by James Axler
In the cold and damp Ryan recognized the utter impossibility of trying to repeat the Armorer's laborious achievement.
Very slowly he eased himself sideways, not disturbing the sleeping woman. He hauled on his pants and the crumpled T-shirt, picked up the SIG-Sauer and moved to the mouth of the cave.
It was a fine night, the stars pin sharp and diamond bright. The moon was almost hidden behind the peaks opposite, filling half the valley with a clear, cold light. The river had risen but was running steadily, not showing any signs of coming higher up and threatening their hiding place.
It was freezing hard, and Ryan's bare feet began to feel cold as he moved slowly over the bank of icy shingle.
He reached the mountain of driftwood and paused again, taking a long slow look around him. Down toward the sulfur mines he could see reflected lights and a narrow plume of smoke rising steadily into the windless sky.
His eye was caught by a flicker of movement, way across the far side of the valley, high up on the slope of the hill. Ryan stared intently into the shadowed blackness, using the old hunter's trick of looking slightly to one side. But the movement wasn't repeated and he decided that it must have been an animal on an isolated track.
Maybe a goat.
Maybe not a goat.
THE FIRE RESPONDED eagerly to fresh wood, blazing up brightly, the flames throwing capering shadows across the hewn walls and the low roof. Kate stirred at the brightness, rolling on her side, muttering inaudibly, not waking.
Ryan slipped under the covers, his own body cold from the night air. But the woman was hot, her shoulders and back moist with perspiration.
He pressed against her, one arm going across her shoulders. His knees fitted comfortably behind hers, her buttocks warm against his groin, snug as two spoons in a drawer.
Eventually Ryan slept again.
"FIRST LIGHT," Kate announced.
Ryan blinked his eye open, feeling infinitely better and stronger than when he'd fallen asleep the previous evening. He stretched and looked around the cave. The fire had crumbled again into glowing embers, a pale haze of gray smoke hanging above it.
"Could do with something to eat," he said, unable to restrain a yawn.
"What?"
"Some quick-fried back bacon, with a mess of hash browns and four eggs."
"How do you like your eggs, Ryan?" she asked.
"Anyway they come."
"Anything else?"
He considered the question. "Mebbe a couple of slices of fresh-baked bread with salted butter. Some strawberry preserve."
"Coffee?"
"Sure. Hot, and strong enough to float a steel wrench."
"Coming right up, sir." Kate was wearing only a skimpy shirt and she curtsied to him, mimicking the gaudy sluts in frontier villes. "And is there anything else you want?"
Ryan didn't answer, standing up and starting to get dressed with his usual quiet, unhurried efficiency. The morning looked bright and clear, though all the rocks he could see outside were white with frost.
Kate tried again. "What do we do today, Ryan?"
"I try and get inside the mines. Try and find my son. Try and get out alive and then get the dark night out of this place."
"How about me?"
He knelt to lace the steel-toed combat boots, not even looking up at the young woman. "You?"
"Sure. What about me? You just going to leave me here?"
Ryan tested the knot before straightening and finally facing Kate. "You walk your road and I'll walk mine. You understand?"
"Yeah. You leave me to die."
"I never asked you to come. You and Cody both. But you'd have been chilled for sure anyway."
"So you gave me a day!" She put her hands on her hips and laughed bitterly. "Thanks a lot, Ryan. Big friend."
"That's the way it is."
"Take me."
"I don't have the time."
"Please."
"Time's wasting. Early morning's good to get in. Everyone's tired. Probably a shift change. Got to move, now."
Kate took a half step toward him, and Ryan wondered for a moment whether she'd try to threaten him. Or make him some kind of an offer that she hoped he'd find difficult to refuse.
She did neither. She simply let her arms drop to her sides, head hanging, eyes down at her feet. Ryan watched her, still wary in case she went for her knife.
"You got no choice, Ryan," she said flatly, not looking up.
"How's that?"
"I'm coming anyway. You can't stop me. And if you try, then I'll betray you to the Russkie." He was moving toward her, but she hadn't noticed. "You let me die, and not even spit to save me, I'll let you—"
She was cut off by a roundhouse slap along the side of the jaw that sent her flying across the cave, feet dancing for balance, finally falling just short of the warm ashes of the fire.
"I'm sorry," Ryan said quietly.
"Bastard."
"You made a real mistake, Kate. Closed off all the doors for yourself." His hand went for the hilt of his panga.
She sat up, rubbing her fingers over swollen lips, bringing them away and starüig at the smear of crimson. "Didn't mean it," she muttered. "Wouldn't turn my coat for you."
"Too late." His eye was like flint and his lips were a chiseled line of anger.
"No," she said disbelievingly.
"You have to understand this, Kate," Ryan explained patiently, as though she were a fractious five-year-old child. "There are lines you don't cross. My son is probably in those mines, and you're my main threat at this moment."
The cleaver was out, gripped firmly, and he was close to her. One foot was in front of the other, like an antique print of a samurai swordsman, poised to strike the lethal blow.
"I wouldn't…"
He shook his head. "It doesn't matter anymore. Don't you see that, Kate? Words are spilled. Can't put them back."
