As they made love on a bank of light green moss, shaded from the sun, Ryan kept the G-12 at his side. This place was as near to an Eden as anything he'd come across in the Deathlands. But that didn't mean that it was free from serpents.

The foaming stream that fed the waterfall was only a few yards from them, chattering over the rounded stones. A miniature wading bird, wings darted with vivid turquoise and crimson, hopped and picked its way through the water. A gold-throated woodpecker hammered away at a live oak behind them, the thin sound of its rapping beak echoing around the forest. A mutie raccoon, no more than four inches long, skittered over the fawn carpet of leaf mold, ignoring the lovemaking couple who watched it.

"Makes a change to see a mutie animal that's gotten smaller," Krysty said.

"I saw some bear tracks and what I guess is a bobcat," Ryan said. "They looked a coupla weeks old. Mebbe more."

"Gaia, but I hope you're right!" Krysty exclaimed, pretending to push Ryan off her, looking around. "A bobcat on top of me as well as you would be too much."

Ryan moaned in pleasure as the girl laughed. When he was deeply buried in her, she was able to do amazing things with her stomach muscles, lying quite still, yet somehow sucking and caressing him with rippling waves of pressure. He lowered his face to hers, kissing her gently on the lips, tasting sun and salt on her skin.

"I love you, Ryan Cawdor," Krysty whispered. The tip of her tongue danced over his lips, probing between his parted teeth. She sighed as he thrust harder against her, feeling his swelling climax racing closer. She began to pant, raggedly and urgently showing the nearness of her own release.

"Not yet, not yet, not yet," she chanted, head rolling back. The long coils of her burning hair seemed to rise, brushing Ryan's cheeks and shoulders with an odd, sentient life of their own.

"I can't... can't..."

"Soon, lover, soon... yes! Now, you fierce bastard, now!"

They fought to a mutual orgasm, Ryan collapsing on top of her, feeling as though the core of his soul had been sucked out from his loins. He could feel her powerful muscles, fluttering uncontrollably with the power of her own ecstasy.

"Fireblast," he exclaimed. "How d'you like them apples, lover?"

"I guess you don't get many of them to the bushel, huh?"

Ryan rolled off her, wincing at the stickiness. "Where d'you get that expression from? Not many of them to the bushel!"

Krysty grinned at him with the sleepy, contented face of a cat that's gotten the best of the cream. "Back in Harmony. Mother Sonja had a host of old sayings like that. Guess she never figured it'd be used for a real mind-blower like that."

"Guess not."

"Didn't you have sayings like that, lover? Back in your own family."

"Not that I recall."

The smile slipped away, and she saw the tension come snapping back into his face, hardening the lines around his eye and mouth.

"Ryan?"

He stood up, turning away from her. She had a moment to admire the muscular slimness of his naked body, his back, arms and legs seamed with a multitude of old scars.

"Ryan? I'm sorry I touched a nerve."

"Don't signify, lover." He moved to the edge of the water and dipped a toe in it, whistling at the cold. "Feels like meltwater."

"Going to bathe?"

"Hell, why not? Come join me."

She gasped at the shock of the icy stream as she crouched to wash herself. She leaped out suddenly, running on the cropped turf to try to get warm again. A raven wings carrying the polished sheen of sunlight, floated over the treetops, catching her eye.

Krysty pulled on her silken bikini panties, adjusting them across her hips, easing the flimsy material from the cleft between her buttocks. She hoisted her trousers and tugged on the elegant western boots. The water had splashed her hair, and she ran her fingers through it, letting it float across her shoulders.

"Come out, lover. You'll freeze, and the cold's doing nothing for that..." She pointed at his shrunken genitals, giggling at him.

"It'll warm up," he said, some of the toughness easing from his face once more.

"Get dressed, Ryan. Then come and sit here by me. There's another hour or more before we need be heading back to join the others."

He got dressed, leaving his chest bare, relishing the feel of the sun on his skin. Ryan held up his brown shirt, shaking his head at the stain on it, which was nearly black.

"Poor Hennings," he said.

"Seems years past. Can't be more'n a few weeks since he bought the farm. One too many mornings..." Her voice trailed away.

"Mebbe we should settle on going west and try to find some of the Trader's old crew."

Krysty rested her hand on his bare shoulder, feeling the skin still chilled by the stream. "What about Virginia?"

"And the Shens?"

"Sure, lover. And the ville at Front Royal where someone's the baron... someone who owes you a debt."

Ryan breathed deeply so that his ribs became prominent against the skin of his chest. "It's too many years. Like you said, Krysty. A thousand miles behind. Best leave it there."

But he couldn't hide the note of doubt in his voice. The girl lay stretched out on her back, hands behind her head, looking up at the harsh planes and angles of his face.

"You aren't sure?"

"No. No, I'm not."

"Talk about it."

"You know the story. You heard it down in the swamps."

"I want to hear it from you, Ryan. Now. Your story, your words. There'll never be a better time."

Ryan folded the bloodstained shirt and placed it on the grass, then lay down at the girl's side.

Beginning to speak...

Chapter Seven

"Plant a bullet anywhere in the domain of Front Royal ville and it'd grow a blaster. That's what folks used to say. By the long winter! It was a good, rich land, Krysty. The biggest ville in all of Virginia. My father said he figured it might be the biggest in the whole of Deathlands. But I don't know 'bout that. The nukes came so thick the sky was black. But they were short half-life missiles, most of 'em. My great-great-grandpa took what he saw and held it fast. Great-grandpa got more. Timber and water and grazing. Cattle and horses. Even a few hogs. Deep in the Shens there was sheltered hollows where the rad didn't reach. Great-Grandpa Ryan built and stole and killed and kept."

"You were named after him?" Krysty asked, not wanting to interrupt the flow of words from the man at her side. She felt that he wanted to talk it out, and like she'd said, now was the time and the place for it.

"Surely was. He had chill-cred, did Great-Grandpa Ryan. His son just held what there was. By then, around the mid of the century, there was some trouble from the Walkers and the Takers."

Krysty nodded. "Heard my Uncle Tyas McCann speak of them. Said they was the descendants of the Levelers and the Diggers."

"Never heard nothing 'bout them."

"Go on, lover." She reached out to touch his left hand and felt a reassuring squeeze from Ryan.

"My father took it over around 2050. By then the power was established. There was a rising of the workers on the west side of the ville. Wanted rights to the land they worked. Father put it down. Lots of dead, gibbets on every hill from Nineveh to Oak Ridge."

It had been a dreadful, awesome sight that struck fear into the hearts of every man, woman and child who worked for the Front Royal ville. The bodies hung there, tied with waxed cobbler's twine that didn't rot. The birds picked at the soft tissues of the faces first. The eyes and the lips went, then the cheeks and the tender flesh around the neck. As the slashing wind and rain tore the thin clothes away from the corpses, more of the weathered meat was revealed for the crows and the ravens to feast on.