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  "Coming, Pa."

  They watched her limp across the yard and vanish into the house. Nobody spoke for several long seconds. Then Jak said, "Could open up bastard's throat and smile."

  Krysty passed on the woman's warning to Ryan and the others.

  "I trust him and those two crazies about as far as I could throw them," Ryan said. "We'll all take care."

  "Fancy a walk before turning in, lover?" Krysty asked. "There's a small grove of sycamores by the creek."

  "Why not?"

  Chapter Four

  THEY'D JUST FINISHED making love. It hadn't been one of the all-time apocalyptic earthshakers, but even when it wasn't terrific it was still real good. They'd been plagued by stinging insects coming up off the slow-moving creek, and there'd been a coyote howling too close for comfort.

  Krysty was pulling up her bikini panties when she paused, looked urgently at Ryan and lifted a finger to her lips.

  Ryan had left his rifle alongside his bunk, but his 15-round automatic was in his belt. Without a word he quickly fastened the belt on his pants and drew the blaster, reassured by the familiar feel of twenty-five and a half ounces of concentrated power.

  Krysty finished dressing, drawing her own Heckler & Koch P7A 13, with the silvered finish, and pointing it toward the house. She made the sign for someone walking, one man, alone.

  "Ballinger?" Ryan mouthed, getting a nod of acknowledgment.

  They both crouched into the thick undergrowth, watching in the pallid moonlight. Unusually Ryan spotted him before Krysty. He caught the pale gleam off the homesteader's bald head.

  Ballinger was walking fast, looking down at the winding path toward the narrow river. He didn't glance around, and passed within six feet of Krysty and Ryan. The man carried a squat 10-gauge sawed-off shotgun in his right hand.

  They could hear his boots crunching through the dry brush, and he stopped only thirty or forty paces farther on.

  "What's he doing?" Ryan whispered, his mouth so close to Krysty's ear that he could taste the sweat on her skin.

  "He's knelt down. Can't see. There's something there. Like a stone."

  "Grave?"

  "Yeah. Yeah, it could be."

  "Come on."

  Moving with extreme caution, Ryan led the way among the stunted, dried trees. There was a very light breeze, and the river was murmuring over the stones, but they still didn't want to get caught creeping up on a man holding a sawed-off scattergun.

  Ryan held up a hand. He could now see Ballinger, kneeling behind some scrubby mesquite. The gun was in the dirt. There was a white boulder, with something written on it in faded red lettering. The homesteader was talking to himself. Or to the stone.

  "So the wheel turns, Martha. The circle is unbroken. The riders of the storm come from the east again."

  The voice was quiet, conversational, and sent a chill down Ryan's spine. He'd heard of folks who drew comfort from talking to dead friends or relatives, but this was something different.

  "Larry and Jim are going to do good. Help me, like they helped me with you, Martha. They're good boys. See it clear. See wrong and right. See what a woman can do. They seen it with you, Martha. Seen how you fooled me. They seen how you got dirty, you stinking slut corpse, Martha."

  Krysty tugged at Ryan's sleeve, gesturing that they go back to the bunkhouses and leave Ballinger to his raging hatred.

  He nodded. But the flat, unemotional voice pursued them through the trees.

  "Christina knows. Knows what my fist, my boots and my whip teach her. That women are an abomination, a vessel for a man's needs. They have to work hard and do what they're told. Christina knows that. It's all she knows. Christina's world, Martha. What you fucking left behind, you whore."

  Once they were out of range, Krysty turned to face Ryan. "I'd like it if you held me just a minute or two, lover. Feel in need of a bath after listening to that."

  As he put his arms around her, Ryan could feel Krysty trembling.

  Because of Christina's warning, Mildred and Krysty took care, dragging a ramshackle old table against the door and wedging it under the handle. The bolts that the girl had mentioned were held together by a thin film of old rust and wouldn't have stopped an angry kitten.

  Windows were on three sides of the single-story building, wooden-framed, each with four panes of glass. At one time there'd been shutters, but they'd been long gone. Krysty tried to open one of the un-painted casements, wincing in anticipation of the shrieking of warped wood. But to her amazement it slid up as soft and easy as silk.

