“Good,” Chastity stated.
“Good?” Blade responded.
“Yep. I wouldn’t have my new daddy if you’d been picked up,” Chastity noted.
“I never thought of it that way,” Blade admitted.
“Out of the mouth of babes,” Hickok quipped.
“I’m not a baby,” Chastity said indignantly.
“I know, princess,” Hickok said. “Just a figure of speech.”
Chastity stared straight ahead, the wind ruffling her blonde locks. “I didn’t know you could ride in these without a window.”
“I had to remove the broken glass,” Blade said. “But I wouldn’t recommend driving like this on an extended trip.”
“Why not?” Chastity asked.
“You wind up eating a lot of mosquitoes and flies,” Blade detailed.
Chastity’s forehead creased, her countenance betraying her confusion, until she abruptly cackled. “Oh! I get it!” She grimaced. “Yucko.”
“Uh-oh,” Hickok said.
Blade glanced at the gunman. “What is it?”
“Take a look-see,” Hickok stated, nodding straight ahead.
Involved in his discussion with Chastity, Blade had given the track in front of them a cursory inspection. Now he scrutinized the terrain carefully and spied the reason for the gunfighter’s concern. “An intersection,” he muttered, applying the brakes and bringing the half-track to a halt at the junction with a dirt road.
“Which way do we go?” Chastity inquired.
“I wish I knew,” Blade said, peeved. Yet another hindrance to locating Rikki! First, after Hickok had reloaded his Pythons, they had checked each body to insure all of the Hounds were dead. While thus engaged, they’d heard the sound of two or three vehicles hastening to the northwest. Blade had taken an Ingram M-10 from one of the corpses, along with six spare, full magazines. Each magazine held 30 rounds. He preferred the M-10 in this instance because of its compact size; even with the wire stock extended, the submachine gun was a mere 22 inches in length and weighed six and a half pounds.
At that point a decision had had to be made. Should they search in the forest for Rikki, or head out after the vehicles?
Blade had hoped for the latter recourse. His logic had been simple. The Hound captain, Ludvin, had claimed Rikki had been captured. And if the Hounds had caught the martial artist, then odds were those vehicles hauling butt to the northwest were transporting him.
At least, he’d hoped they were.
But now, after following the trail of flattened brush for nearly 15 minutes, he was beginning to entertain grave doubts.
What if he was wrong?
What if the captain had lied?
What if Rikki was lying back in the woods somewhere, injured, in desperate need of assistance?
“Which way do we go?” Chastity repeated, dispelling the giant’s moody thoughts.
“Left,” Blade said, and suited his next action to his words by hauling on the steering wheel and tromping on the gas.
“Why left, pard?” Hickok inquired as the half-track performed the required turn.
“One of the Hounds mentioned Memphis,” Blade said. “I suspect they’re based there. If Rikki is their prisoner, then we’ll find him in Memphis, and a left will take us in the direction of the city.”
“If?” Hickok reiterated. “Didn’t one of those lowlifes say Rikki is in their hands?”
“Yes,” Blade confirmed.
“Then why so wishy-washy?”
“Must be my fatigue,” Blade replied.
“We could all use ten hours of shut-eye,” Hickok concurred.
“Why would you want to shut your eyes for ten hours?” Chastity inquired.
“Shut-eye is the same as sleep,” Hickok informed her.
Chastity stared at the gunman for a moment. “Daddy?”
“Yeah, princess?”
“If I’m going to be your daughter, do I need to talk like you do?”
“Of course not.”
“Whew! Thanks. For a minute there, I was really worried.”
They lapsed into silence as the half-track clattered along the dirt road, the afternoon heat climbing, the dust swirling in the shattered windshield, choking them, making them cough and stinging their eyes. Chastity rested with her head slumped on Hickok’s arm.
Blade saw the next intersection before the others, and slowed. “Here we go again.”
Hickok, idly gazing at the landscape on the passenger side, straightened in his seat. “What is it, pard?” he asked drowsily.
“Decision time,” Blade declared, bringing the armored vehicle to a stop with its front bumper jutting into one lane of the paved highway.
“Which way?” Hickok queried.
“If I’m correct about Memphis being northwest of here,” Blade speculated, “then we take a right.”
“Go for it,” Hickok prompted.
Blade did, shifting awkwardly, grinding the gears.
“I wish we could stash Chastity somewhere safe,” Hickok remarked, looking at the child’s sleeping features fondly.
“When we reach Memphis, we can hide the half-track and leave her inside,” Blade suggested.
“Not on your life.”
Blade detected a tine of apprehensiveness in the gunman’s voice. “I’ll be happy when we have her safely at the Home,” he mentioned.
“You and me both,” Hickok agreed. “It’s sort of funny, isn’t it?”
“What is?”
“All the places we’ve been to over the years, all the runs we’ve made, all the sights we’ve seen and the people we’ve met, and the one place where we’re completely safe, the one spot in this whole blamed world where no one will try to blow us away, is at our Home with our Family,” Hickok observed.
“And we’re not even completely safe there,” Blade pointed out. “The Home has been attacked a number of times.”
“You know what I mean,” Hickok said.
Blade nodded, and once more they fell quiet. He listened to the rumbling of the half-track motor, his senses dulled by the heat and his weariness. Daydreams of his wife and son, Jenny and Gabe, soothed his troubled mind. Lulled into complacency by the motion of the vehicle, he missed spotting the body until there was scarcely time to stop. As it was, as his drooping eyes spotted the prone figure lying across the center of the highway, he slammed on the brakes and yanked on the steering wheel, angling the half-track to the left. The brakes locked, and the vehicle slewed to a screeching halt within inches of the figure’s head.
“What the heck!” Hickok blurted, on the verge of dozing off himself.
“Daddy!” Chastity cried, awakening abruptly and grabbing the gunman.
“Stay put,” Blade directed, killing the motor and snatching the M-10 from the floor near his right boot. He pushed the door open and vaulted to the cracked asphalt. The body was on the passenger side, and he advanced cautiously around the front of the half-track, the M-10 leveled, his eyes raking the surrounding foliage.
Hickok’s head popped through the windshield opening, his gaze swiveling to the roadway next to the front tire. “Hey! There’s a woman lyin’ there.”
“I know,” Blade said softly, stepping past the fender and seeing her clearly.
“What’d you do? Run over her?”
“Be serious.”
“I am,” Hickok asserted. “I’ve seen the way you drive sometimes.” The Pythons materialized in his hands. “I’ll cover you.” He watched the highway alertly.
Blade knelt slowly, reaching out with his left hand and grasping her right shoulder. He started to roll her over.
With surprising swiftness, the woman completed the roll on her own, a Caspian Arms Commander 45 in her right hand. She pressed the barrel against the Warrior’s chin. “Don’t move!”
Blade was able to take in her long brunette hair, her piercing hazel eyes, and her rounded cheeks and pointed chin before she hissed the warning again. “Don’t move, sucker!” A ragged green shirt, torn jeans, and faded brown boots clothed her lithe frame. He wagged the M-10, which was pointed at her abdomen.