Read Online Motherlode by James Axler - Free Book Online

Crazy Dogs,” Mildred said. “These people look like they’re ready for trouble when it does hit.”
    “Suggesting that, while they have little to fear from day to day, trouble nonetheless does find its way here occasionally,” Doc commented.
    “Isn’t that why they try to conceal their prosperity?” Krysty asked. “To avoid attracting that kind of attention?”
    “Yeah,” Ryan said. “But that kind of attention has a way of sniffing out ace targets. It’s likely why the Crazy Dogs have started sniffing around.”
    They came to what looked like nothing but a pair of wheel ruts that ran off the main drag a bit to the north of northwest. A few low lumps of hills and longer yellow bars of ridge were visible off that way. Instructed by Mikey-Bob before they’d left the gaudy, they turned onto the track.
    A short while later the track veered right to run up a stream that seemed to be flowing from the ridges to meet the Río Piojo. “This must be Arroyo de Bromista,” Krysty said.
    “Why would they call it Joker Creek?” Ricky asked.
    “Anybody’s guess,” Ryan said. “Odds are nobody even remembers why now.”
    They began to pass through cultivated lands. Houses grew among the early sprouting crops, mostly low one-or two-room blocks with adobe walls. People were working erecting frames of sticks for beans and vine crops to climb. Others turned compost heaps with shovels and pitchforks, or tended already-sprouting plants in neat raised beds with sides made of stone or scavvy.
    As they worked, they chatted and laughed among themselves. They did stop talking and working to stare at the intruders when they became aware of them, then they resumed work and the conversation began to flow again. More guardedly, Ryan thought, as if the farmers were keeping an eye on the party as it walked upstream.
    “They don’t seem oppressed,” Mildred said. “I hope that’s a good sign.”
    Ryan took her meaning. They were about to approach a baron who had paid to have some valuable object stolen—to demand that the baron give it back . Even an average baron—meaning no crazier nor cruel than most—would tend to react unfavorably to such a request.
    “That’s a pretty imposing house,” Mildred said, nodding ahead, where the road ended on a slight slow rise.
    “Yeah,” Ryan said.
    The baron’s residence was just a single story that sprawled considerably. Though “sprawl” didn’t seem quite right for a building so imposing. It was built in the style of the old Colonial buildings a person might see farther south, down along the Río Grande Valley and points west: blocky, flat-roofed, doubtless with a parapet, and thick sawed-off beam ends protruding from the rafters that held up the roofs.
    The walls, he didn’t doubt, were also of that style: a good three feet thick and made of adobe. Which would stop a round from his .308 rifle stone cold, and give a direct hit from a howitzer or a wag-chiller missile a run for its money.
    “I’m guessing a direct assault is right out?” Mildred asked.
    “That’s good, Mildred,” Ryan said. “One of these days you might actually learn a tactic.”
    “Thank you so much. Somebody remind me, what does ‘Casa de Broma’ mean? My pitiful Spanish isn’t up to the task.”
    “‘Funhouse,’ basically,” Ricky answered. He sounded pleased, as he always did when he got to show that he knew something. He didn’t do it enough to be a pain. Usually. “Or playhouse.”
    “ That could go either way,” Mildred said.
    “I know which way I’m going to expect it to go,” Ryan said, meaning due south.
    “Well, the building’s defensible,” J.B. said, “but I can’t say as much for the location. Not that close to the heights.”
    “Yeah,” Ryan said.
    The ridges, which looked to be some kind of yellow sandstone cliffs, rose steeply a couple hundred yards beyond the big house and its gaggle of wood and adobe outbuildings. Including, Ryan noted, a pole barn and a large