The banshee wail seemed closer for the first couple of stops, then it faded away until it was no louder than the humming of bees. But by the fifth check, Doc was in a perilous state, dropping to hands and knees, his chest heaving, sweat dripping from beneath the high hat.
"I beg you, gentlemen and ladies, to go on and leave me behind. I have my trusty cannon," he said, half drawing the ancient, ponderous Le Mat percussion pistol. "I assure youthat I shall give a good accounting of myself, and I shall take some of the monsters with me."
"Save a round for yourself, Doc," urged Finnegan, readying himself to move on deeper among the trees.
"No. Finn. You keep on this path with the women. I insist that..." Doc tried, but Ryan turned on him with a ferocious anger.
"Shut that fucking mouth, Doc, or I'll bust it. This isn't some old-fashioned fucking game of heroics. If you were gut-shot, I'd be first to leave you. But you aren't. J.B. and me'll stop and slow 'em some."
"Usual on the paths?" asked Finn.
"Yeah. Straight when there's no doubt. Any choice, take alternate right and left. Dagger slash on the nearest bush or tree."
Finn nodded and began to move, while Ryan and the Armorer readied an ambush for the swampies who were following. Lori helped Doc up on his feet, but still he hesitated,
"Come on, Doc," called Finnegan. "Have no fear."
The old man came close to a smile; it trembled uncertainly on the edge of the white lips. "You say to have no fear, my plump companion." An ironic laugh. "My own words to myself, a hundred times a day."
"Come on, Doc," urged Krysty. "Uncle Tyas McNann used to quote something 'bout being of good cheer and playing the man."
This time the smile was broad and genuine. "I know the saying, lady. But the man who said it died moments later."
"Get the fuck out of here," said J.B., leaning against a tall sycamore, his gun a comfortable extension of his right hand.
The four of them melted into the undergrowth; the only sounds were the sucking of the increasingly muddy earth at their boots. Ryan and J.B. waited, as they had waited in a dozen different places and times, for the enemy to come to them.
It worked.
They didn't need a signal. Ryan was the leader, so when he squeezed the trigger, the Armorer was a split second behind him. In such thick cover it was difficult to count the enemy. And with the muties' talent for recovering from mortal wounds, Ryan wasn't about to go and check them out. But at least eight went down, hit hard, and the others fled into the bayous, splashing and crying out to each other in odd, bubbling cries.
It was necessary to try the same trick again around four in the afternoon.
Doc has passed out, his breathing shallow, heart racing like a pump engine. Normally, if they'd been out from War Wag One, there'd have been a medic among them with drugs. But out there in what had once been called Louisiana, they had nothing.
"Take five rest," said Ryan. "Me and J.B. will go do it to 'em again."
The swampies had learned their lesson and were approaching more cautiously. But four or five of them went down under the combined fire of the Armorer's Mini-Uzi and Ryan's caseless G-12.
"Take five," ordered Ryan, once they had all caught up with each other.
"I regret," panted Doc, "that I truly can no longer even walk, let alone..."
"We'll hold up here," Ryan interrupted. "Either those zombie bastards leave us be, or we stand and fight 'em. No other way."
The ground had been getting wetter and wetter, until at every step their boots sank inches deep into slimy muck. The sky had cleared and now had only a scattering of light orange clouds, floating high and untroubled, intermittently visible through breaks in the green curtain that was draped overhead.
While they waited, Krysty stood a little apart from the others, her head to one side, listening hard. The long red hair rolled over her shoulders, bright in the half light.
Ryan came and stood by her, putting a hand on her wrist. She smiled at him.
"I'm sorry 'bout the cracks on muties!" he said.
"It's fine, lover. I know how it is."
He kissed her gently on the cheek, tasting the faintest hint of gasoline from the dirt and mud. "You hear them, love?"
"No. They backed off at the last firefight. But I can hear..." She shook her head.
"What?"
"I heard a dog barking. Then it sounded like a pig snuffling. Not far ahead, but the wind's against me for good hearing. I thought I heard a woman's voice. Singing. Mebbe another swampie village ahead of us."
They'd been running more or less blindly, picking anything that looked remotely like a trail, even, narrow animal tracks: Now they were in a small clearing with some exceptionally tall elms around them, covered with the white Spanish moss, so that they resembled a mute assortment of frozen brides draped in stained wedding lace.
Ryan hesitated. If they turned back for the swampwag, they might encounter the muties. They couldn't go right or left either. The deep waters of the salt swamps had been closing on them on both sides. That left only straight ahead, where Krysty Wroth had heard sounds of active life.
The sound of a gas engine came to them from behind; deep and throaty it was, exactly like the noise of the buggy's engine.
"Swampies?" said Finn.
It didn't seem likely that any community as brutish as the dirties who'd attacked them could drive a swampwag. But whoever it was, there was a better than even chance that they weren't going to be friendly. Anywhere in Deathlands the odds were never better than even.
"On," pointed Ryan.
The swamp closed in even more, leaving only a path less than six feet wide that wound among the high-rooted mangroves. Several times the mud and water mingled, and they waded through slime that reached above their knees. Remembering the giant alligator, everyone was edgy, concentrating on the slick surface of the mud as they progressed.
Several of them, not just Krysty, heard the dog bark again. And, drawing closer, they also heard the sounds of a small rural ville. Ryan advanced cautiously forward, and the others followed in single file, moving from quivering tussock to mud thick as molasses, stopping at the sudden apparition that seemed to spring from the very swamp itself.
A skinny white man, in a red shirt and white cotton breeches. He had long white hair and a neat beard. He held out both arms to show that he was weaponless.
"You are fatigued, mes enfants. Welcome to the humble ville of Moudongue. Here you may rest, and here you will be safe."
He turned on his heels and after a brief pause, Ryan Cawdor and his party followed the old man. There really wasn't anything else to do.
Chapter Seven
"If they was going to fucking butcher us, then they'd have fucking done it by now!"
"Finn makes sense, Ryan," said J.B. "Why bring us here?"
Ryan Cawdor shook his head. "Damned if I know. I just know that something here doesn't set right."
"I feel that, too," added Krysty. "There's a scent... a taste... I don't know."
"It seems to me, if I may venture my humble opinion, that we are better off here than out in that wilderness of mud and water, being pursued by the living dead."
"Lori says Doc speaks good."
Ryan shrugged. "Sure, no wonder. They promised to feed us in a few minutes, didn't they? Just make sure everyone keeps on their guard. And make sure that we eat different things. In case they've put sleepers in it."
He walked to the side of the hut, feeling the narrow planks bend under his weight; he looked out through the slatted blind, past the mesh of the mosquito netting and across the square of the small ville, down toward the swollen river.