Moon Fate Laurence James

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use as a diversion. He wondered if chilling them would be a good or a bad move,
then decided to let that lie awhile. They had at least two more days, according to
Charlie.
Dorina Leonard slept most of the time, occasion-ally muttering under her breath
in what sounded to Ryan like some sort of a Mex dialect. If it came to placing a
narrow-bladed dagger in a man's groin while he was dreaming, then he guessed
the waiflike woman would be a prime choice.
But she was so physically tiny and frail that her value in a knockdown drag-out
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Axler, James - Deathlands 16 - Moon Fate
fight was going to be a touch limited. And it didn't look as though she had the
stamina to travel any distance cross-country if they made a break.
Red and his brother were prime candidates to enlist in any escape plan.
But when he managed to have a few private mo-ments with each of the trappers,
he found he hadn't been entirely right.
Bob Leonard shook his scarred head at Ryan's overture.
"Nope. Couldn't leave me wife. Dorina'd like die if I was to get went. Lost our
little 'uns. She was wed before."
"How old is she?" Ryan couldn't believe that this woman-child was more than
sixteen, tops.
"Near twenty, she figures, Ryan." His mutilated mouth tried for a smile and didn't
miss it by much. "Don't look it, does her?"
"No."
"She wed. Lawman up in Kansas. July Randall. He was took by a breed in a knife
fight. Blindsided him in the dark."
"No more children?"
"Sure did. One was dead-birthed. Other was four and the breed cut off its head."
Ryan whistled soundlessly between his teeth. "That does beat all, Bob. And I
understand about Dorina. Not wanting to try anything without her."
One eye squinted at him, from under the furrowed mass of tumbled scar tissue.
"Thanks, Ryan. Good on you."
There was also an unexpected problem with Red Folsom.
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Axler, James - Deathlands 16 - Moon Fate
As soon as Ryan started to talk, very casually, about what their hopes might be of
escaping, the tough red-head grabbed him by the arm, jerking on the links of the
cuffs that joined him to Harold.
"Hey, why do& " The complaint was stillborn as his neighbor glared at him.
"Get away from me, Harold. Far as you can."
"Why pick on me, Red?"
"Because you're the best there is, fat boy."
The one-time candy seller shuffled away, until his chained arm was out straight,
nearly four feet along the ledge from Folsom.
"Trust him far as I can piss into a hurricane, Ryan. Get me?"
"Sure. Think he'd betray us to Charlie?"
"Do barons screw virgins?"
"If he did, Charle'd chill him just the same. Wouldn't make any difference."
Folsom grinned. "You know it. I know it. But does Harold know it?"
Ryan nodded. He'd already picked Lord as one of the two possible traitors. The
Very Reverend Joe-Bob Jarman was the other.
"What is it you don't want him to hear?" he asked the big man.
"We know that the strawhead stickie bastard got plans to send us off to buy the
farm with a big bright bang. Couple of days. Got his men watching us." Folsom
made the word "men" sound like something he'd picked up on his front fender.
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Axler, James - Deathlands 16 - Moon Fate
"So? Sooner we get a plan worked out, the better it is."
Folsom shook his head. "Sorry, Ryan. Not much of a man for other folk's plans.
Just take you a good long look at the others. You might be fine, and your woman
seems like she'd swim most rivers and climb most mountains. But Danny's lost.
Abe's old, and his breath's not good. Helga might not go without Danny. My
partner won't move unless Dorina goes too. Min-ister and fat boy are out. Never
was good at number-ing. But it seems to me that if you take nine away from ten
you get one. Comes down to me."
Ryan wasn't surprised. Nor could he honestly pick many holes in Folsom's
thinking. A man alone would often have the edge on a group.
"Sorry to hear that," he said finally, staring out across the rain-swept camp.
"Way it is." Flat and final.
"Sure. Figured we might get our blasters back and do some damage. That way we
might only might have a chance of getting the others sprung."
Folsom spit. The white globule landed in the slip-pery mud and immediately
vanished in the pitted, orange slime.
"Hear what you say, Ryan."
"You got yourself a plan?"
Folsom laughed. "I've known Bob Leonard there for around seven years. Spent
some hard winters and harder times with him. I haven't told him what I intend,
Ryan."
And that was just about the end of the conversa-tion between them
.
CHARLIE PADDED OVER near late afternoon, the Uzi kept dry under a long
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slicker. He was bareheaded, the water flattening his hair to his scalp.
"Had a good day, pilgrims?" he asked cheerily.
Helga gave him the finger. "Stick it in your ass, freak."
"I'm going to think of something special in the way of lonely, humiliating,
agonizing deaths, lady," Charlie said, smiling, his tongue darting out to lick his
lips.
Most of the cooking fires had been extinguished by the torrential rain, but several
of the Anasazi dwellings now had the scent of cooking drifting from their
openings. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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