  "Gaia!"

  Mildred came over and looked, holding the smoky oil lamp higher to see better. "Someone's greased the sash runners," she said quietly, her face solemn. "Now why'd they want to do something like that, Krysty?"

  "Like the girl said—best take care."

  Krysty had some thin cord in one of her pockets and she unwound it, tying one end to a window latch, taking a turn around the top of one bed, then looping it across the room to the second window, putting another turn around the catch, and down to the other bed, making sure she kept it taut. She finished by knotting the other end around the last window.

  "There. If anyone tries to open a window, he'll make one of the beds move. Best I can do. Just sleep with your blaster real handy."

  Ryan and J.B. discussed whether they should keep a watch during the night. Despite her muteness, there was something about Christina Ballinger that made them agree her warning could be serious.

  "It's close to eleven now," the Armorer said, checking his small wrist chron.

  "Two hours on," Ryan suggested. "Can't see the main house from here, but I figure we should keep watch."

  "Better to be on guard when you don't have to be…" J.B. started.

  "Than not be on guard when you should have done," Ryan finished with a grin. They'd ridden long enough with the Trader to know his favorite sayings.

  J.B. took first watch, then Doc came second, followed by Jak. Ryan claimed the leader's right of taking the last dawn guard.

  It happened about fifteen minutes after Doc had taken over. But for some time he didn't know anything was wrong.

  Chapter Five

  KRYSTY HAD BEEN dreaming. Most times she could remember many of her dreams, a skill taught to her by Mother Sonja. But not tonight. They were blurred images, moments from never—a large apple, sliced through the middle, fresh and tender. Yet when Krysty brought it to her lips it was as cold as stone. A bird, bright-colored, hovering in the warm air while its long beak sipped with a fragile delicacy at the heart of a waxen lily.

  None of the dreams seemed fearful or threatening to her, but something started her awake, eyes wide, the curls of her fiery hair coiled tightly to her head.

  The early moonlight had gone, tugged away behind a bank of heavy cloud. The bunkhouse was in deep shadow, and it was like being inside a black velvet sack. Krysty lay still for a few moments, keeping her breathing regular and steady, straining her senses to try to remember what had awakened her.

  Her hand moved slowly to touch the taut cord that linked the windows and the two beds. It was still there, but it was slack. She pulled and felt it come loosely toward her fingers.

  Her mind raced. Someone had reached in through a narrow gap and cut the thin cord with a sharp blade. That meant that the greased windows could now be inched silently open.

  Or worse, they already had been opened.

  Mildred was also awake.

  During the night she'd suffered the pangs of a migraine, the pain focusing around her left eye, a blinding, bitter pain that made her want to reach up and pluck out the eye itself. One of the things that she regretted about Deathlands was that there was a distinct shortage of aspirin.

  Gradually the white agony had dulled to a crimson ache, and she'd come close to slipping back into sleep. But something had jerked her into wakefulness—the whisper of wood against wood, the fractional movement of cloth on cloth, someone struggling hard to control his breath.
/>   Mildred inhaled slowly, catching the mixture of stale sweat and raw alcohol.

  Then she knew what had awakened her.

  Krysty had reached precisely the same conclusion at almost the same moment, almost tasting the smell of perspiration and liquor.

  "Come courting, boys?" she asked in a loud, clear voice.

  "Fuck'n shit!" one of the Ballinger brothers hissed. Krysty thought it might have been Larry, but she couldn't be certain. Nor did she much care.

  "Why don't you just get out the same way you came in, boys? And don't come back again."

  "Amen to that," Mildred added.

  "Don't much want you, nigra," said the other brother.

  Mildred spoke again, her voice cracking like a buggy whip. "I don't give a sweet damn what you redneck peckerwood dip-shits want! I want you the hell and gone out of our room."

  "Or else what, slut? Or else what?"

  Suddenly Krysty could put her tongue out and taste the violence that was simmering in the room. When she'd first realized that the brothers had come sneaking into the bunkhouse, she'd only felt a vague unease. Now the threat was explicit and dangerous. This wasn't going to be a clumsy attempt at touch and run.

