Ring of Fire II(218)

No, that was pointless. When they'd arrived in Hof early this morning, the garrison had still been asleep. Sleeping off a hangover, to be precise. All except the corporal in charge, who'd still been drinking. They'd be as useless as tits on a bull for hours, yet—and the traitors were almost into the Fichtelgebirge. Noelle was pretty sure there was no way she and Eddie would be able to get the garrison to go into the forest. That meant trying to get help from the soldiers at Saalfeld, and that was at least thirty miles away. By the time they got there, convinced the garrison commander to muster his unit, and got back, at least two days would have passed. More likely three, unless the garrison commander at Saalfeld was a lot more energetic and efficient than most such.



Two days, maybe three. Given that much lead time, it was unlikely they'd ever find the defectors. The Fichtelgebirge and the Bohemian Forest it was part of wasn't a tall range of mountains, but it was heavily wooded. Mostly evergreens, too, so they wouldn't get any advantage from the trees having shed their leaves. Assuming the man in charge, whoever he was, knew what he was doing—and there was no evidence so far that he didn't—he'd almost certainly be able to shake off their pursuit. There was enough commercial and personal traffic back and forth across the forest between Bohemia and Franconia that there would be a network of small roads—well, more like trails, really, but well-handled wagons could make their way through them. After the passage of two or three days, especially if the weather turned bad, it was unlikely they could figure out which specific route the defectors had taken.



"It's now or never, I guess." She started her horse into the meadow. "I'll do the talking. You just look fierce and militaristic and really mean and not too smart. The kind of guy who shoots first and lets God sort out the bodies, and doesn't much care if He gets it right or not."





"There!" hollered Denise, pointing across Lannie's chest out of the window on his side of the plane. "It's them!"



He looked over and spotted the wagon immediately. "Yup. Gotta be. Keenan, you get ready to unload when I tell you."



"Both bombs?"



"Better save one in case we miss the first time."



Denise wondered if they actually had the legal right to bomb somebody, without even giving them a warning. No way to shout "stop, thief!" of course, from an airplane doing better than a hundred miles an hour.



"Why don't we just call in their position on the radio?" she asked. "That way . . . you know. We could ask somebody up top how they want us to handle it."



"Well," said Lannie.



Behind her, Keenan cleared his throat. "The radio don't exactly work. Bob took some of the parts out of it so's we could—"



"Never mind," she said, exasperated more with herself than anyone else. She should have known better than to get into the plane without double-checking that all the details were up to snuff.



She'd once hitched a ride with Keenan Murphy into Fairmont, just a few weeks before the Ring of Fire. First, the tire had gone flat. Then, after borrowing a jack from a helpful driver passing by, which Keenan needed to borrow because he'd somehow or other lost his own jack, he discovered the spare was flat. Then, after the still-helpful passerby drove him to a nearby gas station where he could get the tire fixed, they'd continued the drive to Fairmont until he ran out of gas. Turned out the fuel gauge didn't work and Keenan had lost track of the last time he'd filled up the tank. She'd wound up walking the last three miles into town.



As for Lannie—



But there was no point in sour ruminations. Besides, what the hell. She had expansive opinions on the subject of "citizen's arrest." Why should the lousy cops get special privileges? If she'd heard her dad say it once, she'd heard him say it a million times.





"Now," commanded Janos. While Gage and Gardiner got off the wagons and untied their horses, he looked down from the saddle at the up-timers gawking up at him.



"Wait here," he said curtly.



"I got a gun!" protested Jay Barlow. As if that needed to be proven, he drew it from the holster at his hip. "Way better than that ancient piece of shit you're carrying, too."



Janos looked at the weapon Barlow was brandishing. It was what the up-timers referred to as a "six-shooter," a type of revolver, which the man had drawn from one of those holsters Janos had seen in the so-called "western movies." The ones slung low, for the "quick draw," tied down to the thigh.



Naturally, it was pearl-handled.



With his soldier's interest in weaponry, Janos had made inquiries during his weeks in Grantville. The man named Paul Santee had been particularly helpful on the subject of up-time firearms. On one occasion, when Janos had asked about "six-shooters," Santee had explained the careful distinctions to be made between serious revolvers and the sort of "Wild West bullshit pieces" that some of the town's more histrionic characters favored.