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J.B.
and went to kiss his wife goodbye.
"See you later, dearest," he said.
They didn't embrace. There was that ease of love between them that generally
comes to couples who've shared each other's company for many years. Jak kissed
her once on the cheek, and she touched his face with her fingers.
"Come back safe, love."
"Will do. Bye."
Taking the reins back and swinging agilely up onto his mount's back, Jak
kicked his heels into its flanks and moved off at a fast trot toward the
nearby hills, the rest of the group trailing along after him at their best
speed.
Ryan glanced back once.
It was a vision of perfect peace and happiness a thread of smoke from
Christina's cooking oven; Michael waving to them, the child asleep in his
arms;
the woman, taking off her apron to wave it over her head, stepping with a
clumsy grace down the three wooden steps to the yard.
THEY WERE STRUNG out over a hundred yards, Jak leading, and Doc, on a raw-
boned gray gelding bring-ing up the rear. Ryan allowed his own horse to fall
back off the pace to accompany the old man for a while.
"Enjoying this, Doc?"
"Do you wish for the truth or for the diplomatic lie, my dear fellow?"
"I thought you'd done a fair bit of riding, Doc, way back in& in& "
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Axler, James - Deathlands 22 - Rider, Reaper
"My past life? My idea of riding, Ryan, was a gentle canter along Rotten Row
in
London's Hyde Park on a well-schooled, broad-backed ambler, raising my bowler
to the many elegant courtesans, admiring the fetching way they set their
silver spurs into their spirited stallions, allowing my thoughts to wander
away along rather forbidden lines, I fear." Doc grinned at the salacious
memory. "Though my suspicions at the time were that every single one of the
sporting chaps watching the pretty little fillies at exercise were fancying
themselves prancing between their thighs."
"But you were a respectable married man, Doc. I'm shocked at you."
"I was shocked at myself, my dear Ryan. But as for this creature " he slapped
the horse on the neck, " I shall be damnably glad when we reach our
destination and resort once more to the legs God gave us. Walking doesn't
involve bouncing along on this artic-ulated sawhorse of an animal."
"Be at the place Jak mentioned in about an hour, Doc. Can you hang on until
then?"
"An hour is approximately fifty-nine minutes too long," Doc replied. "But I
shall relish the pleasure of ceasing this painful mode of transport all the
more when we stop."
THEY FINALLY STOPPED about an hour and a half later. Jak had led them upward
on a winding trail that gave them a view across the scrub plain below, the
gray dust vanishing away to the shimmering blur of the horizon. The house and
the slant-roofed barns stood out, seeming to be surrounded by rectangles of
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finely ground emeralds, where the irrigation had brought fresh life to the
desert.
Then the path wound higher, snaking around the flank of the mountain, rising
higher, and taking them out of sight of the Lauren spread. The trails finally
leveled out again in a clearing among some live oaks.
Doc swung his leg across the pommel and nearly fell as he reached the solid
ground. "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition," he said. "For this relief,
much thanks."
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Axler, James - Deathlands 22 - Rider, Reaper
All of the horses were tethered to a rawhide rope, stretched between two
trees.
"How about Indians?" J.B. asked, slinging the scattergun across his shoulder.
"Lot of tribes," Jak replied. "Hopi, Zuni, Nava-ho, Mescalero and Chiricahua.
Get on well with all. Christina tended sick Navaho kid few months back, and we
gave failed hunting party young steer. They give furs and bring meat and fish.
Know us. We know them."
"Wouldn't steal the horses?"
Jak shook his head at J.B.'s question. "No way. Renegade breeds and whites.
Mex raiders. Heard about gang up toward Sangre de Cristo mountains."
"What sort of gang?" Ryan asked, tucking the weighted ends of his white silk
scarf inside his coat.
"Wags, they say."
"War wags, Jak?"
"Sure, Ryan. But talk's talk out on frontier. Never seen no war wags all time
down here."
"What sort of armored vehicles, Jak? We talking tanks or PAVs?"
The white hair blew in the fresh breeze. The red eyes turned toward the
Armorer.
"Told you, J.B., it's talk. Probably old truck with sheet of iron stuck up on
it."
"How far to where we're going to get the deer, Jak?" Dean was carrying a
single-
shot homemade ri-fle that he'd been lent for the hunt, and he couldn't wait to
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