James Axler - Baptism Of Rage

“Implausible, perhaps,” Mildred said, “but not impossible. Back in the days before skydark there were drugs, antiaging creams, hormonal injections, numerous ways to make people look and feel younger. In my day there was a lot of emphasis on appearance and youth.”

“But a girl,” Ryan said in a low voice, “of, what, sixteen saying she’s really seventy-something?”

“There are chemicals in the atmosphere,” Mildred considered, warming to her subject, “that can strip a man to his bones in a shower of rain. You don’t realize how upside down the world is right now, because it’s all you’ve ever known, Ryan. And Krysty’s right. We have seen an awful lot that is more unbelievable than what Doc’s friends have described to him.”

A moment passed in silence as the companions considered Mildred’s words. She was talking about a world they had never known, a world they could scarcely imagine. But they knew that she was also an educated woman, a trained doctor with a mind that was attuned to scientific inquiry, not flights of fantasy.

Pushing thick gravy around her bowl, Krysty spoke thoughtfully, her words slow and deliberate. “There are plants, too, that make people healthier,” she said. Krysty’s knowledge concerning the properties of plant life was almost encyclopedic, although she rarely had cause to call upon it. “Isn’t being healthier really just another type of being young?” she asked.

Several of the group around the table muttered their agreement, but to Ryan’s ears Krysty sounded like she was trying to convince herself; he knew her so well.

Doc looked earnestly around the table at his companions. “The usual fee for entering Baby is much of an individual’s worldly possessions, I am told. If we were to go there in the capacity of bodyguards, Mr. Croxton and his people would vouch for us, perhaps allowing us indulgence in the operation for free.”

“Which would still be too damn high a price,” J.B. grumbled.

Doc turned to the Armorer, rising anger turning his face a darker shade. “Might I enquire, John Barrymore, how old you are? Might I ask how long you have lived in that body?”

J.B. looked at Doc, taken aback by his question.

“Is it perhaps forty years, mayhap forty-five?” Doc continued. “Forty years of bones forming and hair and nails growing, of skin tautening and cracking and repairing? Of eyes growing slowly dim behind your spectacle frames?”

J.B. looked emotionless as he replied, “Hurry up and pull the trigger, Doc.”

“What you see before you, my friend,” Doc said, “is a thirty-year-old man, give or take a few summers. Yet, I am stuck in this creaking set of limbs because some morally repugnant scientific scrutinizer decided it would be beneficial to shunt a man through time, to shunt me through time. I lost my dear wife and my two sweet children, and everything that meant anything to me, and those wounds, I assure you, will never heal. But this body, this old fool I see every time I look in the mirror to shave his white whiskers from his wrinkled chin—this is something I was cursed with to make that cruel joke all the more bitter.”

“Doc—” Ryan began, but the old man held up his hand to halt him.

“Allow an old man time to gather his thoughts, if you would,” Doc said, a bitter edge to his voice. “Oftentimes have I dreamed of returning to my home, to hold my dear Emily, Rachel and Jolyon once more, and every time I have been there in my mind’s eye, it has been in this wretched old man’s frame. It has been something I have resigned myself to, something I believed could never be changed.

“This opportunity,” Doc continued, “however slight it may be, is a fleeting glimpse of something I thought I could never have. Something that was stolen from me most cruelly.”

J.B. leaned close, looking Doc square in the eye. “And if it turns out to be a bust, do I get to say ‘I told you so’?” he asked, the trace of a smile forming at the corners of his mouth.

Doc felt his rage subside and he glanced at his other companions before meeting J.B.’s fierce stare once more. “If it turns out to be a bust, John Barrymore, I will royally insist that you do.”

Ryan turned, casting his single-eyed gaze from one companion to the next, making sure that everyone had said their piece. Finally he turned his blue-eyed gaze on Doc and offered him a single, curt nod. “Then it’s decided,” he said.

For several more minutes, the companions ate the goat stew, joking a little to ease their own tension, reminiscing over old victories and occasional, temporary defeats. Once they had finished their meal, Ryan pushed his chair back from the table and, with the lanky Doc at his side, strode across the wide room to where the caravaners were enjoying drinks and the hospitality of the overweight bartender. Ryan left his lengthy Steyr rifle with Krysty, and she placed it beneath the table, out of sight. The two chained girls were still dancing on stage, swaying to the sound of the piano like somnambulists. Ryan ignored them as he walked past, his one keen eye focused on the group of travelers as they continued their raucous discussions. Doc looked at the dancing girls, feeling a sick sense at the pit of his just-fed stomach at the way their ribs pushed against the skin beneath their nearly naked breasts.

The old man that Doc had pointed out as their leader, Jeremiah Croxton, was talking to a couple who had entered the building with a younger man—they were at least sixty, and he had almost certainly seen his fortieth birthday. The barman, who had been speaking with the group of travelers, looked up at the newcomers’ approach. A moment later, once the other three had left, Ryan leaned down to speak with Jeremiah Croxton.

“I hear you’re in the market for some traveling sec for the next two days,” Ryan began. His glance flicked around the table, taking in the dozen patrons that sat there. The youngish woman who had been attacked had wrapped a tourniquet around her throat, and looked to be numbing any lasting pain with a pathological intake of alcohol. Her baby was snuffling in sleep, doubtless having imbibed a nip of brandy to keep it from waking. The older man who had been attacked by another wolf had a bloody gash across his arm, but, cleaned up, the wound looked superficial and he seemed to be having fun in a lively conversation with a middle-aged gaudy slut wearing a none-too-flattering dress with a low neckline that she seemed to be struggling to artistically flail out of. A couple of the others at the table had rudimentary weapons, a remade revolver here, a single-shot rifle there. They appeared companionable enough, seemed happy to enjoy the delights that the trading post offered with food, drink and, for one bald and wrinkled old man at the far side of the table, the company of the awkward girl who had served Ryan and his companions dinner. The girl looked uncomfortable as she endured the old man’s attention.

Croxton looked at Ryan for a moment before he spoke, assessing the man’s wide-shouldered frame, the wide chest beneath his shirt. “Yes, that we are,” he said finally. “Our little escapade with the wolf pack out there was a surprise, an’ I ain’t so sure we’d have coped without your timely intervention. Showed us that mebbe we could do with a little extra muscle, if you are interested in that line of work.”

Ryan nodded. “Name’s Ryan,” he said as Jeremiah shook his proffered hand, “and you’ve met Doc here already.”

“That I have,” the old farmer acknowledged, looking down at Ryan’s hand as he released his grip. “You have a few old scars showing there, if I may be so bold,” he said.

“That comes with the territory,” Ryan said. “When do you plan on setting off?”

“We’ll bed down here,” Croxton said in his warm, friendly voice, “and look to move out a little after dawn. Will that suit you and your crew?”