Hanging Judge

Jak’s face had been getting more and more twisted up, and his ruby eyes blazed redder the whole time Ryan spoke. Now he clenched his fists.

“You saying I not care ’bout companions?” Jak yelled.

Even Ryan took a step back at that. Mebbe not, Krysty thought, from the young albino’s spittle-spraying vehemence, as much as the fact that Jak was so violently boiling-over emotional that he’d almost spoken a complete sentence.

But Ryan wasn’t backing down. That was not what the man did.

“That’s how it looks to me,” he said, dead level. “That’s the way you’ve been acting.”

For a moment Krysty feared Jak would stab Ryan. Or try to.

Then she thought he was going to cry.

He shook himself like a wet dog. “All right.”

Jak walked over to the backpacks, picked up his and shrugged into it.

“Gone.”

He started to walk away, into the wild night.

“Wait!” Mildred jumped to her feet. “What’s gotten into you two? You can’t be serious about this.”

Jak stopped.

“I’m serious as a ground burst,” Ryan said. “I can’t speak for Jak.”

“Are you really talking about breaking up the group? Really?” Mildred pressed.

“I’m talking about doing what needs to be done to keep us alive,” Ryan said. “Same as always.”

“But—we’re, we’re like family. We look out for each other. That is what keeps us alive.”

“Jak hasn’t been looking out for us lately, in case you haven’t been paying attention. He’s been running off on his own, getting into trouble and dragging the rest of us in.”

Jak pulled his head down between his hunched shoulders, but he stayed in place as if frozen.

“He made a mistake, Ryan,” Krysty told him. “We all do that. We all have, we all will again.”

“And you don’t talk about throwing us out!” Mildred said.

Ryan scratched his cheek. “Nobody’s talking about throwing anybody out. Jak’s been separating himself from the rest of us. I reckon mebbe he thinks it’s time to make that official.”

“Well, Jak has gone off on his own in the past,” Doc said. “Of course, he did rejoin us, after tragedy claimed his family in the former New Mexico territory.”

“You’re not helping, you old coot!” Mildred flared. “Anyway, New Mexico was a state, not a territory.”

“Before that it was a territory,” Doc said mildly. “And it’s no longer either. QED.”

Krysty noticed he finished on a vague note. In the firelight his blue eyes took on an unfocused look. Krysty guessed the mention of Jak losing his family had reminded Doc of losing his own and steered his mind toward wandering off through the mists of memory once more.

Mildred was glaring at Doc. Krysty decided that if she started yelling at him the emotional escalation was liable to do more damage than the distraction would help.

“Jak,” she said, trying not to sound as urgent as she felt. “What about you?”

“Look out for companions,” he said sullenly. “Scout. Guard. Eyes. Ears.”

J.B. took off his glasses and polished them. “We’ve long since come to rely on Jak to recce, and that’s a fact,” he said. “We are pretty deep into unknown territory right now to cut him loose. And that’s without taking the muties in this giant tangle of thorns into account.”

“He’s right,” Krysty said.

“We got along ace without him before,” Ryan replied. “We can do it again.”

“Ryan, please,” Krysty begged. “Get him to stay.”

“Jak’s been intent on walking his own road for a long time. I’m done with trying to stand in his way.”

As the others tried to defuse the situation, Krysty had watched from the corner of her eye as Jak had lowered his head farther. Now he gave his head a quick shake and straightened.

“Fine,” he said, still not looking back. “Want gone. Going.”

He walked out of the yellow circle of the firelight and into the thorny embrace of the Wild.

With her heart sunk to the bottom of her stomach, Krysty stood staring at the place where he had disappeared.

No one spoke.

“Nuestra Señora!” Ricky yelped. “The squirrels! They’re burned!” He grabbed both spits and waved the blackened carcasses in the air, trailing streamers of smoke.

Everyone had forgotten that their dinners were still cooking in the flames, even the vigilant and ever-practical J.B. To Krysty that underlined the seriousness of what had just happened.

“Burned or not,” Ryan said, “they’re still chow. And I’m hungry.”

J.B. settled his round specs back in front of his eyes.

“Me, too,” he added. “But I can’t say I feel easy staying here.”

“I agree,” Doc said. Jak’s departure had apparently snapped him back to the here and now. “Our enemies’ ire has greatly grown. Or will, as soon as the merchant’s death is discovered. We took a risk by tarrying here. Now that risk has been redoubled.”

Looking glum, Mildred wrestled down one of Ricky’s arms and pulled off a charred squirrel corpse with a handkerchief wrapped around her hand to protect her from the heat.

“So we’re going to take off into a trackless tangle of briars, that’s chock full of muties, in the dark,” she said. “Without our scout.”

Tension and grief had wound Krysty’s hair into a cap of tight curls. She moved alongside Ryan, seeing his features harden.

For a moment he frowned, and his blue eye blazed with anger. Then the fire faded.

“No,” he said. “That’d be stupe. We wait for daybreak. It’s likely the Second Chance sec men will, too. If not, sooner or later everybody winds up staring at the stars.”