ACrucible of Time

by neetha Napew

  There were two more of the monstrous rodents, creeping slowly out from the undergrowth to join the other mutie, where all three stood together, their weeping eyes locked to the seven invaders into their territory.

  Ryan looked cautiously around, checking that there didn't seem to be any more of the giant rats, trying to decide whether it was best to let them go unharmed, or to wipe the face of the earth a little cleaner by chilling them.

  There was always the risk of gunshots attracting the wrong kind of interest.

  The mutie rats didn't seem able to decide what to do. Threaten or retreat?

  "Let's terminate them," Mildred whispered, a few paces behind Ryan.

  "They're monsters, Dad!" exclaimed Dean, unleathering his blaster.

  The rats were so disgusting that Ryan felt his instincts taking over from common sense.

  The SIG-Sauer had a built-in baffle silencer that he'd replaced some months earlier. It wasn't as efficient as it had once been, but it was still better than nothing.

  "I'll take them," he said. "Mildred, stand ready to pick up anything I miss. Once I start shooting, them there's no turning back."

  The three creatures were still huddled together, eyes staring incuriously toward them. The golden eyes were oddly dead, showing no emotion, like a great white shark's. The long, crusted tails were whipping from side to side, as though they were considering making a charge.

  "Fireblast!" Ryan said quietly. He leveled the pistol, steadying his right wrist with his left hand, standing in the middle of the blacktop, legs slightly apart, in the classic shootist's crouch.

  The first of the powerful 9 mm rounds hit the leading rat through the side of the head, just below the dripping orifice where its left ear would have been. The jolt of the explosion ran clear to Ryan's shoulder, but the noise of the shot was satisfyingly muffled.

  The mutie squealed, like a buzz saw slicing through a sheet of plate glass. It rolled on its side, legs kicking up a spray of slurried mud, blood jetting from its shattered skull, shards of bone dappling the ground.

  Ryan didn't wait to see how successful his shot had been. He knew that it was a terminal hit.

  Shifting his aim a little to the left, he centered the foresight on the throat of the second of the monster rodents, squeezing, steadying the blaster and firing a third round. The full-metal-jacketed bullet hit the last of the vile trio in the chest as it began to turn toward him.

  In less than five seconds, all three of the mutie rats were down and done for. One choked on its own sluggish blood, as it scrabbled to try to get back on its paws, but all the lines were permanently down.

  The second had simply slumped down, chest and belly in the dirt, dimming eyes staring vacantly ahead into the walls of the dark forest.

  The last of them made a halfhearted effort to pull itself deeper into cover, but thick blood pumped from the gaping exit wound. The bullet had splintered the spine, paralyzing the stumpy rear legs. It was making a feeble, mewing sound, like a drowning kitten, its tail lashing from side to side, banging against the fungus-covered stump of a diseased sycamore. Chunks of flesh fell from it, ripped off, scaled and revolting, sending a spray of dull crimson across the trail.

  "Pretty shooting, lover," Krysty commented, relaxing her breath in a loud sigh.

  Ryan nodded slowly, holstering the warm blaster. "Sound of the shots shouldn't travel too far through thick trees. Not with the silencer."

  Doc sneezed, doubled over and sneezed again, groaning as he put away the big Le Mat and reached for his kerchief.

  And a fourth rat came rushing out of the shadows of the forest, a little behind the group of friends, heading straight toward Ryan.

  The mutie resembled a scuttling, burned log, clawed feet kicking up the slimy mud. Its razored teeth were bared, saliva drooling over the matted hair of its muscular chest.

  Mildred was quickest to react. She hadn't holstered her target revolver, but was still holding it by the checked grips, the barrel pointing down at her side.

  "Mine!" she yelled, dodging to the right to avoid shooting Doc, bringing the blaster up to the aim. But she hadn't taken into account the treacherousness of the earth under her combat boots, and she slipped over to her left, momentarily off balance. Triggering off a .38 at the charging mutie rat. The bullet gouged up a chunk of dirt six or seven inches from the questing muzzle, making it jink sideways and hesitate for a moment.

