by neetha Napew
"Oh, Gaia!" Krysty's breath locked in her throat as she watched Ryan fall, then disappear under the raging river. Then she felt Doc's hand on her forearm, tugging her along, Dean behind her, pushing forward.
"No time," Dean said. "He's going to be all right, but that river's going to pull him along. We've got to get the boat moving. It's his only chance."
He's dead, whore, Phlorin cackled in the back of Krysty's mind. Dead and gone. You're never going to see him again. He's never going to have the chance to defile you again, never have the chance to defile one of the Chosen again.
Krysty refused to believe that. If Ryan was dead, she'd know. Her gift would allow her that. Gaia would see to it that she knew.
But she stared out at the rushing water and felt only icy cold hope nestled around her heart.
"Krysty," Doc said gently.
She let him lead her, managing the steps with real effort. Somehow Doc got her into a run, and she felt the rope ladder sway beneath her feet. Only then did she notice the smoke aboard the boat.
RYAN PLUMMETED into the river feet first, absorbing most of the shock through his boot heels. The water, though, was still cold enough to take his breath away. His left shoulder was on fire. Before he'd managed the leap from the dropoff, a bullet had found him. He didn't know how bad the wound was, but the pain was enough to cause him problems with the arm.
His gear and the Steyr slung over his back worked to drag him under. Water filled his boots, near freezing in intensity. For a moment, he figured he was going to smash into the river bottom, not knowing for sure how deep it was where he'd been able to jump, and not knowing how far down his drop would put him.
By the time his downward momentum was spent, his lungs felt like bursting, burning for the need for oxygen. He looked up but he couldn't see through the dirty water enough to know where the surface was.
He made his left arm work, stroking upward. With the current carrying him along, he knew he wasn't going to come up anywhere near the boat. In fact, after struggling with the river, he thought it was going to be a miracle if he came up at all. The current seemed intent on dragging him five or six feet forward for every foot he pulled himself up, dragging him back down again.
Black spots were floating in his vision when he made it to the surface. He wheeled desperately, trying to get his bearings. As deep as he was, tossed by the current and savaged by the cold, he spotted the boat's masts. But they were staying put and he was moving away from them fast.
"KEEP THEM COVERED, Millie," J.B. said.
Mildred knew the Armorer wasn't talking about the coldhearts pouring down the rope ladders. Bullets peppered the water and the boat, but Morse and his boys were the ones J.B. was talking about.
"Get the boat moving," J.B. ordered.
"I move out there, I'm going to get shot," Morse protested, hiding by the door to belowdecks.
"You stay where you are," Mildred promised, "I'll shoot you myself."
The Armorer stepped up to the man and backhanded him, turning his head completely to the side even with the short blow. "And if she doesn't do it," J.B. put in, "those fuckers coming down those ladders will do it. Now get your ass in gear."
Morse yelled at his boys, staying low as he started unfurling the sails. Bullets chopped at them, delaying their work.
Dean stayed with Krysty and kept his blaster leveled on Elmore.
"You've got to find Ryan, J.B.," Krysty said in a weak voice.
"Going to," J.B. replied. He slipped one of the machetes mounted on the boat's railing free, then ran to the mooring rope holding the prow to the pier.
Mildred kept the .38 loose, watching as J.B. slashed through the mooring ropes, prow and stern, and through the rope holding the anchor, as well. The boat was swept out into the river's current at once, almost listing sideways, stopping just short of capsizing as the rushing water took it into its embrace.
Hanging on to the railing, Mildred watched as the river water surged up, slopping over the side. Her feet were drenched, turning cold at once. She no longer had to cover the Morse family; they were all locked into survival together.
"Do you see him?" J.B. asked.
Mildred strained to see across the river as the next current caught them and boosted them up. "No. Dammit, can't see much of anything."
"Bastard river's taken him downstream," J.B. replied.
The sails filled overhead, cracking in the breeze. Mildred felt the boat surge, like a horse fighting the tether.
