by James Axler
The other swampie was moving in on Ryan again, stooping to reach for the fallen blade, fumbling in the dark mud. It was an opportunity that couldn't be missed. Ryan stepped once forward and once to the side, blade up, muscles poised for the downward hack. Steel whispered in the moonlight, then came a solid thunk and grating sound. The panga eventually sliced clean through the mutie's scrawny neck, decapitating, it, the head rolling into the mud, the body slithering at Ryan's feet, jerking and twitching.
Wiping blood from his face, Ryan turned to see if the boy needed aid. But there was no need for worry.
Jak Lauren was amazingly, dazzlingly fast in hand-to-hand combat. Maybe the best Ryan Cawdor had ever seen. He switched the knife from side to side quicker than the eye could follow. The mutie lumbered after him, making great ineffectual swings with its machete that would have sliced the lad in half if they'd landed. Jak pulled away, then sprinting in toward the swampie, took off with a great spring and actually leaped clear over the man. Turning a somersault in the air, he still had the control to slash at the creature's face. The thin knife cut across the eyes, blinding the mutie with streaking blood.
"Off with head, Ryan," called Jak, landing in an easy forward roll, coming up in a fighter's crouch.
Dodging the mutie's helpless lunge at him, Ryan took a half step to one side and hacked with the panga at the neck. The living-dead mutie had a heavy build, and the blow failed to totally behead it. But the steel severed the spinal column and most of the flesh and muscle. The body fell, spouting blood that seemed black by the light of the moon. The round brutish head remained attached to the shoulders by a stringy thread of gristle and sinew, rolling behind it like an afterthought as the body pitched and jerked.
Ryan stooped to cleanse the blade of his panga in the stubby grass. At his shoulder, Jak Lauren was grinning. "Easy as shooting sec men," he said.
"Tourment'll have heard the fight."
"Let him. Can't get off here. With his crooked legs, he can't run or swim. I'll take him."
"Or me," said Ryan, sheathing the panga, then he picked up his G-12, wiping it clean of mud.
"Yeah. You or me, Ryan." Like a swamp wraith, the boy was off and running, visible mainly by the glimmer of his stark white hair.
THE BARON nearly managed to fool them. Despite his bulk and his clumsiness, he succeeded in lying quiet in the undergrowth until they passed. Then he made a lumbering charge for the boats before they could turn and follow. But Ryan heard him and yelled out a warning to Jak Lauren.
"Boats, Whitey!"
As Ryan sprinted back along the twisting trail, his boots kicking up spray around him, he glimpsed a monstrously tall man, striding as if he wore stilts, near the narrow strip of beach where the canoes waited, A triple burst from the G-12, fired on the run, didn't come within ten paces of Tourment, but it was enough to make him stumble and dive sideways for cover behind a low mud bank. Ryan, in turn, leaped off the path, finishing up flat against the trunk of a fallen tree, slippery with moss and cold to the touch.
A couple of shots smashed into the wood, only inches from his head, and he flattened down. He tried to identify the flat barking of the blaster. If J.B. had been there he probably would have guessed not only the model of the gun, but even figured out the year of manufacture; all Ryan could tell was that it was a big handgun. He strained his ears and caught the giveaway triple click of a hammer being cocked. That meant a revolver, which probably meant six rounds, but Ryan wasn't about to stake his life on that.
There was a blur of movement, topped with a streak, of white, and Jak Lauren dived to the ground behind another toppled tree a few yards away.
"Yonder," called Ryan, waving the barrel of his handgun,
Two more shots were snapped off, both coming close. Jak fired once with his Magnum, its six-inch barrel gleaming in the moonlight.
"We got him," he yelled. "Got him cold as dead gator meat."
"Want to talk, snow wolf?" came the voice, calm and measured. Utterly unhurried.
"Want to kill, bastard," replied Jak Lauren.
"Want to talk, one-eye?"
"Want to kill you, Baron," replied Ryan Cawdor, His words were rewarded with three spaced bullets, the last shot showering him with splinters of chipped wood. Glancing around the side, he was able to see the gun being withdrawn, and recognized it as a Ruger GP-110. Six shot.
"Fired seven. Means two guns. Would have heard him reload," he called to Jak Lauren. "Five rounds left," he said, raising his voice so it would carry to their adversary. "Five left, Baron. Another few minutes there'll be men coming over. It's done."
"I can find plenty of jack. More cards than either of you would see in a lifetime."