  Ryan was reaching for his own blaster as he saw his death closing in on him, crazed yellow eyes fixed to his face, greasy fur glistening with damp.

  The moment's hesitation gave Mildred the fraction of a second that she needed.

  Still unsteady, she snapped off a second round at the giant rat, the bullet narrowly missing the base of the skull, where she'd aimed. But it still hit home in the left shoulder, knocking the creature over, rolling and squealing in the trampled dirt.

  It was less than six feet from Ryan, and it was simple for him to aim at the writhing creature and put a big 9 mm round through its spine, halfway along its body, paralyzing it.

  "Any more?" he asked, surprised at how calm his voice seemed to sound.

  Jak and Dean answered simultaneously. "No."

  The last of the vermin was struggling to turn its head to snap at Ryan, and he reached for the big panga on his hip. Shaking his head at the thought of the clean steel being contaminated by the blood and sinew of the vile mutie rodent, he fired another round into the angular skull, chilling it instantly, whistling softly between his teeth as he replaced the SIG-Sauer in its holster.

  "Good shooting, Mildred. Thanks."

  She nodded and grinned, shaking her head in wonderment at the size of the quartet of massive rats. "Welcome."

  "Big fuckers," Jak stated, looking down at the four corpses. "Biggest ever saw."

  "Same here." Ryan stood still and quiet, listening for any sound of activity from anywhere around them. But the noise of the shooting and the dying animals' cries had driven the wildlife into silence.

  Doc sneezed, blinking as he did so. "Bless me, father, for I have sinned."

  "Don't start again, Doc," Mildred warned. "Just seal it in a can, will you?"

  "Apologies, my dear Doctor."

  "Now what, lover?"

  "Head on for Mom's place and try her advertised jerky?" Ryan replied.

  Krysty smiled, her teeth dazzling in the gloom of the limitless forest. "Yeah."

  The Armorer stopped, head to one side, taking in several deep breaths. "Now, that smells real good," he said. "Sets the old taste buds tingling."

  "Mom's jerky?" Mildred said.

  "Gotta be."

  Dean grinned. "With baked potatoes or creamed rice or a mess of whipped potatoes or refried beans or—"

  Ryan lifted a warning hand. "That's enough, son. But it sure does smell fine."

  The taste of cooking meat was drifting through the pines from almost directly ahead of them. There was a faint haze of whitish smoke, hanging at the level of the drooping lower branches. As they stood there, grouped close together, they all heard a sudden burst of loud, raucous laughter, sounding about fifty yards away, along the blacktop.

  Ryan looked around at the others. "Got to be Mom's Place. Let's go and see what it's like." He paused a moment. "And let's keep alert out there."

  Chapter Thirteen

  It was a squat log cabin. The roof looked like it had collapsed several times and on each occasion had been rebuilt with a little less care and attention. Moss grew thick between the heavy timbers, and all kinds of fungus sprouted down along the broken guttering.

  There was a hitching rail just outside the lopsided front porch, with three spavined mares and a crook-back mule tethered there.

  A hand-painted sign nailed to the wall, by the single cobwebbed window, proclaimed the single word Mom. It seemed to have been there for a number of years, cracked and heavily weather stained.

  The door was ajar, and they heard another roar of laughter from inside.

  Li
vely conversation stopped the moment Ryan, leading the others, pushed his way inside the small restaurant.

  It took a few moments to acclimate his vision to the darkness. There were about six tables, each one with a smoking oil lamp at its center. Half of them were occupied.

  At first glance it didn't look like there was a woman in the place. Two men sat at the table nearest the door, middle-aged, wearing a ragged assortment of furs. The next table had a single man, much older, white bearded, dressed in sober black. The last table had a trio of younger men, all of whom wore white cotton shirts and pants of light brushed denim. Ryan noticed that they each wore identical chisel-toed Western boots in polished black snakeskin.

  From habit he also noticed what kind of weaponry was on display.

  The pair of hunters had long-barreled Kentucky muskets leaning against the wall by their chairs. The older man didn't appear to be carrying any kind of blaster, but Ryan had a sneaking suspicion that he might be sporting a hideaway derringer, spring-loaded against his forearm. The trio at the last table didn't seem to be wearing any sort of blaster.