"Oh, Judas…" Kate began to cry, head lowered onto the thin arms, her cropped hair as black as jet. Her nape was exposed, giving him the perfect killing opportunity.
He raised the blade, muscles tightening in his forearm.
"I know my way all around the inside of the yellow mines."
Ryan eased his breath out, whistling softly between his teeth. "You do?"
Kate didn't move, remaining in a frozen, huddled ball. "Yeah."
The eighteen-inch blade slithered into the soft leather of its scabbard. Ryan touched her on the back of the neck, feeling her flinch.
"Get up and dress. We got places to go."
"You believe me?"
"If I didn't believe you, then…" He allowed the sentence to fade away into the stillness.
JUST ABOVE THE FLOOD MARK of the river, there was a straggling line of stunted pines, their tops weighted down with snow. Ryan led the way through them, pausing every few yards to look around, making sure there were no sec guards patrolling this far from the main entrance to the mines.
The slopes above them were deserted, though he spotted a fall of jagged rock that looked fresh, the hillside showing a bright scar.
Ryan moved fast, only glancing over his shoulder every now and again to make sure that the young woman was still keeping up with him. It was bitterly cold, but in dry clothes, well protected, it was little hardship.
He called a halt as the gorge doglegged to the right. "Wait here while I recce." His breath billowed out around his mouth and nose in a white plume.
"Sure. You'll come back, Ryan?"
"Do fishes shit in the sea? Yeah, I'll be back. No more than ten minutes."
He was as good as his word.
The belt of trees thickened, spreading to a hundred feet wide, over a shallow bank of rocks and dirt. Keeping well within the shadowed depths, Ryan picked his way forward until he could see the scene of busy activity that was Oregon Zimyanin's sulfur mines.
He collected Kate, and the two of them crouched among the brush, as close as they could safely get to the river without being spotted.
&nb
sp; There was a narrow-gauge railway line, with a small locomotive chugging busily up and down, towing a row of rusted iron trucks behind it. Beyond that were a number of huts of various sizes, with people milling about outside them.
At that distance it wasn't possible to make out any details, but Ryan could clearly see the guards, each with the distinctive silver circle on his cap.
There were at least fifty of them, all carrying blasters.
"We'll never get in there," Kate whispered, even though the river lay between them and the mine, and the nearest guard was at least two hundred yards away.
Ryan didn't answer, his fighting brain working in high gear, weighing options and opportunities.
There was one enormous factor in their favor.
"All the workers look about the same," he said. "No kind of uniform. Just a collection of ragged-ass people."
"Like you and me," she said, smiling for the first time since they left the cave.
"Right. Just like you and me."
The river was about fifteen feet wide at that point, but it ran fast and deep.
Ryan looked around again, judging the profile of the land, seeking dead ground. "You realize that nobody's looking this way," he said. "No reason for them to bother. Be risky, but we can do it."
Chapter Twenty-Five
THE LINE OF TREES grew thinner as Ryan picked the way between the stunted, twisted trunks. He'd seen enough plant malformation near hot spots throughout Deathlands to recognize the effects of pollution on the pines. Branches had withered and died, and many of the needles were a sickly yellow color and brushed off against their clothes as he and Kate moved deeper into the heart of the valley.
But there was still enough cover to pass the main workings without being observed.
Once Kate tripped and rolled toward the foaming water, only stopping herself by a desperate grab at a tangle of dead roots. Some snapped under her weight, some held.
"Keep moving," Ryan urged. "Got to get across as quick as we can."
The river was narrowing, but it was also moving more quietly, showing ominously deep swirls of green over some of the bigger boulders.
Not far ahead, Ryan finally saw clearly what he'd only glimpsed from their earlier vantage point. At some time, probably a century or so ago, the railway had stretched farther up the canyon. Then, during the dark years after the long winters, the river had carried on its process of erosion and had undercut the iron rails. There'd been a bridge, a narrow, wooden pontoon that crossed the rapids, but that had fallen, leaving a solid tangle of rusted metal and rotting, mangled timbers.
"There," Ryan said.
Kate sighed. "I won't bother saying no, Ryan. You sure this is the best way?"
"It's the only way."
IT WAS A TIME of maximum danger. They moved along under the shelter of the trees, aware of the cliffs closing in on their right. By the time they reached the ruined bridge, the line of pines had diminished. But from there it was possible to see farther along the canyon.
The river was no wider, but it was moving faster, whirling around jagged rocks that stuck their fangs above the white foam. And the valley narrowed until either side glistened with black ice.
"Here or nowhere," Ryan said, having to raise his voice above the noise of the torrent.
"But they can still see us from back there. What if someone looks around when we're halfway across? What then, Ryan?"
"Then it'll be swimming time again."
He went first.
The Trader had always warned that to move too fast was to draw attention to yourself.
Ryan eased out of the trees, keeping himself hunched and small, walking straight to the end of the bridge, picking his way over the nest of warped rails. He quickly reached a point where he was out of sight of the sec guards.
"Now," he called, beckoning for Kate to come and join him.
She obeyed his instructions, keeping low, making sure she didn't stumble on the icy rocks, not turning her face toward the mine.
