by James Axler
"What do you figure happened, Dad?"
"Something bad enough for the bodies to be removed. Yet it looks like Krysty and the others had a few minutes to prepare departure."
"Who was it came in on the wags?"
"Questions, Dean. Too many fireblasted questions. Give it a few hours and we might start finding out some of the answers."
The terrain was rough, and twice they stopped when they heard the lonesome howling of a pack of coyotes. The animal still retained some of its old skulking, cowardly habits from before sky dark, but Ryan had known them to run in hunting packs like timber wolves. They were huge mutie creatures with jaws that could go clean through a man's thighbone.
But the sound was a long way off and faded into the evening stillness.
"Clouds coming," Dean observed as a patch of darkness spread like spilled blood over the eastern horizon.
Ryan looked around in the fading light. "No cover. Just have to take it."
It was a short and brutally savage downpour. Rods of water fell vertically from the lowering sky, stinging Ryan and Dean through their coats. It bounced off the rocks, soaking into the dusty earth. Within minutes the land had absorbed all it could and the rain began to run off, first in thin, hesitant trickles, then gathering momentum and becoming full-blown streams.
Ryan had taken care not to get them caught in a steep-sided canyon where a flash flood could have devastating and murderous consequences. They were wringing wet in seconds, but that was the worst that was going to happen to them.
The storm lasted less than twenty minutes, but it left the desert sodden, foaming torrents coursing down every incline—washing away any signs of tracks that Krysty and the others might have left.
The one bonus was that the downpour had given father and son a chance to quench a little of their thirst. Standing bareheaded, faces up, eyes closed, mouths open, they managed to swallow the liberal bounty, sometimes coughing as it splashed into nostrils.
Dean stood there, water still trickling from his pants and his lank hair, grinning at Ryan, his teeth white in the gloom.
"Feel better," he said.
Ryan nodded. "Yeah."
THEY REACHED THE RIVER that surged through the gorge a couple of hours before midnight. With the passing of the rain the wind had fallen, leaving the night humid and oppressive, the sky heavy and overcast. "What's that smell?" Dean asked.
Ryan had also noticed it, seeping from somewhere among the maze of jagged boulders in the ravine.
"What do you think?"
"I think it smells like death."
The one-eyed man couldn't agree more. With darkness settling in and the gorge a hiding place for all manner of animal and reptile life, Ryan decided that it was far too dangerous to risk any sort of exploration.
They found a high place where they could sleep, beneath a massive overhang of sandstone lined with the frail silver lace of quartz. One end was blocked with a fall of rock, so that they could be approached up a steep and narrow path from only one direction. The track was covered with tiny pebbles that rattled at even the most careful footstep.
It was as safe as you could get.
"Want to take watch and watch around?" Dean asked in the tone of voice that failed to hide the fact that he hoped his father would say no.
"No."
"Sure?"
"Get some shut-eye and I'll sit up awhile. If I feel any danger I'll wake you later."
"Thanks. Good night, Dad."
"Good night, Dean."
Ryan lay down but didn't sleep for some time, turning over in his mind all of the disparate clues they'd found at the ruined farm. The spent bullets and the use of gasoline; Krysty's explicit warning about the water being contaminated; the total destruction of the buildings and the vanished livestock; the wags of the strangers being burned to ashes.
Though he tried hard, Ryan couldn't construct a scenario that would accommodate all of these facts. It was a puzzle shrouded in a mystery.
Eventually he dozed off into a deep and dreamless sleep.
WHEN THEY WOKE together at dawn the smell was worse—the unmistakable stench of decay and corruption. It was all too easy to track down the pile of rotting corpses. But it simply made the enigma more bewildering.
Chapter Four
THE RIVER HAD dropped closer to its normal level, running steadily over the gleaming stones into dark swirling pools.
The bodies had been tumbled into an abandoned strip mine that resembled a circular pit about fifty feet deep. Apart from the ghastly smell, Ryan and Dean could have found the chamel house by tracing the column of flies.
