Sooner Dead (Gamma World) - Mel Odom [71]
Hella took her hand back and felt the residual tingle. She curled her fingers into a fist then morphed her hand into a gun. Everything worked perfectly. She looked at Stampede.
He shook his head. Drenched and covered in blood and ’Chine fluids, he looked bedraggled.
A beam of light suddenly blazed through the window.
Hella and Stampede slid into positions at the door and peered out into the night.
A line of figures huddled on the riverbank. Moonlight glistened from rifle barrels. None of them moved like ’Chine. One of them held a bull’s-eye lantern and played it over the beached ferry.
Stampede raised his voice. “Are you Wroths?”
There was a hesitation; then a man’s voice replied. “We are.”
“My name’s Stampede. I’m a trail scout.”
“We’ve met. You knew my father.”
“Is he out there?”
“No.” The voice broke. “Those ’Chine killed him. We came down here hoping to kill the ’Chine.”
“They’re all dead.” Slowly and carefully, Stampede stood up in the lantern light. He lifted a hand to shield his eyes.
“Krissa. Get that light out of his face.” The speaker was a woman who was used to being obeyed. “I’m Twyla Wroth.”
Hella remembered the woman as one of the elder Wroths.
“We’ve met, Mrs. Wroth.” Stampede walked out onto the outer deck but kept his rifle ready.
“Those ’Chine killed my husband.” The woman’s thin shadow stepped forward, and the moonlight revealed the hard planes of her face. She wore her hair pulled back and carried a rifle.
“All of the ones on this ferry are dead.”
“You blew up the anchor posts?”
“It was the only way to keep the ’Chine on the ferry.”
One of the males grumbled loudly. “Gonna be a lot of work putting everything back to rights.”
“Shut up.” The second male voice was deeper and sounded older. “Those ’Chine taking the ferry out on the river with the current running like that, they’d have probably gotten all four anchor posts busted. They weren’t going to cross the Coyle tonight. They were just too stupid to know that.”
Twyla Wroth walked over to the river’s edge in muddy boots. “How did you get to be here tonight?”
Stampede twitched his ears. “That’s a long story.”
“Do you want to stand out here in the cold and the wet? Or do you want to sit by a fire?”
“If a fire’s offered, I’ll take the fire.”
“Then come on out of there.”
Stampede hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “I’ve got cargo in here I need to pack out.”
“Bring it and we’ll get you settled.”
Before they could join the Wroth family inside the house, Hella and Stampede helped the survivors gather their dead family members from the mud and the river. They’d lost seven, and two of the bodies had gotten washed downriver.
Packing the corpses back to the main house was sad work, and Hella watched as Twyla Wroth stoically tended to her dead husband, a teenage son, and a daughter. The rest were people the Wroths had brought into their clan as helpers and to keep the family gene pool fresh.
They laid the bodies to rest on a concrete pad, covered them in branches, and set them alight. When Hella started shivering while the family stood outside to watch their loved ones burn, Twyla Wroth walked over to her. “You go on inside, girl. Before you catch your own death.” Tears streaked the older woman’s face. “There’s a fire, fresh-baked bread, and pot of venison stew we keep ready all day.”
“I can wait.”
Firelight played over the old woman’s face. “These are dead, and we’ll do right by them, but this isn’t your family. You see to yourself and leave us with our grieving.”
Hella glanced over at Stampede. He nodded and stepped off first. She followed and the wind turned her drenched clothing to ice.
“I’ve got clothes back here you can wear.” The woman wasn’t a blood relative of the Wroths, but she had the same hard look that living and working on the river brought to anyone who made a home there. “I don’t know if we can save yours, but we can try.”
“Thank you.” Hella followed the woman to the back rooms of the Wroth house. Mechanically she stripped off her clothing in the bathroom