Rogan spat at the road. He growled, "Miserable mutie. Yer all the same. Ain't human an' ain't worth shit."
He cringed back as McCandless suddenly turned on him. The leader lashed a gloved fist across Rogan's face. Rogan grunted, staggered back toward the precipice, then tripped, sprawling only inches away from the drop. He glared up at McCandless with red-rimmed eyes.
Around them the wind howled like a dead soul racked in chilly Hell. Lightning flickered crazily; the air seemed charged with electricity. Even though the wind was a cold and icy blast, the atmosphere was heavy, muggy. Reacher felt his bones had been somehow turned to lead. His body was clammy with sweat under the thick fur garments, even as the wind cut at his exposed face like a keen-bladed knife.
Reacher watched Rogan crawl away from the chasm and scramble to his feet. Rogan didn't look at McCandless. He was breathing heavily, fingering his face where the bulky man had struck him. Reacher didn't need his uncanny power to tell him that danger threatened now. Any fool could see that an explosion was only minutes away.
But that was not what Reacher had smelled seconds before. He did not know what had triggered off his psychic alarm, but it was definitely not Rogan going berserk or McCandless cutting loose just for the hell of it.
McCandless was a psychopath, almost totally unstable. Already he'd gunned down Denning, a man of some education who'd suggested there might be a way into the mountains other than the road, and if there was it might be the wiser route to take. Denning's view, mildly expressed, was that the obvious course of action could often lead to needless danger. The road, he'd said, was too open; cover was negligible. Who knew what dangers lurked hidden, out of sight? Muties, mannies anything could be up there. On the road you were an easy target. Maybe that was why no one had ever returned from the Dark Hills, though many had set out. Try some other route, Denning had advised; and if there wasn't one, then okay the road.
It was a reasonable argument, put in a reasonable manner. It made sense. But not to McCandless, who'd not even bothered to debate it. He'd simply pulled out his dented, much used .45 automatic and put a softnose into Denning's face, blowing the rear of his skull out in a spray of blood and pinkish-gray matter. End of argument. McCandless and Rogan had divided up the contents of Denning's backpack, taking gun, ammo, food, other essentials. Then the party had moved on.
No one had argued. Rogan hadn't argued because he knew he'd be sharing the spoils. Wise man. Offing Denning meant at the end of the day that there was one less mouth to feed, one less person to share in the possible treasure at the end of the trail. The fact that it also meant they had one less gun to blow away attackers with did not necessarily occur to him.
Kurt had not argued because he was phlegmatic by nature. He knew he would not get a share of Denning's leavings because he was a hired gun, a blaster pure and simple. Sure, he'd get a share of whatever they found, if anything, up in the hills. But other than that, forget it. He just took orders from McCandless, kept his eyes open for danger, hoped for the best.
Reacher certainly had not argued. He was a survivor. The main reason he'd survived to the age of thirty, give or take a year or three, was that he never argued. With anyone. Especially not with guys who held guns and called the shots.
In any case, his peculiar talent born out of a blind stew of scrambled genes somewhere back along a kin line a century before was invaluable to McCandless, however much the bulky man might rage and fume, and unless he went stark out of his mind Reacher would survive yet.
On the other hand, thought Reacher suddenly, the way things were going, the way madness seemed to be encroaching on them all, there was a damned good chance the guy wouldgo stark out of his mind.
McCandless said, "So I ain't got me a doomie, I got me a senser. Why did I get me a senser? To sniff out trouble." His voice dropped menacingly. "And what was the deal? The deal was this senser'd get food and a share of the good stuff when we hit it. That was the bargain. Just so long as he worked his passage." He suddenly screamed, "So what did you see, Reacher?"
Reacher was on the verge of repeating that he hadn't seen anything, that he'd made it perfectly clear to McCandless right at the start that he couldn't see anything, that he never would see anything, that it was a sheer physical impossibility for him to see anything. And then he thought, split-second swiftly, the hell with it: a quibble like that will get me a slug in the skull. Right now McCandless was not interested in word play.
He gestured up the road. "There. Somewhere up there. Waiting for us."
McCandless let his breath out in an exploding snort.
"Right! What?"
"Dunno." Reacher spoke carefully, choosing words that would not touch the bulky man off. "All I get's an impression." He tapped his forehead lightly, not looking at McCandless or the other two.
Trying to explain to men like these was always difficult, and in any case Reacher himself had no real idea why he was the way he was. It was relatively easy to accept the physical aspects of genetic mutation why some mutants had no mouths, for instance, or three eyes, or scales, or pachydermatous skin. Especially these days. Those who knew about these matters said that the full effects of the Nuke were only just beginning to come to the surface.
But how in hell did you explain something that went on in the mind? Something that was not at all tangible. Something extrasensory. Something that had to do with the emotions. At least that was the way Reacher figured it, if he thought about it at all, which wasn't very often. There were other more pressing problems to think about and try to cope with in this wacko world. Like a lot of muties, Reacher accepted that he was different and kept his head down. There was no percentage in making waves. Again, the guys who knew about these things had actually figured out a very strange scenario: they said that maybe in another two or three generations if there was anyone left at all in this hell-world it could be that mutants would exceed normals. That in fact it would be the muties who were the norms, the norms muties. That was a pretty wild mind. Ain't nothing physical, McCandless, but it's never wrong. "Somewhere up the road we got trouble. Could be us, could be guys waiting for us. Could be a rockslide. I dunno. But it's there, and I'm warning you. We have to tread careful, real careful."
"Shit!" McCandless spat at the rutted road, his brow a corrugation of leathery lines. "Ya tellin' me nothin'. We gotta tread real careful where!"
"I'm warning you," repeated Reacher stubbornly. "This is special, whatever it is. This is death."
McCandless's eyes locked onto the mutie's for a microsecond, then flicked away. The bulky man pulled at his beard.
"And it's gonna happen, no matter what?"
Reacher bit his lip.
"It ain't as simple as that. Yeah, it's gonna happen, whatever. Doesn't necessarily mean it's gonna happen to us."
"Ya never wrong, huh?"
Reacher fidgeted, shrugged.
"Niney-nine percent."
McCandless's face split into a grin. Reacher thought he looked more insane than ever.
"Well, okay! That's good enough, Reacher, you mutie!" He stepped forward, thumped Reacher hard across the back. "I'm feelin' lucky today! That one percent is ridin' for me! We're gonna get us the loot and we're all gonna be kings of the mountain! Ain't that right, Rogan?"
Rogan grinned sourly. "Sure is, boss."
McCandless fixed Kurt with his crazed gaze.
"What about the blaster? Whaddya think, Kurt? We ridin' lucky?"
Kurt's face was expressionless, a mask. He was bitterly regretting this whole venture. He had a strong feeling, an unshakable feeling that they were all going to wind up dead. Nastily. Or if not quite that, some disaster was heading their way with no reprieve.