'Take her,' Eric repeated.
Flex grinned. 'Smart man. No need to shit our guts out in this sandbox for nothing.' He nodded at one of his riders, who jumped down from his horse, jerked the girl off the ground, and threw her roughly over the saddle face down. 'See how easy it is. Slim. No harm, no foul.' He leered at the three women and winked. 'Happy trails, pard.' With a yank on the reins, he jerked the horse around and the three of them rode off laughing.
Eric turned his back. Didn't see Sarah Roth's pleading eyes as she looked back…
The next ten miles were covered in almost complete silence. No one complained when Eric moved them out immediately after Flex's departure without any rest. They were all anxious to work off the feelings churning inside.
For awhile, Eric walked ahead alone, shunned by the rest of them. Then Tracy joined him, walking silently at his side. He never acknowledged her presence, but she could tell he appreciated the gesture.
The orange sky was leaking into gray-pink as night claimed its few hours. For the past few miles they'd been muttering among themselves, though no one spoke directly to Eric.
They followed a dirt road for a while as Eric bent to the dirt and examined tracks and signs. He didn't tell them what the signs meant. He just walked and they followed.
'Look,' Tracy said to him. 'A sign up there.'
'Where?' Rydell asked.
'There,' she pointed. 'By the side of the road.' She turned to Eric. 'Can you read it?'
'We're almost there,' Eric said.
Within a couple minutes they were gathered around the base of the metal sign. The background was green, the lettering white. Except where someone had made some changes.
'WELCOME TO COTTONWOOD. POPULATION 219.'
Only Cottonwood had a red X spray-painted over it, with 'SAVVYTOWN' sloppily painted above. And 219 was also X-ed out, replaced with 'VARIABLE.'
'Welcome to Savvytown,' Tracy read aloud. 'Population variable. What do you think that means?'
'That we have to be careful. Fallows and his men came through here. But then so did Flex and his friends.'
Season had wandered ahead and climbed a small hill. 'Look. Jesus, look at that.' She was jumping up and down pointing.
The others climbed up after her and followed her waving hand.
'Lights, for God's sake. Electricity!'
It was true. Another two or three miles down the road was a cluster of homes and trailers, all glowing with the bright steady gleam of electrical lights.
'I didn't think I'd ever see a real bulb again,' Molly sighed. 'This must be Paradise.'
'Let's find out,' Eric said, starting down the hill.
'Wait a second,' Rydell said, his voice tense, his tone deliberate. 'I want to say something first. Something important.'
'Let it go,' Molly suggested.
'I can't. We haven't talked about it, but it's been on all our minds. I mean, what happened back there with that girl.' He hesitated, took a deep breath as if each word cost him an exorbitant amount of energy. 'Anyway, Eric. I don't know about the others, but up until now, I've followed you because I respected you. Admired your courage and know-how. Sure, I wanted to help you get your family back. But even if we hadn't been going after them, I'd probably have followed you. No questions asked.' He looked Eric in the eyes, forced himself to keep them there, though it was like looking straight into the sun. 'But I can't understand what you did back there. Giving them the girl that way.'
'C'mon, Rydell,' Tracy said. 'He explained that. You saw the gun. Fourteen semi-automatic shots could have wiped us out.'
'Maybe. I'm no hero. I want to live as much as any of you. But all I know now is that I feel dirty. As much a part of what happened to her as the men actually doing it.'
'Make your point,' Eric said quietly.
'Okay. From here on I follow you for only one reason. To rescue Annie and your son. I go for their sake now, not yours. Is that clear?'
Eric's smile was thin and hard. 'That's all I ever wanted. Now, let's go check this Savvytown out.'
25.
It was nothing but a couple dozen shabby houses and rusty trailers forming two intersecting streets. But the aura of bright lights glowing from each window and the rock 'n' roll music being broadcast over a public address system and the rare sounds of people laughing made them approach Savvytown with awe, like children on their first visit to Disneyland.
'Music, for Christ's sake,' Molly said. 'It's been so long since I've heard a stereo I wouldn't care if they played Donny and Marie Sing Porgy and Bess.'
Fifty feet down the road at the entrance to town, two armed men stood on either side of the road. The one on the right wore his long, black hair in two braids with a leather headband around his forehead. He wore the familiar denim vest of the Devil's Dancers along with a few crow feathers in his headband. Eric studied him for a moment and frowned; he was no more an Indian than Flex was a cowboy. He was leaning against a telephone pole from which no wires were strung, lazily twirling his homemade spear like a baton. One end of the spear had a long serrated knife lashed to it; the other end boasted a huge two-pronged stainless steel carving fork,
Across the street stood one of the riders who'd been with Flex earlier. His hair was chopped short, but his beard was thick and full. Ten feet in front of him he hada mouse tied on a twine leash attached to a stake in the ground. The mouse darted in frantic circles around the stake while he flipped his knife into the dirt, trying to come as close to the mouse as possible without killing it. His last throw had been a little too close and one of the mouse's feet was severed. The mouse squealed, hopped away.
When Eric and the others were within twenty feet, the knifeman called over his shoulder. 'Hey, Flex. Your boyfriend's back.'
The man with the spear laughed and sang, 'Your boyfriend's back and there's gonna be touble, hey na, hey na, your boyfriend's back.'
Flex stepped out of the shadows, his gun in one hand and an open bottle in the other. As Eric got closer he could smell the tangy scent of homemade liquor. This was stronger than most. Flex took a long swig, clenching his eyes tight against the taste, afterwards smacking his lips repeatedly. 'What'd you come for, Slim? No, no, don't tell me. Um, the girl, right? If I don't hand her over, you and your gang of desperados is gonna take her. Am I close?'
'We don't want the girl and we don't want trouble.'
Flex smiled, but his eyes grew colder. 'That's good, Slim. You're a smart man. A little low on guts maybe, but smart. And it's the smart ones that die of old age. Right, Lido?'
'Yeah,' the man with the spear said.
Flex bolstered his gun. 'So, what do you and your tough gang want here?'
'Information.'
'Information!' he roared, stepping in front of Eric. He was six inches shorter, but the breadth of his chest and thickness of his legs put him about fifteen pounds heavier. 'Shit, man, we got the greatest fucking town since Sodom and Gomorrah. We got whores of both sexes who'll let you fuck 'em any way you want. We got booze so strong we use it to strip paint. We got a goddamn stereo system that Hugh Hefner would envy. And we got gambling. Blackjack, poker, three card monte. You name it.'
