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the safety of the turret.
He never heard the blaster. Dirt and pebbles exploded by his boots, followed
by the dying whine of a ricochet bouncing off the armor. Ryan saw the bright
splash of lead, just above the second set of wheels.
J.R had heard the bullet pinging against the outside of the wag, and he revved
the throttle hard. He'd been able to glimpse Ryan running toward him through
one of the viewers, giving him three-sixty vision from the driver's seat.
Ryan jinked left, then left again, seeing more bullets hitting the packed
earth to his right. He was so close to the wag that it wasn't worth trying to
draw the SIG-
Sauer and return the fire. His instinctive guess was that the shooting was
probably coming from the upper stories of the buildings, while the first-floor
doors were blockaded against the threat of the merciless carnivores of
Mistress Satana.
The Armorer put the LAV-25 into first gear and started to swing it around to
the
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left, trying to give his comrade cover from the shooting. He also brought the
Bushmaster cannon to bear on the ramshackle houses, offering a realistic
threat to the band of hidden snipers, even though they were completely out of
ammo for the huge blaster. But the enraged inhabitants of Wetherill Springs
didn't know that.
Ryan cut back right again, jumping for the body of the wag, feeling his hands
slip, leaving his legs dangling, brushing against the ribbed tread of one of
the tires. He fought for a grip, speeded up by a bullet hitting the metal less
than two inches from his scrabbling fingers.
He was looking back over his shoulder as he battled to heave himself up,
finally reaching the side of the turret, where the swinging barrel of the
blaster nearly knocked him back off again.
"Shit." He slid under the muzzle, feeling like the target in a crazy shooting
gallery. Now he could hear the blasters, see bursts of powder smoke from what
looked like every window of every building in the pesthole ville.
Ryan glimpsed the wags of the Kissoon family in the distance, moving at a
steady rate toward the north, keeping clear of the main drag of the ville. As
far as he could see, nobody was firing in their direction, reserving all their
bullets for him.
"Get in, Ryan!" J.R's voice cracked with the tension.
"I'm trying!" He rested a hand on the open hatch and slid down without his
feet touching the rungs of the ladder.
It was like being inside a metal drum while a lunatic banged an irregular beat
on the outside with a baseball bat. Ryan reached up and closed the hatch,
swinging across the locking latch and picking up the phones and throat mike.
"I'm in."
"Hit?"
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"No."
"Hatch?"
"Shut. Let's get out this place, J.B., before some bright son of a bitch has
the idea of putting a blockade around us and then lighting a big bonfire."
The rotation had stopped, and Ryan heard the Armorer selecting a higher gear.
They began to move forward. The ob slit in front of Ryan showed a tall,
unpainted fence, which crashed over as they collided with it.
Eventually the firing faded away, and there was only the sound of the thirsty
engine and the wheels, rumbling over the blacktop north.
THEY FOUND THEMSELVES behind the traveling animal show after only a mile or
so. J.B. throttled back so that they could act as rearguard if anyone came out
of Wetherill Springs after them. Ryan had opened up the hatch again, relishing
the fresh afternoon sunshine and the smell of the pines around them. He kept a
careful look behind, but there was no sign of any pursuit.
After nearly half an hour, the wags ahead of them signaled they were turning
off into a scenic overlook and the LAV followed them.
Chapter Seventeen
"We owe you two."
"What for?" Ryan asked.
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Ellie stood in front of him and J.B., her face still pale from the recent
ordeal and the shock of Rajah's death.
"You helped us."
"We didn't even pull a trigger once." J.B. wiped road dirt off his glasses.
"Didn't need to," Nell said. "Just by being there you gave us support."
"It was the lions and the tiger that saved your bacon." Ryan whistled between
his teeth. "I suggest you don't ever go within a hundred miles of Wetherill
Springs again."
"And keep away from buffalo hunters," the Armorer added. "Some of them got
long memories."
"And long guns," Katie said.
"Uncle of mine was a buffalo hunter," Ellie told them. "Trained animals, some
of the time. Used to go after those big white bears up north."
"Polar bears." Ryan nodded. "Seen some of them. Swift and evil bastards."
"Big, huh? Uncle Jack used to trek north, way up past the Canada line. Spent
most of his life there. Died up there. Damnedest thing."
"How?" Ryan asked.
"Let's crack open a bottle of vino pinko I been saving, and I'll tell you."
"Better keep a lookout behind," J.B. warned. "Least from here we can see miles
south. No sign yet of anyone driving out after us."
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