"There!" Doc called. "I see him!" He stood, holding Krysty tight at his side.
Looking farther down river, Mildred spotted Ryan. The one-eyed man disappeared under the water for a moment, then came bobbing back up. "Get us over there," she ordered Morse.
"This current," Morse replied, "ain't making this boat any too easy to handle."
Still, he managed to get Junie close enough to Ryan for J.B. to hand down one of the sheared remains of a mooring rope. Ryan somehow found the strength to hang on as they hauled him up.
Mildred got some blankets from belowdecks and draped them across Ryan's shoulders. She also found and popped a self-heat of chicken-noodle soup. By that time, the boat was well into the current, running for all she was worth.
The threat of the coldhearts died away, as they were pounded further into submission by the trading post's 20 mm cannon.
Crossing the deck to where Ryan lay, Mildred dropped to her knees, her body rolling with the frantic pitch of the boat. She looked at his injured shoulder, at the blood spreading across the shirt material. She unbuttoned the shirt and pulled it back.
"Ruined the shirt, didn't it?" Ryan asked.
"Got your old one in the gear." Mildred examined the bullet hole. The round had cored through the outer deltoid muscle atop Ryan's left shoulder. It was more messy than damaging. "Through and through. You got lucky."
"Real lucky, Dad," Dean said. "Thought that bastard river had taken you for sure. Glad it didn't."
"Me, too." Ryan tried to sit up, managing it with help from Mildred and Dean.
Mildred pulled the blanket tighter around Ryan, noting his pallid complexion. It wasn't from the shock of the wound; it was the chill of the water. "Eat your soup. Get your temperature back up before you get the chills or end up getting sick. I've got to pack that wound, get the bleeding stopped."
Ryan did as he was instructed, ignoring the spoon he'd been given and drinking the soup straight from the container.
Mildred took gauze from the first-aid supplies and plugged the entry and exit wounds on the one-eyed man's shoulder. Ryan, being the indomitable hardass he was, didn't say a word during the whole procedure.
"After exposure to that water, I'm going to pump you full of vitamin B, too." Mildred took one of the few ampoules they'd found in a recent visit to a redoubt and injected him. "You might run a slight fever with this, but you'll be okay."
RYAN SAT BESIDE KRYSTY, nursing another self-heat of chicken-noodle soup as he watched her sleep. Hours had passed, and he'd slept some of them himself, but for a few minutes here and there, he'd talked with Krysty and with the other companions.
After his rescue, Ryan had instructed Morse to turn up-river again. The coldhearts were no longer a threat, and the companions passed the fort without incident. The river had calmed as they'd sailed, but with the sun hanging so low in the sky and the coastline so uncertain, there was no choice about dropping anchor for the night. Too much debris washing down from upriver created hazards. Morse had already had his boys working to patch the leaks from the bullet rounds that had cored through the decks. The boat had taken on a foot and a half of water before they'd been able to get most of them stopped. The boys, spelled by Jak, Dean, Doc and J.B., worked a hand bilge pump to clear the water. Ryan had even taken a couple turns himself, not wanting his wounded arm to stiffen too much.
"Got any of that soup left, lover?" Krysty croaked.
"Yeah." Ryan handed it over, but she was too weak to sit
up and take it.
"Sorry," she said. "Stomach's rolling. I'm hungry, but I'm too weak to take care of it myself."
Ryan helped her sit, then patiently spoon-fed her. "Talked to Elmore earlier," he said. "We're mebbe four days out from where Donovan's supposed to be up in the mountains around the Heimdall Foundation."
"Long time," Krysty said. "And a long way."
"Seen longer times and longer ways," Ryan replied. "We'll see this one through just the same."
"Wish I believed that as much as you do, lover. But I hear that bitch's voice in the back of my mind just eating at me. It could be that by the time we get there, there won't be much of me left."
"You have a hard time believing in that," Ryan told her, keeping his voice strong, "then you just believe in me. I ain't never let you down before."
