Tainted Cascade. James Axler

couple of leather sacks slung underneath the wag, stashed there to keep them out of the sun, J.B. deduced one was a water skin and popped the top to take a long swig before passing it around to the others. It was gratefully accepted, especially by Krysty and Mildred, who wasted some by washing off their sticky gun hands.

      The other bag was securely tied, and J.B. broke a fingernail in the process. Hoping for his glasses, the man was sorely disappointed to find only hard rolls of bread, a lot of smoked fish and a couple of plastic bottles of shine. But there was no sign of their blasters, med bag, grens or any other of their missing possessions.

      Stripping the two corpses of their clothing, Doc found most of it too befouled to be of any use. So taking a knife from the belt of one of the fat men, he cut the man’s shirt and pants into ribbons. After tying one around his chest as a crude bandage, Doc handed another to Jak so that he could do the same. Krysty and Mildred declined the proffered strips.

      Feeling ridiculous, Doc layered several strips around his loins as a crude kilt. Born and raised in a time where a man or a woman showing an inch of bare skin was considered the height of vulgarity, almost wanton, the scholar was horribly embarrassed to be nearly naked among his friends. He knew it was ridiculous, but the wisdom of childhood often formed the templates of adulthood.

      Ryan and J.B. took the shoes of the dead men, but left behind the reeking socks. Personally, neither of them gave a nuking damn about being half-naked, as long as they had a blaster in their hand.

      From the second buckboard, the wind began to carry over the shouts from the prisoners in the cage. Ryan couldn’t clearly hear any of the words, but guessed it was merely them begging to be set free. He would do that soon enough—after the companions had first searched the other wags for their missing belongings.

      Slinging a bag of ammunition over a shoulder, Krysty jumped off the wag and did a little dance, allowing her bare feet to get used to the hot dirt under the grass. “Wish there was more cloth to make moccasins,” she growled.

      “Lots of aced slavers over there,” J.B. said, jerking a thumb toward the toppled wreckage. “Should be enough to get all of us shoes and blasters.”

      “Some pants would be nice, too,” Mildred said, tugging her bra to a more comfortable position. Then she frowned, catching a tiny piece of what the imprisoned slaves had been shouting for the past ten minutes.

      “Outriders!” Krysty cursed, spinning fast to bring the crossbow up to her shoulder.

      Just then, a group of large men on horseback galloped over the horizon, each of them carrying a longblaster, with a brace of blasters tucked into their belts.

      Quickly, the companions moved behind the wag for some cover.

      “By the Three Kennedys!” Doc cursed, hefting his own crossbow. “The dastards weren’t running for their ville, but to their compatriots! We should have known there would be more guards than these pitiful, plump patrons!”

      “Let come,” Jak snarled, ramming a fresh load of powder down the hot barrel of a longblaster.

      Wordlessly, J.B. scrambled up the side of the buckboard and took the reins in hand, ready to run or charge, whatever needed to be done. The other companions would have to do the chilling, but even blind he could plow the wag through the newcomers to break their charge. A disorganized enemy already had one boot in hell, as Trader always liked to say.

      Lifting his flintlock, Ryan aimed between the wooden bar, sweeping the longblaster through the group of outriders for a target. A big man with a beard seemed to be shouting orders to the others, which marked him as the leader. Good enough.

      Bracing against the numbing recoil, Ryan fired, and the discharge of gun smoke masked the results for a few seconds. When the breeze cleared the air, Ryan cursed to see he had missed. The damn flintlock was about as accurate as throwing dry leaves! Just for a microsecond, the one-eyed man wished the bolt-action Steyr was at his side. Then he shook off those kinds of thoughts and concentrated on the here and now. Six against six, with the newcomers mobile and the companions armed only with two longblasters, a handblaster and a couple of crossbows. He’d been in worse situations, but not by much.

      Whooping like lunatics, the outriders charged over the lush grassland toward the companions, their weapons throwing smoke and flame.

      “No way they can hit us at this range,” Mildred said, a hand blocking the sun from her eyes. “They must be trying to scare us into submission.” The flintlock pistol was in her other hand, the hammer cocked and ready.

      “No nuking chance of that happening,” Krysty stated, lifting her crossbow high and releasing an arrow. It soared high to arch back down and slam into a juniper tree just behind the outriders.

      Contemptuously, the outriders opened fire again, scoring more furrows along the side of the wags, smacking out a chunk of wood from the bars of the cage.

      “What in the…the bastards aren’t going for us, they’re trying to ace the horses!” Mildred shouted in comprehension.

      Using the nimrod to ram down a fresh load of powder, ball and wadding, Ryan cocked back the hammer and took aim. “Then we’ll just use theirs, instead,” he growled, and squeezed the trigger. The longblaster loudly discharged, a dark cloud of smoke gushing from the wide muzzle with a bright stiletto of flame extending through the center like a lightning strike in the night.

      The hat flew off the head of the leader, and the other outriders openly laughed. Then red blood began to trickle from his hair, and the man limply toppled over sideways from the saddle to disappear in a clump of thorny bushes.

      Shouting curses, the remaining riders bent low behind the heads of their mounts for protection and started wildly shooting their blasters. Then Jak fired, scoring one man along the leg and tearing off the blaster from his gun belt.

      “Well done, lad!” Doc proclaimed, releasing an arrow. It flew straight, then a gust of wind made it veer off wildly and impale a tall cactus. Under his breath, the scholar muttered a word that normally he pretended didn’t exist.

      Pressing the handblaster against the bars of the cage, Mildred triggered the weapon, the recoil almost knocking the flintlock out of her grip. Oddly, the blaster sounded louder than the rifles, and as expected, she hit nothing. The range was simply too great for the short-barreled weapon. But she dutifully tried again anyway, determined to go down fighting. If nothing else, she forced the outriders to divide their attention.

      “Dark night, if only I had my bag,” J.B. muttered, rubbing his bare shoulder. Then the man grinned wide and dived under the buckboard seat to come out with the wax-covered box of .22 cartridges.

      “What do?” Jak asked, quickly reloading.

      “Watch and see.” J.B. laughed, emptying out the leather sack of smoked fish, then reaching through the bars to start packing it full of clean straw.

      Meanwhile, Ryan and Jack alternated firing and reloading their weapons to maintain a steady barrage. However, they were going through the small reserves of black powder at a prodigious rate and would soon be unarmed.

      Just then, the team of horses started kicking and bucking, becoming frightened by the approaching outriders. “Millie, keep them under control!” J.B. yelled, adding a handful of loose black powder to the straw.

      Triggering the blaster one last time, Mildred then sprinted to the front of the wag and seized the reins to try to calm the frightened team. “Easy, boys! Easy, now.” The physician chucked gently, her heart hammering inside her chest. Out in the open, she was a sitting target for the outriders and was gambling they wouldn’t want to chill a woman unless absolutely necessary.

      Using both hands to draw back the steel cable for her crossbow, Krysty nocked another arrow. This one was tipped with a wicked piece of black volcanic glass, the razor-sharp edge of the basalt glinting like polished death.

      Ignoring the people, this time the woman aimed for the much larger horses. She fired again, and a black stallion reared high to paw the air, the tuft of fletching sticking out of its heaving chest.