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men stood at its mouth, peering down the street at the hotel. Both turned to look
at J.B., but neither of them recognized him.
He rode past them.
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"Man, get your fool self chilled out there bastard quick," one of the men said.
J.B. ignored the warning and rode straight for the hotel, knowing there was every
chance he'd get chilled in a cross fire between his friends and Kirkland's people.
The sec men stared after him as he rode out into the center of the street. They
froze, not knowing what to do. A ragged cheer burst out from some of them as
they thought one of their own had gotten courageous enough or stupid enough to
try another attack on the hotel.
"Go get them outie bastards!" someone yelled.
And that, J.B. knew, might very well be the kiss of death because Mildred and
Ryan were good enough to empty the horse's saddle even now. He raised his
voice. "Rider coming in! It's J.B.!"
It took only a moment for what was truly happening to crystallize in the sec
men's minds. Then they opened fire.
J.B. stayed low, aiming the horse at the front doors of the hotel. He kept his
stomach pressed tight against the duffel bag so he wouldn't lose it. Twisting, he
brought the Uzi to bear, raking a line of 9 mm bullets across the sec men behind
him.
The bullets chewed through kegs, an overturned buckboard, and tables that had
been brought out of various establishments. A handful of sec men went down
under the blasterfire.
J.B. didn't let up until the Uzi was empty. He turned his attention back to the
hotel, holding on to the horse's mane as it vaulted up onto the boardwalk. He
knew it had taken some hits during the firefight; he'd felt them shiver through the
animal's flesh. Two bullets had grazed the Armorer's left side, tearing through
skin and glancing off the bone beneath.
The doors opened ahead of him just before he thought the horse was going to
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smash into them. The animal struggled to keep taking steps, blood flecking from
its nostrils and blowing back into J.B.'s face in warm, wet drops.
The Armorer tried to pull the animal up short, but it was nearly dead, ignoring the
pain in its mouth from the rough handling of the bit. The horse's front legs went
out from under it as it fell forward.
J.B. leaped off his dead mount, pulling the duffel clear. New pain flared through
his bruised side when he hit the floor. He skidded across the wooden floor and
smashed into a big chair. Bullets ripped through the fabric over his head. The
strange thing was, the bullets came from inside the hotel.
"Hold your goddamn fire!" Mildred yelled. "He's one of us!"
J.B. glanced across the room and saw the two women huddled behind the
counter. One of them sat in a wheelchair, brandishing a huge blaster.
Muffling a groan as he pushed himself to his feet, J.B. reached for his fedora and
clamped it onto his head. He gathered the straps of the duffel and pulled it over
his shoulder. His side felt as if it were on fire.
Doc shoved the doors back together, then put the lock bar back into place. "John
Barrymore," the old man said, "I was not sure if we would see you again in this
life."
"I'm harder to get rid of than that," J.B. declared. He stepped across the mess the
dying horse left when its bowels evacuated across the wooden floor. "You get
Mildred back?"
"The gods permitted me to perform that small task." Doc took up a position at the
window and blasted a charge of buckshot that elicited a scream of pain from
outside. "But I fear I have escorted your dear lady from the frying pan into the
fire."
"You know my views on that," J.B. said, joining the old man at the window. "Get
a bigger frying pan." He recharged the Uzi and hammered out a series of bursts
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that drove the advancing sec men back to cover. "Where's Ryan?"
Then he heard the distinctive boom of his friend's Steyr.
"Up top," Mildred said.
J.B. crossed to the woman and gave her a brief kiss. "Keep yourself safe until we
get out of this."
"You do the same," Mildred said.
The Armorer went up the stairs, talked briefly to Krysty and found out Ryan was
on the roof. He located the inside ladder and went up. "Ryan."
"Come ahead," Ryan called.
Straining, J.B. barely made out the big man in the shadows. He heaved himself
onto the roof with the duffel in tow. "Got good news and bad. Which do you
want first?"
"The good," Ryan answered. "Mebbe it'll make the bad go down easier."
"The good news," J.B. said, moving painfully into a sitting position, "is Tinker
was willing to part with some plas ex. Got a mighty big store of it for one man.
Said he's been saving it for a special occasion."
Ryan nodded, scratching at the rough leather of his eyepatch. "Figure on
boobying the building for when they decide to rush us?"
J.B. grinned. "Like that song Gimball used to play back on War Wag One. 'Hotel
California.' Everybody's gonna check in when they come for us, but nobody's
gonna check out. If they give us enough time, I'll have the plas ex set so it'll take
out the bottom three floors and leave the structure standing. If we get godawful
lucky, we can get away in the confusion."
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"Draw it up and let me know when you need me," Ryan said. "I'll get Dean up
here with the Steyr. He's good enough to snipe anybody who gets to feeling too
lucky."
"Give me a half hour." J.B. felt the warmth sticking to his side, but knew the
wound was already starting to coagulate. His eyelids felt grainy from lack of
sleep and overexertion.
"What's the bad news?" Ryan asked.
"If you're expecting people in this ville to rise up with us and take a stand against
Kirkland, it isn't going to happen."
"Tinker Phillips and his family?"
"Dealing themselves out of it."
Ryan didn't look surprised. "Can't say that I blame them on the face of things.
We'll do what we can."
J.B. nodded, reaching out to clap Ryan on the shoulder. "Over, under or around.
One of them will get it done."
"Always has," Ryan said.
Chapter Seventeen
"Outlanders!"
Ryan roused himself from the semisleeping state he'd allowed himself to drift
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into during the past hour. He and J.B. had spent two and a half hours setting the
plas ex around the hotel, tying all the remote-control detonators into the
broadcast unit J.B. had. All of them would detonate at prearranged times, only
seconds apart.
Ryan trusted the Armorer's skills in the demolitions area. J.B. had brought down
several structures when they'd been back with the Trader on War Wag One.
"Outlanders!"
Peering over the rooftop's edge, Ryan picked up the Steyr.
Kirkland was out in the middle of the street, standing there in what looked like a
glass box that sat in the back of a horse-drawn wag. A dozen gunners stood
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