“Were you sent after us?”
“Yep.”
“I thought so,” Longat declared with an air of conceit. “Humans are blatantly transparent.”
“What else were you able to figure out?”
“I suspect that your friends and you are simply a scouting party sent ahead of the main force. I’d guess that a large contingent of troops is even now en route to Yellowstone. Am I right?”
“You’re plumb amazing,” Hickok admitted.
Longat smiled. “Trying to thwart my heightened intellect is impossible.
I deduced you were sent by the Civilized Zone after your little group disposed of those scavengers, and I realized a larger force would probably be arriving soon. That’s one of the reasons I decided to return to our valley earlier than I’d originally planned. We’re not ready to take on a Federation army yet. And when we do finally engage the Federation, I want it to be on our terms.”
“Where’s this valley of yours?”
“Mars.”
“Geez. Don’t you even know what planet you’re on?”
“I admire a human who can retain his sense of humor when he’s close to dying.”
Hickok idly gazed to the south, and in the distance he spied an immense body of water, its calm, mirrorlike surface reflecting the moonlight.
Longat looked in the same direction. “Yellowstone Lake.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I consulted an old map of this territory before leaving our valley.”
“You can read?”
“Keep it up.”
“I do my best.”
“What size is the force sent to find us?”
“Oh, a couple of regiments. About four thousand troops.”
“That many?” Longat said. “What’s the total size of the Federation Army?”
“Five hundred thousand soldiers.”
“That’s impossible!” Longat stated, “You’re lying.”
“I never lie to anyone, or anything, if it means my pards will buy the farm.”
“But there can’t be that many men in the entire Civilized Zone, let alone their Army. You’d have me believe millions of humans live in the Civilized Zone alone?”
“Afraid so.”
“But the Flatheads we captured told us there are only ten thousand soldiers in the Civilized Zone Army.”
“What do they know? The Flatheads are part of the Federation, but they’re not experts on the Civilized Zone. How could they be? The ones you captured, gave you their best guess, but I’m giving it to you straight. Why do you think I kept telling you the Federation will stomp your butts? Who cares if you double or triple your population? Even one hundred thousand of your kind won’t be enough to lick the Federation,” Hickok asserted, pleased at his performance, at the sincerity he managed to convey.
Actually, he didn’t have the slightest idea how big the Civilized Zone Army truly was, but he wanted to make the mutation sweat.
Longat pondered the information. “If the Federation is that powerful, I’ll need to adjust my timetable accordingly. The Breed must become much stronger than I originally anticipated before launching our assault on the Federation.”
“That’d be the smart move,” Hickok agreed wholeheartedly.
“I need to verify your claim.”
The gunfighter decided to change the subject. “My feet are killin’ me.
When are we going to stop for a break?”
“If we can maintain this pace, we’ll halt tomorrow morning.”
“I can hardly wait.”
“Really? I wouldn’t have expected you to be in such a hurry. Tomorrow morning we’ll feast again. Perhaps I’ll draw straws to determine if we should eat the Flathead or you.”
Hickok made a show of scrutinizing the bear-man from head to toe. “If you ask me, you should give serious consideration to going on a diet.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
“What is this place?” Achilles inquired.
“According to the map, this was once a tourist attraction known as Old Faithful,” Blade replied.
“The geyser?”
“Yep.”
They sat astride their horses on the cracked and pitted roadway that wound between several dilapidated wooden structures to their right and a flat expanse of barren earth on the left.
“Isn’t this where Yeddt told us the Breed were heading?”
Blade nodded and turned his horse to the right, surveying the buildings for signs of habitation. From the condition of the partly collapsed roofs, the cracked walls, and the shattered windows, he surmised no one had occupied the facilities for decades. Dust covered everything. One of the buildings had once been a service station; the long-abandoned pumps were rusted out, their casings split. Another structure bore a barely legible sign on which the words FOOD and GIFTS could be distinguished.
“Do you think we beat them here?” Achilles asked.
“We should have. Even though we had to swing to the north to insure they wouldn’t spot us, we pushed our animals hard enough to compensate for the added distance,” Blade said. “All we can do now is take cover and hope they show up.”
“I can’t wait to see Priscilla again.”
Blade rode around to the rear of the food and gift store and reined up.
The asphalt parking lot behind the store was in slightly better shape than the road. Twenty yards from the rear door a crumbling, oxidized jeep rested on its hubs.
“I remember reading about Old Faithful during my schooling years,” Achilles mentioned. “It’s hard to believe millions of Americans traveled hundreds or thousands of miles to reach this very spot.”
“What’s so hard to understand?” Blade replied, dismounting. “Most Americans in the prewar era lived in towns or cities. They knew very little about nature and couldn’t survive for two days in the wilderness on their own. There was no incentive for them to live off the land because all of their food was easily obtained in restaurants and markets. Their clothing could be bought at retail outlets. They had severed their ties to the ways of the natural world. Quite naturally, whenever they had the time, on vacations or whatever, they’d flock to the country to get a taste of the primal life.” He scanned their surroundings. “They came here to escape the artificial world in which they lived.”
Achilles slid to the asphalt. “I’m glad I didn’t live back then.”
Unslinging both the Commando and the Henry, Blade moved to the closed back door. He drew up his right leg, shifted, and delivered a side stomp kick to the peeling panel, fracturing the wood down the center. Half of the door fell inward. “Cover my back,” he directed, and eased into the gloomy interior.
A narrow hallway, the floor caked with trash and dirt and the ceiling a haven for a variety of cobwebs, led past a closet, an office, and a storeroom to the front of the establishment. Debris littered the grimy tile underfoot.
All of the, shelves were empty. The place had clearly been ransacked years and years ago. Faded wrappers and rusty tin cans lined the aisles. The big window being the road and Old Faithful had been broken into tiny shards.
Blade moved down an aisle to the front door, which hung at a slant, attached to the frame by just its top hinge. He kept clear of the doorway.
Footprints in the dust would give them away, and he wanted the Breed to draw welt within the range of his Commando. The closer, the better.
“Do you have a plan?” Achilles inquired.
“We’ll hide out in here until they arrive, then play it by ear. Our first priority is to rescue Hickok, Geronimo, and the others. Once they’re safe, we can concentrate on wiping out the mutations.”