They circled like smoke, their resonant buzz resembling a vast and vaguely discontented machine. As Ryan picked his way to the brim of the open cavern, he had to brush them away from his face. They tried to settle on his neck and hands, great bloated insects with bodies of leprous gray white, their prismatic eyes goggling from narrow heads.
Dean pulled up his hood, cursing in a monotone at the flies. He joined his father on the brink and peered down.
"Shit a melon! That's the worst…"
Ryan breathed slow and easy, keeping his mouth slightly open, a trick that the Trader had taught him for places where the stench could be overwhelming.
It was impossible to count the bodies.
"What's that white stuff all over them?" Dean asked.
"Guess it's lime. Quicklime. Something like that. To try and render the corpses down and destroy them quicker."
"So, who put that on?"
"Maybe Krysty and J.B. How should I know that, Dean?"
The boy opened his mouth as though he were going to ask yet another question, but then changed his mind and stared down with a horrified fascination.
It was about as bad as anything Ryan had seen.
There were about twenty. Or it could be only fifteen or it could be thirty. It was such a tangling of arms and legs that it was impossible to tell. Ryan could make out enough to be sure that Krysty and the others weren't among them. It had to be the strangers, which meant that his friends could well be safe and alive.
Somewhere.
What was ghastly to see was the state of deterioration. It seemed as if the massacre had only taken place a day or so earlier, yet the visible evidence was that they'd been dead for a week.
The layers of rotting blackened flesh were actually moving with a seething life—rippling maggots and long pink worms.
The soft tissues of the bodies had gone first: eyes, lips, earlobes and the genitals. Bellies had swollen and burst from the trapped gas, releasing the wafting smell of bodily corruption.
"There's kids, Dad."
"I see them."
The little corpses were somehow worse to see than the adults.
As far as Ryan could make out under the thick layer of dusty lime, most of the bodies had been wearing plain cotton shirts and pants. Many were barefoot and several of the males had long beards.
"What chilled them?"
Ryan had been wondering that himself. There seemed hardly any evidence of blood. A couple of the corpses had black patches on their chests that might well have been from bullet wounds.
Dean tugged at his father's sleeve. "Want me to go down and take a look?" The boy hissed through his teeth in disgust as more of the flies tried to insinuate themselves between his parted lips.
Ryan hesitated, aware that one of them should do it. It was important to know how these strangers had come to meet their deaths. But the thought of going into that hideous shambles made even him draw back a moment.
The boy sensed that. "I don't mind, Dad."
"I should… I'll do it."
"I'll go."
Before Ryan could do or say anything, Dean slithered over the edge of the pit and climbed quickly down the steep side. The flies, angered at the disturbance to their luxurious gourmet feeding, rose around him in a humming spiral of beating wings.
"Careful," Ryan called.
&nb
sp; The boy reached a steeper part and slipped, managing to stay upright, landing on the top of the pile of bodies with a sickening squelching sound. A cloud of lime rose above him, making him invisible to the watching man.
"Dean?"
The noise of coughing and what seemed like puking reached Ryan's ears. Gradually the white dust settled.
"All right, Dad."
"Be quick and try not to breathe in all that filthy shit."
"Yeah."
He was a small, ghostly figure, stooping among the spilled guts and crumbling, slippery flesh, heaving at an arm here, lifting a skull with strands of yellowing hair pasted to it.
Ryan looked away, brushing more flies from his face. The patch over his missing left eye seemed to fascinate the insects, and several were making concerted efforts to get behind it.
"Want me to check them all?"
It looked as if it were going to be a beautiful southwest morning. Ryan tore himself away from the sun-brushed mountains to the north.
"No. Not unless… What did you find?"
"Most shot."
"Yeah?"
"Back of head. Single bullet."
"The kids?"
