“Funny, funny, funny,” Hickok muttered.
“Hickok goes,” Blade decided.
The gunman glanced at Geronimo and laughed in triumph. “He obviously picked me because I’m the better Warrior!”
“No,” Blade shook his head, winking at Geronimo. “I selected you because Geronimo is the better cook. If anything happened to him, I’d have diarrhea all the way to the Home if I had to eat your cooking.”
Geronimo chuckled and playfully slapped Hickok on the back.
Hickok sighed as he opened his door. “It’s true what they say. Greatness is never appreciated in its own time.”
“Hickok!” Joshua exclaimed, leaning forward.
“What is it, Josh?”
“Why don’t you leave the rifle here?” Joshua recommended. “A show of arms might frighten whoever is out there. It could intimidate them into taking violent action.”
Hickok looked at Blade.
“It’s up to you,” Blade told him. “I’d suggest you take it, though.”
Hickok noted the hurt expression on Joshua’s face. He slowly placed the Henry on his seat. “Geronimo must be right,” he said. “I must be stupid.”
He stared at Joshua. “I’ll do it, pard, for you. Just don’t ever tell any of the other Warriors back at the Home. They’ll think I’ve gone off the deep end.”
Joshua grinned, delighted at this unexpected turn of events. “Thank you, dear brother! Now what about your Pythons too?”
Hickok locked his blue eyes on Joshua’s brown. “Remind me, Josh, that one of these days we’ve got to sit down and have a real loooooong talk about the realities of life.”
“Watch it out there,” Blade said.
Hickok nodded and slid from the SEAL, closing the door behind him, his back to the transport, facing the nearest vegetation and scanning for the slightest hint of a threat.
Nothing.
Just the trees and the bushes, the leaves waving in the wind.
Hickok nonchalantly hooked his thumbs under his gunbelt and strolled away from the SEAL. Maybe Joshua was right. Maybe, if they showed they were friendly, whoever was out here would reciprocate.
What could it hurt to try?
A twig snapped behind a large bush about twenty feet away, to his right.
Whoever was out here wasn’t being too secretive about it.
Hickok grinned. Just what he liked. A klutzy ambusher!
There was a shuffling sound from behind a tree off to his left.
Hickok paused. He was entertaining second thoughts about this bright idea of Joshua’s.
Was someone out there whispering?
Hickok didn’t like the setup one bit, but he decided to give Joshua the benefit of the doubt.
More whispering.
“Howdy!” Hickok cheerfully called out. “My handle is Hickok! We’re here on a peaceful mission!”
There was a brief silence, then it sounded like dozens of people were whispering all at once.
Hickok cautiously moved toward the large bush. What the blazes were they doing? Having a conference?
A tall man suddenly stepped from behind an oak. He held a rifle in his hands, the barrel pointed at the ground.
Hickok tensed, resisting an impulse to draw his Colts.
Not now!
Give them the benefit of the doubt.
The stranger wore a tattered, dirty blue shirt and torn, faded jeans. He was grinning, revealing a gap where two of his upper front teeth had once been.
Well, look at this! Hickok returned the smile, amazed. Joshua was on the right track, after all! If you showed a little friendliness, you were bound to make friends.
The man took several tentative steps in Hickok’s direction.
“Howdy!” Hickok said again. “I’m Hickok. I’m pleased to meet you.”
Still grinning, the man nodded his head.
“Do you understand me?” Hickok asked.
The stranger continued to nod.
Yes, sir! Hickok still couldn’t believe it. Making friends was a piece of cake!
The tall man was now only ten feet from the Warrior, continuing to nod his head.
What was with this bozo? Did he have a nervous condition, or something?
“I’m Hickok,” the gunman repeated.
“That’s pretty,” the man finally spoke.
Pretty?
“What can I do for you?” Hickok inquired. “What is it you want?”
The man stopped and raised his rifle. “To eat you, dummy!” He suddenly turned his head and shouted at the top of his lungs: “Kill him! Kill meat now!”
Without warning, screeching and screaming, over two dozen men and women burst from cover, charging toward the man in buckskins.
Chapter Two
The boy was sitting on the top railing of the fence attached to the rear of the family barn, idly watching the bull make amorous advances at one of the two heifers his father had recently purchased, when he heard the low voice address him.
“Hello.”
Startled, the boy almost lost his grip on the wooden rail. He twisted, frightened, afraid the soldiers had arrived undetected and would learn their secret. His green eyes were wide as he froze, gaping at this man in blue standing not five feet away, a slight smile creasing the man’s ruggedly handsome features.
“Hello,” the man in blue said greeting the boy again.
Confused, the boy nervously ran his left hand through his tousled blond hair. His father was on the south side of the barn, chopping wood for the fireplace in their log home. Inside the house, his mother was preparing their noon meal. Her cheerful whistling carried on the breeze through an open window in the kitchen.
“I apologize if I caught you off guard,” the man in blue said.
Where were the dogs? How had this man gotten past the two dogs? The boy wanted to call for his father, but he was fearful the man in blue might shoot his dad. This man carried lots of guns and other weapons, more weapons than the boy had ever seen on one person, including the soldiers from the Citadel. Was the man in blue from the Citadel? the boy wondered. Somehow, he doubted it. There was something about this man, something special, although the boy coudln’t put his finger on it. The boy gazed into the man’s clear blue eyes and was reassured by the friendliness he detected.
“I was watchin’ the bull,” the boy explained.
“It’s wise for a man to keep his eyes on what’s going on around him,” the big man in blue remarked.
The boy grinned. This man seemed to understand things real well. He marveled at the man’s blue garment, a strange one-piece affair with a shirt and pants somehow sewn together at the waist, both dark blue in color. The man’s hair and long moustache were a striking shade of silver.
He carried some kind of smallish machine gun in his hands. Under his right arm, in a shoulder holster, was a pistol, and in another holster under his left arm was a revolver. As if all the guns weren’t enough, the man in blue also had an oddly shaped sword in a scabbard attached to his leather belt above his left hip. On his other hip was a fifteen-inch survival knife.
“If you have some to spare,” the man stated softly, “I could use some water.”
What should he do? The boy wanted to call his father, but he was still wary, reluctant to trust his feelings about this man, expecting it was a trap set by the soldiers. He was about to muster his courage and shout for his dad when the issue was taken from his hands.
His father came walking around the corner of the barn, his axe slung across his broad right shoulder.
“Adam, I want you to take the wood…”
Even as Adam’s father was rounding the corner, the man in blue had spun, sweeping his machine gun around.