Chapter Four

 

 

Ryan squeezed the Steyr's trigger before he had the rifle quite to his shoulder. When it fired, the recoil made the Steyr jump in his hands.

 

The bullet caught the brushwooder full in the chest and knocked him back. The man's blaster discharged into the ground more than a yard from Ryan, tearing up a fist-sized clod of snow-frosted earth. Already dying, with blood spitting up over his lips, the brushwooder stubbornly tried to bring his weapon to bear again.

 

Ryan shouldered the Steyr and aimed at the man's head. Before he could squeeze off another round, the familiar boom of J.B.'s Smith amp; Wesson M-4000 shotgun filled the clearing beneath the tree.

 

A nasty hornet's nest of the Remington flechettes belched out by the 12-gauge shotgun tore into the man's face, shoulders and chest. The impact bared white breastbone and bounced him against the tree bole. The few flechettes that had missed the man embedded in the tree and stuck out like steel spurs.

 

"Close one," the Armorer commented as he sought a new target.

 

"Been closer," Ryan answered. He pushed the dead man from the tree and used the trunk for cover.

 

J.B. stood fast and worked his way through the shotgun's magazine, spitting out death. The swarms of flechettes chopped into the brushwooders and stripped them of their sudden courage. "You about ready to get out of here?"

 

"I'm done." Lifting the Steyr, Ryan quickly picked off two men who were within his range. "You take the lead, and I'll close the back door."

 

Renewed gunfire broke out behind them. Turning, his back to a boulder almost as big as a wag, Ryan glanced at the trees and brush where they'd left the dead brushwooders. The advancing brushwooders had gone to ground under his fire and were shooting at the corpses. Bullets hitting the dead brushwooders caused jerky movements, drawing even more intense fire.

 

"Hold your goddamn fire!" someone yelled. "Those people are dead!"

 

"That'll slow them for a minute. Let's get out of here," Ryan said.

 

The Armorer took point, moving in a broad semicircle that would bring them to the foot of the mountains.

 

Driving his legs hard against the muddy earth, Ryan hoped Krysty and the others had found the pass they'd been looking for. If the storm front kept moving in and trapped them in the mountains, it could mean their deaths.

 

 

 

"GREN!" J.B. called out.

 

Ryan went to ground at once, sliding in behind the thick trunk of a felled tree.

 

J.B. pulled the pin on the explosive and lobbed the bomb toward the small knot of brushwooders defending the foothills that led to the ledge climbing into the mountains. "A little something extra I took off one of the brushwooders while I was punching their tickets for the last train West."

 

Ryan hunkered down against the tree, both hands gripping the Steyr.

 

Someone tried to yell a warning, but the effort was torn apart and lost in the detonation of the gren. Shrapnel sliced through the trees overhead, and the concussion hurled small rocks and gravel in all directions.

 

"Company's coming up from behind real fast," J.B. said into the silence that followed the blast.

 

Ryan spotted the shadows shifting through the trees behind them. No longer trying to keep their presence a secret, some of the brushwooders carried lanterns and torches.

 

"There's not going to be an easy way of doing this," Ryan called out.

 

"Then it'd be best to get it over with quick so we don't have time to obsess on it," J.B. replied without hesitation. "The coldhearts behind us know we're in a tight spot."

 

Already bullets were starting to clip branches from the trees overhead and slam into the bark on Ryan's side of the dead oak.

 

"On three, then," Ryan said, knowing the brushwooders nestled in the foothills could hear them. He drew the SIG-Sauer with his right hand and held the rifle in his left.

 

"On three," J.B. repeated.

 

"Three!" Ryan pushed himself up and into a run. There was a lull as the brushwooders were caught by surprise.

 

Spotting two men who shared cover behind a big squared-off rock that came up to their chests, he brought up the SIG-Sauer and snap-fired two rounds. Both 9 mm hollowpoints caught the man on the left in the chest over the heart and drove him backward. As he spun, bringing the blaster to bear on the second brushwooder, Ryan saw the other man's head jerk backward.

 

Ryan never broke stride. A second later he reached the rock in time to spot a hard-faced woman kneeling at the side of a tree. She had J.B. in her sights less than a dozen paces away.