"Three I can see the same. Kids got exit wounds… blown away most their faces. Men and women most just got the entrance hole."
"Come back up!" Ryan shouted.
"Sure?"
"Yes. You done well, son. Want a hand?"
"No. I'm okay."
He scrambled up on hands and knees, kicking out when he found that his boots were smeared with maggots and that one of the long, snakelike worms was trying to crawl up his right leg.
"Let's get away from here and freshen up," Ryan suggested.
THE TRAUMATIC EFFECT of rummaging among the stinking bodies caught up with the boy shortly after he'd stripped off and had a dip in one of the dark green pools.
He'd plunged in eagerly, whooping at the biting cold of the meltwater. He leaped up and waved his arms, dark hair plastered over his face, shaking himself like an exuberant puppy.
Ryan had also taken the chance to wash himself from top to toe, making sure that his weapons were dry and ready to hand on a sun-warmed boulder.
He'd gotten out first, stretching luxuriantly by his blaster and panga to dry himself. Dean had stayed in longer, constantly ducking himself and scrubbing at his skin with sparkling handfuls of icy water.
As the boy was getting out, his skinny body shivering, he suddenly stopped, knee-deep, hands going to his face, shoulders trembling.
"You all right?" Ryan stood.
"No, not…not really." His voice was barely audible above the rumbling sound of the white water rushing through the deep gorge.
"Sit here." Ryan took him by the arm and helped him from the pool.
"Be triple fine when—not that I'm scared or nothing like…"
"Hell, I know that, Dean. I'm just pleased you went down and not me. I couldn't honestly face doing that."
The pale mask turned up. "Honest?"
"Honest. You did real good there. Finding out how they died's important."
"Why?" His voice broke, but he continued as Ryan draped a coat over his back. "Thanks, Dad. Why do you think they got chilled that way?"
"Like an execution? I'm beginning to get a sort of feeling. Like there was a fight. The strangers tried something on. Failed. Then Krysty and the others must've found something out. Something real double bad. Had to do something about it. Bullet through the back of the head each."
Ryan was feeling the cold and he quickly got dressed, more comfortable with the weight of the blaster at his hip.
Dean recovered, pulling on his own clothes, buckling on the big Browning.
Before they moved on, the boy climbed higher up the sides of the gorge, reaching a jagged pinnacle of rock and balancing on it, shading his eyes as he scanned the horizon.
"See anything?" Ryan called.
The boy didn't reply. He was still staring back toward the remains of the Lauren homestead.
"Dean! You hear me?"
"Come up here a minute. Thought…"
Ryan picked his way up the cliff to join his son. The rock was broken and fragmented by frost and rain. His boots slipped in a patch of mica and he banged his knee.
"Fireblast!"
"You want a hand?"
Ryan grinned at the eager note in the boy's voice. "I'll make it. Don't need a wheelie yet." He pulled himself onto the top. "Now. What did you drag the old man up here for?"
"Over there." The lad pointed back down the hill-Side, toward the open expanse of desert.
"What was it?"
Dean shook his head. "Lots of ridges and arroyos down there. Thought… No, guess I was mistaken. Must've been the sun off a bit of broken glass or something like that."
Ryan stared out, but the sun was high enough to cause a shimmering haze across the gray landscape. He could see nothing moving.
"Something shining?"
"Yeah. Polished metal. Just as I got up here and I thought it was something moving."
"A wag?"
"Not so big."
"Animal?"
Dean sighed. "Can't tell, Dad. It was only there for a moment. But it looked about as big as me. And the sun came off it. I don't know."
They stood together for several seconds, but the land seemed lifeless.
"Back down?" Dean asked.
"Sure."
AS THEY WALKED through the shady depths of the gorge, heading north, Ryan spotted the message, scratched on the barren rock with the point of a knife: R LOOK FORK PINON K.
"From Krysty? For you. What's it…"
Ryan had already spotted the pinon, only a few paces away, its trunk forking about eight feet from the ground.
