"In the cans?" J.B. asked.
"Drier than an old woman's tits. Guess 'bout ten miles. Mebbe fifteen."
They all looked at Ryan. "You recognize where we are?" Krysty asked. "Ring any chimes from boyhood?"
He shook his head. "Never hunted much north. This trail don't seem much used. Main tracks were south and west of here. Old 1-81 was the wide one. Pa had trouble with guerrillas coming from the mountains to the west. Shen raiders. They used that interstate with fast wags. Light armor. Stole horses and cattle and women. Surely missed the stallions and the seed bulls."
"But you believe we may be somewhat in the immediate vicinity of your ancestral home?" Doc asked, scratching his chin, his mind immediately wandering off the subject. "Why, 'pon my soul, I declare that I have a dire need of a shave, my friends. Forgive me while I go to attend to my ablutions." The old man vanished toward a slow-moving stream behind the wag.
Ryan shrugged. "I guess we got to be close. Can't say... Fireblast! I don't think I'm doing right bringing you along on this."
Krysty clucked her tongue and moved closer to him, but he shook his head.
"No, lover. I mean all of you. If'n Harvey once finds out I'm within a hundred miles, he'll put the dogs out after me. After us. And he must be able to call on... mebbe a hundred sec men or more. As well as having every bastard village and hamlet for twenty miles around under his heel."
"Wouldn't be here if'n I didn't want to be," J.B. replied.
"And me," Lori insisted defiantly. "We'll killed your brother together. Shan't I?"
The others laughed at the girl's serious face, Ryan finally joining in.
"Okay, friends," he said. "But when my brother has us roasting over a slow fire, don't any of you put the blame on me!"
Jak caught some trout and roasted them over a slow fire of hickory wood, the scent making everyone's mouth water. The fish were delicious, the tender flesh all but falling off the slender bones.
"What's time, J.B.?" Jak asked, laying back on a shelf of thick moss, legs crossed, his stark white hair spread out behind him like a bride's veil.
"Twenty-five of eight," the Armorer replied, checking his wrist chron.
"We should be moving on," Ryan said, belching appreciatively. "Those fish were double-ace. Hardly ever get fresh eating. Did you have self-heats and spun soya in your day, Doc?"
"What, may I ask, do you consider to be 'my day,' Ryan?"
"Before the long winter, course."
"During my time in the 1990s, I found the quality of cuisine execrable."
"That mean it was good, Doc?" Ryan asked.
"It means it was shit, Ryan." The old man grinned. "Tinned and frozen and packaged and freeze-dried and irradiated and processed. Little better than these appalling self-heats. But remember that my time was also back in the late 1800s, before I was so cruelly trawled forward as part of Cerberus."
"What was food like then? In real old times," Jak asked.
"Ah," Doc sighed. "Like those trout. All food was fresh. Well... most food was fresh. Chicken and mutton and beef and turkey. Salmon and trout and bass. Vegetables from your own garden, with no having to take a rad count first. Cream so thick I swear you could cut it with a knife. But what is the merit in such talk? Let us enjoy the occasional marvelous food like these tender fish."
"Had good food as a kid, back at the ville," Ryan said. "Cooks made me a special sort of a pie with apples and oranges in it. Called it 'Master Ryan's Surprise,' they did."
"By the three Kennedys!" Doc exclaimed, leaping to his feet in dismay.
"What the?.." Ryan said.
"Your name!"
"What?"
"Your name," Doc repeated. "Your name is Ryan Cawdor. We all call you by that name, do we not? Indeed we do."
Ryan didn't understand. But he was used to the occasional way Doc's synapses disconnected and produced only babbling. Krysty also stood up, eyes lighting up as she realized what Doc was trying to say.
"Ryan!" she exclaimed.
"You all lost your jack, lover? What's all this about?.."
"About your name, you double-stupe," she said, voice raised. "Tomorrow we'll be within range of the ville."
"And?"
"And if anyone hears the name of Ryan Cawdor, then they'll..."
"Go running to Harvey," Ryan finished, slapping his own forehead with exasperation. "Sorry, friends. Better go and throw myself in that pool to try and get my damned brain working. Yeah, of course. Got to change my name."
"Upon my soul, but I admire a man who likes to speak his mind. Indeed I do," Doc said, grinning. "That's my impersonation of... of someone or other from some old vid."
"I don't know what to call myself," Ryan said.
"John Doe," Krysty suggested. "Used to be the name for chills they couldn't put a name to."
"Thanks, lover," Ryan said dryly.
"Floyd Thursby," Doc offered.
The suggestion was greeted with total silence by everyone. Ryan tried the name on his tongue, finding it felt familiar. "Not bad."
"Like it." Lori smiled. "Floyd Thursby. I can remember that."
Krysty leaned over and kissed Ryan on the lips. "Hey, Floyd, you kiss just like a guy I used to know."
"You enjoy it?" Ryan grinned and pulled her to him, kissing her long and hard.
"Even better when you help," she replied, face flushed, sentient hair coiling and uncoiling on her shoulders.
"Floyd Thursby." J.B. tried the name. "Why not? Where did you pick that one from, Doc?"
The old-timer looked puzzled. "I think... No, it's vanished. Perhaps we shall never know who the real Mr. Floyd Thursby was. It will remain a mystery shrouded in an enigma."
They finally ran out of gas a little before noon. Fortunately the rebuilt wag had been giving them plenty of warning, the engine stalling and backfiring repeatedly. Jak, who was at the wheel, had ample time to pick a secluded spot off the deserted blacktop. He eventually parked the truck in a grove of trees, completely out of sight of any casual passersby. They hadn't seen a soul since crossing the Susquehanna, so it looked like a good place to safely store some of their clothes and blasters.
"We go and we look. Find a way if there is a way to take out Harvey and his woman. And his bastard son. We need more power, we come back here and collect the rest of the blasters."
The Armorer sighed at Ryan's words. "Surely like to have the Uzi in my hand, going into a hostile ville like this."
"Sec men'd chill us 'fore we got ten paces over the moat."
"Sure, Ryan, sure."
Their secluded grove was a place of quietness and muted grays and greens. A small, furry animal scuttled amid the rustling leaves, darting out of sight behind the wheels of the wag.
"Nice forest," Krysty said. "Any mutie critters around here?"
"Some humans," Ryan replied. "There's still some black bear in the hills, and mebbe some cougar. Pa used to breed wild boars. Big mothers, six feet at the shoulder, with curved tusks that'd rip your belly open 'fore you even saw 'em coming."
"Nice, lover. I'll stay close to you. This all the woods from the Front Royal ville?"
"Used to be. When I was a kid it seemed like we owned half the Shens. Now... I don't know. Just know that we gotta step careful."
"When do we move?" Doc asked. "There's ample daylight left for us to continue with our odyssey, is there not?"
Ryan put his hands to his chin, as if he were praying, trying to decide what'd be best. It was nearly twenty years since he'd been in Virginia. There could have been lots of changes probably had been. In fact, in the year since there'd been any reliable, fresh news, much might have altered at the ville. Harvey could be dead. So could his wife and son. There could have been a rebellion. It was widely known that precious few barons ever died peacefully in their own beds.
"Wait for dusk," he finally decided.
Most of them slept through that long afternoon.
They all dreamed, locked in their own private memories and thoughts.