Rider, Reaper: Book Summary
The novel opens with Jak and Ryan standing over the graves of three people. Christina, baby Jenny and Michael brothers.
The first person who wakes up crying, totally devastated over the loss of Dorothy, when she got up and left the gateway just as the jump was in progress. The others try to comfort him, but he doesn't want to be. In fact, he rams his head into the gateway wall, producing a bad cut. He refuses to allow Mildred to tend to it.
They do realise that they are in a familiar gateway. It's the gateway near Jak and Christina's spread. They decide, despite the way that Christina feels towards Ryan that they will stop in for a visit for a few days. On the way to the homestead they pass a huge mutant rattle snake which simply stays out of their way. The entire time Michael is hostile towards the group.
A short time after leaving the ruined redoubt Michael suffers from shock and freezes up. When he falls he dislocates his shoulder but Mildred is able to pop it back into its socket. Even after this, he is still hostile as ever. His friends are worried about him.
By evening they are approaching Jaks place. Michael is finally starting to be a little more sociable towards the group, trying very hard to be friendly. Jak greets the party.and invites them to stay for a few days and rest up, despite the fact that Christina is still quite cold towards them.
Four days pass and they have all enjoyed the peace and quite. Christina has actually warmed up towards the friends. Michael however is still a worry for the friends. On the outside he was helpful and friendly, but Dean spotted him forcing himself to throw up his meals, proving that something is seriously wrong with him.
During the night of the fourth day Ryan and Jak meet up to talk for a little while. They discuss fixing the fence and going to do some hunting in the next couple of days. Eventually they both go back to bed.
The next morning everyone except for Michael, Christina, and baby Jenny decide to leave and go hunting. Michael wants to stay behind and watch over Christina and the baby, and help in the barn. The others head out just after breakfast.
Its later on in the day, just after they finish off a deer that Krysty is hit with a powerful vision of death. Fearing the worst, they all head back at top speed towards the ranch. Just before they arrive, they see a group of Navaho's leaving the ranch, but are too far away to find out what happened.
Finally, at the ranch, their worst fears are confirmed. They find Christina, obviously having been raped, then kicked in the head, killing her. They find baby Jenny in the barn, her tiny head split open after being thrown against the side of the building. But there is no sign of Michael anywhere.
Several hours pass and they clean up the bodies, preparing them for burial. Its at this time they finally find Michael, lying against a bed. He'd been there the entire time. Jak practically has to kill him to get him to tell them about what happened. He replays the grisly seen for the group.
A pair of war wags arrived early in the day. The leader of the group was a Mexican who called himself 'The General.' They took what they wanted and killed several animals. They also raped Christina, who to her credit, didn't cry out. After one of the generals men spot a dust cloud coming towards the farm, the leave the dead behind and take off. Shortly afterwards a group of revenge hungry Navaho's stop in long enough to see what happened and continue their pursuit. After the ordeal, everyone head off to get some sleep.
The next day Michael doesn't show up for breakfast, and the discover that he isn't in his room. Doc Tanner and Dean go out to see if they can find him. Dean does. He is crying when he leads the others to where Michael is. The young man couldn't live with himself and hung himself in one of the barns. The take his body down and prepare it for burial with Christina and Jenny. Doc finds his suicide note to the others.
By noon they have taken the bodies up to a canyon, just below some Anzani ruins. Its a place that Christina loved and once commented that she would like to be buried there. She got her wish. Doc reads the last rights over the three friends. Jak is quite eager to leave and get back to the ranch. The sooner they can get away, the sooner that they can get on the trail to extract their revenge.
Back at the ranch they spend time cleaning up and cooking meat, to eat it on the trail. As soon as they are ready to leave, Jak is about to set fire to the place. Ryan points out to him that it would be a futile gesture, Jak knows in his head that Ryan is right, but his heart he wants to burn his past. They simply leave the place locked up and go.
After letting most of the animals go, they hit the trail. Near dusk they find the corpse of one of the raiders that Christina wounded. He died from his wounds and after the body was stripped it was dumped along side the road. Jak puts a bullet through the corpses face.
After a meagre breakfast they hit the trail again. They spend the day travelling and Ryan is forced to stop the party, or they would end up driving the animals, as well as each other, to death. Doc is introduced to the mule Judas that night. A long, loving relationship between the mule and Doc begins.
Late during the night they are awakened by the sound of a firefight. J.B. figures that they will reach the location of the fight just after dawn the next day.
As usual, J.B. was right in his estimate. They find the signs of the battle and figure out that the Navaho's lost three of their men, but managed to grab on of the enemy, as they find the horribly mutilated corpse. The Indians had fun with the man, and made his passing long and painful. Later on during the day, a rain storm begins, and it isn't long before everyone is soaked to the bone.
Jak is so determined to catch the killers that by five in the afternoon Ryan is once again forced to stop them as everyone is at the point of exhaustion that they are ready to collapse. Since the day was wet from constant rain, they stop in the ruins of a ville called Opium Wells to get out of the rain. They hunker down inside a church.
Inside they encounter a pair of starving young people, a teenager named Jerry Park and his girlfriend named Gemma. They actually share some of their food with the pair, as well as their shelter from the rain storm.
Late that night Ryan is woken up as the pair of teenagers try to steal the weapons and horses. Ryan doesn't even give them a chance before he executes both. The toss the corpses outside and go back to sleep.
The next morning Dean goes outside to do nature's bidding when he is taken captive by the group of Navaho's who are in pursuit of the general and his men. Since Ryan and the others have the drop on the Navaho's, they are forced to call a truce. They learn from the leader of the Navaho's, a man named 'sleeps during day' that the General at one time had three war wags, but one was destroyed by fire that the natives set around it. They are saddened to hear of Christina's death, as she was someone special to them. But Jak makes it clear that he is the one who will kill the general, not the Indians.
