Homeward Bound

Chapter Thirty-One

The door was a little way open, the inside of the gray building — its walls splashed with a sickly lichen — in almost total darkness. The dogs had brought the hunt straight to it, past the mangled corpses of the other hounds. The sergeant had ordered them held back on long leashes, keeping anyone from going near the store until the baron himself arrived to give them his orders.

Any conversation was difficult against the thunderous roar of the Sorrow, pounding its crazed route toward the distant sea.

The sec officer refused anyone the chance of going closer, keeping them back in a skirmishing line at the edge of the clearing. A couple of men held the horses while the rest of the party dismounted and waited, carbines at the ready, for further orders. Eventually Baron Harvey Cawdor came up, swaying in the high-pommeled saddle, humming a tuneless song to himself. With the help of a half-dozen sec troopers he battled his way to the ground, immediately deciding that he wanted to be back on his horse.

"To be able to see better, Sergeant," he explained in ringing tones.

"Yeah, my lord." It took several minutes before the grossly fat man was once more in the saddle of the shire stallion.

"We've got 'em caught, eh?" Harvey bellowed, though the sergeant stood patiently waiting right at his stirrup. "Caught?"

"In the gas store. Looks like they shot off the old lock. Or, likely, smashed it with a stone or the butt of the carbine."

"They're in there?"

"Must be. Dogs covered both ways and they don't come out. There's only the Sorrow behind. Must be in there. If'n you look close, my lord, you see the patch of blue from the ville's clothes they wore."

Harvey giggled, rubbing his pudgy hands together, the array of gold rings jingling and clashing. "The end, brother dearest. At last, after so many years and years and years and years and... Get the men to close in."

"Still got a few rounds left in the blaster, my lord."

"Can't kill you all. I'll wait there." He pointed behind him to where the screen of trees would protect him from astray bullet.

The sergeant still didn't quite understand. "Just move in, all together, my lord?"

"Do it. Dogs an' all. What's that smell in the air?"

"Gas, my lord."

"Leaking?"

"Store always smells."

Harvey wrinkled his scarred nose. "Why not burn them out?"

The sec officer shook his head. "No! No, my lord. There's enough gas in there to blow away half the Shens. We can..." A thought struck him. "Would you not rather have them taken alive, for the sporting, my lord?"

Harvey began to kick his heels into the ribs of his gigantic horse. "Yes. Good. Have them alive, Sergeant. Alive."

Nobody was in any hurry to be the first to push open the door of the store, knowing that there were four renegade traitors waiting inside, one of them with a loaded M-16. It was like being first man up a siege ladder.

Most men, given the choice, might prefer that someone else got to be the dead hero.

The sergeant chivvied them on. The dogs were subdued, hanging back, having to be whipped on. The stench of gasoline, combined with the rich scent of blood from the dead animals, was enough to put them off their hunting desire.

There had been no sign of life inside the store. As the sun came and went from behind tattered banks of high-altitude purple chem clouds, the advancing sec men could glimpse the sleeve of a jerkin just visible in the gloom. The baron's men closed in, ringing the front of the building, glancing nervously at one another, the noise of the Sorrow pounding in their ears like the drumming of the gods. The nearest of them was less than fifteen paces from the door.

Ten paces.

Still no shot. No sign of resistance. The sec men looked back at their sergeant, who waved them on with the barrel of his own carbine. He'd given them the orders to take the four alive, warning them to watch for the knives.

Five paces, and the line held, motionless, nobody eager to take the next few steps.

Ryan cradled the stock of the M-16 against his shoulder, just touching the side of his cheek. At such close range there wasn't any point in using the adjustable rear sight. The selector on the left was pointing straight down between Safe and Auto. It was on Semi, which meant single-shot. Ryan's finger was on the tapered trigger, hand cradling the pistol grip, his eye lining up the front and back sight, ready. His breathing was slow and regular.

The noise of the Sorrow seemed to fill the inside of his skull.

The sergeant looked back over his shoulder. The afternoon was oppressively warm and humid, and he could feel sweat soaking through his uniform at the armpits, across his stomach and the small of his back. Baron Harvey was barely visible, head sticking up above an earth bank, the absurd feathered hat nodding like a child's toy.

''Why not send the dogs in, Sarge?" one of the troopers asked.

"Because the baron wants to see it happen right in front of his eyes. That's bastard why, Trooper. Course, you can go and tell him you want to do it your way, if you want? No? Then let's get to it." He was shouting at the top of his voice in order to be heard above the river.

The inside of the store was still silent, the rich smell of refined gasoline filling the nostrils. It vaguely crossed the sergeant's mind that the scent was stronger than usual.

"In!" he yelled, straining his lungs, suddenly finding himself in the lead, nearest the half-open metal door.

Ryan had watched the hesitant advance of the overwhelming force of sec men. Apart from a skeleton guard left behind to protect the ville, this was virtually the entire strength of the Front Royal garrison.

He whistled soundlessly between his teeth. A stupid little kids' song came to him, sticking in his mind. It was something Doc had taught Lori a week or so ago, and the girl had kept singing it, laughing to herself at its absurdity.

"Wop bop a loobop, a wop bam boom," was all it was, repeated over and over again. Now it clogged Ryan's brain. His finger was still taut on the trigger of the M-16.

"Wop bop a loobop..."

Baron Harvey Cawdor's skull was awash with tranks so that he drifted in and out of reality. Now he was a teenager, chasing his little brother, Ryan, hunting him through the wilderness of the Oxbow Loop. When he caught him he'd kill him, tell their father it had been an accident. Harvey knew that to kill Ryan was to end his troubles. He smiled to himself, craning his neck to peer over the slope at the gray gas store, now with its entrance packed with dozens of his loyal, steadfast and true followers. Perhaps they would give three rousing cheers for Baron Harvey as they conquered.

"Hurrah, hurrah," he said to himself.

The sergeant was first in, carbine at his hip, blinking in the darkness. Sec troopers crowded behind him, jostling and pushing.

"A wop bam boom," Ryan hummed, the Sorrow overpowering his own voice.

The sergeant's feet felt deathly cold. Wet and cold. He tried to look down to see what was wrong, but the crush around him was too great, men and dogs all tangled together in the opening to the small building. The smell was overwhelming.

His eyes swiftly accustomed to the poor light, the sergeant could see the interior of the building. He didn't believe what he saw. There was a blue jerkin draped over an opened can of gasoline, placed so that it would be just visible to men outside. A dozen of the metal drums had been opened and overturned, the liquid spilled onto the floor. Many of the other large cans had their tops unscrewed and dropped in the dirt.

Apart from that the place was empty. The fugitives weren't there.

The sec officer opened his mouth to scream out a warning for everyone to get away from the lethal trap.

Thirty yards away, hugging the steep bank of the Sorrow, hidden by its lip, Ryan Cawdor squeezed the trigger of the captured M-16, aiming the round so that it would ricochet and spark off the metal door of the gas store.

His lips moved. "Wop bop a loobop, a wop bam...boom!"