly wrong.
“How many are with you, Cawdor? Since Trader died or did he? I heard word of you all over Deathlands. Nobody could travel that far and that fast to be in ten places in three days. Heard you got a woman. Red-haired mutie. An old-timer and a black woman kept appearing. And a mutie kid with white hair.” The General slowly shook his head. “Not the class I’d have looked for from someone who was Trader’s right-hand man.”
“Ryan!” Krysty whispered from behind him. “Have to get out of here. I can feel a lot of blackness.”