The Dying Time (Book 2): After The Dying Time by Raymond Dean White

troopers also relaxed at that signal. No stranger drew a gun around the Colonel without being covered; but if Walt noticed anything out of the ordinary, he gave no sign.
    Adam noticed the slugs Walt was loading were hollow-points that had been dum-dummed by having an “X” carved across their tips. Such treatment would cause the bullet to shatter when it hit, reducing its penetration but dramatically increasing its shock power. Hit a man in the hand with a round like that and you might just tear his arm off at the shoulder. Hit him in the chest and instead of an exit wound, you’d have four chunks of hot lead ricocheting around inside his rib cage. Lethal.
    “How’d you happen to get away?” Adam asked.
    “Ah was ridin’ herd when they hit,” Walt replied. “Ah heard the shootin’ an’ rode in tuh help, then skedattled when ah saw what they was up against.”
    Made sense, Adam thought. And the story fit with what Adam’s own eyes told him, as well as being consistent with the fact that in recent years some of the folks in this area had started ranching. He had already noticed the coiled lariat slung over the pommel of Walt’s saddle and the brush-marked chaps the man wore. Walt’s hands were large and knobby, callused, cracked and rough-looking. His short, irregular fingernails had dirt under them. His hat was beat up and his green flannel shirt was patched at both elbows and mended at a shoulder seam. Now that he wasn’t fleeing, Walt sat his saddle with the air of one long accustomed to doing so. Whatever else he was, Walt was a working man.
    “Rider coming in, Sir!” Captain Cummins said.
    Adam watched the incoming horseman veer his mount down-slope through some trees, then break out into the open and splash across a small stream before urging the horse to a full gallop. The rider was waving his hat around his head.
    Adam raised his right arm shoulder high, signaling his men to stop, just as the Sergeant in charge of the scouting detail reined to a halt in front of him.
    “Sir!” Sergeant Buell began, “There’s a ranch house under siege just over the rise. Attackers consist of about 60 men with small arms and an old M113 armored personnel carrier mounting twin 50s and a flamer.”
    The Sergeant paused for a second to gather his breath and continued in an amazed voice, “Sir, there’s a for-real moat around the house that’s keeping the raiders at bay. The house is on fire, but it’s built out of big logs and timbers so it won’t burn fast. Resistance from the house appears to be pretty stiff.” The Sergeant snatched another quick breath. “There’s a small knob at the end of this ridge overlooking the ranch. I make it to be within mortar range, Sir,” the man concluded with a smile.
    Adam nodded, accepting the report. If Sergeant Buell said the attackers were within range of the company’s 81 mm mortars, they were.
    “Captain Cummins! Lieutenant Parsons! You gentlemen accompany the Sergeant and me up the ridge,” Adam said.
    “Colonel, Sir?” Walt questioned before they could leave.
    “What is it, Mister Beeman?”
    “Ah know this range purty good, sir. If some’a yore boys foller this here hill around tuh the left they’ll come out behind the raiders,” Walt said, gesturing toward the hill.
    Adam glanced toward Sergeant Buell.
    “That’s right, Sir,” the Sergeant confirmed.
    “Mister Beeman, you may accompany us up the ridge,” Adam stated as he nudged his horse forward.
    At the top of the ridge, Adam paused and assessed the situation. The trees were thinner on the south side of the hill, but would still provide some cover as his men sped down and out into the valley floor below. The ranch house was almost a mile away across that meadow. The ridge they were on curved east and south, around toward the house, the smoke from which was clearly visible now. The knob the Sergeant had mentioned was bald and sat atop a steep, rocky, tree-lined slope. The APC was well within range of