by James Axler
"I'm harder to get rid of than that," J.B. declared. He stepped across the mess the dying horse left when its bowels evacuated across the wooden floor. "You get Mildred back?"
"The gods permitted me to perform that small task." Doc took up a position at the window and blasted a charge of buckshot that elicited a scream of pain from outside. "But I fear I have escorted your dear lady from the frying pan into the fire."
"You know my views on that," J.B. said, joining the old man at the window. "Get a bigger frying pan." He recharged the Uzi and hammered out a series of bursts that drove the advancing sec men back to cover. "Where's Ryan?"
Then he heard the distinctive boom of his friend's Steyr.
"Up top," Mildred said.
J.B. crossed to the woman and gave her a brief kiss. "Keep yourself safe until we get out of this."
"You do the same," Mildred said.
The Armorer went up the stairs, talked briefly to Krysty and found out Ryan was on the roof. He located the inside ladder and went up. "Ryan."
"Come ahead," Ryan called.
Straining, J.B. barely made out the big man in the shadows. He heaved himself onto the roof with the duffel in tow. "Got good news and bad. Which do you want first?"
"The good," Ryan answered. "Mebbe it'll make the bad go down easier."
"The good news," J.B. said, moving painfully into a sitting position, "is Tinker was willing to part with some plas ex. Got a mighty big store of it for one man. Said he's been saving it for a special occasion."
Ryan nodded, scratching at the rough leather of his eyepatch. "Figure on boobying the building for when they decide to rush us?"
J.B. grinned. "Like that song Gimball used to play back on War Wag One. 'Hotel California.' Everybody's gonna check in when they come for us, but nobody's gonna check out. If they give us enough time, I'll have the plas ex set so it'll take out the bottom three floors and leave the structure standing. If we get godawful lucky, we can get away in the confusion."
"Draw it up and let me know when you need me," Ryan said. "I'll get Dean up here with the Steyr. He's good enough to snipe anybody who gets to feeling too lucky."
"Give me a half hour." J.B. felt the warmth sticking to his side, but knew the wound was already starting to coagulate. His eyelids felt grainy from lack of sleep and overexertion.
"What's the bad news?" Ryan asked.
"If you're expecting people in this ville to rise up with us and take a stand against Kirkland, it isn't going to happen."
"Tinker Phillips and his family?"
"Dealing themselves out of it."
Ryan didn't look surprised. "Can't say that I blame them on the face of things. We'll do what we can."
J.B. nodded, reaching out to clap Ryan on the shoulder. "Over, under or around. One of them will get it done."
"Always has," Ryan said.
Chapter Seventeen
"Outlanders!"
Ryan roused himself from the semisleeping state he'd allowed himself to drift into during the past hour. He and J.B. had spent two and a half hours setting the plas ex around the hotel, tying all the remote-control detonators into the broadcast unit J.B. had. All of them would detonate at prearranged times, only seconds apart.
Ryan trusted the Armorer's skills in the demolitions area. J.B. had brought down several structures when they'd been back with the Trader on War Wag One.
"Outlanders!"
Peering over the rooftop's edge, Ryan picked up the Steyr.
Kirkland was out in the middle of the street, standing there in what looked like a glass box that sat in the back of a horse-drawn wag. A dozen gunners stood around the wag, protecting it.
Ryan couldn't believe it. He shouldered the rifle, keeping the barrel back far enough that none of the sec team could see it. He put the crosshairs over Kirkland's broad face. Taking up trigger slack, he breathed out, then squeezed through.
The bullet slammed into the glass box, sending fracture lines running across one of the flat surfaces. But it didn't penetrate. Ryan studied the bullet hanging in midair above Kirkland at an angle that would have taken the man through the face if it had gone through.
Inside the glass box, Kirkland had flinched, but stopped short of throwing himself flat. The sec men surrounding him weren't as cool about getting shot at. They went to ground and started to fire back at the hotel.
"Stop firing, you stupe bastards!" Kirkland roared. It took a couple minutes for the blasterfire to subside.