  "Hi, strangers!" The voice was deep and hoarse, floating out from the darkness behind the bar that ran along the farther wall of the cabin, and carried the flavor of too many black cigars and too much bootleg liquor. It was impossible to tell whether the voice belonged to a man or a woman.

  "Hi, there," Ryan replied casually, his hand resting informally on the butt of the SIG-Sauer. "This'd be Mom's Place, would it?"

  A throaty laugh. "This downright would, mister, and what's more to the point, I would be Mom."

  The figure moved sideways into the light of a gently swinging brass lamp. Mom was close to five feet ten inches tall and looked like she'd tip the scales somewhere around the 250 mark. Her grizzled hair was cropped shorter than of most men, and she wore a plaid shirt about three sizes too small, bursting open across the front. Ryan put her at about forty years of age, with the etched lines around her mouth and puffy, watery eyes that bespoke a heavy drinker.

  "Seen enough, mister?" An acerbic note of hostility crept into the voice.

  "Didn't mean to stare, lady. Just that you're about the first human we've seen for quite a few days. You serve food here? Jerky?"

  "Seen the 'rising signs, have you? Well, I like to say this is the best jerky east of the Cific Ocean. Right here on God's little acre."

  "Sounds good. What's it come with?"

  "What would you like it to come with?"

  Jak answered, from just behind Ryan. "Beans and heap whipped potatoes."

  "Christ on a mule, child!" she exclaimed, catching sight of the albino teenager, the fading sunlight spearing through a window into the mane of snowy hair. "When the Lord Jesus made you, he must've been having a kind of an off day."

  "Amen to that," added one of the young men, his words echoed by his two companions. All three of them crossed themselves, eyes never leaving the companions.

  The pair of trappers both laughed loudly, the same noise that Ryan had heard from outside the isolated eatery. He also noticed that each of them had shifted a little in their chairs, to be that much closer to their flintlock muskets.

  "Don't think funny," Jak said, thin lipped. His hand was a long way off from the butt of the Colt Python. But, Ryan knew, it was near enough to the taped hilt of one of his concealed throwing knives.

  "Take it easy, Jak," he said quietly. "No point in forcing blood."

  The woman had sensed the sudden tension and moved a couple of steps to her right, hands disappearing behind the bar. Ryan would have staked a fistful of jack that she had a sawed-down scattergun there.

  "Everything cool, strangers?"

  Ryan nodded to her. "Everything's fine. Dry handed. All right if we set down?"

  "Sure. Make yourself at home. Jerky and beans and creamed potatoes all around?"

  Ryan glanced at the others, getting nods from everyone. "Sounds fine."

  "You come far, mister?" the old man asked as they arranged themselves at two of the remaining tables.

  "Enough. We're traders. Travel in clothes of all sorts. Had us some bad luck. Lost our rig into a swollen river about three days back. South of here."

  Mom had been on her way through a pair of dirty bat-wing doors toward the kitchen out back. Now she halted. "That mean you're out of jack?"

  "No."

  "Sure?"

  Ryan nodded. "Sure I'm sure."

  "We had us some trouble with outlanders. Ate their fill and then sat there calm as sunshine on a cloudy day and told me they can't pay."

  "What happened to them?" J.B. asked, assiduously polishing his glasses on a corner of the check tablecloth.

  "They paid."

  The taller of the trappers finished the dregs of a mug in front of him. "Everyone gets to pay at Mom's Place. One fuckin' way or another."

  He laughed, joined by his companion. Ryan observed that none of the three younger men at the table together had shown a flicker of expression since they came in.

  "You boys done?" the woman asked. "Want it added on your slate?"

  Chairs scraped back, and the muskets were picked up. "Yeah, Mom. Be good. We'll be back in ten days."

  "Unless the Apaches get you first," the old man said quietly.

  "You got Indian trouble around here?" Krysty asked, absently wiping a fork on the cloth.

  The woman sniffed. "Some. Say, that's some right pretty hair you got there, missy. Closest thing I ever saw to a tumble of living fire."

  "The heathen are losing their race against the forces of righteousness," one of the young men said.

