No Man's Land

The Armorer rode his horse up alongside Ricky’s. The beasts were used to being in each other’s company, though Ryan knew full well horses had their own likes and dislikes.

“I’ll get right on those leads,” J.B. said.

“Okay,” Ryan said. “And get them done in ten!”

* * *

“HALT, IN THE NAME of the Uplands Alliance!”

As if rising straight up out of the Earth, a party of eight or ten mounted men appeared before the companions. Ryan reckoned that was just about the way of it, too. He gathered they’d come out of a draw hidden at the foot of the long, slow decline the fugitives had ridden down. There was a stand of brush growing there, a shroud of leaves black in the starlight, that might have masked it.

The new set of riders held remade carbines and short double-barreled scatterguns leveled on Ryan and his friends. Still holding the rope by which he led his chestnut gelding, Ryan raised his hands. His companions did likewise.

“State your names and your business,” the man who’d first challenged them said. Like most of his men he wore a wide-brimmed hat with the front pinned up by a badge of some sort, presumably the insignia of the Uplands Alliance. He had on what looked like a uniform shirt, with a double row of buttons at the front, that was probably part of the Uplands Alliance uniform, although he wore baggy pale canvas pants. He toted a pair of revolvers in flap-cover holsters, and a saber hung in its scabbard from his saddle. His gloved hands were empty.

“I’m Ryan Cawdor,” Ryan called out. “These are my friends. Our current business is running away from the Protectors. Though we’re looking to sign on to do some contract sec work for your baron.”

“Baron Al?” the young lieutenant asked.

“He’s not our baron,” snapped a rider with a lever-action carbine aimed at J.B. “He’s commander of the army, yeah. But he’s just baron over Siebertville, not the rest of us.”

“Yeah, yeah, Starbuck,” the lieutenant said, waving a hand. “Whatever.”

“We still thought he might appreciate these horses we brought him as a present,” Ryan said. “Sort of sweeten the deal.”

“Don’t trust ’em, Lieutenant Owens,” said another rider, a middle-height man in his forties. Ryan didn’t need to see the chevrons on the sleeve of his shirt to know he’d answer to “sergeant.” “Could be a trap. Remember about Greeks bearing gifts and that.”

“Those are just old stories, Koslowski,” Owens said. “Doesn’t mean they’re all true. Anyway this dude isn’t speaking Greek, and these horses aren’t wood. Fact is, they do look pretty handsome, though this isn’t the sort of lighting conditions I’d care to pay for horseflesh in.”

The fact was they were some pretty prime rides Ryan and friends had trolled along. As a baron’s son, Ryan had grown up knowing not just how to ride, but how to judge horseflesh with the eye of someone who might have to buy riding stock for himself, his family and their sec men. Rolling for years with the Trader had taught him a different appreciation for the beasts—Trader being a man who preferred wags with engines to those drawn by livestock, and better yet armed to the eyeballs, but overall he preferred turning a handsome profit where one could be secured. Which sometimes meant leaving the gas-burners behind for locations only grass-burners could reach.

Jak had helped. His brief stint as a rancher in the Southwest had given him both an eye for horses and better skills at cutting them out of the herd and driving them where he needed to go than Ryan had. Between them they’d secured seven nice-looking animals. Although the fact was none of them were broken-down plugs; from their cursory acquaintance he didn’t judge too many Protector heads were in danger of exploding from an overload of brains, but to give the bastards their due credit, they did know how to lay their hands on some mighty fine horses, and care for them properly.

Even on short notice J.B. had parceled out rope leads and even rigged some nooselike bridles that’d fit over a horse’s snout and provide steerage pressure without pinching off their ability to breathe. He’d had a good deal of help from young Ricky, which should have surprised Ryan less than it did. The kid was scarcely less handy than the Armorer himself; and while, of course, his actual knowledge wasn’t a patch on the ass of what J.B. knew, he had a good grounding and learned like lightning. No wonder J.B. had taken such a strong and early shine to the kid.

As it turned out, they’d only needed makeshift bridles for Mildred and Ricky himself. The rest of the crew felt comfortable as they were, steering the animals with knee pressure and tugs on their manes. Ryan was grateful the Protector pony soldiers didn’t roach off their mounts’ manes triple-short the way some outfits did.

Despite his qualified approval the fresh-faced young officer frowned. “I think we do need a little bit more by way of bona fides before we completely trust you people,” he said. “Baron Jed’s a cagey bastard. He might be willing to give up a few ponies—”

“Trojan horses,” said Sergeant Koslowski, who was clearly not a man who let go of much of anything readily.

