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nds%2034%20-%20Stoneface.html barrels snapping up, bodies assuming combat
stances. A black-and-white pinto pony stepped lightly from the underbrush at
the western perimeter of the campsite.
Astride the horse's back was a slightly built but lithe-looking Sioux warrior.
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He wore a fringed buckskin hunting shirt and leggings. His black hair flowed
freely down his back, and red hawk feathers were pinned to the back of his
head. His face, though unpainted, was a mask of restrained ferocity.
The warrior could have stepped from the nineteenth century or an old Western
vid, except for the M-16 automatic assault rifle cradled in his arms. His
sharp, dark eyes closely examined the faces of the people spread out in a
semicircle around him, finally resting on
Zadfrak.
Ryan and J.B. had picked up a smattering of the Lakota language in their
travels, so Ryan said, "
Hou le mita cola
."
The warrior's grim slash of a mouth twitched ever so slightly at the flawed
pronunciation of "Hello, my friend."
"Good afternoon," he said in perfect, unaccented English. "I am
Touch-the-Sky'. The wasicun call me Joe."
Noticing that the blaster bores pointing at him hadn't wavered, he added, "I
mean no harm. I assure you I'm alone."
Ryan slowly lowered his blaster, and everyone followed suit, though J.B. did
so reluctantly and slowly.
"I see you caught a mucksucker," Joe said.
"Would you like some?" Krysty asked. "There's plenty."
Joe made a face, but stopped short of sticking out his tongue. "No, thank you.
I never acquired a taste for it. And, frankly, neither has anyone else I
know."
Doc whispered into J.B.'s ear, "See, I told you."
Shifting position on his saddle blanket, Joe added, "Besides, this isn't a
social call. Why are you giving aid to the marked man?"
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"The what?" Ryan asked.
Joe traced an X on his forehead. "The man who bears the mark of the Family. It
means he has crossed himself out of the flow of life."
"I don't follow you."
"You don't know he's from Helskel?"
"You mean there is such a place?" Mildred asked.
"There is, and if you value your lives, your spirits, you'll give it a very
wide berth." He gestured toward Zadfrak. "Leave that carrion and go."
"We owe a life to that man," Ryan said. "Whatever he is, wherever he's from,
he's sick and we owe him."
"I understand you must discharge such debts. Even in the darkest of hearts
there is light somewhere, and that man's heart is very dark. But I don't
intend to threaten you only to warn."
"You're being very cryptic," Doc said. "Inscrutable, even."
Joe smiled. "In which case I'm living up to my stereotype. Very well. I'll
speak with a blunt tongue."
Saluting the area around them, he said, "This land once belonged to the
Cheyenne, the
Lakota, the Crow, the Pawnee. When skydark came, we believed it was a time of
deliverance for our people and divine retribution against the white man. Their
religion, their outrages, their politics, all was swept away. The tribes of my
people returned to the old ways. We hoped the predark evil was destroyed
forever. Unfortunately, evil has a way of returning& or, in the case of
Helskel's masters, never going away."
"You said you were going to speak with a blunt tongue," Ryan reminded him.
"A few survivors of predark politics and predark science banded together. They
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seek nothing less than to regain dominion of the world, to rebuild the ugly,
soul-destroying
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nds%2034%20-%20Stoneface.html societies and bureaucracies. They wish to revive
the horrors of predark."
Pointing at Zadfrak, he continued, "That man and his so-called family are
their servitors.
If you return him to Helskel, then you'll learn the truth of my words. By
then, it may be too late for all of you."
Reacting to the pressure of Joe's knees, the pony turned and trotted back into
the brush.
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