Ryan felt sure that, if nothing else, the Native American could smell the tension. For the wag wasn’t built to comfortably hold that many people, especially on a run in such weather conditions.
The desert sun was now at its height, and although they were spared the direct glare of the glowing orange-red orb, the uninsulated metal of the wag acted as a conductor and storer of the heat, magnifying it and making the interior of the vehicle a sweatbox. The only air came via the breeze stirred by the open blaster ports, and the small door windows at the front of the wag.
The companions had no way of knowing how long the wag journey would be, and it seemed that with each passing minute the temperature in the interior of the wag rose a few degrees, the heat causing everyone effectively trapped within to sweat profusely. Even if the wag had only contained the work party, the atmosphere would have rapidly become close, the heat and smell growing to unpleasant proportions. Doubling this because of the excess number of people crowded into the rear of the vehicle, and adding their mutual distrust and dislike, and it was a recipe for disaster, the brooding, tense atmosphere not helped by the constant whine of Tex’s monologue.
It was going to break. And when it broke, it would be violent.
“SO ANYWAYS, I was always telling Slim and Satchel about how you can never trust them damn gaudy sluts down at the Red House. Lord, why Silas don’t do somethin’ about that place I just don’t know. Y’know, I’ve got nothin’ against a good gaudy, ’cause you can just go and have some fun and not ever have to worry about getting’ yourself no problems like kids or any shit like that to slow you down, ’cause that’s what I always used to worry about since I was with Lula and she had that kid… Course, that was way afore she was killed in that accident back when they was first trying to get the wellhead open and there was that there explosion that chilled twenty. Lord, that must be a few years back now, but I guess you could say that it was one of the best things that kinda happened to me in a way. But anyways, as I was a sayin’, I was always telling those dudes not to trust those sluts any farther than they could toss them. Course, it’s supposed to be the other way around, but that ain’t the point. Point is, they were there doing the do and getting some fun when Satch looked around and found one of the other gaudies had snuck into the room and was diving down his pants looking for his jack. Course, like he said to me, that would’ve been all right if he’d still been wearing the pants, but he wasn’t, so he got real riled and yelled, squirming out from underneath the gaudy on top of him and tryin’ to get his hands on this other slut. That would’ve been okay if not for the fact that Slim still had a part of hisself in her mouth, and as she fell she kinda bit too hard and made the bastard bleed. So there’s him cursin’ and swearin’ and tryin’ to beat on her for injuring him, while Satch is trying to catch this other gaudy with nothin’ on below the waist—which included his blaster. And dang me if she don’t run straight into Waldo, that big retard they use for sec down there. ‘Waldo, Waldo, this boy done gone screwed me and don’t want to pay,’ she says, all innocent and that big lug Waldo pulls out his blaster, and he says—”
“Why don’t you shut up,” Dean interjected, the heat and incessant noise finally snapping his patience.
The sudden bark of the young man cut Tex short, and in the sudden relative silence of the sweltering wag, there was an increase in tension.
“Why can’t Tex say what he wants?” Hal growled, “Why should some boy tell him what he can and can’t do.”
“Hell, Hal, I knows I can sometimes get a mite carried away and go on and on without stopping, like a gaudy slut on extra time, and—”