Chapter Five

 

 

Ryan had just started moving again when the path came to an abrupt end. The wall of forest opened into a wide clearing, hacked clear and kept cropped. Immediately opposite was a wider track, winding toward the west.

 

But what immediately caught Ryan's eye was the trio of men standing by a large circular block of stones at the center of the clearing.

 

They were dark skinned, with short hair that was covered in some kind of oil or grease. Two of the stocky men wore cotton shirts and pants, the third a beaded loincloth that barely covered his genitals. All of them had necklaces, and dangling rings through their ears. Bows were slung across their shoulders, as were quivers of feathered arrows. Two of them also had blasters. One was carrying what seemed to be an ancient Mauser rifle. The other had a pistol tucked into the waist of his pants. It wasn't a model that Ryan recognized at all.

 

They were arranging the body of what looked like a small antelope on top of the block of stone, but they stopped at Ryan's sudden appearance from the surrounding greenery. None of them made any effort to draw a weapon.

 

The one-eyed man had already hissed a warning to his companions, but the natives didn't seem to present any major threat. He had the SIG-Sauer drawn, but didn't open fire. The men were about fifty feet away from him, close enough for him to have felt confident in taking out all three.

 

Ryan led the way as the friends filed into the clearing, all with blasters drawn. The trio of locals watched, muttering at the sight of the red hair. Mildred's dark coloring also seemed to fascinate them.

 

 

But total amazement was reserved for the last but one of the party.

 

 

Jak Lauren.

 

When the albino, with his shock of pure white hair, walked into view, the men were galvanized. They dropped the bloodied corpse of the animal in the grass and actually staggered backward, clutching at one another.

 

"Watch it!" Ryan warned, wondering what kind of danger the reaction might mean.

 

But the natives didn't seem to have any thought of attacking the seven strangers. They stood there, slack jawed, repeating a word that sounded to Ryan like blanco . He knew enough Mex talk to know that the word meant white, and he assumed it had to be some sort of reference to the teenager.

 

Though you didn't call it body language in Deathlands, it was an important part of survival to be able to read the way a man stood and acted.

 

It was obvious to Ryan that the trio of locals were torn between fear and aggression and something else that he couldn't identify, something like an unusual kind of respect mingled with understandable suspicion against outlanders who had suddenly appeared in their hunting grounds.

 

"We don't intend trouble," he called, holding up his empty left hand in the universal sign of peace, while making sure that the 9 mm automatic kept the trio covered.

 

The three men exchanged glances, whispering intently to one another.

 

Then, without a breath of warning, they turned tail and ran toward the wide track.

 

"Don't shoot," Ryan snapped. "Let them be."

 

In eight beats of the heart, the olive-skinned natives had vanished into the jungle that lined the trail.

 

"Well, they didn't seem too impressed with meeting the bold explorers," Doc said. "From the appearance of them I would have said that John Barrymore was roughly correct. They had the physiognomy of natives from Central or South America. Perhaps from the basin of the Amazon, or the Mato Grosso."

 

"Blasters were interesting," J.B. said, looking at Ryan. "You recognize them?"

 

"Rifle looked like a Mauser. Didn't know what the handblaster was. You pick them?"

 

The Armorer nodded. "That's what's interesting. Spanish and Portuguese used to be active in these parts, didn't they? Doc, you know about"

 

Mildred interrupted him, coughing to attract attention. "I know Doc is the source of all information from aardvarks to memorable zeugmas, but could I just mention that I'm the one in the party who minored in American Indian sociological groupings. You could try asking me, John."

 

"Sorry." He patted her arm. "Was I right about the influence of the Spanish and the Portuguese?"

 

She smiled at him. "Course you were, love. Incidentally, did anyone else notice that the guy without the shirt or pants was tattooed?"

 

"Me," Jak said. "In thick ridges, like snakes."

 

"Right. Coils and also hundreds of dots around his thighs. Made him look like he was wearing Lycra cycling shorts. Not that any of you would know what Lycra cycling shorts are. Where was I?"

 

"Conquistadors," Doc prompted.

