Gunlaw

Gunlaw 39

Within a few minutes Jenna could smell it too, the sharp corrosive stink of smelting, the stranger and less usable materials being burned away to leave precious metals. Mikeos went to the fore, holding his revolver at arms' length in a two-handed grip.

"What's the plan?" Hemar hissed at his side.

"Anyone with a gun I shoot in the head." Mikeos kept his eyes on the junction before them where two cracks in the fallen block intersected. "Anyone moves to stop me, I shoot them in the head. Anyone who looks to be in charge, I shoot in the head."

"Good plan." Hemar stepped back and let Mikeos turn the corner.

Jenna followed. A narrow passage took them fifty yards to an open space the size of a stockyard. The largest structure in The Ruins rose at the back of the space, a single rectangular block of stone rising to dizzying heights. Jenna had to look up. It would be a blasphemy not to. Anyone who fell from the top would have plenty of time to consider the view on the way down. In fact at the start of their fall they would be dots too small for Jenna to resolve against the sky, their screams more distant than birdsong.

Back at ground-level, in the narrow slice of the world open to men, half a hundred tents huddled against the rising wall of stone and flapped in the wind. Old tents, no two the same, torn and sun-bleached, though Jenna doubted the sun often managed to slide its fingers this deep into The Ruins. Three separate shafts were set close to the titanic slab, the mine-heads guarded by low stone walls. To the right of these sat a collection of lean-tos, some of old and faded planks, some of canvas over poles, and others of dry stone piled into unmortared structures. Jenna spotted mules sheltering in the larger of the lean-tos and a horse poking his nose from another.

Mikeos moved in, Hemar behind him. "When the shooting starts, stay behind me. If there's a break, bring me any guns that don't have owners." Mikoes returned his revolver to its holster, a move that made no sense to Jenna. Did he still dance to the gunlaw's tune, even now?

Past the lean-tos, and on the side of the camp where the wind took its smoke away, stood the smelter. A building of modest size fashioned from pieces of the ruins, shaped and mortared together. Whatever doors served it weren't visible from Jenna's position. Three terracotta chimneys rose from a slanting red-slate roof, each trailing a thin and unhealthy stream of black smoke. The stink of the stuff burned Jenna's nose even though the wind wasn't blowing toward her.

Jenna held to the mouth of the passage that had brought them to the opening. She interlaced her fingers once again although the hex on her forehead no longer pulsed or bled, and watched the scene through the lattice she'd made of her flesh. What she had taken as bails of rags and refuse heaps along the main wall now looked more like men taking their rest in that empty, boneless way which hard labour brings.

Mikeos walked into the clearing at ease and with no attempt at concealment. As he drew closer to the camp a dog started barking. Two men stood from behind the wall of the closest mineshaft, solid fellows, one in a faded tartan poncho, the other in a leather waistcoat, and a cowhand's hat despite the perpetual shade. This one had five playing cards in his fist and looked reluctant to put them down.

"Hey!" Mikeos called to them, his voice cheerful.

Neither man drew a weapon. They just moved to intercept his path, lazy with the heat. Back at the slab wall a third man came out of the mule stables, rubbing sleep away with palms smeared across his face. The heads on a few of the rag piles lifted but with little interest.

Jenna now saw the sense in Mikeos holstering his gun. One man walking empty handed into the camp wasn't to be feared. A messenger perhaps, or a gunman sent to bolster the guards' numbers. The dogman lent an unusual air to it, but more of a distraction. Dogmen didn't carry guns, their fingers ill-suited to the shape, their temperament inclined toward less lethal combat. In any event, a dogman's speed didn't lie in his arms but in his jaws and the way he covered open ground.