“No. I can do it,” Zahner stated. “I’ll get Bear and Brother Timothy to lend a hand.”
“Watch out,” Hickok warned. “Some of ’em might have some fight left.”
“Will do.” Zahner departed on the run.
“You!” Hickok barked, pointing at a nearby Family Tiller.
“Me?” The man stepped forward apprehensively.
“Form a squad,” Hickok instructed him. “Fish those bodies from the moat.”
“What do you want done with them?” the Tiller inquired.
“Stack ’em on the inner back, right there.” Hickok pointed at the edge of the moat.
“You don’t want us to bury them?” the Tiller responded in amazement.
“Is everybody hard of hearing today?” Hickok snapped. “No, I don’t want ’em buried. Not right now, anyway. After this is over we’ll form a burial detail. But right now I want you to stack them along the bank.
Make a wall of their bodies.”
The Tiller gulped and hurried away.
Hickok slung his Daewoo Max II over his right shoulder. He missed his Henry, and he wondered if he would ever see the rifle again. The very first chance he got, he silently promised himself, he would head for the site of the enemy’s former camp and search for the Henry. He never should have left it at the base of that tree!
A raven-haired woman with a machine gun walked up to the Warrior.
“Can we take our wounded to the infirmary?”
Hickok mentally berated his stupidity. “You haven’t done it yet?” he countered.
“No one told me to,” the woman explained.
“Hop to it!” Hickok urged her. Blast! Why hadn’t he thought of them?
The woman moved off.
Hickok limped to the edge of the stream. He gazed at the bodies in the sluggish water. Was Sherry’s body in the moat too? Had she survived her first battle? He involuntarily shuddered, unable to tolerate the image of her floating in the red water, her lips cold and damp, her eyes devoid of their lively sparkle.
Please, Spirit, he prayed. Please let her be all right!
The gunman frowned. Now was not the time for personal considerations. He must plan his course of action for the next assault. If he was right, if Brutus had tossed in his chips for the day, then the Warriors would have all night to prepare their defenses, to improve and improvise where necessary. How many of the enemy had they killed today?
He estimated the number of dead along the west wall at two to three hundred. If he was correct, and if the other walls had done as well, then Brutus had lost about eight hundred men. Which meant the Civilized Zone strike force had twelve hundred or so left. More than enough to polish off the Family and the Clan.
Hickok surveyed the compound.
Dozens of injured were heading for C Block, the infirmary. Some were walking unassisted, but others were being carried by their friends or borne on makeshift litters. A party of ten approached the infirmary from the direction of the east wall.
Hickok squinted, but he couldn’t see Sherry among them. He breathed a sigh of relief.
The gunman’s mind strayed. He thought of Bertha and Joshua, lying on the barren bed of a flatbed truck, awaiting his return so they could travel to the Home and be tended by the Healers. Were they still alive? Or had they died there, all but neglected, deprived of the company of their friends except for Geronimo? They didn’t know Boone or Morton that well. Who would comfort them as they departed for the higher mansions? He would never forgive himself if they died. True, he hadn’t had any option but to leave them there, but it didn’t make the decision any easier.
Hickok knew he needed to do something, anything, to dispel his rare bout of moodiness. He turned and walked toward C Block.
The four Family Healers, assisted by half a dozen other Family members, were hard at work, ministering to the dozens of Family and Clan defenders injured during the battle. All of the cots in the spacious structure were already occupied, and a line had formed in front of the building, over 30 people suffering from various wounds, some of them with bloody clothing, some evidently in a state of severe shock, gaping blankly at the world around them.
Hickok stopped near the doorway.
A middle-aged woman with a shoulder injury stepped aside so he could pass.
“Thanks.” Hickok said to her. He entered the Block and scanned the rows of cots. Cries of anguish, wailing and moaning, filled the chamber.
One of the Healers, an attractive blonde woman, saw the gunman and hurried up to him. “Do you need something?” she inquired.
Hickok shook his head. Her name was Jenny, and she was Blade’s wife.
Like Sherry, Hickok’s beloved, she had blonde hair and green eyes. But Jenny had longer hair and a fuller form. Her rounded chin and cheeks gave her a decidedly youthful appearance. She wore faded, patched blue pants and a discolored yellow shirt. “No,” he told her. “I just came to see how you’re doin’.”
Jenny glanced at the people waiting in line at the front door. “We’re holding our own,” she stated. “But we could use some more assistants if you find you can spare a few from wall duty.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Hickok promised, and turned to leave.
“Oh!” Jenny blurted, as if suddenly recalling an important matter she wanted to discuss.
Hickok hesitated. “What is it?”
“We had to move the prisoners,” Jenny explained, referring to two troopers and one of the Doktor’s genetically produced deviates captured by the Warriors some time back while Geronimo was off in the Dakotas.
All three had been hurt before their capture and had been housed in the infirmary under guard.
“Where did you move them?” Hickok asked.
“We needed their cots,” Jenny detailed, “so we had them moved to D Block. They’re almost fully recovered anyway.”
“Who’s watching them?” Hickok asked her.
“Two men from the south wall who came in with superficial gunshot wounds,” Jenny answered.
“Fine.” Hickok began to take a step, then paused, remembering a question he needed to ask. “How’s Gremlin?”
Gremlin was another of the Doktor’s test-tube creations. Initially encountered by Blade in Kalispell, Montana, Gremlin had rebelled against the nefarious Doktor and joined the Family. Enraged, the Doktor had sent a pair of assassins to murder Gremlin for his defection. Gremlin had survived the assassination attempt, but his right leg had been busted in four spots, severe breaks extremely difficult to set and treat. He had developed an infection and spent the past month confined to a cot in the northeast corner of the room.
“He’s hanging in there,” Jenny said. “He’s tough. He’ll pull through,” she predicted.
“I hope so,” Hickok stated. “I’m sort of fond of the critter.”
Jenny frowned at his use of the term “critter,” but Hickok didn’t see anything wrong with it. How else should you refer to a “man” with leathery gray skin, red eyes, and pointed ears?
“Is Sherry all right?” Jenny asked.
Now it was the gumman’s turn to frown. “Don’t know yet,” he muttered, and departed.
More walking wounded had joined the line while he was inside.
Hickok smiled encouragingly at them and headed for the moat. The Clan leader, Zahner, was directing the removal of bodies from the western rampart, and six men were engaged in fishing floating figures from the moat.
“Hickok!” someone called behind him.
The gunman turned.
Spartacus, his HR93 in his left hand, his right on the hilt of his broadsword, raced up, slightly out of breath.
“Report,” Hickok instructed him.
“The final tally on the dead and wounded isn’t in yet,” Spartacus stated.
“We’re still counting. But from the preliminary reports, I’d estimate we lost sixty to seventy, with another forty or fifty injured.”