"Okay," Ryan called back, "you got my attention."
Scrambling noises sounded beside him, then Krysty joined him. "He's built himself a bulletproof box of armaglass, lover."
"Putting on his own private show," Ryan agreed.
"You people are in a coffin," Kirkland yelled.
"And still got plenty of room for company," Ryan called back. "How many of you want to be chilled trying to nail the lid on?"
"There's another way we could work this," Kirkland said.
"Tell me."
Ryan turned to Krysty and spoke in a lower voice. "Get the others. We're going to get out of here."
"I know you chilled Liberty and his people," Kirkland said. "Proves you're harder to deal with than he was. The position of outer-perimeter sec chief is open."
"Don't see how we could trust each other," Ryan, responded.
"We've got to start somewhere."
"Sure. I trust you and I end up with a back full of bullets. You trust me, how are you going to know I won't take up that outer-perimeter position and just keep on riding?"
"Have you heard about the plague?" Kirkland asked.
"Yeah," Ryan replied. "I also heard it's a fake."
Kirkland glanced around the street. Shopkeepers hadn't opened their buildings that morning, but they were around.
"You tried to kill two of our people last night," Ryan went on. "Only they killed your men instead. They found those air rifles and the darts you use to administer the bacterial injection you refer to as the plague."
"You're lying!"
"Got no reason to at this point," Ryan said.
"Jak!"
Below, the albino teenager threw the captured air rifle and darts into the street.
"We didn't have those when we rode into Hazard yesterday," Ryan called out. "People that saw us know that. Word's going to spread, Kirkland, that your plague is just a big fake. Then you're going to be flat out of power in this ville, if they don't string you up."
"You're lying," Kirkland said. "You're just trying to get these people to throw their lives away in an attempt to save your own ass."
Ryan watched the storefronts. People of the ville had gathered within the shops, not wanting to be caught out on the streets. But they were drawn to the approaching storm of violence all the same.
And they were hearing his words.
"You chose how it was going to be when you made an attempt on my people last night," Ryan said. "And when you kidnapped one of them to use against us. Today all bets are off, and devil scrog the hindmost."
"You're signing your own death warrant," Kirk-land warned.
"Hell of a lot of signatures before you decided to add your Hancock to it," Ryan answered. He glanced back as the rest of the companions and Albert joined him on the rooftop.
Ryan felt restless energy fill him. Time to shit or get off the pot, and he knew it. Kirkland was going to know it soon, too. The one-eyed warrior watched as Kirkland glanced around at his troops, getting ready to make the call.
Incredibly a high keening noise cut through the air.
"Upon my soul," Doc exclaimed, "do these old ears deceive me, or is that the sound of calliope I hear playing?"
"That is a calliope," Mildred agreed.
The music echoed over the ville, sounding cheerful and happy, totally out of sync with the events unfolding in Hazard.
"'Bring in the Clowns,'" Mildred said.
"Not see clowns," Jak said. "See wag. Look."
He pointed out of the ville
, down the route the companions had followed.
"'Bring in the Clowns' is the name of a song," Mildred said. "A lot of carnivals used it for their theme music. What the hell is that?" She shaded her eyes.
Ryan took out his field glasses and studied the approaching wag.
In another life it had to have been a recreational vehicle. Ryan recognized it from vids he'd gotten a chance to look at. But now it was weathered, new metal spliced over on top of old, probably replacing rusted areas. Almost thirty feet long, it sailed along over the broken terrain on drastically altered suspension that raised it nearly four feet from the ground. The vehicle was painted a rainbow of colors. Big clown faces in white greasepaint adorned the sides. The eyes were made up of the windows in the rear section. Dozens of balloons were tied to the upper deck of the RV. Crates festooned the vehicle, some held in cargo netting and others strapped to the metal sides.
A sign on the side read Uncle Joe's Traveling Wild, Weird West Show. Two mutie pig skulls were mounted on top of the engine cowling, and plastic eyeballs on springs dangled from the empty eye sockets.
Ryan scanned three men inside the RV's cab. One of them was behind the wheel, and the other two sat to the right. All of them were dressed up in outlandish clothing.
