Eric Flint - Time spike

Luckily, she caught herself before she said United States. In Fisher's time, the United States ended at the Mississippi River-and the land beyond it had been promised to the Cherokee. Another promise that would eventually be broken. "In the middle of North America. If it's there, we'll find it sooner or later." Jenny stretched, feeling her gloom vanishing. "Most medicines from my time still came from plants and animals. If we put our heads together, I bet we could get some of them back. We will just have to experiment a little."

Chapter 39 "Stay low," James Cook whispered to Boyne. He used his left hand to wipe the sweat from his brow. The sun had set an hour ago, and a small fire flickered and glowed in the darkness. From the small rise he and John were hidden behind, they could just see down into the clearing below them. There were a half dozen strangely dressed men sitting around the flames. They were wearing some kind of body armor too. It looked like metal. "Did you see the shape they left that couple in?" Boyne made the sign of the cross. "Man, they're worse than the animals back at the prison. Jesus, Mary and Joseph. That poor woman was raped and mutilated. And her man, he died even harder. I think they were trying to get him to tell them something. God knows what. Those people didn't look like they had a pot to piss in." James didn't answer. Boyne was hissing between clenched teeth and the sound was barely traveling to him, but he still wished he would shut up. He needed to think. He'd thought the men in the camp were Mexicans, at first, but Boyne said they weren't. They had the wrong accent-the "s" sound was almost a "th"-and he could make out most of what was being said. The men were Spaniards and they were following somebody they called de Soto. Apparently, they weren't happy with his leadership, but they weren't willing to buck him. James tried to figure out what to do. The easiest and simplest answer was just to leave. The six men sitting around the campfire weren't maintaining any guard. That seemed strange to James, since there was always the risk of huge predators even if they weren't worried about people. But everything about the way those men carried themselves exuded arrogance. Whatever the reason, the Boomers could avoid them easily. Except for him and Boyne, the rest of the group was waiting about fifty yards to the rear. All he and John had to do was slip back, collect the others, and they'd be on their way. There was a partial moon, which gave enough light to see. They could travel through a good part of the night, even carrying Elaine, and be a mile or two away by sunrise. On the other hand…

Jamesreally wanted their weapons. Sure, they looked like antiques, but those were still guns. They had swords, too, and some sort of odd-looking spears with big blades on the end. Odd-looking or not, though, they were obviously far superior weapons to the spears the Boomers had jury-rigged. Those were nothing more than sharpened branches or poles with shanks attached to the ends-and not too well attached, at that. He knew they'd been lucky, so far. In the two days since they made their break from the prison, they had only encountered one large predator. And that wasn't a dinosaur or anything nearly that big. It was just a big, chunky looking cat of some kind. About the size of a lion and scary enough, with its huge canine teeth. But they'd stood their ground with the half-assed spears they'd made, and after growling for a while the cat went on its way. The problem was that while the men at the campfire seemed arrogantly careless, James didn't have any doubt at all that they were tough and experienced fighters. All of them had their swords readily available, and all but one still had their guns in their hands. Even caught by surprise, this could be chancy. All the Boomers had was the pistol Bostic had given them. True, it was a good weapon. A Glock Model 22 with fifteen rounds in the magazine. Still, it would be one gun against six. Then, there was a third factor, that he was sure wouldn't have bothered Danny Bostic in the least but bothered him a lot. The Spaniards had three captives. Children, a boy and two girls, the oldest of them maybe ten and the youngest maybe six. They were probably the children of the couple that had been murdered. James had wondered what they'd want with such young children. It was conceivable they were keeping the girls for sexual pleasure, even though the youngest was no more than eight years old. But although the kids looked bruised up a little, they didn't seem to have been harmed otherwise. John Boyne cleared up the mystery for him. "They're planning to sell them into slavery when they get back to the coast," he whispered. "I guess the stupid fucks haven't figured out yet that the Caribbean isn't there any more." That made sense. James knew from stories he'd heard from his grandfather that the Spanish had enslaved Indians when they first stumbled across the New World. They didn't start bringing black slaves from Africa until later. "Oh, screw it," he muttered, more to himself than Boyne.

"John, slip back and get Kidd up here. I need the expert's opinion."

Boyne flashed a smile, quite visible in the moonlight. "Okay, but I can tell you what it'll be." Geoffrey Kidd arrived soon. As dark-skinned as he was, James didn't spot him until he was less than five yards away. The man moved almost silently, despite his size.

Boyne came up behind him. When the two of them were squatting next to James, just out of sight of the men in the clearing, James explained the situation. "If we fight, you'll have to do most of it, Geoffrey," he concluded. "You've got the pistol." Kidd had wound up getting the pistol because the general consensus of the Boomers was that Kidd was the best gun-handler among them. It turned out the reason he was serving a life sentence was because he was a contract killer for whichever set of gangsters met his price. He'd been charged with only one first-degree murder, though, after he was finally caught, even though the police suspected he'd done at least five. He still might have gotten the death penalty except the prosecutor didn't really care that much. Everybody Kidd had murdered had been a gangster also. Life without parole was good enough. Kidd didn't say anything, for maybe a minute, as he studied the men sitting around the campfire. "Don't need anybody but me," he said. "But I'm warning you. There won't be too many rounds left when I'm done. With that armor they're wearing, I'll have to double-tap all of them." He smiled thinly. " 'Course, I'd do that anyway." James wondered if he was bragging. Probably… Not.

The fact that Kidd was openly gay convinced him he wasn't boasting.

James had never hung around with gangsters and didn't really know that much about them. But what he did know was that being macho was pretty much a given in that crowd-so it stood to reason that a gay man who could make a living at it was probably every bit as good as he claimed to be. "Okay, then. What do you want the rest of us to do?" "Boyne's already here. Bring up Dino and Elroy. All three are real good with shanks. Them and you can follow me in and cut whatever throats need cutting. I probably won't need 'em but I might, and by then I may have run through the magazine. But-I'm stressing this, so pay attention-make sure you don't move until I holler. While I'm shooting, I don't want anything around me but targets." "Be careful of the kids." Kidd curled his lip. "I ain't worried about the kids. They're off to the side, tied up to that tree. I'm worried about Injuns rushing in. Crazy Injuns, like the kind that would threaten a man holding a gun with a pitiful little shank. Down in a fucking basement, where the ricochets would get anyone the shooters missed." James smiled. "Okay. We don't move till you tell us to." He turned to Boyne.

"You heard him, John. Get Dino and Elroy." By the time Dino and Elroy got there, Kidd had disappeared. He'd just taken a few steps and vanished. "How soon?" Morelli asked. "Hell if I know." James' headshake was a rueful sort of thing. "I was an E.M. T, remember?