“Better,” Doc said in an almost normal voice, then after a moment carefully lifted the arm and tried flexing his hand. “Much better. Thank you, my dear Dr. Wyeth.”
In an unusual display of affection, she ruffled his crop of silvery hair. “No prob.”
Nearby, J.B. was standing at the edge of the cliff, reloading the Uzi, while Krysty and Jak tossed grens at the gorillas. The dull thuds of the grens faintly shook the ground, and the muties briefly shrieked. Working the arming bolt, J.B. started firing short bursts over the side, and another ape howled, the noise quickly dwindling into the distance to abruptly stop.
“Two retreating,” Jak stated, thumbing rounds into the Ruger, then switching weapons back to his Colt.
His Ruger Redhawk sported only a four-inch barrel, which made it a fast draw. But the six-inch barrel of the Colt Python made a difference in accuracy. Maybe he’d keep both; they made a nice combo.
“Nobody escapes,” Ryan said in a voice of ice. Sliding the Steyr off his shoulder, the man went to the edge and swept the cliff face with the telescope mounted on the longblaster. When the crosshairs found a mutie, he centered the scope on its face and blasted its features with a 7.62 mm hollowpoint round. The other tried to flatten against the cliff to escape, but Ryan winged it in the leg, and, as it doubled over to grab the wound, he planted a round into its ear. Already chilled, the gorilla went sailing off the rock face and impacted heavily into the ground.
Ryan pumped a few additional rounds into any corpse that was mostly intact. He wasn’t going to have the apes come back in the night to attack the companions in their sleep.
“See any more?” J.B. asked with a frown.
“Not yet,” Ryan stated, slinging the longblaster on a shoulder. “But there’s no way we wiped out all of them. I’ll check on the others. You stand guard.”
“Done.”
Holding a wad of cloth to his head, Dean went over to Doc, a trickle of blood flowing from under his dark hair.
“Thanks,” the boy said, extending a hand. “Owe you.”
Gingerly, the old man took the hand and they shook. “Next time,” Doc said with a smile, “you catch me.”
“Done,” Dean said seriously.
Suddenly, a hairy arm came over the edge of the mesa and the big bull mutie rose into view. The companions drew their blasters, but Jak was first, the Colt firing as the barrel cleared the holster. Ryan was only a split second behind the teenager, and the men led the rest of the companions in hammering the beast with lead until it staggered backward and plummeted out of sight.
“That’s six,” Ryan said, working the bolt to drop in a fresh clip. He pocketed the spent mag and put his back to the cliff. “Let’s get walking. I’m on point, J.B. cover the rear.”
Moving away from the edge of the mesa, the companions wearily trudged along the bare ground. Ryan could see his friends needed rest and some food, but this wasn’t the area for that. Once they put a few miles between themselves and the jungle, he’d find a secure spot where they could establish a campsite. Even he got tired after that much combat.
Lagging slightly behind the rest, Jak was shuffling along, trying to keep the weight off his foot. Doc slowed to walk alongside the teenager, then passed over his ebony stick. “Just a loan,” Doc said.
Jak nodded and, switching the Magnum to his other hand, levered himself along using the stick as a cane. Some of the tension eased from his face, and his speed noticeably increased.
The top of the mesa was a flat field of bare ground, stretching before them in an endless vista of rough ground that resembled black glass.
“Cooled lava,” Krysty said, nudging a crystalline spire with her boot. Squinting, Ryan looked at the two volcanoes on the island. “Too far away,” he stated. “Something else slagged this ground.”
“Nuke?”
“Probably so.” The Deathlands warrior checked the rad counter on his lapel and saw it registering only normal background activity.