"Haven't, lover," she corrected him gently. "You haven't ever let me down."
"Haven't," he said agreeably. "And I ain't about to start now." He thought she might correct him again, but instead she was asleep in his arms. He held her despite the pain it caused in his wounded shoulder, knowing it would be nothing like the agony he'd feel if he lost her.
Four days, but they could measure a lifetime—Krysty's.
He concentrated on her breathing as he held her, hearing it even above the constant smack of waves against the boat's hull and the crack of sailcloth.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The four days passed hard for Ryan, and being forced to stay aboard the boat for the duration was intolerable. He was a man used to making his own way.
The wounded shoulder healed well, with only a slight case of infection. He'd lanced it himself with the heated blade of the panga. The other companions struggled with the claustrophobic feelings inspired by life on the boat. J.B. was the only one who handled the time without strain, but that was because the Armorer had room to spread out all the companions' weapons and give them a proper cleaning.
Morse and his sons had grown increasingly belligerent about manning Junie. Morse himself had a lump on his jaw and behind his ear where Jak had pistol-whipped him with the .357 Magnum when the man had tried to jump Dean. To Dean's own credit, he'd resisted killing the man outright.
The deeper they got into what had once been the state of Montana before the nukecaust, the more hopeful Elmore had become. Evidently the man believed the Heimdall Foundation was going to get him out of his present predicament one way or another.
Ryan knew that wasn't going to happen until after he'd gotten help for Krysty. His lover had remained asleep most of the trip, plagued by the sickness that wrenched her guts, and by the dead woman feeding her twisted dreams. She'd told Ryan some of them during the times she'd been awake, and even he'd been sickened. There'd been no loveplay, even though Ryan had tried to instigate it to bring her relief. The woman's threats to kill whatever seed quickened in Krysty's belly had frightened her too much.
On the evening of the fourth day, they found Michael Donovan, the Heimdall Foundation man they'd come deep into Montana to find.
Trouble was, others had found him first.
"THAT'S DONOVANS BOAT," Elmore said.
The river here was becalmed and placid. J.B. had found some old maps aboard the boat that listed the river in Montana as the Jefferson River. At least, that was the location the Armorer's minisextant indicated.
Donovan's boat was nearly twice the size of Junie, strung with rigging that looked as delicate as a spiderweb. She looked as though she'd cut through the water like a knife blade through butter once her sails were gathering the wind.
But not now.
Now the big boat was listing in the wind, the few sails she had up catching the breeze the wrong way. Around her were seven smaller craft that Ryan could see through his binocs. Four of them were small motor craft, and three of them looked like water bikes.
The sound of blasterfire echoed flat across the river.
"Who are they?" Ryan demanded.
"River pirates," Elmore stated. "Get them through here a lot. Especially during the rainy season. Come down to see what they can find washed up on shore. If they don't feel like doing the work themselves, they take stuff they want from other folks already took the time to salvage it."
"Why doesn't Donovan have a bigger crew if he knows these coldhearts are going to be out here?" J.B. asked.
"Probably does have a bigger crew back at the main campsite," Elmore said. "He likes to do his own exploring."
Ryan put his eye back to the binoculars, reeling the attack back into focus. "Man's got to be out of his mind to go anywhere alone if he's got an army to go with him."
"I think, my dear Ryan," Doc spoke up, "that the more appropriate nomenclature at this juncture would be navy. That Donovan has a navy at his back."
"If we don't step in," Ryan stated, "Donovan's going to have the life expectancy of a mosquito stuck to flypaper." And with the man might go any chances of helping Krysty.
He glanced over at Morse. "Get us in there."
THE BOAT'S SPINNAKER unfurled when Morse released it. The material belled out into the breeze, swelling to its full size in seconds. The boat surged forward, cutting deep into the flat planes of the river.
Ryan commanded the others into position, taking the prow himself. He pulled the Steyr to his shoulder, favoring his wounded arm.
"They see us now," J.B. called out from Ryan's right. "Going to try us."