"A traveling circus?" Doc asked. "Did I read that aright, my dear Ryan?"
"Appears so," Ryan replied.
The calliope music continued its happy tunes over the countryside, growing ever louder. It had more noise than rolling thunder.
Inside his bulletproof cage, Kirkland began to yell out orders. The loud circus music kept Ryan from, hearing what was being said, but he watched the sec team fan out to meet the approaching wag.
Dust spanned out behind the RV as it glided into Hazard. But other telltale dust spumes trailed it.
"Big wag's not alone," J.B. commented. His face looked gray and haggard.
Ryan knew they all needed some rest. Maybe back at the redoubt it would be possible. But first they had to get out of the ville in one piece. He trained the field glasses over the terrain, spotting at least five other dust trails.
"We're on triple red," he told the others, "and who knows what's about to come leaping out of the bag."
The circus wag braked to a halt, the gaily playing music louder than ever. Suddenly a voice blared through a PA system mounted in the vehicle.
"Citizens of Hazard, Uncle Joe's Traveling Wild, Weird West Show is pleased to make your acquaintance!"
The man's voice sounded vaguely familiar to Ryan, but it went back a lot of years. He picked over his memories, searching for it. But he kept his eye on the dust trails circling the front of the ville, as well.
"We're here for your amazement and edification," the announcer continued, "and for the amusement of children of all ages! Come see some of the strangest mutie creatures ever taken into captivity. She-She, the two-headed woman. Drynk, a scabbie so twisted by rad-corrupted genetics that he has no bones in his body and sleeps in a five-gallon pail. And more. For the next little bit, sit right back and let us entertain you. All just for a little jack everybody can spare."
"I know that voice," J.B. said.
Ryan nodded. "I do, too."
"Remember Handsome Wyatt?" the Armorer asked.
Below, clowns with green-and-red wigs hopped out of the circus wag and began to open crates on the sides of the vehicle. Inside the crates were metal cages containing live muties. The side Ryan could see held five of the creatures. One of them was She-She, the two-headed woman. The second head lay behind the first, not really a head at all, but some kind of spongy growth that possessed eyes and a mouth, and the same blond hair the mutie woman had on her real head. She was old and nearly naked, with running sores all over her body. She sat placid and docile, spittle running down both sides of her mouth as she ignored all the activity going on around her.
"Yeah, I remember Handsome Wyatt." Ryan stopped looking at the muties. They were there to draw attention away from the circus wag. He already spotted movement through the thick armaglass. "I cut off his left thumb for stealing gas from War Wag One."
Handsome Wyatt had ridden with the Trader for a while before Ryan and J.B. had signed on. The man hadn't lasted long after Ryan came aboard and discovered the man had been siphoning gas from the Trader's wags for personal profit. The Trader had been lenient the day Wyatt had been caught, and Ryan had only taken a thumb from the man instead of his life.
"Well," the Armorer said, "this looks like something Handsome Wyatt would come up with."
Stories had traveled with and to War Wag One in those days. The Trader was known to pay for stories that he considered investments. Some of those stories had always been about members who had drifted onto the crew of War Wag One, then drifted out. Trader's family had spread out, and people were always eager for news.
"You figure he brought his act back closer to home?" Ryan asked.
"That's his voice," J.B. said, "and that's an ace on the line."
"If he finds out you and I are here," Ryan said, "he'll chill us as soon as he can put a gun sight on us."
"Yeah." J.B. turned to Ryan and cleaned his glasses on his shirt. He smiled coldly. "Could be this party is going to be even bigger than we thought."
"He's got at least five other wags waiting out in the brush," Ryan observed.
"Play our cards right," J.B. said. "We wait, see what happens, and mebbe he won't miss one during the confusion. He doesn't know how this hotel is about to come apart."
"Or mebbe you aren't interested in what ol' Uncle Joe has for you because you've got your own act going on," the voice thundered from the PA system. "I see a man in a glass cage out in the middle of the street in this ville, and that's something you don't see every day, either."
