Jak looked away so as not to embarrass his new friend by noticing the glimmer of moisture in his eyes. His uncle, his parents and the rest of the seaside ville of Nuestra Señora—where he’d grown up—had been chilled by another army of coldhearts, on the same day Jak and his companions had arrived in the little harbor on a stolen yacht, closely pursued by the pissed-off pirates who were its rightful owners. Or anyway its most recent ones. The loss still smarted like a fresh wound—as did the fact his adored older sister Yamile had not only been kidnapped by the coldhearts, but also sold to slavers, who took her to the mainland where Ricky had no hope of finding her trail. He still liked to imagine he’d get wind of her someday.
“Don’t just stand there beating your gums,” Ryan said gruffly, loping past them. “We need to move with a rad-blasted purpose.”
* * *
“WHOA,” RYAN SAID, tugging the dark mane of the chestnut gelding he rode. The animal bounced its head, eager to follow the rest of its fellows thundering on ahead along the sandy soil of the dry creek. But the Protectors trained their cavalry mounts well; it obeyed.
Looking around, Ryan saw his companions weren’t all enjoying the same easy success he had. But they got it sorted out fine, once J.B. ran down Mildred’s recalcitrant mare on his stubby little paint pony and got her turned back where she was supposed to be.
Ryan had seen the party mounted, not all of them comfortably, especially since they had neither saddles nor bridles, but had to ride bareback and do their best to steer by tugging on the horses’ manes and sheer force of personality.
Their task wasn’t made easier by Ryan’s insistence that they not only stampede the enemy’s mounts, as a reflex precaution, but also actually drive the herd before them, west, and almost at right angles to the direction to the main body of the Uplander Army, which from conversation they had overheard lay camped a dozen miles north.
“Why stop?” Jak called. He was up ahead with Ryan and J.B. chasing the stolen herd, about sixty head, before them.
“Reckon we still got a lead, J.B.?” Ryan asked.
“Yeah,” J.B. replied. “Even as riled up as they were, it would take them time to organize pursuit. Not that they had much trouble finding our tracks once they did, of course. We probably have half an hour. I’d give it fifteen, if I was a cautious man.”
Ryan grinned. “Okay. Ricky, you still got that rope you liberated from that redoubt in Rico?”
“Yeah,” the kid called back. He was having almost as much trouble as Mildred in controlling his mount. While he had told his new companions he was used to dealing with donkeys, traveling with his father on his annual trading trips around south and central Puerto Rico, Ricky Morales had little experience with horses. And none riding them.
“J.B., grab the rope and start divvying it up for leads. I want everybody to lead a remount when we shake the dust of this gully off the horses’ hooves. Jak and I’ll cut them for you before we chase the rest of this bunch off north along the arroyo here.”
J.B. nodded. “Ground’s hard here,” he said, “with lots of thick grass. Pursuers’ll likely follow the easy trail of the rest of the herd up the soft sandy bottom.”
“That’s what I’m thinking,” Ryan said. “If you can rig some kind of makeshift bridles so we’re not clutching mane and hollering to get the beasts to do what we want, do it.”
“You looking at riding a long ways, lover?” Krysty asked.
Ryan shook his head. “Reckon the best way to approach a new baron is to bring the man presents. Especially seeing how we got off on the wrong foot with that last one, and all.”
“You speak of Baron Al Siebert?” Doc asked. “But why, Ryan? Why not simply ride west until we lose them?”
Ryan glanced toward Mildred, who had gotten her mare stopped and was tentatively patting the beast’s neck in a placatory way. The horse had her facedown in a green clump of bush and was chomping away at it, paying its rider no mind.
“Speaking of presents, given the kind of farewell gift Mildred and Krysty left for that sawed-off little bastard Jed,” he said, “I kind of reckon he’ll be liberal about spending his sec men’s time, effort and horses running us down wherever we go. Not even those stupes are going to take forever catching up with their stolen herd. Plus we’re a long shot from out of the woods right here. There’s always a chance of running smack-dab into some random Protector patrol anyplace inside mebbe a hundred miles of here. And I’ll remind everybody we’re running more than a bit light on the supplies.”
“Thinking big, Ryan?” J.B. asked.
“Yeah.”
The Armorer rode his horse up alongside Ricky’s. The beasts were used to being in each other’s company, though Ryan knew full well horses had their own likes and dislikes.
“I’ll get right on those leads,” J.B. said.
“Okay,” Ryan said. “And get them done in ten!”
* * *
“HALT, IN THE NAME of the Uplands Alliance!”
As if rising straight up out of the Earth, a party of eight or ten mounted men appeared before the companions. Ryan reckoned that was just about the way of it, too. He gathered they’d come out of a draw hidden at the foot of the long, slow decline the fugitives had ridden down. There was a stand of brush growing there, a shroud of leaves black in the starlight, that might have masked it.
The new set of riders held remade carbines and short double-barreled scatterguns leveled on Ryan and his friends. Still holding the rope by which he led his chestnut gelding, Ryan raised his hands. His companions did likewise.
“State your names and your business,” the man who’d first challenged them said. Like most of his men he wore a wide-brimmed hat with the front pinned up by a badge of some sort, presumably the insignia of the Uplands Alliance. He had on what looked like a uniform shirt, with a double row of buttons at the front, that was probably part of the Uplands Alliance uniform, although he wore baggy pale canvas pants. He toted a pair of revolvers in flap-cover holsters, and a saber hung in its scabbard from his saddle. His gloved hands were empty.
“I’m Ryan Cawdor,” Ryan called out. “These are my friends. Our current business is running away from the Protectors. Though we’re looking to sign on to do some contract sec work for your baron.”
“Baron Al?” the young lieutenant asked.
“He’s not our baron,” snapped a rider with a lever-action carbine aimed at J.B. “He’s commander of the army, yeah. But he’s just baron over Siebertville, not the rest of us.”
“Yeah, yeah, Starbuck,” the lieutenant said, waving a hand. “Whatever.”
“We still thought he might appreciate these horses we brought him as a present,” Ryan said. “Sort of sweeten the deal.”
“Don’t trust ’em, Lieutenant Owens,” said another rider, a middle-height man in his forties. Ryan didn’t need to see the chevrons on the sleeve of his shirt to know he’d answer to “sergeant.” “Could be a trap. Remember about Greeks bearing gifts and that.”
“Those are just old stories, Koslowski,” Owens said. “Doesn’t mean they’re all true. Anyway this dude isn’t speaking Greek, and these horses aren’t wood. Fact is, they do look pretty handsome, though this isn’t the sort of lighting conditions I’d care to pay for horseflesh in.”
The fact was they were some pretty prime rides Ryan and friends had trolled along. As a baron’s son, Ryan had grown up knowing not just how to ride, but how to judge horseflesh with the eye of someone who might have to buy riding stock for himself, his family and their sec men. Rolling for years with the Trader had taught him a different appreciation for the beasts—Trader being a