Before the Armorer's words died away, three of the motor craft peeled away from the savaged sailboat and raced for Junie. Bullets from the approaching river pirates created dozens of impact areas in the water ahead of the boat. In a few more seconds, the bullets slapped into the boat around Ryan.
He aimed and fired smoothly, plucking the man working the tiller on the powerboat from his seat. The powerboats were small fishing boats with rear-mounted motors that whined like deep-throated bumblebees.
Donovan's vessel looked to be taking on water, listing roughly to its left, unable to break away now that the attention of the river pirates had been diverted.
The powerboat with the dead driver went out of control, pulling around in a hard circle. The men aboard the boat scrambled, working against one another as they tried to get control of the outboard. Ryan fired twice more, aiming at the engine, which exploded as the gas tank ruptured. The flames spread over the passengers, as well as the boat, and threw black smoke into the air.
Bullets from the other boats drilled into Junie and cut the air around Ryan. Before he had a chance to aim at another of the pirate boats, they were past him. He stepped from the prow to the starboard railing, bringing the rifle to his shoulder again.
J.B. accounted for one of the racing water bikes by shooting the gas tank with a flechette round from the M-4000. The tank erupted into a fireball that enveloped the driver. The passenger, protected by the driver's body, dived into the water. When he came back up, the Armorer blasted another round into his head. The decapitated body swirled briefly in the water as the final nervous spasms jerked through it, then sank.
Mildred picked off two more pirates from another boat before being driven to cover by return fire.
The river pirates turned in concert, cutting white plumes through the water as they came around for another pass.
Ryan laid down heavy fire, squeezing through his rounds as he aimed at the lead craft. His bullets holed the metal hull of the canted prow, then smashed on into two of the men beyond. The misshapen bullets tore huge wounds in the flesh and blood. Ryan heard the screams of the men over the outboard as the boat broke off the attack and sped past them.
Dean managed to get one more of the water bikes with his Browning Hi-Power before they disappeared farther down the river. The youngster crowed in savage delight.
"Reload your weapons," Ryan ordered. "Chances are we haven't seen the last of them."
The companions complied, taking up positions around Junie so they could keep watch in all directions. Now that they'd made themselves
known to the river pirates, they'd taken on the role of prey, as well.
"Morse," Ryan yelled.
"What?"
"Bring us alongside that other craft."
Morse called out the adjustment to the sails to his sons and steered Junie closer to the foundering ship.
Ryan studied the bigger sailboat. She listed more deeply in the water now, making no headway at all even with the tug of her sails. Despite the slight breeze flowing all around him, Ryan's face was covered with perspiration, and his clothing was soaked with it from the heat of the sun.
With Morse's expert handling, Junie pulled alongside the other craft, staying out a good thirty feet. Stern heavy now, the bigger boat's prow lifted well above the normal water-line. Her name was painted on the port side in green letters against the faded blue hull—Calypso.
"Ahoy, the boat," Ryan called out. He lowered the Steyr, but kept it in both hands.
"What the hell do you want?" a rough voice shouted back. In the stillness left after the blasterfire and the sounds of the outboards had died away, the words sounded unnaturally loud.
"Looking for a man named Donovan," Ryan said.
There was a pause. "And if you found him?"
Ryan turned over his shoulder, fixing Elmore with his gaze. "Let them know who you are."
Hesitantly Elmore stepped up to the railing. "Donovan, it's Elmore. You remember me?"
Nobody moved on Calypso, but the few blasters aboard shifted to take in the new target.
"We don't mean any harm," Ryan said, "unless it's offered to us first."
"River pirates done cleaned us out of everything worth having," the man shouted back.
Ryan saw him now, a medium-built man with a shock of black hair dropping to his shoulders. A white streak of hair matted one temple in a jagged line. He was burned nut brown by the constant exposure to the sun and the elements, and went bare chested, wearing only shorts and lace-up boots. He held a Martin .22 rifle easily in one hand.