"Rather piss in your face," shouted Jak, snapping off a couple of rounds from the Magnum, the bullets kicking up a spray of earth near the top of the rise.
"One-eye?"
"Yeah, Baron?"
"I'll give you everything."
Ryan sniffed audibly. "Been offered a lot of things in my life, Baron. Never everything. What would I do with everything?"
"That's our last word? What's your name?"
"Ryan Cawdor. Yeah, it's my last word. Come out or stay there. It's all one. Quick or slow, Baron. Easy or hard."
The reply was two bullets in his direction, and two at the tree that sheltered Jak Lauren. That left him only one round, unless he had another hidden blaster or was going to reload.
"That's it. One left for myself. Would have liked to take you scum with me. Au revoir, mes amis." This was followed by a single muffled shot.
"Goodbye, Baron," said Ryan, motioning for Jak to remain where he was. "Could be a trick. Likely is."
But it wasn't.
They were both startled by an animal howl of searing agony. The huge figure of the Baron appeared, crashing over the top of the rise, both hands clutching his face, stumbling on the creaking metal and leather frames, falling to his hands and knees, rolling and rising again. He howled in dreadful pain.
"Watch him, Ryan," warned Jak Lauren.
Through the dim light, Ryan could see that this wasn't a ruse. Tourment must have put the muzzle of the Ruger into his mouth, intending to pull the trigger and blow away his brains. Removing the possibility of an execution at the hands of the snow wolf and his followers. But, as is surprisingly common, he'd screwed it up. The gun hadn't been angled correctly and the abrupt kick as he pulled the trigger had thrown off the aim,
As he fell again, hard, one of the leg-supports snapped in half, making it impossible for him to rise. Ryan could see the damage more clearly. It looked like the heavy caliber bullet had angled up and sideways, smashing the upper jaw, boring through the top of his mouth, exiting through the cheekbone, just below the right eye.
It had torn the eye itself from the socket, leaving it hanging on his cheek, like a pendulous ornament.
Ryan stood up, leveling the G-12, ready to chill the wounded man.
"Pull that trigger, and I'll ice you, Ryan," came the cold voice of Jak Lauren, also standing, his big Magnum looking absurdly large in his small fist. But it was very steady.
"What do you want, Whitey?"
"Couple things." He walked to stand by the thrashing man, and leveling the pistol, carefully shot Tourment four times. Once through each elbow and the center of each knee. The giant black man rolled helplessly, moaning in pain, unable to move.
His face like stone, Jak unbuttoned the front of his trousers. Keeping his threat, he urinated in the baron's upturned face, the yellow liquid splashing in the man's eyes and mouth, making him gag and choke.
"That's for my father. The bullets are for all my friends. But this last is for me," said the boy, bolstering the pistol and unwinding a length of thin cord from around his waist and beckoning for Ryan to help him.
Ryan Cawdor had always seen the justice of making the punishment fit the crime. For a man as blackly evil as Baron Tourment, that wasn't a simple matter. But Jak's plan was simple and would fit the bill.
>
IT WASN'T EASY to manhandle the flopping, screaming giant down to the water, and roll him into the soft warm mud of the shallows while he tried to scream through his broken jaw and smashed mouth. Blood kept choking him, and he coughed and moaned.
The rope was tied around his waist, the other end knotted to the stern of one of the canoes. Both Jak and Ryan got into it, pushing off and paddling as hard as they could. The cord tightened, and for a few moments they were paddling and getting nowhere. Then the Baron was sucked free of the slime, rolling and flailing in their wake.
Jak looked back, nodding in satisfaction. Stopping for a moment, he slapped at the brown water with the flat of the wooden paddle.
"What's that for?" asked Ryan.
"You see," replied the boy.
Glancing over his shoulder, Ryan saw a huge log, motionless on the far shore, suddenly jerk into clumsy, waddling life and slither into the water and disappear. A V-shaped ripple on the surface of the swamp, arrowing toward them, indicated that the beast was approaching.
Ryan bent to his paddling, but Jak Lauren had stopped once more, gazing back at the floundering figure of the baron with an expression of gentle content on his narrow, scarred features.
In turn, Ryan stopped. Ahead of them the last portion of the roof of the Best Western Snowy Egret collapsed in a great shower of sparks, soaring skyward. For a moment, smoke billowed across the lagoon, making it difficult to, make out what was happening. Then it cleared.
