Axler, James - Deathlands 22 by Axler James

Author:Axler, James
Language: eng
Format: epub

Chapter Twenty

After the first brightness of the dawn, the sky darkened once more, as though time were being reversed and night was looming over the far horizon.

Ryan hunched his shoulders against the cold norther that was blowing across the foothills. "Some serious rain going to be falling," he said.

"It drops upon the General." Sleeps In Day smiled grimly. "The gods are with us, brothers."

J.B. had heeled his gelding alongside Ryan. "Those wags can get through most kinds of weather, but a flash flood would slow them down some." The sky to the south was as black as pitch.

Even as they all looked in that direction, there was a dazzling bolt of purple chem lightning, cutting from land to sky. Dean counted off the time until they heard the distant rumble of the thunder. "Twelve to fifteen miles," he reported.

"How far to the caves?" Ryan asked.

The Navaho passed the question to his comrades, all sitting silently on their stocky ponies. The one called Two Dogs Fighting answered him.

Sleeps In Day translated. "It is half a day at a fast ride. A full day if we go more slowly and more carefully."

"Other side of these hills?" J.B. was standing in the stirrups, looking as far ahead as he could.

The Indian nodded. "There is an old blacktop that we will cross. The camp of the General is hidden beneath the land, very deep."

"Any your people made inside?" Jak rubbed his white hands together, feeling the morning cold more than the rest of them.

"No. Not to return alive."

Ryan whistled between his teeth. "Time's wasting," he said. "Let's go."

But the leader of the Navaho held up a hand. "A moment, so that we are all sure of what is happening."

"How do you mean?"

"We ride together against the General."

"Sure." Ryan puzzled at what the check-shirted Navaho was leading up to.

"If we win?"

"Then he gets chilled and we all go home."

"Who chills him? Who will count coup on this shadow from the dead world?"

"Me," Jak said. "Anyone does it me."

"We have lost more. Every man has lost a wife or a sister or a child."

The teenager's bloodless lips peeled back off his sharp teeth, in a feral, dangerous smile. "Then we see.

Man gets there first gets to do it." He pointed to himself. Me."

THE TRACKS WERE EASY to follow, eight big wheels on each wag, driving their relentless way

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south. The General didn't seem to be in too much of a hurry, probably unaware that he was still being followed. J.B. was a good tracker, but he was happy to give best to the Native Americans.

The youngest of the Navaho, called Man Sees Behind Sun, was the finest. He led the way on a spirited pinto, occasionally vaulting from the blanket across the animal's back, stopping and running his fingers across the furrows, feeling the temperature and the moisture of the hatched marks.

He told Sleeps In Day that they were closing in on the wags. "He says that we are only about four or five hours behind them.

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