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this!"
She held a sawn-down 12-gauge.
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Chapter Eleven
Nobody made a hasty move, all of them watching Ryan to see how he was going to
play it.
He sat still, both hands on the table, pushing the nearly full plate away from
him, his one chillingly blue eye fixed to Ma's flushed face.
"You think this is worth any payment?" he asked mildly. "Really?"
"Sure. You did a deal, compadre . You had the food, and I want the bullets."
"Seven rounds of the 9 mm full-metal jackets? Was that it?"
"Yeah. Should make you trade double for the trouble." A broad smile stretched
across her face. "Double trouble. Get it? Double for trouble."
Ryan was fighting against his anger, struggling to conceal the red rage that
was seeping over his brain.
"The food was shit," he said.
"Takes a shitter to know shit, sweet one," Ma said with a snigger, pointing
the gaping barrels of the 12-
gauge into Ryan's face. "Ain't that the truth?"
"You're sowing seeds of blood," Doc warned, "and you'll reap the harvest."
"Shut up, you triple-old stupe!"
Ma turned to Ryan. "Instead of just a few miserable bullets, I'll take that
pretty automatic you got on your belt, One-eye."
"All right." Ryan had it all under control now, his ice-cold combat brain
offering him alternative plans of action, showing which was the best.
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"Take it out of the holster, slow and easy. Or the wall behind you gets to be
decorated with your blood and brains. Place could do with refurbishing."
Ma was smiling broadly at her triumph, the scattergun locked on Ryan's face.
His right hand reached down, feeling the butt of the SIG-Sauer, taking it out
slowly and beginning to lift it toward the top of the table.
"Good, good," Ma whispered. "Real good. Keep the hardware coming."
At the far end of the table, J.B. stood suddenly, sending three plates of food
crashing to the floor, knocking over the pitcher of water.
Ma was taken by surprise at the noise and half turned, her little sunken eyes
flicking toward the Armorer, the barrels of the blaster wavering from Ryan for
a crucial moment.
Ryan had been ready for J.B.'s action. He had sent him their secret hand
signal that meant "stage a diversion," seconds before beginning to draw the
automatic.
He brought up the SIG-Sauer and squeezed the trigger once, at the same time
powering himself backward out of his chair at the end of the table.
As he rolled, the thunder of the shotgun rode over the flat crack of the 9 mm
SIG-Sauer. He felt the warm blast pass over his head, the pellets smashing
into an old lithograph of a mountain man's encounter with a grizzly on a
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narrow mountain trail.
Ryan did a back somersault and came up with the blaster in his hand, aiming at
Ma.
But he saw immediately that he wasn't going to be needing a second round.
The bullet had struck Ma through the rolls of fat below her chins, drilling up
and backward. It distorted and tumbled as it went, breaking the lower jaw away
from the upper, splintering a mouthful of rotten teeth. Some of the shards of
splintered bone exited through the side of the cheek, just below the staring
left eye, ripping the flesh to scarlet tatters.
The full-metal-jacket round had continued its inexorable progress, tearing at
the back of the right eye, forcing it out of its socket in a hideous parody of
a wink.
Its power still not spent, the bullet carried on upward, scouring out the
brain pan. It exploded through the top of Ma's head, lifting off what was
revealed as a wig, splattering the ceiling with blood and brains.
In death, her fingers tightened on the triggers of the shotgun, as Ryan had
guessed they might, and the blaster had gone off, the twin charges roaring
over the top of Ryan as he tumbled backward on the greasy floor.
Ma took two clumsy, tottering steps, then dropped the scattergun, arms hanging
limp by her side, head
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caught her heels in a crack on the linoleum, falling full-length on the floor
with a resounding crash.
Everyone around the table was on their feet, blasters ready for action.
Ryan looked down at the corpse. "Food wasn't even worth that one bullet I gave
you," he said.
THE BAT-WING DOORS to the kitchen eased open. Seven blasters moved their aim,
centering on the frightened face of a little Hispanic girl, looking no older
than twelve, with a dark bruise just below her left eye.
"Ma's Place is closed," Ryan said. "Best go quietly on home."
The child nodded and backed out of sight, leaving the doors to swing
themselves shut.
"Jak, Dean," Ryan said. "Take a quick look out back and see what you can pack
into a couple of bags for food. Might be some meat or cheese or fresh fruit.
Grab what you think might come in useful for us."
Glenwood Springs seemed so deserted that there was a good chance that nobody
would have heard the shooting. But it would be only a matter of time before
someone stepped into the eatery and stumbled over the corpse. And the
outlanders would instantly become public enemies number one.
Dean reappeared, carrying a hessian bag. "Mainly fruit," he said. "Peaches and
apples."
"Anything else in there?" Ryan asked, busily reloading the spent bullet from
his blaster.
"Big pan fat starting smoke," Jak told him, carrying another sack of food.
"Turn it off?"
"No."
"Set place on fire next ten minutes," Jak said, his ruby eyes opening wider as
he started to grin. "Course.
Fire cover chilling." He handed the food to Doc. "Go back and help fire."
"Have a look out the front door," Ryan told J.B. "Anyone looks like they're
coming in here, either put them off or put them away. Whatever's needful."
"Ryan!" Mildred exclaimed. "You can't just kill someone because they happen to
want to come eat at
Ma's Place. It's plain murder."
He looked at the woman, surprised at her comment. "You been with us long
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enough to know which way the needle pricks. We get caught in here and the
whole ville could turn into an instant wasps' nest, with us caught smack in
the middle. Better by far we walk away clean."
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"The girl might tell," Dean said.
Ryan nodded. "I thought on that. Decided she was probably too frightened to
tell anyone anything."
"Otherwise she'd have been dead," Mildred said.
Ryan nodded. "Yeah. Otherwise I'd have gunned her down where she stood. If
that had been the only choice to keep the rest of us living."
"Fat's ready to blow," Jak said, appearing in the bat-wing doors. "Back opens
into alley. Walk along out of sight. Then past row ruined houses. Come out by
broken bridge over Colorado. Best we go now."
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