Ain't Talkin'

“Hands up!” A small band of uniformed Res soldiers had their guns trained on the hunter the second his boots hit the dust. Roche widened his hands, palms out from his hips. “I said up!”

“Yeah, except that ain’t gonna happen.”

“Stop it, stop it, you.” Kendall Miner shuffled over from the left, waving a thin-skinned hand and shouting. “Mr. Roche was invited here by me and is to be treated as a guest.”

“Sir, yes sir. We’ll need to check him for weapons though, sir. It’s protocol.” Stubborn military-types. They were an irritating bunch.

Miner chewed on this for a moment. He turned to Roche and asked placatingly; “Roche, if you please. . .the men here need to inspect the weapons you’ve brought with you. I’m afraid it’s pretty standard procedure.”

“S’fine.” Roche opened his oilskin duster, revealing his kevlar body armor, cris-crossed gunbelts, drop bags and a pack that hung around his waist carrying odds and ends. Two Ruger revolvers, a sawed-off double-barrel, a bootknife. The .45 he’d given to the kid, and the A-Mat was still in Lucky’s saddle. His waist pack held only a set of lockpicks, his pen-sized flashlight, tobacco poke and his lighter. “Horse in the trailer has an Anti-Mat in a holster on the saddle, and there are some assorted automatics and handguns and whatnot in boxes and racks in the back. Those all belong to me.” Damned if he’d just hand over a truckload of weapons to the Res without some kind of compensation.

He watched for Doctor Weaving, hoping to get an idea of where the ratfink was stationed and worked out of, but the snake had managed to slither back to whatever hole he’d come from the moment the sedan stopped without Roche noticing.

“Remove all of your weapons from your person and lay them on the ground.”

“Yeah. No.” Roche let go of the lapels of his jacket and his coat fell back around himself. “Not doing that.”

The Res soldiers didn’t know much what to make of that, and looked back and forth at each other.

“It’s fine, you idiots.” Miner clipped at the soldiers, his voice thick with disdain for the whole business. “Mr. Roche, if you please, I believe we have some business to attend to.” Miner held out a hand and beckoned Roche follow him.

Roche took a step in the direction before he turned back to the soldiers.

“Horse in the back is Lucky, you keep her good and if I catch a fuckin’ hair on her outta place I will personally feed you your own teeth.”

Somewhere from the back of the truck Lucky heard and blew out her lips.

Roche turned and followed Miner deeper into the Res compound under the glow of halogen lights and the faint hiss of the sand as it blew over the brim of the mine canyon.