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Crossing the street, Ryan knocked on the door to the darkened gun shop.
"What do you want?" a young man's voice asked, so quiet it didn't drift more than
a few feet.
"To see J. B. Dix," Ryan replied. "And make it bastard quick. I've already chilled
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two men coming this far. One of them gets discovered, we're going to be up to
our ears in Kirkland's sec teams."
"I'll be back."
Ryan waited, staying in the shadows. He didn't know how long it would be
before someone came along to change the guards.
"Ryan," J.B. called less than two minutes later.
"Here." Ryan stepped in through the open door, noting the woman and the two
men that flanked the Armorer, their hands on their weapons. "There's a lot of
things we've got to talk over."
DOC SAT on his haunches and watched the barn. The wag carrying Mildred had
disappeared inside almost a half hour before. Cloaked in the shadows of a nearby
residence, crouched behind some bushes, he kept his Le Mat blaster across his
knees. He held the slim volume of Robert Frost poetry in his free hand, forcing
himself to be patient by trying to recall all he could of the poet's work.
He was torn between going back to Ryan and the others to let them know where
Mildred had been taken, and not wanting to desert the woman.
His mind conjured up torture scene after torture scene, refusing to give him any
rest. Too many of the vulgar violences that traveled through his brain were too
clear, too much a part of what he had lived through.
Doc had witnessed the evil that lurked in the hearts of men. He stifled a burst of
laughter that threatened to tear free inside him, not knowing what had sparked it.
Voices warned him that men were coming back out of the barn.
Doc drew back into the shadowy embrace of the hedges beside the house and
curled his finger around the Le Mat's trigger. He had it set for the massive .63-
caliber shotgun load. If all hell was going to break loose when he had to use it, he
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figured on clearing the decks as much as possible beforehand. Kirkland walked
out of the barn in the company of two other men, all of them illuminated by the
lantern the healer carried. One of them Doc recognized as being one of the men
aboard the wag that had taken Mildred. Kirkland led the way into the back of a
large manor house that showed evidence of skilled carpenters who had built it.
When the men disappeared into the house, Doc waited a little while longer, then
eased out of hiding and took long steps toward the barn. The door was left
unlocked, so he crept inside.
The stink of hay and the animals filled his nostrils as he passed inside. He used
his cane much as a person without sight would, feeling for uneven surfaces ahead
of him.
With a dull thunk he found an object before him that turned out to be one of the
wag wheels. He pocketed the Frost book and whispered hoarsely, "Mildred!
Mildred! Dear lady, it is I, Doc. If you can hear me, please let me know." He
searched frantically, feeling across the buckboard, sorely afraid that Mildred's
corpse would be the only thing left lying there.
Thankfully, in a sense, the buckboard was empty. That still left finding Mildred
almost an impossibility. Doc prayed as he searched, hoping that the woman was
still alive.
A sliver of moonlight above him caught his attention as it threw a narrow shaft
onto the stalls in front of him. It vanished a moment later, obviously having been
reflected from some other surface outside. Still, it presented possibilities.
Working from the brief glimpse he'd gotten, Doc found the ladder leading up to
the hayloft and climbed it. When he gained the top, he used the sword stick again
to search the area before him, making his way to the small doors fronting the
barn. The moonlight rimmed them, drawing them into squares almost three feet
across.
When he reached the doors, he pulled the bolt back and opened them. Moonlight
invaded the barn, falling down over the horses below. Most of the stalls
contained animals. With the unaccustomed light invading the barn, some of the
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horses started nickering restlessly. Still, the natural light flooding the barn would
be much less obvious than lighting a lantern.
Doc climbed back down the ladder and rounded the buckboard. A quick check let
him know that Mildred wasn't in any of the stalls. His mind flew, racing with
possibilities. He glanced upward, seeing nothing but the hayloft above.
He then moved to one side of the stall near the barn door and started stamping his
foot. All he encountered for a long time was the dull splat of his boot striking
nothing but hard ground.
He was beginning to think that if there was an underground room, it was buried
so deep that he wouldn't be able to hear the difference. Fearful disappointment
filled him, and the madness seeped into every chink such negative thinking
created.
Then the sound changed when he stamped. Instead of a dulled thud, he heard a
hollow thomp.
Marking the area with the sword stick, Doc sprang for the pitchfork hanging on
the wall near the tack and harness. Determined effort and some work allowed him
to track the underground room to the rearmost stall on the right. The stall was
empty, and straw covered the floor. Doc scraped the straw away and found the
square-cut door beneath, collared by two-by-fours. He grasped the steel ring set
in the door and yanked it open to reveal a yawning black abyss below.
He felt inside and found a ladder built onto one of the walls. Voices outside
startled him, coming closer.
Quiet as he could be, Doc climbed inside the doorway and pulled it closed behind
him. He waited for a moment, hardly daring to breathe.
And the voices came closer. "I don't care what Kirkland says about that bitch," a
man said. "Damaged goods isn't gonna keep her from being worth just as much to
the bastard outlanders. I see Kirkland took a woman from the gaudy house
tonight, so I know he isn't needing relief the way I do."
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"I don't know about that, Harold," another man said. "You go messing with that
woman, Kirkland's liable to chill you over it."
"Fuck him. I'll just tell him she's lying. I don't think he's going to be handing her
back to those outlanders alive anyway. Never saw him be overly generous about
such things, and they got something he wants or he would have killed them
outright anyhow."
Doc explored the floor below him. The sword stick quickly touched walls on all
sides of him, letting him know he was in a very small room. Kneeling, he
dragged his free hand across the floor, spreading out his fingers so he could cover
more ground. He found another steel ring and pulled it up.
The footsteps coming from above continued their approach, growing louder.
Doc took the second ladder down, sensing movement too late above him. And
below him was the sound of breaking glass. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]