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chain of the nunchaku sticks jingle.
"Yeah. First light I want a work party cutting wood. We'll head off into the hills
day after tomorrow. Take what's left."
"What about trading?" Rosa asked, completing her game. Five torn cards were on
the floor by her polished boots.
"Tomorrow. Ryan's not going anywhere, nor is Dr. Tanner. Tomorrow morning
we'll have us a small lottery."
"Lottery, boss?"
Strasser stood up, locking his hands so that the knuckles cracked like pistol shots.
"Folks like a gamble. Tomorrow morning we'll have us a lottery."
Ryan had been surprised by the reaction of the skull-faced former sec boss or
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rather by his lack of reaction.
"We chill about a fifth of his bastard army and he don't do nothing."
"Doesn't do anything," Krysty corrected.
For once he ignored her.
"They found bodies. Watched." Jak was eating some peaches he'd found growing
wild along the banks of the dry creek.
"Strasser even withdrew patrols," J.B. commented, busy in his nightly ritual of
fieldstripping and cleaning his Steyr AUG 5.6 mm pistol.
Major Ward had been out into the brush behind the house they'd moved to, which
was at the opposite end of town from their previous hiding place. Since evening
he'd been taken short four or five times and left with a muttered explanation.
"Something I ate," he mumbled.
Ryan looked up at him. "More likely something you didn't eat."
"Could be, son. Belly's emptier than a hot spot crater."
"Too risky to go in tonight." Ryan glanced at the moonlit sky. "Strasser'll look for
that. Just have to eat some of Jak's peaches and put up with the gut rot."
"Least we got water off that roof tank," J.B. said, bolstering his blaster. "Flash
flood did us some good in the end."
"Same guards as last night?" Krysty asked.
This time they'd been careful to pick somewhere unlike their last hideout. Most of
the house had fallen down, food for giant termites, but an end wall and the
rectangular garage remained. Ryan had chosen it because it was in such a poor
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state that no patrol would give it a second glance. And if they did, there was an
alley out back that gave them access to another four buildings. It would do.
Mildred couldn't believe what she was seeing. In the opalescent light of early
morning, the cobbled yard was bustling with people, and the feeling was like
everyone was involved in an old-fashioned barn raising or a church picnic.
Yet Strasser couldn't have made it plainer what his intentions were.
Word had gotten around fast that six of the gang had been murdered by Ryan
Cawdor the previous afternoon. Someone had seen the corpses being carried in on
a flatbed wagon.
Food had been issued before Strasser made his speech to everyone, and it had
lifted folks' spirits. Mildred found it hard to credit the overweening optimism that
ran through the settlers. The surviving preachers circulated, openly telling anyone
who'd listen that things weren't going to be too bad, that Mr. Strasser wanted some
workers for a while and then they'd all be allowed to go on their way.
Mildred was so outraged that she grabbed one of them, Jeremiah Moorbane. "How
can you all believe this of Strasser? Have you forgotten those tortured corpses we
saw? Or what that skinny son of a murdering bitch did to Vare when he tried to
defend his own daughter from him?"
The man smiled at her with a patient, saintly shake of the head, making Mildred
want to punch his lights out. "That was yesterday, sister. And this is a new today."
"You brainless, worthless piece of shit! Can't you "
But she saw the futility of it. Even before Strasser made his speech, the woman
realized that no help would come from the settlers.
"A lottery, ladies, gentlemen and children." The skinny, black-clothed man had
assumed the role of a tout, soliciting for trade outside a center-ville gaudy house.
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