“Have to love jealousy,” Ryland mockingly said.
“Or not,” Dave replied.
They walked for another ten minutes in silence, and up ahead they could see the path widening, with multiple paths joining in, as if this were a main walkway, which made sense.
As they came into the village, several of the people stopped and stared. Dave smiled at them and lifted a hand and waved. “I’ve seen a lot of these people in the last couple days, but I’m not sure they’re terribly comfortable with us being here.”
“It all depends on how Leia’s presence is taken.”
“Well, I think it was decent. They greeted her warmly earlier.”
“But you never really know with people.”
“That’s true enough.” As they got closer, Dave looked up to see several of the younger women standing there, staring at them, then glancing back toward the hut where the old woman was. “Everybody is looking toward the one hut,” he murmured to Ryland. “That’s where the old woman lives.”
“Do you think Bullard and Leia are in there, or are they helping the pregnant woman?”
“No idea, but what I’m really wondering is what happened to Kano.”
They walked along through what was more of a central area, stopping in at the old medicine woman’s place to check on her.
“She was outside last time I saw her,” Dave noted.
“There’s not much difference here between outside and inside, is there? And the fresh air is probably a big help.”
“Maybe. Where are Bullard and Leia though?”
“I don’t know.” Ryland looked around.
Dave recognized one of the men he’d spoken to last time. He walked over and motioned at the medicine woman’s hut. “How is she?”
He just shrugged and looked at him and stared a little more suspiciously at Ryland.
“And what about Leia? Where is Leia?” Dave asked.
The local looked at Dave in surprise and then shrugged.
“It’s almost as if he doesn’t know where Leia is, and I don’t like that at all.”
“And we’re up against the damn language barrier too.”
“Broken English, for those who do the trips to the mainland,” he said. “The old woman has a decent command of English though.”
“Well, let’s go in and see if she’s awake. With that, they headed toward her hut and stepped inside, finding it empty. “So, where is she?” Ryland asked.
“Unless she’s been moved to somebody who can look after her, I don’t know.” Dave pulled out his phone and quickly sent Bullard a message, asking where he was. When Dave didn’t get an answer, he sent a message, confirming that he and Ryland were in the village, to Garret and Fallon, but hadn’t found Bullard yet, explaining how the old lady was missing from her hut. Immediately his phone rang.
“Are you saying this is a problem?” Fallon asked.
“I’m saying, I don’t know. I’d feel better if we could find them or get ahold of them.”
“You and me both. I thought somebody already headed over here. Didn’t Kano go looking for them?”
“Yeah, that’s why Ryland and I headed this way because we couldn’t get a response from him either.” Just then Dave caught sight of one of the women who had been standing beside the old lady before. She stared at him, her eyes huge, as if she wanted to tell him something.
Dave whispered into the phone, “Hold on. I’m hoping to get some information.” Instead of hanging up the call, he walked over to her, crouched down because she was low to the ground beside a tree, and he asked quietly, “What’s going on?”
She glanced around nervously, then pointed to a hut off to the side.
“Is that where Leia is?”
She nodded slowly.
“Is she alone?”
She shook her head.
“Is Bullard with her?”
She shrugged at that.
Maybe she didn’t know who Bullard was. Then he remembered the one guy. “Is Pietro there?”
She nodded immediately, her movement emphatic, and the fear had returned to her gaze.
“Can they leave?”
She shook her head.
“Okay.” And then Dave stopped to look at the old medicine woman’s empty hut. “Where is your medicine woman?”
Her face turned sad.
He nodded. “Okay. I’ll be back here in a few minutes.” He walked over to where Ryland waited for him. “I don’t know how good the intel is,” he admitted, “but it looks like Bullard and Leia are being held by Pietro in that hut over there.” He motioned quietly to the hut in the distance. “I would suspect that even now we’re being watched.”
“And do you think they saw whoever gave us that information? Is she in danger?”
“I think at this point they’d have to quarantine the entire community,” Dave said, “because most villagers won’t help Pietro if he’s hurting them. My impression from our informant is that the old medicine women is dead. I fear that Pietro took her out for good this time.”
Ryland looked at him in surprise. “That’s not good.”
“It’s not good for a lot of reasons,” Dave agreed. “She seemed to have control of much of the population.”
“Except for this guy you’ve been having trouble with, right?” Ryland turned casually to look around. “So, we’re gonna need to disappear and come at this from another angle.”
“I’d say so. If Bullard’s in there and being held, he knows we’ll be coming for him and he’ll be watching for us.”
“But, if they hurt Leia or if they need Leia for something, that’s a different story.”
“I shot Pietro right in the wrist on his gun hand that first night we had trouble, so he may have Leia working on that. I’m betting the pregnant woman isn’t inside anymore,” he muttered. As he turned to ask the other young woman, Dave found her gone.
“We also have to consider that it all may be a trap,” Ryland said.
“I know. Nothing here is clear-cut.”
“Not exactly how we thought we would be spending our time here.”
“We always knew that somebody here had exposed her location,” Dave noted. “But we’d assumed that everything related to New York was over with, since we dealt with Bullard’s half brother and that murdering surgeon back there.”
“And doesn’t that just beat all,” Ryland said, with a headshake. “We were all looking for a bit of a break and some downtime to celebrate the end of the trouble we’ve been fighting these past months. It’ll really piss me off if this local problem takes away from the joy and peace and quiet that we came here for.”
“Not to mention all the weddings.”
Ryland smiled. “I don’t know that there will be more than one, but we’re sure as hell hoping for that one for Bullard’s sake.”
“Right.” Dave didn’t have any more to say on that point, his mind carefully processing all the information he had. Then he spoke quietly, “I suggest we walk through the village, as if we’re leaving, then circle back around.”