The bird thumped into the dusty earth not more than arm's length from Jack's gape. Two of his friends dodged neatly as the arrow plunged into the dirt with a shunk! The young Mackenzie strolled over, pulled the shaft out of the dirt, then leaned over the Cutter.
"Are you not going to thank me, then, Jack-me-lad?" he inquired mildly, reaching out with the end of his longbow to nudge the limp blue-green shape of the bird. "You've the makings of a fine roast-duck dinner there, and the flight feathers will do for fletching when you've plucked it. And I'll ask no more of you if you decide to call this quits. Save yourself forty-five dollars, friend… and enjoy your duck."
Rudi found himself smiling involuntarily. Jed Smith snorted a laugh, and the young Cutter's friends roared until they staggered around wiping at their eyes and slapping one another on the back; a few fell helpless and drummed their heels on the ground. Several urged their comrade to accept the terms, between sputters and whoops. Skill with the bow was the thing they admired most in all the world, after horsemanship and raw courage.
Jack came back to his feet with a shoulder roll. The Cutters all looked a little awkward to Rudi's eyes when they were afoot, though they were as graceful as panthers in the saddle. That didn't mean the young man wasn't strong and quick, and Rudi judged that he'd be good with a blade. He didn't draw, quite…
"You got two more shafts, or the split-tail is mine," he said with quiet venom, all garrulousness washed out of him by the hate that made his face go white around the nostrils. "Now shoot. I'm of a mind to see how many ways I can fuck that bitch and you can keep your forty-five dollars."
Edain shrugged; Rudi thought he alone could see the flash of despair in the archer's eyes, but anger was deeper. He turned and smoothed the fletching of the arrow against his lips, blowing softly on the feathers and setting the shaft on the string. Then he stood stock still while he took one long breath, drew past the angle of his jaw and loosed in a single continuous movement.
The arrow flashed out, seeming to drift as it gained distance. There was less than a second before it struck… and Rebecca Nystrup pitched forward on her face, limp as a sack.
Silence fell for a long moment. "Well," Jed Smith said. "Want me to finish her off for you?"
TheScourgeofGod
CHAPTER SEVEN
BD fanned herself with one dangling end of the loose sun-turban she wore over an inconspicuous steel cap. A quarter mile ahead of her eastbound wagon train on Highway 84 was a baulk of timber studded with blades, mounted on old truck axles with modern spoke wheels. And besides the ten men behind it on foot with pikes and crossbows, a round dozen or more armed cowboys waited to either side.
It all looked tiny in this huge landscape, beneath a sky blue from horizon to horizon; the weather was clear and dry, typical for fall hereabouts. And just on the comfortable side of warm, also standard, but the wind was from the east and it held the slightest hint of autumn beneath the acrid scent of dust. But no view with that much edged metal in it was particularly friendly.
"Tia Loba?" the head of her guards said, as some of the cowboys cantered forward and flanked them to either side, just within bowshot.
"Keep calm, Chucho," she said. "We'll just walk on up to them and have a talk."
The slow creak and clatter and bounce of wagon travel went on, and the figures around the barricade grew from dolls to men.
"Whoa!" she said, pulling on the reins, just as they barked out: "Halt!"
Dobben and Maggie were well trained, once they woke from their patient ambling daze; the big half-Suffolk lead pair came to a stop inside six paces, the rear pair had to halt perforce, and she pulled and locked the brake lever. The four other carts behind them came to a halt as well, and the six guards reined in beside them.
They were just far enough away that the Easterners would have to come to her if they wanted to talk without shouting, which was what she'd wanted. Silence replaced the clop of shod hooves on the freeway's broken asphalt, silence and the long hiss of the wind through the rolling fields on either side. You couldn't see Pendleton proper from here-it was down in the river valley about six miles farther east-but you could just make out the rounded heights of the Blue Mountains on the horizon.
"And this used to be a tourist spot," she muttered to herself.
BD looked around casually, wiping her forehead on the tail of her turban and checking for more armed men. Northward was a reaped wheat field with some of the shocks of grain still standing in yellow tripods, but elsewhere the rolling swales around had long since gone back to arid wilderness. Pale bleached-brown bunchgrass studded with the olive green of sagebrush rippled in waves; a flock with a mounted shepherd and his dogs and guard llamas drifted south of the road, moving slowly through the middle distance. Farther off some pronghorns danced, and a pair of buzzards swept in and perched on the tilted shape of an old telephone pole not far away. It moved slightly under their weight.
I hope that's not an omen, she thought. And of course, this was the Oregon Trail before it was Interstate 84. Not all that different from the way it looked when some of my ancestors came through in ox-carts.
Footmen and mounted archers alike scowled at her party, and there were two flags flying from a post by the road. One was the expected blazon of the local Rancher-the Circle D in black on light green. The other was the white-on-red cowboy and bucking bronco of the Associated Communities of the Pendleton Emergency Area.
What everyone else calls the Pendleton Round-Up, BD thought. Or, alternatively, "those Pendleton sheep rapers." But they usually don't bother with the flag. Pythian Apollo witness I am getting too old for this.
She was just short of sixty now, and getting a bit gnarled. People said she was tough as an old root, but…
Yeah, tough as an old root, and stiffer. People age faster these days, she thought. I spent the past generation heaving loads and hauling on reins, not behind a keyboard. It's time to sit by the fire and tell the grandchildren stories.
Then, smiling to herself: Who am I kidding? The Powers gave me my marching orders back at DUN Juniper last Lughnasadh, and Apollon confirmed it.
Her guards closed up around the lead wagon; they and the wranglers were her own people from the Kyklos, mostly unofficial nephews-or in one case, a niece-by-courtesy. They favored Japanese-style armor, another legacy of hobbyists-turned-deadly-serious right after the Change. The outfit included flared helmets and armor of metal lozenges laced together, and they carried naginatas, five-foot shafts topped with curved swordblades. Quivers and asymmetric longbows rode across their backs, and katana and wazikashi at their belts.
They were also bristling a little at the show of force. Young men
…
"Whoa, everybody," BD said loudly, carefully not touching the naginata that rode in a scabbard behind her, or an assortment of concealed weapons on her own person. "Let's be sensible here; it's good for business."
She climbed down from the seat and rubbed at the small of her back, looking deliberately as nonthreatening as possible; she was in shapeless linsey-woolsey pants, belted tunic and boots, practical traveling garb. An expert could probably catch the mail-vest beneath, but that was just a reasonable precaution traveling in lands without much law. Peering at the cowboys, she saw a face she knew, and got out her glasses to confirm it.