  This was for real.

  She heard one of the horses in the corral whinny, high and plaintive.

  "You make a move, boys, and you'll have four blasters in here quicker than goose shit off a greasy shovel."

  "And your Pa'll likely give you a whipping," Mildred added, trying to keep the tension out of the air.

  There was a snorting giggle from the blackness. "That's where you're wrong, nigra. Pa's got his sawed-off or the Winchester, and he's sitting out there ten feet from the door of the other bunkhouse."

  "That's right, Larry. That door comes open and Pa starts blasting. Knocking cans off of a fence post!" Again the giggle, this time doubled. "Pa likes to wait till we had some funnin', then he comes in after and gets himself some sloppy seconds."

  "That the way it always is, Jim?" Krysty asked, feeling the prickle of fear.

  "Sure is. Ever since Ma got caught, we done had good times with harlots come calling here."

  "Must be about a million by now, Jim," Larry sniggered.

  "No. More like…like fifty hundred million! Yeah."

  "And we get to be fifty hundred million and one and fifty hundred million and two?" Krysty said, feeling the reassuring coolness of her Heckler & Koch P7A13.

  "Sure do."

  "Then what?" Mildred asked. "Go on, boys. Surprise us."

  "Then you get the mallet across the temple and we butcher you, and leave out the remains for the crows and the coyotes," Larry replied.

  Krysty had them placed. One was near the door and the other close to the foot of Mildred's bed. But the darkness was so total that even her mutie vision couldn't make out what land of weapons they were carrying. They hadn't seen any handguns around the main cabin, so knives seemed the most likely bet.

  It wasn't going to be easy.

  Ryan came awake, hand already reaching for the blaster by his head.

  "What?" he said quietly. The bunkhouse was pitch-dark. The lamp had guttered and gone out before midnight, and there wasn't the slightest glimmer of light. He couldn't work out what it was that had roused him.

  He swung his legs out of the narrow bed and stood, heels rasping on the boards. The fragile sound was enough to wake both J.B. and Jak.

  "What's up?" the Armorer whispered.

  "Doc?" Ryan queried.

  "Doc?" Jak repeated. "You fucking sleep, Doc?"

  There was a certain irony to a situation that had the sentry asleep and everyone else awake, but right at that moment Ryan wasn't particularly into irony.

  "Wake him, J.B., quiet."

  They were still speaking in hushed tones. None of them knew why they were awake, but all of them were experienced enough in lethal fights to know that you kept quiet until it came time to make a noise.

  There was a flurry of restrained movement from the corner where Doc had been sitting, supposedly on watch. Then they heard the old man's voice.

  "Sorry, my friends. I am so sorry. I must have nodded off for a moment. What is amiss?"

  "Keep it real quiet, Doc," Ryan warned. "We don't know. Something woke me."

  He didn't reproach the old man. Doc was normally reliable and knew as well as the others that he'd put them in potential danger.

  Ryan eased his way to the window at the front and squinted out.

  "Hard or easy, sluts?"

  The Ballinger boys had played this particular game so often that they'd gotten good at it. But they'd also gotten lazy about it.

  "Will you let us go if we don't struggle or fight? We could be real nice to you both. Me and Mildred know some special tricks."

  Krysty put on a narrow, whining voice, trying to base it on the girls she'd heard in pesthole gaudy houses.

  Mildred picked up on Krysty's gambit and followed suit. "Yessir, I can show you fine boys a good time. Just so's you don't hurt us."

  Jim Ballinger laughed, a gloating, triumphant sound that helped Krysty to pin down his position more accurately. "We won't hurt you harlots none, and we'll let you ride free tomorrow. How's about that?"

  "Mildred," Krysty said.

  "Yes."

  "Keep still."

  "What?"

  "Do like I say."

  "When you sluts finish chattering, we best get our show on the road."

  Krysty wasn't in the same league as Jak, or Ryan when it came to hand-to-hand fighting, but she was good enough.

  Hearing the sound of boots scraping on the planks, she slipped soundlessly off the side of the bed onto the floor, closing her eyes for a moment to draw on the power of the Earth Mother. "Gaia, aid me," she whispered, feeling the strength flow into her tensed muscles.