When the young woman was concealed among the jumble of splintered timber, Ryan saw how pale she was.
"You making it?"
"Sure."
He stared at her. "You don't look it. Fall off and someone'll likely spot it. That way we both get chilled. Ask you again. You making it?"
"Starving hungry, Ryan. Murder for a bowl of pork stew."
"Hell, I know that. But can you make it over to there?" He pointed to the fragile spiderweb of corrosion and rust that dipped low over the river.
"You going to cut my throat if I can't?"
Ryan didn't answer, biting his lip in barely suppressed anger.
Kate sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve. "Let me go first. If I fall in then they won't see you and you can still get out. Find another way into the mines to save your little boy. I'll go first."
Ryan considered that. What the young woman said was true, and it took away any worries about having to chill her.
"Yeah." He nodded.
TWICE HE THOUGHT she'd lost it. Once in the middle her weight brought the old rails dropping within inches of the water. Her legs were crossed over the top of the reddened iron, thick-coated in ice, and she was finding it difficult to make any progress toward the far side.
It crossed Ryan's mind to put a 9 mm round through her skull. The corpse would float away from the sec men, and all of the noise would be effectively muffled by the SIG-Sauer's built-in baffle silencer.
But Kate kept control, waited a few moments, shepherding her strength. Then she kicked and wriggled toward the farther shore.
She was within easy spitting distance when she lost her grip with her fingers, dropping head-down, only her feet keeping her from the river and from death.
"Fireblast!" Ryan exclaimed.
Her dark hair was splashed with the spray of the raging water, her face away from Ryan. He could see her breathing hard, then almost feel the pain in the muscles as she swung herself up and forward, fingers groping for a tenuous hold.
Moments later she was off the makeshift bridge, lying flat on her stomach among the heaped stones on the far side of the river.
"Real ace on the line, lady," Ryan said quietly.
HE WAS ACROSS FAST and easy, with only a single moment of danger.
Ryan was heavier than the girl, and the rails dipped far more under his weight.
He could feel the iron straining and hear some of the main timbers creaking. Ryan had chosen the same way of getting over, hanging froglike, sliding with crossed feet and gloved hands.
Despite his strength, there was nothing he could do as he felt himself slipping lower.
The roar of the river filled his ears, and his skull seemed to swell with the pressure and the strain. He relaxed his head backward and immediately gulped in a mouthful of freezing green water. It ran into his nose and down into his lungs, nearly choking him, but he fought it and lifted his head again, clear of the torrent.
Kate was frantically beckoning to him from her hiding place, and he nearly managed a smile at the irony of it—an irony that the young woman would never know. She was encouraging him, while he'd been prepared to put a bullet into her brain when their positions had been reversed.
"So it goes," he muttered.
He snaked over the last few feet and dropped down to safety.
"They see us?"
Ryan shook his head, showering her with drops of icy water. "No. Reckon we'd have heard it by now if they had."
THE TIMING WAS RIGHT. The changing over of the night and day shifts was taking place and it was, inevitably, a period of near chaos.
One lot of workers, split into a dozen or more sections, was gut-weary, covered in stinking yellow mud, and frozen. The replacement shift had only just been roused, grudgingly, from their bunks in the packed, lousy dormitories. They were still half asleep, stumbling into one another, snapping like line-camp curs.
Both groups were hungry.
Zimyanin had altered the arrangements to try to im
prove efficiency, calculating that the same heating of gruel could suffice for both the finishing and the starting sections of slave workers. Now great metal vats were bubbling over smoky fires, near long tables. Dishes and spoons were heaped on the cold, snow-layered dirt. Filthy baskets contained hunks of bread.
The turnover in laborers was so great that the Russian had never bothered to try to instigate any system of name checks or rotas. There was a count at the beginning and end of each shift, but he wasn't all that concerned if the numbers didn't match.
Some died every day, their bodies tipped into worked-out shafts or heaved into the river, depending on where they were when life released its frail hold on them.
Zimyanin also was aware that every now and again one or two of his captives would slip away from him. There was no wire fence, no electric arc lights and no armed men scouring the country around. He knew the land for miles around his canyon.
"They may run, but they will not be able to eat" was his catchphrase.
"MUST TAKE CARE not to get in the same working group as the one you ran from," Ryan warned.
"Nobody knows anyone else," she said, her teeth chattering with cold.
"How many in a gang?"
Kate shook her head. "Can't say. Varies a lot. Mebbe fifteen or twenty. Mebbe more. One or two were lifted from the same place, and they stick together. Some triple crazies, Ryan."
"What way?"
"You'll see."
They were within less than forty paces of the nearest group of workers. All were dressed in a mix of furs and rags, and Ryan's only worry was that he might stand out as being dressed too well. The guards all stood with their own sections, watchful, holding their rifles at the port, ready for any trouble.
There was no sign of Dean, though Ryan kept looking for him. He saw mainly adults, with hardly anyone under top teens.
The sky had darkened and a few flakes of snow were beginning to drift down into the sheltered valley, carried on a leaden northerly wind.
"You got ice all over your face and hair," Kate said, gently touching his stubbled skin with a gloved finger.
