Adrienne hissed softly and began to level her binoculars. “Well, that’s of a piece with everything else we’ve seen.”
“Careful,” Tom said, adjusting the angle of the glasses with his hand. “Into the sun like that, even with nonglare lenses, you’re chancing a reflection.”
She nodded thanks, studied the scene, then handed them over to Tom. He used them in turn, noting details. “Those sunken bunkers… armory, I’d say; or explosives store; or both. Fuel blisters near the airstrip. HQ tent… yah, when they get that setup completed, it’ll be tentage for a battalion. Roy?”
He handed the glasses to the smaller man. Roy whistled softly as he worked the area over. “I’d say that bunch… looks to be about a company’s worth… marched in from somewhere about half a day’s shank’s-mare travel away. Looks like they don’t have enough trucks to move the men—I’d guess they were up around Cerro Gordo, like you thought, Kemosabe. Good place to train; you’d build endurance fast at eight thousand feet. And it’s out of the way. But they must be nearly ready to go.”
Tom looked over at Adrienne. She was looking calm enough, but there was a line of white around her tight-held mouth….
Of course, she was born here. It’s just an operational problem to me, and a personal risk. To her, it’s like me seeing some shaheed was about to nuke Chicago.
“What are those smaller aircraft?” he said.
They weren’t any type he was familiar with: sleek elongated teardrops with the wing mounted through the middle of the fuselage, bubble canopy forward, and two big piston engines.
“Mosquito fighter-bombers,” Adrienne said, her voice tightly controlled. “World War Two design, slightly modified and built here.”
“How many would the Collettas have?” Tom said. And this private-armies setup is insane, whatever your grandfather thinks, he added to himself.
“Mmmm… four. The Commission has a dozen, and about as many more are kept by some of the Families—they maintain them for the Commission’s use in lieu of taxes. Those are probably there to escort the transports with the troops. The swine!” she added with hissing malevolence. Then, flushing: “Sorry.”
“No problem,” he said sympathetically. “Well, Simmons and Kolo ought to be on their way back by now.”
“Right,” she said unemotionally. “Let’s get back to camp and settle what we can do.”
If anything, hung suspended on the air.
“Wait a second,” Tully said quietly, and threw up his hand.
They all reined in. Tom looked around; the steep canyon trail up the side of Mount Whitney seemed just the same as when they’d left a couple of hours ago, save for the fact that the sun was near noon and it was warmish rather than chilly. Water chuckled down the center, falling over smooth colored rocks; not far ahead was the little pool and U of meadow where they were camping. The air smelled of warm rock, pines, and water.
“Tonto think it maybe too quiet, Kemosabe,” Tully said—but his voice was soft and deadly serious; his hand went to the rifle riding in the scabbard by his knee.
A raven launched itself out of a lodgepole pine, giving a harsh gruk-grukgruk cry. Apart from that, there was nothing….
Sandra walked out from behind a rock; she was carrying her rifle, but she looked white around the mouth.
“It’s OK!” she called. “They’re friendly! Sort of.”
“Who are they?” Adrienne said.
“Ah—”
There was a rustling though the woods and canyon sides all around them, and figures were standing—figures whose heads loomed monstrous under headdresses of bear and wolf and tiger. For a heartstopping moment he thought the Akaka had caught up with them. But…
One head was topped by a lion with turquoise eyes.
“Hi!” Chief Good Star called. “Surprise!”
The moment stretched. Then another voice called, from upslope:
“Surprise to you too, and don’t move!”
Simmons, Tom thought with relief. Up there with his scope-sighted rifle… he got back and didn’t walk into a trap.
The same thought must have struck Good Star; beneath the demon-clown tattoos and paint, his grin went a little sickly.
“No trouble!” he said rapidly. “Hey, Shoots Fast—come out!”
Someone did; it was Henry Villers, unmistakable despite the bandages that covered most of the left side of his face.
“Hello, Warden Tom, boss lady,” he said. “What say we all catch up?”
“…so we heard the shooting and hit ’em where they weren’t looking,” Good Star said, puffing on his cigarette and leaning back against a log. “Some of the Akaka got away, but most didn’t.”
There were a number of fresh scalps at his belt, and his expression was like a contented cat’s as he went on: “Thanks, by the way. Swift Lance and his Dreaming aren’t going to look so hot any more, you know what I mean? Especially since one of you Deathwalkers dropped a boulder on his head.”
Villers looked at Tully, who was sitting close to Sandra Margolin; the little man had relaxed since she’d convinced him she’d come to no harm except a thorough fright. They were all grouped around a small smokeless fire, not far from the edge of the pond. The meadow was a little crowded, even though the Nyo-Ilcha hadn’t brought all their horses here. Adrienne’s party and the chieftain shared log seats around the fire, and many of the warriors were crouched outside that circle; others were attending to their animals, or camp chores. Two of them were butchering a brace of mule deer and an elk.
“That was your satchel charge, Tully,” the black man put in. “You really pissed them off with that.” Then he took up the story: “Yeah, Piet Botha’s dead.” He shook his head. “Got to hand it to the big Boer, he was one baaad badass. Right at the end, when I was out of it—some Akaka got me with a sling-stone”—he touched the bandaged side of his face and winced slightly—“he was standing over his kid in this fold of rock, and man, he used his rifle like a club till it broke and then he picked up two of them by their necks and smashed their heads together…. I looked at the body afterwards; must have been like three or four arrows in it, and a couple of knives.”
“And then our Nyo-Ilcha friends arrived like… if you’ll pardon the expression… the U.S. cavalry,” Tully said. “The kid make it?”
“Yeah, though he’s probably going to limp,” Villers said. “Over to you, chief.”
Good Star chuckled, a harsh sound. “I’d been following you on general principles, and because one of my people finked you out to Swift Lance.”
His right index finger traces a shallow crusted cut along his bare ribs. “The stool pigeon tried for me, too, and missed. I didn’t. But it peeved me some, I can tell you, my own people getting impressed by Swift Lance’s so-called Dreaming. And the chance to take a slap at the Akaka while they were bent over and showing their butts was just too good to pass up. Figured I’d catch up with you and have a talk, but you ran too fast—and we had to take care of a few Akaka on the way, you know?”
Adrienne hissed in vexation. “You mean we were killing ourselves and zigzagging over half the desert running away from you?”
“Yup, that’s about it, boss lady,” Good Star said. “Then I got wind of this setup here—”