  R. G. Ballinger sat patiently in the dirt, the shotgun cradled between his legs. His eyes were fixed on the door of the main bunkhouse, but his hearing was concentrated on the smaller building behind him, listening for the sounds that would tell him his boys were getting themselves some funning.

  "Be having some more whores to share Hell with you, Martha," he said quietly, his lips pulled back off his rotting teeth in a satisfied smile.

  The wrack of clouds parted for a scant heartbeat then closed again, but for a frozen moment moonlight had flooded across the Texas landscape.

  "Fireblast," Ryan growled, seeing the hunched figure of Ballinger and the glint of metal off the scattergun. "We got some trouble."

  The flicker of moonlight also changed things in the small bunkhouse.

  It showed Krysty the legs of the Ballinger brothers. It showed the Ballinger brothers that the redhead's bed was empty.

  "Fuck," Jim Ballinger swore.

  And then died.

  Chapter Six

  KRYSTY JUMPED OFF the floor with a truly terrifying power. She'd been sleeping in her metal-tipped Western boots, and she kicked out when she was at the highest point of her leap, aiming at the memory of Jim Ballinger's figure, trapped in that split second of bright silver light.

  The hard edge of her right boot struck him across the throat, and the destructive force of the blow was devastating and final. The hyoid bone was splintered and the thyroid and tracheal cartilage crushed. The pressure smashed the air passage closed and finally snapped two of the vertebrae.

  The effect on Jim Ballinger was about the same as if he'd been hanged. He had an instant erection, which was followed by a gushing orgasm. But he wasn't enjoying it, being immersed in the shock and pain of his own passing. Bowels and bladder opened simultaneously; blood came from his mouth, where he'd bitten through his tongue, and from his ears and nose.

  Jim's body was already going into terminal spasm before he'd even hit the floor.

  He clattered down, arms and legs flailing, kicking one of the beds so that its rusty springs jingled.

  Outside, his father stood slowly, grinning at the sounds he heard. "Give it to them whores, boys," h
e muttered.

  Krysty landed badly, slipping and turning an ankle, and jarring her shoulder against the side of Mildred's bed. But Larry Ballinger was standing paralyzed on the far side of the bunkhouse, a foolish grin sliding off his fat cheeks. There was just enough ghostly light for him to see his brother down on the planks, twitching like a gut-shot coyote, eyes wide and staring.

  "I'll chill him," Mildred said, holding the cocked pistol in her hand.

  "No. It'll bring in the old man. Only as a last resort." She got to her feet again, panting with the effort, her whole body feeling as if it were covered in a mesh of coiled silver wires.

  "What you done, bitch?" Larry asked. His hand reached inside his plaid shirt and came out holding a straight-edged razor, "You're fucking dead, you murdering slut!"

  His voice was just loud enough to reach his father outside, whose smile broadened.

  In the confined space, Krysty knew that the man's bulk and raw power could tell against her.

  The steel edge began to weave a lightning pattern of hissing death in front of Krysty's face, pressing her back a half step at a time. Larry was breathing hard, sweat glistening on his forehead and around his open mouth.

  To draw fully on the power of Gaia took time in preparation and always left Krysty totally drained for hours after. But she'd only been able to tap the surface in her attack on the dead man. Now, she didn't have the force within her to defeat the approaching Larry.

  Mildred was sitting on her bed, ready to use her blaster if things went far enough against Krysty. Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, Krysty saw the black woman put down her ZKR 551 and tear open the front of her white blouse, revealing her breasts, nipples standing out in the tension like fresh-picked cherries.

  "This is for you, boy," she called.

  Larry Ballinger was way beyond his depth. He'd just seen the flame-haired woman kick the shit out of his little brother, Jim, spread him out cold on the floor. The idea that Jim might actually be dead was something Larry didn't want to think about.

  And now the black bitch was ripping out one of the finest pair of suckers Larry had ever seen. Most of the women they'd raped and chilled had been either scrawny bitches or sagging old whores. But these were real prime…