Way of the Wolf Mel Odom

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Deathlands 42 - Way of the Wolf
"No time, lover." She kissed him again, then heaved up off him. "The best you're
going to hope for right now is that the bathwater is still warm."
Ryan watched her walk back to the bathroom. He felt the grin on his face in spite
of the situation they found themselves in. There was something about Krysty that
had made him start seeing some of the soft sides of life again. Some days he
didn't like that thought. Only a hard man survived in Deathlands.
He slipped the SIG-Sauer from under the mattress and walked into the bathroom
after her.
"IT'S NOT MUCH farther now."
Doc glanced down at his small companion. Albert kept up an almost running gait
to match the taller man's strides. The dwarf kept his hands on the holstered .38s.
Long shadows filled the warren of alleyways in front of Doc. He guessed that
they were in the older section of the ville. Hazard had been built from some good
timbers, planed and put together with skill. But here in the center of the ville
where the rest of the community had evidently sprung from, most of the buildings
remained cobbled-together structures made from cast-offs of other buildings.
Cobb's turned out to be one of the oldest buildings. It was a narrow, two-story
structure, its eaves made up of abandoned garage doors. Whitewash covered the
surfaces, but those surfaces possessed an ill fit. Plaster caulking hung in thick
coats over the cracks and joints. Yellow light showed through at the top and
bottom of the door, leaking through from a lantern beyond. The light also lit up a
wide pane of glass with Cobb's Bookstore hand lettered across it. Masking tape
held fragments of the glass together.
On the other side of the window was a group of small round tables and straight-
backed chairs. A counter stood farther back, a dark rectangular shadow in front of
the lantern hanging on the wall. A cigarette coal glowed orange in the darkness.
Albert walked to the door and reached up for the bell string. He pulled it
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Deathlands 42 - Way of the Wolf
vigorously three times, then waited.
Doc stood on the uneven porch beside the little man and watched as two shadows
got up from the tables inside. He felt edgy and tense in spite of Albert's
camaraderie.
The door creaked open, revealing a thin strip of a man's face and one piercing eye
that flicked over Doc, going from up to down and back again. "Howdy, Albert.
Something I can do for you?"
"I brought a friend, Cobb," the dwarf replied. "Has an interest in books and
such."
"You're going armed," Cobb said. "Where's Liberty and his gang?"
"Chilled," Albert said. "By this man and his friends. Liberty's probably been
turned to crow shit from the looks of things when I last left him."
The door opened a little wider, revealing both the man's eyes now. "He chilled
Liberty, and he's walking around Hazard all straight up and all. Hard to believe."
"Believe it," Albert said. "I was there." He gripped his blasters. "And now I got
these."
"You should of just run on, my little friend," Cobb said.
He turned to Doc. "And you, you should have never come here, because you
surely signed your death warrant." He cocked his head at Albert. "Or hasn't the
little man told you that?"
"I hadn't," Albert said, clearing leather with both his blasters and pointing them at
Doc. "Dammit, Cobb, I was planning on telling him at a better time than this."
Doc felt totally surprised, not believing the dwarfs allegiance had turned so
quickly. He fisted his sword stick, drawing the pieces in two by a fraction of an
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Deathlands 42 - Way of the Wolf
inch. If the chance presented itself, he planned to bury the business end of the
sword in the little man's throat.
"Don't do nothing stupe," Albert said. "I'd hate to shoot you, Doc, but I don't aim
to die because you're overreacting to bad news. Mebbe it isn't as bad as you
think."
Righteous indignation and burning anger filled Doc as he looked into the little
man's eyes. "I saved your life by my own hand," he said in a hoarse voice. "And I
bade my friends trust you as they trusted me. Now you betray that trust. If you
know your books as you have assured me you do, you will know a passage from
Plutarch that was accredited to Julius Caesar and is most appropriate for this
moment 'I love treason but hate a traitor.' "
Albert gestured with his blasters. "Get on inside the building, Doc. Cobb, take
that cane away from him. And relieve him of his blaster."
Doc submitted to the indignity of being left bereft of self-defense. Cobb dropped
a heavy hand on his shoulder and guided him into the structure. Two other men
spread out before him, weapons gleaming in their hands. Doc glanced around the
small room, but his chances of escape were as dim as the lantern light.
Chapter Eight
"Can't shake them," Dean said, turning into the grade of the broken land outside
of Hazard. Fear kept an edge on him like a skinning knife. "Going to have to take
them." He carried the Browning Hi-Power in his fist. Glancing over his shoulder,
he spotted the five tattooed men they'd picked up tailing them.
The coldhearts rode horses and carried long blasters across the pommels of their
saddles. The intent and the wariness they displayed left no doubts about what
they planned.
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Deathlands 42 - Way of the Wolf
Despite the run through Hazard, Jak and Dean hadn't been able to throw their
pursuers off the trail. The men had clung stubbornly, guessing where the two
youngsters had headed. Finally, at the stables, they'd been cornered and driven
out of the ville.
And that was the part Dean couldn't really figure. The five men hadn't tried
outright to chill them, but they had left no doubts in his mind or Jak's. Still, there
had been nothing to do except be driven before them.
Dean hauled up short behind a thick-boled oak, thinking about how his father and
the rest of the companions had set to and chilled Liberty and his gang without
warning. He wondered if these five men intended for a message to be sent to the
rest of the populace of the ville.
He peered through the shadows and saw Jak only a few feet from him. The albino
carefully worked a water bladder they had taken from the stables. Jak had
emptied it in one of the stalls, then drained the oil from three lanterns before
they'd climbed through the roof and escaped into the brush. That had been when
they had first discovered that the men had at least two silenced handblasters
among them.
"Not much time," the albino whispered. "This happen quick."
"What?"
"Take them," Jak said. "Chill them fast. Then find out why not try chill us fast,
too."
The fact that the five men hadn't been trying to blast through the brush had
bothered Dean some. The only time they had been fired upon had been back at
the stable. With the silenced weapons, the coldhearts could have tried to blast
them back at the gaudy house, maybe chilled them, too. But they hadn't.
"Say when," Dean agreed.
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