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The figure was a tall and powerful man, who was holding a long, bladed knife
to his throat, the needle point pricking the skin so that a small worm of warm
blood inched down his neck, under the collar.
"Not a sound," the voice whispered.
There were two of them, one shorter, with the watery moonlight glinting off a
pair of spectacles.
Then he knew who they werethe one-eyed leader of the outlanders and his
heavily armed companion.
There had been talk in the ville that Joaquin had brought in three of the gang
as prisonersthe old man, the white-haired boy and the young woman, the one
they said was a true doomie.
"Is there a password?" The man's mouth was so close that the guard could feel
it tickle the hairs in his ears. "Tell me quiet as a mouse fart."
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"Just have to say my name."
"What is it?"
"Jerry McCaffrey. Only been married three days Please don't" The words were
cut off by a gasp as the steel was pushed a little deeper into his flesh,
turning the worm of blood into a steady trickle.
"Don't talk less we ask you. How many behind the door? Truth!"
"One. Just one." He was trying to get up onto the tips of his toes to stretch
away from the questing knife.
"We're going in," Ryan said.
"Sure. Sure."
BARON SHARPE STOOD about ten feet away from Ryan and J.B., on his way back
from showing his
"guests" around the more private part of his collection.
It hadn't been a very successful visit.
They had gone through the mutie animals, fish and reptiles, pausing in front
of the large glass window opening onto the expanse of desert where the hidden
monster called Rupert lived in its own mysterious seclusion.
Sharpe had tapped on the glass, but nothing stirred. "One day I'll find out
what Rupert is really like," he said.
Emma's fingers had tightened on Jak's hand, but she had remained silent.
The door through to the rear of the private zoo was opened by Joaquin, who
left it unbolted as they passed through.
"By the Three Kennedys! But that's a foul and noisome stench," Doc muttered,
gripping the lion's-head hilt of his sword stick.
It was a sorry and dismal place, smaller than they had expected.
The dozen or so iron cages held only four occupants. Once the visitors were
inside the section, the baron seemed to slide off into one of his withdrawn
depressions, hardly bothering to talk about his prizes. , A
small woman, less than four feet in height, showed all the classic
characteristics of the stickies. Sharpe poked at the bars with a broom handle,
making her show her hands with the circles of suckers on palms and fingers.
But the mutie hardly stirred, returning to a pile of straw in a corner where
she lay and
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"Seen stickies all over Deathlands," Jak said. "That one triple sick."
The next occupant of the collection was in even worse physical condition. He
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was elderly and squatted in a corner of his cell, his head shaking back and
forth in a rhythmic swaying. As the baron reached his cage the man rose and
started to pace up and down, brushing his shoulders on the stone walls at
either end, leaving a smear of blood at every turn.
His body was covered in suppurating sores.
"What they call a scabbie," the baron said. "Prime specimen of the type."
"Why don't you let it die like it wants?" Emma asked, near to tears.
"Perfectly happy, you know. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Nothing wrong with it. Fed and
watered and kept dry.
Seems fine to me. Oh, yes, fine."
Doc's face had become suffused with anger. "This is a disgrace, Baron Sharpe!
I have read of zoos during the twentieth century where captured beasts showed
a similar pattern of grossly disturbed behavior.
Pacing and mutilating themselves. Just as that poor wretch does."
Joaquin touched a warning finger to his lips behind the baron's back, trying
to warn the old man to be quiet, who wouldn't be quieted.
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