The cayman was swimming alongside the towed body. It reared out of the water for a moment, its eyes gazing into the ruined face of its master as though it couldn't believe what it saw. Then the jaws opened, gaping, row on row of teeth.
And closed.
RYAN WOULD NEVER FORGET that sickening crunch of bone and meat being devoured, stripped from a living body.
By the time they had paddled back to the dock where the others waited for them, the end of the rope was just a bloodied knot. Nothing else remained.
Chapter Twenty-Five
"NO, WHITEY."
"Come on, Ryan."
"No. Your fucking place is here. They're your people. We helped you beat the baron. Now it's up to you."
"I'm coming."
"No, you're not. What about the windmills? The clearing and draining of the land? The planting of crops and the founding of a settled ville for you and your folks?"
Jak Lauren was still immovable. Three days had passed since the battle at the motel. The dead were buried, the last of the sec men hunted down and slaughtered. The Cajuns had been to West Lowellton, learned that the rumors were true. That the bad days were truly over and peace had come to the Atchafalaya Swamp.
Now, with Ryan and his party all fed and their various minor cuts and wounds tended, it was time for them to be moving on. But Jak Lauren had insisted on talking privately with them on an overgrown patch behind the Adelphi Cinema.
Mainly, he and Ryan did the talking.
The boy's hair, recently washed, had dried into a great torrent of purest white that foamed about his narrow shoulders. His red eyes were blazing with the intensity of his feelings.
"Pa set this up so's if we ever won fighting, then there's all skills here, I told you that. My only skill's killing. No need for that here. Not now. Come with you."
The others sat in a circle in the grass, looking at the skinny young boy. Doc's arm was around Lori; her head was on his shoulder. J.B. was playing with his fedora, turning it around and around in his lap, avoiding Ryan's eye, Finn was picking his teeth after three helpings of gator stew, Krysty sat quietly beside Ryan.
"But they need you, Whitey."
"No, I… I need you, Ryan."
There was no doubt that the kid was a great fighter. "Rough around the edges, but he would be a useful addition to them. Seven had been a good number. After Henn's death, there was a sort of vacancy.
"I don't know."
Jak shook his head, his face vanishing beneath the white froth of his hair. "My work's done, Ryan. My people will stay here forever now. Now the shadow's been lifted. Like a strong wind, you helped rid the land of vermin."
"Yeah," said Ryan, still doubtful of taking a child of fourteen into their select group.
"If’n you don't, then you might see it hard to find that gateway you spoke of."
"That a threat, Whitey?" asked J.B.
"More promise," replied the kid. Doc Tanner began to laugh at Jak's nerve. Lori joined him, then Krysty and Finn. Finally J.B. glanced at Ryan, and the two old friends also began to laugh.
So it was decided.
THE FAREWELLS WERE BRIEF.
Jak led them away, through the suburbs of West Lowellton, toward the edges of the swamps. The sun was shining and the neat rows of white houses looked as though their inhabitants had just slipped down to the shopping mall and would be back at any minute.
Guided by the albino, they reached the low redoubt before the sun was setting, finding it as they had left it.
The walls of seamless pale stone were tinted a gentle pink by the sun's lowering rays. Inside, it was clean and trim, and Ryan took over, leading them along the corridors. The air inside was hot and humid, and he could feel himself sweating.
"Easy as this to get in," said Jak, his voice more subdued than usual. "Never guessed. Folks scared of it."
They walked through the anteroom with its serried rows of flickering lights and chattering tapes. The door of the gateway stood open, as they had left it. On the way they collected the clothes and provisions that they had earlier abandoned, and Ryan again possessed his beloved long coat with the white fur trim.
The walls of the trans-mat chamber were dark blue smoked glass, armored and thick, with the now familiar pattern of raised metal disks on both the floor and ceiling.
"Going to be like being knocked out, Whitey," said Ryan. "Sit down and close your eyes. When you wake, we'll be somewhere else. Don't know where. It'll be fine."
"Sure," said the kid.
All of them sat down, their backs against the walls. Ryan waited a moment, his hand on the door. "Here we go," he said, shutting it firmly.
He sat down and closed his eye, hearing the quiet voice of Jak Lauren, singing to himself.
Once I was lost, but now I'm found. Was blind, but now I see.
Ryan's head began to swim as the trans-mat jump began, and the words of the old, old hymn faded from him.
His last conscious thought before the dark pool engulfed him was a hope that this time they'd find someplace that wasn't so damned hot.