The clowns continued unveiling cages, stripping canvas from some that held hideously malformed animals. The sec force working Hazard started to spread out, getting into position.
"If either one of those sides get overly ready, it's going to make things more difficult for us," Ryan said.
J.B. nodded.
Ryan lifted the Steyr. "So let's open the ball for them. I've got the clowns."
"Leaves me the Hazard sec teams." J.B. took up the Uzi and leaned out over the rooftop.
"Now!" Ryan said. He squeezed the trigger.
The bullet caught a clown full in his greasepaint-coated face, turning it from white to red in a heartbeat. As the body arced backward, thrown by the force of the round, Ryan settled the crosshairs on another target. He fired again, catching the second man in the shoulder as he turned.
The rest of the clowns pulled blasters and took cover around the circus wag. The top of the wag popped up, and a man flipped an M-60 machine gun out on a tripod.
"They come carrying heavy," J.B. commented.
Ryan nodded. He glanced at the line of sec men the Armorer had blasted. Four of them were down in the streets, and only one of those was still alive.
In heartbeats the main street cutting through Hazard was a bloodbath in the making.
Ryan swiveled his attention back toward the ville's perimeter. Dust trails from traveling wags flared up again as they roared into the streets like great mechanical cats. They were small passenger wags, two of them pickups that rode on high suspension like the circus wag. But these were painted camo military colors and stripped down to necessary armor to lighten the weight.
The small wags flared out at once, letting Ryan know they were following preplanned routes. The highway jackers had a sizable amount of firepower, and evidently the ammo to spare to properly show it off.
Bullets popped paint from the circus wag, but didn't look to be penetrating either the metal or the windshield. Kirkland's sec forces gave ground before the predators.
"Kirkland's targeted us," Mildred said, pointing to a team of sec men charging the hotel.
"We knew it wouldn't go easy," Ryan said. He studied the circus wag as it moved toward the line of men Kirkland had posted in the street. Th
e wag carrying Kirkland's armaglass cage backed away in front of the circus wag. Bullets struck the cage repeatedly, smashing dozens of fractures across the clear walls. It was a miracle the glass held, but it did.
Kirkland's wag pulled into an alley, and the man stepped out, yelling orders to his sec men.
Ryan drew a bead on the doctor, intending to shut him down once and for all. Then he heard J.B. yell, "Incoming!" and automatically went to ground.
An explosive round smashed into the corner of the hotel roof, debris raining over the friends. The tar-and-rock surface of the roof cut into Ryan's cheek and chin. He coughed as his lungs rebelled against the dust he was sucking in, and his eye teared up in an effort to clear his vision. He maintained his grip on the Steyr. "What the hell was that?"
"Rocket launcher," the Armorer said. "One of the small wags was packing one. Looked like an RPG-7."
"Reloads?" Jak asked, brushing splinters from his snow white hair.
"Yeah, they can be reloaded," Ryan growled, "if they got them." He crawled back to the edge of the roof after making sure all of the companions were moving around. Down in the street, the circus wag was plowing through the barricade that had been erected in front of the hotel.
Handsome Wyatt hung on to the outside of the circus wag. Ryan recognized the man even with the white greasepaint staining the other man's face.
And Handsome Wyatt recognized him right back.
"Cawdor!" The name ripped like an oath from Wyatt's throat.
Ryan brought up the Steyr and leveled it. Before he could get the man in the open sights, the M-60 gunner opened up, unleashing pure, hot lead hell on the rooftop. The one-eyed man went to ground.
The bullets chopped into the roofline and sprayed wood fragments into the air. Before they stopped, another rocket-launched round slammed into the hotel. The building shivered like a palsied dog during a cold bath.
"They come," Jak said. "More sec men, more clowns in building."
Ryan avoided the front of the building, which was still taking a barrage of fire. He peered into the alley, spotting one of the pickups pulling to a stop to disgorge more of the jackers. They blew the door below with plas ex and forced their way inside. The rooftop was fast becoming a no-man's-land that was going to be filled with chilling.