 

"Right. Most of the continent was overrun by European explorers. Most came from Spain or Portugal. Had a very strong influence right up to skydark."

 

J.B. nodded. "Unusual weapons. Only seen either of them in armaments books from predark. Good guess on the Mauser. Bolt-action rifle, 6.5 caliber. Mauser-Vergueiro. The M-1904 model. Odd gun. like to have a look at one. The bolt handle is set in front of the receiver bridge."

 

"More like a Mannlicher?" Ryan asked.

 

"Yeah. Handblaster was also Portuguese. It's a Savage M-915. Antique. Got some interesting details from what I remember about them."

 

"What?" Jak asked.

 

"Shouldn't we be moving out of here?" Mildred asked. "Sorry to interrupt all this male-bonding talk about guns, but those three might come back with a bunch of friends."

 

Ryan nodded. "In a minute, Mildred. They can't get back with help just yet."

 

He turned to J.B. "Go on." It was always profoundly interesting tapping the Armorer's unparalleled knowledge of weaponry.

 

"Delayed blow-back action. Bit like the Model 12 Steyr. Way it's built, the actual barrel rotates. Slows the action down just a little. But it all starts to operate the moment you initiate the firing sequence. Spur cocking lever. Set where you'd find the hammer. A spring-loaded striker on the old Savage gets itself released by the sear."

 

Ryan was fascinated by this arcane piece of blaster lore. "So the cocking lever doesn't hit on the firing pin, like the hammer does on most handblasters?"

 

"Right. So you're careful not to have a round in the chamber when you let the cocking lever down."

 

"Real old blasters," Jak said.

 

"Yeah," the Armorer agreed. "Real old."

 

"How come natives with bows and arrows also have blasters like that?" Krysty asked.

 

"Find it a lot all the way across Deathlands. Dirt-poor squatters, in a stinking frontier pesthole so low the pigs eat better than people, can end up with a top-quality Python or Magnum." J.B. shook his head. "Those blasters could be well over the hundred-year mark."

 

Mildred was looking around her. "I've never been down this far south," she said. "Spent a little time in Mexico. College days. Checking out some Toltec and Olmec ruins. All part of the great Aztec empire."

 

"I read about the Aztecs," Doc said. "Fascinating, the strengths and weaknesses of their way of life. Staggering beauty and appalling violence. I read an excellent book on them once. So long ago. Also covered something of the Mayas and the Incas, farther south."

 

"They tribes, Doc?" Dean asked.

 

"Civilizations, son. The Lakota and the Chiricahua could be called tribes, I guess. But when you start thinking about the old ones, like the Anasazi, men you are talking about an entire civilization."

 

"What's the antelope for?" Dean asked, walking forward. "And what's this triple-weird stone for?"

 

Mildred glanced at Doc before answering. "My best guess is that the animal is a sacrifice and the stone is likely some kind of altar."

 

Doc nodded, joining the boy. "Flattened top and a channel to carry the blood over one side. Maybe to be caught in a vessel of some kind. And there's a crude sculpture of a man with a snake issuing from his mouth. Serpent god. For once Dr. Wyeth and I find ourselves on the same side of the fence."

 

"Altar?" Ryan repeated. "They come all the way out here to leave a sacrifice to their gods? The gods of the jungle?" A thought struck him. "Wait a minute. That hacked-out trail runs from here all the way to the gateway entrance. Almost like they're sacrificing to that."

 

 

 

THEY MOVED CAUTIOUSLY along the fifteen-foot-wide track, heading roughly westward, though it curved and twisted in on itself like a poisoned rattler.

 

The jungle pressed in closely on both sides, with impenetrable walls of brush, some of the shrubs with murderous spines six inches long. And everywhere was the overpowering scent of flowers and the humming of insects.

 

Krysty was at Ryan's heels. "Be a great ace-on-the-line sort of place for an ambush, lover," she said quietly.

 

"You feel anything?"

 

"No. Sort of seething life, but all of it seems to be away in the background. No immediate threat."

 

"Could be a hundred armed men within fifty feet of us, and we wouldn't know." Ryan looked behind, checking that everyone was keeping a proper spacing.

