Eric Flint - Time spike

McQuade was still in guarded condition and there was too much that could go wrong. So, a team of six guards had been assigned to carry his stretcher. Three teams of two. And Jenny was going and Marie was staying and Hulbert and Andy both wished like hell it was the other way around. "What's up?" Marie said, exiting the lunchroom. "We need to talk. I'm leaving with Andy and you're being left here with Joe."

"Doesn't surprise me." The look she gave him was different from the one Jenny had given Andy when they had argued over who was going and who was staying. Marie wasn't mad. She was disappointed. Disappointed in him. "I tried to get him to let you come along, but he wants you here. Joe has to have someone with sharpshooter status." "I see." He watched as she thought about what he said. He could see the war of emotions going on below the surface, and he could see when that war ended. She accepted the logic in Andy's decision faster and easier than he had. "Marie," he looked at the wall behind her, not at her face. He couldn't look her in the eye. "I don't want you to turn everything in. Hold back a little something you can carry with you at all times. Even in the showers." She didn't ask why or what. Instead, she said, "That's against the rules." "And you've never broken one?"

"Maybe, one." "Okay, break one more." There was so much he wanted to say, but settled on, "If you get caught, and they dock your pay, I'll make it up to you." "You bet you will. You'll be out the dough for a steak dinner, drinks and dancing at the swankiest place in town." "You got it." His voice became gruff. "And anything else you want."

"Hulbert, you have no idea what this is going to cost you." She smiled that easy going smile of hers, then grew serious. "You're not asking me to do anything I didn't want to do anyway. Things aren't right. The tension in this place can be cut with a knife. Something happened while we were hunting." "Yeah, that's why I want you to be real careful. Don't get caught up in anything. If things start to look a little iffy, bail. If you guess wrong and wind up in a tub of hot water, I'll tell Andy I told you to do it." "When do you leave?" she asked. "In about an hour." "Walk me to the armory. I have a rifle to turn in; you can distractStacy while I get something easier to conceal." "And get enough ammo to hold off an army." She looked him in the face and this time he returned the look, letting his eyes meet hers. "Marie, I'm serious, dead serious about this. I have this gut level feeling, and it's a bad one." "Okay," she said. "I'll do it. But you tell Joe you transferred me to the field, and I'm not assigned to a post. Scratch me off the shift roster altogether. That will give me the ability to be anyplace I feel the need to be. But when you get back you have to tell me why." "Collins-" She shook her head. "No. Not Collins. I want to know why you warned me. Why you felt you wanted to protect me." He touched her hair. "That's an easy one." "No. Don't tell me now. It'll jinx it." She stood on her toes and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. "Luck, for us," she whispered. She then turned toward the armory, all business.

Chapter 20 The men who had been so eager to join Hernando de Soto on his expedition into the interior of the New World were now desperate to go back to Spain. The gold and silver they'd sought were nowhere to be found in this land of demons. The plantations, worked by slaves taken from native villages, were nothing more than a dream either. There weren't enough of them. They'd found hardly any more than the Tula slaves they'd brought with them, before the great river disappeared and the dragon's sulfur breath began rising from cracks and fissures in the ground. So many Spaniards had died-so many Spaniards, and so many of their horses. Most of the pigs were gone too. Not from dying but from running way. The only creatures doing well were the dogs. They had not lost one dog.

Chapter 21 Stephen McQuade dozed off and on as he was carried along the riverbank. Occasionally he would mumble something and the small team that carried him and his stretcher would assure him they were still following the river. They passed the cave where Marie Keehn found him and started the upward climb leading to the pine forest. It wouldn't be long and they would leave the water's edge. They would be well inside the forest by nightfall. Jeff Edelman would occasionally wander away from the slow moving group of C.O. s and would return, always carrying something new that he'd show the others. The conifers that Jeff found so fascinating did not register much on Andy. They didn't really seem that much different from the ones he'd known in Illinois. But the six-inch long tooth certainly got his attention. So did the egg the size of an ostrich's. But no one talked much. It was as if they could barely breathe. The volcano not too far from the prison had been apparently dormant. But on the second day they came into sight of a volcano in the distance that was sending a thin plume of gray-tinged smoke into the air. That might be a problem some day, but the potential threat was too distant in comparison to the others he faced that Andy decided it wasn't worth worrying about. *** Around noon the next day, Andy took his share of the cold rations being passed out and sighed. They couldn't afford the time to build a fire and heat the slabs of meat, so he took a bite of the sandwich and forced himself not to make a face. Gristle and grease on rye. He then took a swig of water, immediately regretting it. The liquid, instead of washing the taste from his mouth, caused the grease to solidify, coating his tongue and teeth. Gunshots sounded. And what he was sure were screams. Andy dropped his sandwich to the ground and unslung his rifle. The C.O.'s all did the same. The gunfire and shrieks were coming from somewhere up ahead. Rod Hulbert was by his side. "That doesn't sound like people fighting off an animal. It sounds like a war." Andy nodded. That's exactly what it sounded like.

And from the timber of the shrieks, it also sounded like women and children were the ones being attacked. Andy motioned for Jerry Bailey to stay with Jenny and her patient, Stephen McQuade. He then motioned for the others to follow him. The prison team worked its way through the woods. It didn't take them long to spot the men doing the killing.

They were dressed in armor and wore helmets. A good number of them were on horseback. Several of them were shooting into the center of a village whose houses were made of downed branches and animal hides.

Eight men of the village came rushing out, naked except for loincloths and wielding nothing more than decorated clubs. They weren't trying to attack the Spaniards, though. They were just trying to rescue two women and five children who'd been caught in the open, unable to get to the safety of their homes or the woods. The women had draped their bodies over their children in a pathetic attempt at protection.

Several Spaniards fired, but none of them hit anything. Given the matchlocks they were using, that wasn't surprising. The Indians were a moving target-moving fast, too-and the range was at least fifty yards.

Andy was pretty sure they'd only started shooting to panic their victims. They could have already killed the women and children, if they wanted to, huddled they way they were in the open. If the kids had been on their own, they might very well have been killed by now.

But the instinctive protective gesture of the two women had kept them alive. The conquistadores might not want the children, but they'd want the women intact. One of the Spaniards on a horse, wearing a fancy-looking blue coat, bellowed something and the rest of them lowered their guns. He got off his horse, drew his sword, and the rest started following suit. Two of the Spaniards, it seemed, would be left behind holding the horses while the rest went into the village.