“Take us back under guard if you care to,” Ryan said. “Be the smart thing to do, in your boots—”

Before he could say he’d likely do as much himself, something moaned past his ear like the world’s biggest bumblebee with a rocket up its butt. A horse shied and bucked away from a solid thump in the ground right ahead of it.

A couple heartbeats later the crack of a black-powder weapon going off rolled down from the south.

“Shit!” Lieutenant Owens exclaimed.

“Troop, spread out!” the sergeant barked. “Dismount. Form firing line.”

He didn’t yell, but he sure talked emphatically, like a man who knew his business, Ryan thought—briefly, since his own business right now was trying to calculate how to get out of line of their pursuers’ fire without their new acquaintances chilling them on general principles.

As the patrol began to fan out in obedience of J.B.’s voice, calm yet as authoritative as the sergeant’s knuckles-on-oak rap had been, spoke up.

“Might not wanna do that, boys,” he said. “You’ll empty a fair number of saddles, sure. Then the rest’ll ride you into orange mush.”

The pony soldiers were moving to obey their sergeant. The lieutenant gave the Armorer a hard look.

“Why do you say that, outlander?”

More blastershots banged out from the night behind, a couple hundred yards off yet, to Ryan’s seasoned ear. The Protectors had to be panic-firing in hopes of preventing their quarry from getting away.

“Because likely as not, Baron Jed has every ass that can keep a saddle riding right on our tails,” J.B. said, as cool as if he were discussing whether to have cold beans or reheated for dinner. “Seeing as we sort of left his son and heir to bleed out when we left.”

The lieutenant’s eyes flew wide, but he recovered quickly. “Ace,” he said. “Protectors shooting at you bona fides enough for me. Troop, get ready to ride fast back to camp!”

“What about the prisoners?” Koslowski asked.

“Detail men to keep an eye on them. Now move!”

Chapter Six

Big Erl Kendry sat back against the cushions piled on his chair in his tent, luxuriating in the feel of the hot cloth in his face. He was waiting for his servants to give him his morning shave.

He always enjoyed these peaceful times. Never more so than today. Baron Jed was raging like a jolt-walker about his son Buddy’s unfortunate demise. He was going to be a mighty handful.

Not that the baron was a patient man at the best of times. Still, Big Erl could understand the frustrations of the born leader of men if anybody could. He experienced the ingratitude of his own tenants on a daily basis.

Except when he was out here in the field protecting them, of course. Then at least he got respite from their ceaseless bitching.

He began to shift his considerable bulk in the chair. He wondered just where his shiftless servant had wandered off to. As precious as this break was, he was mindful that if he dragged his ass into the HQ tent too late, Baron Jed would give it a thorough chewing. His teeth were sharp this day, and he hungered for blood.

Not that Erl feared Jed’s shedding of his own blood would be anything but metaphorical. Aside from being a member of the baron’s staff, Big Erl was an important man in his own right—a landowner with substantial holdings...and substantial influence.

Still, Jed had a way of making things mighty uncomfortable on a body, whether he got to chill you in the process or not. And the towel on Erl’s big face softening his beard for the razor was getting lukewarm.

“Watkuns!” he bellowed. “Watkuns, get your lazy ass in here now! Or I’ll have the hide whipped right off it, you hear?”

It worked. Of course, the lower orders were lazy by nature. But they understood two things: threats and volume. Erl heard the canvas tent flap rustle and his servant scurry in to get about his damned business.

“That’s more like it,” he grumped, as he heard his servant’s shuffling step. The man had a bad hip; broke it years back when a horse kicked him. His fault for not getting his lazy ass out of the way, of course. Erl Kendry was no man to let that give him license to slack off.

He heard the familiar scritch of the straight razor being trued up on the leather strop and settled deeper into the cushions with a satisfied sigh. He kept his eyes closed. He had a hard road of a day ahead, and Erl intended to take it easy while he could.

“Not that I’m all that all-fired eager to come into the presence of our esteemed commander,” he admitted. “That sawed-off little bastrich is gonna be hopping around like a toad frog on a hot griddle all day.”

He spoke frankly to his manservant of many years. He needed somebody he could unburden himself of his many cares and concerns that as a man of power and influence—not as much as he deserved, mind you, nor yet as much as he intended to have—he naturally accrued. He certainly didn’t dare to speak frankly to any of his peers on the Protective Association army’s general staff. Nor needless to say any of his lessers. They were nothing but a pack of ravening mutie coyotes, eager to tear him down to build themselves up. So he let it all hang loose where his servant was concerned.