 

"Thought Trader didn't approve of taking chances like this. What would he think?"

 

Ryan smiled. "He'd have thought there was no choice. Then chances don't come into it."

 

"Where's that crystal pool you were talking about?" Mildred called from farther behind. "We're all dehydrating at the rate of a pint an hour. Maybe more. We go on too far, Ryan, and we'll all get ill. And after that we'll all get dead."

 

 

 

THEY TOOK A BREAK about ten minutes later, resting in another clearing, all of them flopping to the ground, close to exhaustion.

 

"Never known anything like this humidity and heat for sapping strength," Ryan said.

 

"Doc's not handling it well." Mildred had walked over to join Ryan and Krysty.

 

The old man was sitting fanning himself with J.B.'s fedora, his lips moving as he muttered to himself. In the stillness it was just possible to hear what he was saying.

 

"Catch the blood in the vessel with the pestle. Not the flagon with the dragon. Which has the true brew? Truth has the witch's brew." He smiled to himself as he mopped his brow with his blue kerchief. "Chalice from the palace? Or is that the one that holds the poisoned pellet? Caught at the court of King Arthur. If you have a boil, you must lance it a lot."

 

"Off his head," Krysty said. "Babbling total nonsense, poor old bastard."

 

"Can I recce, Dad?"

 

Ryan nodded. "My orders are very simple. To go on a recce and find us some good fresh water, within less than a hundred yards from here. And if you sort out some food, then you get a double-plus point."

 

"On my way."

 

"And Dean"

 

"Yeah?"

 

"Careful."

 

"Sure."

 

Ryan lay back on the lush grass and closed his eye, thinking about the location of this latest jump somewhere to the south of Mexico. His knowledge of the geography of Deathlands was second to nobody. But that knowledge extended only a few dozen miles south of the big Grandee.

 

He dozed, his last sentient thought involved with wondering whether this might be the Shangri-la that he and Krysty were endlessly searching for. Their Paradise. Their Promised Land. The Golden City.

 

In Ryan's mind there was water and pasture and maybe mountains. A small homestead, secure and solid. And himself there with Krysty and with Dean. It was a place of safety, where a man could finally stop all the running and the feuding and the fighting and the chilling.

 

And maybe there would be more children. That part of the picture always seemed to be a little blurred.

 

Someone was shaking him.

 

For a fraction of a broken moment, Ryan's hand fell to the butt of the SIG-Sauer, his fighting instinct taking over.

 

"Dad."

 

The hand moved from the blaster.

 

"Dad!"

 

"What is it, Dean?" Ryan sat up and opened his right eye, feeling the beginnings of a headache lurking somewhere behind the ruins of his left eye.

 

"Found it."

 

"What?"

 

"Water. Just around the next corner. And there's loads of fruit there."

 

Ryan blinked, aware that his son's excited face was streaked with sticky threads of yellow juice. "Sure it's good to eat?" he asked.

 

"Course. Delicious. Peaches and nectarines and some other stuff I don't know the names of."

 

Everyone else had sat up as the boy came running excitedly into the clearing. Even Doc seemed to have snapped back into the real world.

 

"What kind of water, boy?" Mildred called.

 

"Hey, little water boy, set your water bucket down," Doc sang tunefully. "And bring me a long cool drink, there's a sweet Ganymede."

 

Dean turned to the old man. "Doc, that's not my name. Are you feeling ?"

 

"Feeling double fine and looking triple good, thank you, Dean Cawdor. Though I confess that I was fatigued for a moment or two due to the lack of access to the best produce of Adam's brewery. But now you bring us the finest news. Ganymede. Cupbearer to the gods. It is drinkable, is it, lad?"

 

"Sure."

 

"Tried it?" Jak asked, standing up. The teenager seemed to suffer from the damp heat less than the others, though Ryan knew that a hot bright sun was bad news for his deathly white skin.

 

"Sure."

 

"No piranhas?" Mildred asked.

 

The boy's smile vanished and his eagerness evaporated. "Don't think there's Never looked."

 

"Hell," Ryan said, "let's go see."