The two groups head out together. Later in the day, a rabid mutant cougar attacks the party, driven insane by the disease. It attacks Doc Tanner but misses because it's sick. It does disembowel Docs horse however and forces three of the pack mules over the edge of a cliff. Ryan nearly tackles the beast and is able to knock it off its feet. He then pumps two rounds into its skull, putting the big cat out of its misery. Doc Tanner is forced to ride the mule Judas.
By evening they spot the two war wags about three miles ahead. They are forced to take shelter in the ruins of a Diner called Mom's, and it takes a lot of convincing to get the Navaho's to join them. During the late evening, Ryan mentions to J.B. that one of the Navaho's is missing. He confronts Sleeps in day about it and learns that the young man, Sees behind sun, went on ahead to scout.
The man returns and lets both groups know that one of the wags is buried up to its axles in mud and that they other wag returned to their base of operations. They decide to attack, take out the wag and the crew, so the General has that many less people to fight with.
About an hour later they are near the stuck wag. It is another LAV 25, similar to the one owned by Harry Stanton in the ruins of New York City. The scout offers to head towards the wag and let the crew fire at him in order to sucker them into the open. Ryan doesn't want the man to do that. Instead they agree to start a small fire under the wag so it appears as if they are going to be burnt out. This way they can kill the crew as they try to escape.
It works. They can hear the voices of the crew as they try to get out. Ryan is attacked by a naked woman who, from her appearance and the smell, had been having sex at the time. She nearly takes Ryan out. After the crew are killed, the scout goes into the vehicle and is grabbed by a soldier who decided to stay behind in case it was an ambush. The young Navaho cries out a warning that the man had pulled a pin on a grenade. Ryan closes the hatch and hits the deck. The grenade was an implode and it destroys the vehicles interior.
Their allegiance has become quite strained at this point because they blame Ryan for Sees behind sun's death, demanding to know why he didn't try to save the man. They argue, nearly coming to blows before cooler heads prevail. The two groups continue their trek towards the general's hideout.
An hour after dawn they come across a sign announcing the J.C. Wright caverns, only a few minutes ahead. Just past the signs they see the ruins of a gas station. After a brief discussion the Navaho agree to hide near the ruins while Ryan and Mildred wait for the rescue party to come near. It isn't long before they spot five raiders on horseback. Ryan kills one, Mildred three, and Jak hits one with a throwing knife, just as the Navaho leap out of hiding and pepper the survivor with gunfire. Once again, the two groups nearly come to blows arguing over who killed the man.
They finally arrive at the caverns and stop inside the gift shop first. An automated recording welcomes them to the caverns and scares the hell out of the party until they realise what it is. Using the automated recording they find out where the restaurant is located and head into the caverns, hoping to find some food. They do find some food and eat before continuing to explore.
They come across a pair of elevators in one is the corpse of a person who got trapped during the skydark and died there. They come to a huge pair of sec doors. They go inside, knowing that the General and his men will be somewhere deep inside. It isn't long before they encounter four men. Two of the Navaho's break rank and leap out to attack. They are killed, but then Ryan and J.B. finish off the four.
Sleeps in day praises the dead warriors for their bravery and Ryan flips on him. The native leader makes the big mistake of drawing on Ryan, who shoots him in the chest. Ryan, Jak, and J.B. then wipe the rest of the Indians out, knowing that the Indians were about to do the same. This act enrages Doc, Mildred, and Krysty, figuring it was cold calculated murder. But they don't have the time to argue over it.
A voice calls out to them, asking for a cease fire. The general and Ryan know each other from before. The general offers to let them go if they can go, and no blood will be shed. Ryan realises that the general must have sent a few men out around back to ambush them. Ryan still refuses. Suddenly, he can hear Jak's hand cannon booming from the rear of the general. Ryan and J.B. dive for cover, and all hell breaks loose.
J.B., Doc and Mildred head towards the garage where the wag is stored. Ryan and Krysty head towards where the shooting took place. They find two dead, one dying. Continuing on they encounter another two dead. Before they can react, a huge brutish woman topples a coke machine on Krysty, trapping her. Some of the cans of coke fell out and Krysty throws one, hitting the woman in the hand, throwing off her aim. Ryan puts four rounds into her.
While this is happening, the two men the General sent out are closing in on Dean. One gets too close to Judas, who literally tears an ear off, sorely wounding him, and kicks the other. Dean is awakened by the attack and kills both with his big browning.
They meet up with Jak and learn that all of the Generals men are dead. They then go to the garage and join up with the others. Reunited, they all head outside to where Dean is waiting with the horses. Its not too long afterwards that the general comes out. He fires his gun into the air, emptying it.
Jak closes in on him, and the general pulls out a .38 hideout. Jak throws two knives, one cutting the hand, forcing the general to drop the gun, and the other drives deep into his right eye. The general slips to his knees, dying. Jak is sorry that the generals passing wasn't slower. They make their way back to Jak's homestead, stopping briefly in a town of Patriarch. While in the ville Ryan runs into a trader, who hands him a note. He learns from Abe that Trader is alive and that they have six weeks to meet up with them.
The next morning they return to Jak's home and prepare for the journey.
While Abe and Trader are waiting, a pair of old timers ambush them, demand their clothing and weapons. Trader tells him who he is and they change their tune, apologising for the mistake. Trader shoots both as they turn their backs. For the past week Trader has been having nightmares, even though he won't admit to it to Abe. Trader has always claimed that he never has dreams.
End of Rider, Reaper