The wad of paper, several pages thick, had been protected from the weather in a small bag of oiled cloth.
If you've got this you're following on, lover. Have a bit of time to write you and explain. This is what happened....
Chapter Five
THEY'D SEEN THE dust trail rising into the sky for some time before they could actually make out the details of the wag train.
Jak and Christina had their defenses prepared against the unexpected arrival of any strangers, particularly when it was a relatively large number of strangers. In the covered ox wags it was impossible to tell just how many people were hidden and what kind of weaponry they might have.
J.B. walked out to meet the train, Jak following him to give cover. Both men were heavily armed. The rest watched from the house, with the heavy ironbound shutters ready to slam across. The fire was doused and Christina had enlisted Doc, Krysty and Mildred to carry in buckets of fresh water from the well.
Three wags, each hauled by a spavined pair of oxen, looked as though they were near the limits of exhaustion.
J.B. held up a hand when the first wag was about fifty yards from him, a quarter mile off from the homestead. The Uzi was in his hands. His new toy, the Smith & Wesson M-4000 12-gauge repeating scattergun, was across his shoulders. Its lethal load of seven flechette rounds was snug in the mag, one more in the chamber. Each round held twenty of the tiny, inch-long arrows.
"Stop right there."
A cadaverous man held the reins of the first wag. His eyes were sunken so far into his unshaved skull that it looked like they were set on coming out the back. Livid sores streaked his cheeks, and his nose was running. He wiped it on the black sleeve of his coat.
"We're pilgrims on the road, brother, having a hard time of it."
"How many?"
"Eight men, six women and four little ones."
When I heard him speak, his voice reminded me of melted butter oozing over a steel file. But they didn't seem a threat, and J.B. waved them in. They said all they wanted was some water for themselves and for their stock. Christina offered them the fixings for a good rich stew, and they accepted.
JAK INSISTED that they keep the house on an armed alert, what he called a Condition Orange.
They also had a half-dozen smoothbore muskets that they stacked neatly together by the side of the fire they'd built at the back of the corral.
The thing that struck Krysty and the others was the frail state of the strangers' health. They seemed listless, sometimes stumbling. The children didn't play or run around, simply sitting mute and still where grownups had put them. Several of them also looked to be in some kind of pain, occasionally touching themselves tenderly in the armpit. Or in the groin.
Mildred told their leader that she was a doctor and offered to examine them, but he refused.
"The will of the Almighty shouldn't be gainsaid, sister, though I thank you for your charity. Truly is it said that man pays his price to live with himself, on the terms that the Lord wills for him."
It had come late that evening.
The cooking fire had died down to smoldering embers. The remains of the stew had congealed in the caldron. Doc Tanner had noticed that few of the strangers seemed to have any kind of an appetite.
Christina and Jak had gone to bed early.
Mildred and J.B. were sitting quietly together, rocking gently on the swing seat on the porch.
Krysty had been standing close to the well, looking out across the empty space of the desert, when Doc went to join her.
"Might I offer you a penny for your thoughts, dear lady?"
"Not worth a penny, Doc."
"Could it be that you are pondering the fate of a certain man who is somewhat deficient in the number of eyes? Item—one Ryan Cawdor, no doubt safe and sound in another place."
"Think so, Doc? I can't tell. Have some bad, dark feelings about him."
"He'll be fine, Krysty. Always was and always will be. Would you care to accompany an old man on a stroll before retiring for the night?"
She dropped him a full curtsy. "I'm honored, Doc. Truly."
He was doing his best to take my mind off worrying over you, lover. Pointed to a flaring light, way out in space. Probably some sort of ancient nuke rubbish falling back. Didn't notice that the strangers were all grouped together in the shadow of one of the wags. Their leader came sliding out toward us with two of the other men. Don't know if I caught the glint of moonlight on steel, or if it was just I finally got to "see" the danger. But…