  "Amen," the other two chorused, crossing themselves.

  "You fellows anything to do with the Children of the Rock?" Ryan asked.

  There was a sudden stillness in the eatery that you could have carved wafer thin.

  The hunters stopped, right by the door, faces turned from Ryan to Mom to the trio of men. The old-timer was frozen in the act of sipping at a chipped cup of coffee sub.

  "You mean us, outlander?" asked the skinny one of the three. "Us?"

  "If the cap fits."

  "Meaning…?"

  Ryan sniffed. "Meaning that we've been seeing all sorts of signs on walls for the Children of the Rock. Looked like it was some kind of religious ville. You three keep praying and crossing yourselves. So, it seemed more than possible that you might all have something to do with the Children of the Rock." He paused. "Whoever they are."

  The woman behind the counter gave a gap-toothed smile. "Good guess, outlander. These young—"

  "The prattle of an empty-minded woman is like the shaking of a hollow gourd," said the lean man, who seemed to be leader of the three seated men.

  "I was only—"

  " 'Only' is the first step on the trail to the bottomless swamps of heathen eternity, Mrs. Fairchild. Best you say no more. Go cook the jerky for these folks."

  Mom shrugged, halfheartedly wiping at the bar top. A gust of cold air swept into the room as the front door opened and closed behind the two trappers. The old man dabbed at his mouth with a linen kerchief and also made his way out. He hesitated as though he was going to say something, then changed his mind and walked out in silence, leaving behind a handful of small jack on his table. Mom turned and went out into the kitchen. Ryan stared at the three men. "Guess my hearing's getting poor," he said. "Didn't catch the answer to my question about the Children of the Rock."

  One of them, with a straggly mustache, laughed, but it got nowhere near his pale blue eyes. "You know that the cat found itself burning on the barbecue from asking too many questions, stranger."

  "What are you frightened of?" Krysty asked, leaning back in the bentwood chair.

  "Frightened? What in the name of the Almighty makes you think that?"

  "I can see it in your faces. Sense it in the way you're sitting. Your whole body language speaks to me of a very deep unease."

  "No, lady. I'll tell you about the Children of the Rock. Yeah, we're all proud to b
e members of the flock. We aren't a ville. Not like most in Deathlands. Just some right-thinking folks collected together under the strong arm of the Blessed Jesus Christ and his angelic host."

  "Fundamentalists?" Mildred asked quietly. Again it was the main spokesman who answered her. "A well-honed sword will smite the ungodly better than a whole library of good thoughts."

  "None of you carry swords," J.B. commented. "No blasters, neither."

  "Not here. We are close enough to our heartland to be safe from the threat of the Apaches."

  "Paramilitary survivalists." Mildred's voice was trembling with barely suppressed anger. "You were around in my days. Folks like you. Most of you then were just stinking, redneck racists. All you lack are hoods, sheets and blazing crosses! If you're white, it's all right. If you're black, get back. Hiding hatred behind a blurred version of the gospels. That what the Children of the Rock are up to?"

  The three men seemed taken aback at the surge of rage from the black woman. Their leader stammered, face pale, spots of hectic colour dappling his hollow cheeks. "Why, no… That is… Our leader is Brother Joshua Wolfe and he doesn't turn anybody away on account of color. We preach tolerance for those that walk the true path."

  The one with the mustache spoke up. "I reckon that before you attack us, you should come see us. See our camp. Meet Brother Joshua."

  The third man, who'd been silent, nodded. "The shroud of ignorance is a darkening thing to bear. Come and let us rip it aside. Then you can walk in the bright light of love."

  Krysty half smiled. "Sure. Been trying to do that for too many years."

  "We are members of the Children of the Rock. Outlanders who are pure in heart are always welcome. Providing, of course, that they prove themselves acceptable. We are going there shortly. Why not walk with us?"

  Ryan shook his head at the invitation. "Not right now, thanks. Need a meal and then a bed for the night. This place provide overnights?"

  "It does." Mom's voice floated in from the kitchen, showing that she had preternaturally sharp hearing. "Fix a price for y'all, depending on how many rooms you want. Food won't be too long a-coming."