He hesitated, then cursed at himself because he didn’t think his father would have hesitated at all. Survival was self first, not the other guy.
Breathing hard, Dean looked square in the man’s frightened eyes. “Your choice, mister. I chill you, I don’t chill you, it’s all the same to me. But you’re going to leave her out here alone.”
“You’re not one of the Slaggers?” the man asked. He started to get up.
Dean leaned on the Browning more forcibly, making the point clearly. “Don’t even know who the Slaggers are.”
“They’re the coldhearts,” the little girl said. “They’re the ones that brung us here.”
Gunshots still echoed around them, mixed in with the thunder.
“If that’s true,” Dean told the man, “then mebbe we got a common problem.”
“Mister, I just want to get my little girl out of here.” Dirt stained the man’s face, and it had been days since he’d shaved. His hair was long and his clothes were homespun. “We were on our way north. Got relatives up there. We lost Charity’s mom a couple months ago, and I couldn’t see a reason to hang around that Fiddler ville anymore. Thought mebbe things would be better back in the lands I knew best. We were following the river, same as some of these other folk, when those coldhearts jumped us and brought us here. That’s the God’s truth.”
“How many are here?” Dean asked. His father had taught him the importance of getting as much information about a situation as he could. His eyes roamed the metallic caverns created by the dead wags.
“Coldhearts?”
“Yeah.”
“Must be three, four dozen.”
Dean knew it was considerably less than that now. He pulled the Browning’s barrel out of the man’s neck and glanced at the child. “I’m not going to kill your pa, little girl.”
She continued to cry, wiping her face with the back of her hand. She carried a rag doll in the other.
“Okay if I get up now?” the man asked.
“Sure.” Dean stepped back, giving himself room to move. He kicked the lock-back knife to the man with his boot toe.
The man pushed himself up and took the little girl in his arms. “I ain’t no killer,” the man said. “First time I ever drew a weapon on anybody.”
“Every man’s a killer,” Dean said. “Sometimes he just doesn’t meet his victim, that’s all.” He scanned the junkyard, spotting a mongrel hound slinking up beside a pile of wag parts. Moving the blaster, he shot the animal between the eyes, exploding its head. “Pick up your knife. You may need it.” Then he hurried toward the entrance, watching J.B. come galloping through with Krysty across his saddle.
Dean’s heart thudded in his chest.
RYAN DIVED, no longer able to twist away from the wag bearing down on him. He rolled over the dead horse in front of him, then scurried against the animal’s back for shelter.
The wag didn’t slow, smashing into the horse’s huge corpse and rolling over it The horse’s ribs broke with fierce snaps, and trapped air in its lungs and intestines broke with liquid gurgles.
The tires pushed roughly across Ryan, but the wag’s full weight never settled on him because of the horse. He rose to his knees and pulled the Steyr up again. Glaring through the open sights beneath the scope so he could snap-fire, he put a round through the chests of the two coldhearts in the back of the wag before anyone knew he was still alive.
Halleck spun in the passenger’s seat, wiping the blood from his face that sprayed from the dead man falling toward him. “The fucker’s still alive!” the coldheart leader snarled. “Turn this wag around!”
The wag driver turned hard left, pulling the vehicle around in a tight circle.
Ryan let the man come, narrowly missing Halleck with a shot. Then the driver was full in his sights. He squeezed the trigger and shot the man through the forehead.
Out of control, the wag continued hurtling forward. Halleck grabbed for the dead driver, trying to dislodge him from behind the wheel. It took him a handful of seconds to push the corpse out.