Wild Country

Two glasses of Old Sunny Brook later, the woman emerged from the clinic with Wardrop in tow, the ranch manager at her left. To the manager she was abrupt. To Wardrop she streamed vitriol, slapping his arm aside as he attempted to carry her heavy bag. Again Quantrill was struck by the small anomaly: the scuffed, mud-stained bag was not the sort of accessory such a woman would carry. Why hadn't she left it in the roadster?

The answer — that the contents of that bag, retrieved from a Llano sandbank, could have bought several new Ocelot roadsters — never crossed Quantrill's mind.

Marianne's mascara was smudged, but now, dry-eyed, she stalked to her car and faced Wardrop. Her harangue was designed for the hearing-impaired. 'No, dammit, for the last time! If I had never set eyes on you, my father would be alive now!' She swung into the driver's seat, stowed the bag carefully in the passenger footwell.

Wardrop knelt his long frame to make some plea.

'I don't know what you can do! Undertake some inane romantic quest in my name?'

Wardrop still knelt, but as he spoke he seemed to be at attention.

An expression of fierce joy spread across the elegant cheekbones of Marianne Placidas. 'All right, you pigsticking moron, bring me the head of Ba'al, and then I'll forgive you! I don't know if my father would; he died without last rites.' Now she was nodding, pleased with her idea. She unwound the scarlet kerchief, flung it at Wardrop's feet. 'Here, Ivanhoe, I'll give you a real Wild Country quest — and a token of my affection! Bring me the head of Ba'al,' she snarled, and the Ocelot's engine snarled with her.

The three voyeurs watched her storm off with Wardrop half-hidden in her dust. 'She wants the man dead,' Marrow observed.

'That's one hunt I ain't goin' anywhere near,' Hutch replied.

'There won't be any hunt,' said Quantrill. thinking fast, 'if nobody helps Wardrop. Ba'al hasn't been seen around here for years. Probably dead.'

'No, he ain't,' said Hutch. 'One of Garner's fence-riders seen his sign this spring.'

'You tell the Englishman that, if you want to see him buried in a cigar box,' Quantrill said evenly. 'Besides, Wardrop may be a romantic, but I don't think he's stupid.'

'He ain't,' Hutch agreed, 'but he's got bigger balls than a pawnshop where pig is concerned. The way he'll wait for a boar's charge with not even a sidearm to back up that lance just scares the pure-dee ol' shit outa this child. No, I don't reckon I'll help him.'

But by now. Lieutenant Alec Wardrop was certain that the name 'Ba'al' referred not to some mythical Hebrew demongod but to something tangible. Something worthy of the Wardrop steel.

By nightfall, the body of Anthony Placidas was on its way to SanTone. And by then some fool had shown Alec Wardrop a glossy print of an old infrared photo. It revealed a boar beyond Wardrop's wildest dreams, and all the warnings in the world could not make Wardrop forget the scarlet pennant that symbolized his quest.

Chapter Fourteen

The fires of Marianne's fury did not flicker low until after she had found gasoline near Norman, Oklahoma. As long as she stayed on interstate highways, the search for this unusual fuel was fairly easy. It was different on secondary roads, where diesel and electric services were the rule and gasoline a rarity. Marianne knew, in any case, that in a pinch she could fuel the Ocelot at most airports. Gasoline was still a popular fuel for older aircraft and, of course, for special effects used in the entertainment industry.

She rolled into a swank new Holiday Inn near Tulsa; estimated that she could get a night's rest, with the bag as her bedpartner. She could then arrive in Kansas Ringcity by noon, thanks to the ID transceiver in her roadster. Most of the shuttle set avoided fast cars, when police were so pleased to hand out speeding tickets. Police did not hassle other police, however, regardless of the vehicle type. The last special gift old Tony Plass had given his daughter had been the police ID unit for her car. Settling between clean sheets, she wondered what the old man would have said had he known the Ocelot had become a drug-running roadster.

Marianne called the SanTone mortuary before breakfast the next day and said she simply could not face the memorial services. Would they cremate the body and turn away reporters' questions about the service? They would. They understood her bereavement; she could count on their discretion in her hour of need.

Halfway through her outrageously expensive steak and eggs, she had shelved her grief and was planning to buy clothes for the big noon event. Something severe and dark; something suitable and sinister to impress a drug buyer.

Chapter Fifteen

Sandy's journal, Wed. 20 Sept. '06

Ted's call has disinterred an old nightmare and grafted it to a bad joke! Somehow I always thought it would be a bunch of local vigilantes — but a Brit officer, alone?

Well, mad dogs and Englishmen! This one has two million acres to cover, aside from WCS land. Ted claims this man Wardrop has foresworn bullets, which means Ba'al will not be enraged by the smell of gun oil. The poor man will grow old searching, if Childe can explain the problem to Ba'al in proper detail. Yes. but will he listen? If a lieutenant will not. why should a pig?

Chapter Sixteen

Any striking latina woman who shows up alone in the North Kaycee slums with an off-purple Ocelot and a half-million dollars' worth of poppy concentrate is a woman well worth watching, if you can catch her. The syndicate's contact man passed up the noon meeting on Tuesday, warned that the woman's plum-colored racer contained a police ID unit. Later he lost her on Vivion Road, unwilling to match her speed on public highways. But the syndicate boasted a good comm grid, and they located the Ocelot at the new Ringcity Motel before dark. After that, every move and telephone conversation by Marianne Placidas was monitored until she left Kansas Ringcity.

Wednesday she tried again. By then they understood, and envied, her use of that ID unit; their channels were that good. This time she placed the overnight bag in full view in the little Italian restaurant. She felt a tidal flush of relief as a little man left the Chianti he was nursing and walked with tiny precise steps to her table. His face was the color of pasta; his suit was expensive, playing down the paunch under his belt; his manner was very courteous. He whisked the bag under the table while sitting down, and something in his face told her not to complain.

He knew the pass phrase and advised her that the lasagna was good. She ordered it even though she was far too nervous to eat much of it. Marianne needed several minutes of cautious small talk to realize that he was nervous, too.

He had good reasons for a case of nerves. She was an amateur, though a courageous one; she could still be a plant from the Department of Justice. He had taken a very special commission from another group to pass an offer to Sorel's 'man,' who'd turned out to be a woman, and a real hotsy at that. Okay, this was soldiering time. This was what his sources paid him for.

He was wholly unaware of his own fidgets but. watching him, Marianne found her own anxiety dying. Eventually she found herself wolfing lasagna. While he talked he unzipped his beltpouch. He scratched his blue chin. He tapped his forefingers together; cleaned under his nails with his opposite thumb; patted his knees, interlaced the