Chapter Fifteen
Over breakfast the next morning, Crow and the companions sat in an uneasy silence. Around them the midmorning sun beat down on the sec compound. The heat was dry but still heavy, flies buzzing in the sun, drawn to the paddock by the horses.
The meal seemed slow and as heavy as the heat, the silence almost oppressive, until finally the Native American spoke.
“Guess you feel like this is a hopeless task after last night,” he said softly. “If everyone feels you’re against them, not only are you not going to get any breaks, but you’re risking being under attack, which will only cloud the issue of the sabotage.”
Ryan considered that, then nodded. “That’s about right,” he said simply.
“So what do I tell Baron Silas?” Crow asked blandly.
Ryan cast his good eye over his gathered troops. J.B. stared back with his impassive, stoic expression. Ryan knew he could count on the Armorer to back him all the way, and also knew that his old friend hated not seeing things through. And then there was Mildred. Her dark eyes stared across at Ryan, her face set. She had faced challenges all her life, both before skydark and in the world she had awoken in as a freezie. Mildred hated stepping down, and wouldn’t start now.
Krysty would back him all the way. A strong sense of natural justice ran through her, cultivated by the influential Uncle Tyas McCann from her days in Harmony, and her anger at injustice could run as red as her hair. Next to her sat Dean. Looking at him was like looking into a mirror for the one-eyed man, and he saw himself as a youngster, with fire in his veins. The only thing Dean lacked was experience, and traveling with his father was giving him plenty of that. Dean had Cawdor stubbornness. He wouldn’t back down from anything.
That just left Doc and Jak. The old man was mentally unstable at times because of the things he had experienced in his bizarre and unique life. But the bottom line was that Doc’s determination and fire kept him mostly sane, and was what had caused the prenukecaust whitecoats to push him further forward in time after plucking him from the past. Doc wouldn’t like the idea of walking away from a job half-done. And Jak was another matter altogether. He was a born fighter and hunter who had lived through seeing his wife and child killed before tracking down the killers and exacting revenge. The albino was the last person to leave anything undone.
It seemed to Ryan like forever since he had last spoken, and he was aware of Crow watching him intently. If the Native American reported back to Baron Silas that Ryan and his people couldn’t or wouldn’t do the job, then would the baron decide that they had a price to pay for opting out?
The attitudes he knew his friends to hold, and the possible repercussions of leaving, were two factors that combined to make only one answer possible.
“Tell him we’re going to get the fireblasted shitters behind this, and to hell with what those stupes think. We don’t run away from a fight if we can win it, and this one we can win.”
Crow allowed a rare smile to crack on his heavily tanned and lined face. “I kind of figured you’d say that. So is there any plan of action that you want to tell me, or would you rather keep it to yourselves?”
“I don’t see any harm in sharing it with you or Baron Silas except for one thing—we don’t really have a plan,” Ryan replied. “That’s what we need to get together before we patrol tonight.”
J.B. sat back, pushing his fedora up on his forehead and scratching at his head as he spoke thoughtfully, “I guess what we really need is to get an overall idea of the layout. We’ve ridden it, but we need to quarter it up so that we can plan a series of watches.”
“Exactly,” agreed the one-eyed man.
He turned to Crow. “Are there any plans of the sites that are down on paper and that we can use? I’d guess there should be.”