He rolled on his side out of the pool and lay motionless for a while. Then sat up, the water had removed most of the bloody grime from his hands, and he began splashing water over the rest of him. His head still pounded but the vertigo seemed to be easing. It was replaced by confusion, what in the hell had just happened? Did the jackhammer wielding raiders try and blast him out with explosives? If so these boys were playing on a whole different level out here. Outside of town, most were lucky enough to arm themselves with shanks and more club-like weapons, maybe even a bow.
Why wasn’t he dead? If they had gone through the trouble of blasting him out, why hadn’t they stuck around to cut his throat when he was unconscious? He had been covered in bloody gore, maybe they could have mistaken him for being dead in the dark. What about his stuff? He still had the magnum, and he had seen his pack on the floor, had they taken anything? Wasn’t that the whole point of being a raider, to kill and steal? These boys were doing it all wrong. There had to be a reason, but Kyle must be just a little too concussed to see it right now.
Kyle forced himself to his feet and drew the magnum, just in case the raiders returned. He staggered back towards the circle of light. He didn’t see any tracks, other than his own in the soft soil. What he did find was a huge number of holes punched seemingly at random in the soil. They were everywhere, throughout the field. They were simple 1-inch diameter holes, and a swarm of them led from the circle of sunlight right to the main doors of the facility.
“Oh, that explains it. Raiders armed with jackhammers, wielding explosives and traveling on pogo sticks, makes perfect sense,” Kyle actually laughed out loud.
The stagger back into the dark of the exam room was a little easier, Kyle already having mastered the art of the wall drag. Even in the hallway in the dust and on the grated steel floors Kyle could see signs of his jackhammer wielding attacker’s passing. The holes were everywhere, these boys had really gone to town on this place. In the gloom of the exam room, Kyle crawled back into his now ruined treasure trove. In the darkness, he found his pack and next to it, miraculously his lantern.
It took Kyle a few tries to dig out the few matches he had left from his pack, but the lamp lit immediately. He gathered his few belongs quickly and after one final glance around the ruined chamber back out into the exam room. He paused for a moment realizing the heavy steel door was actually laying outside of the room in a pile next to the twisted exam table. He turned back to look at the doorway. That didn’t make any sense, they had blown the door and then pulled it out, apparently to get inside, but they hadn’t killed him or taken anything.
He took a moment to take a closer look at the door jam and found it was missing. Along with about 6 inches of concrete from the wall, it had been connected to. It had held had been cut away in a clean half-moon shape. Kyle shook his head, one mystery after another.
“Fuck this place,” Kyle said aloud and walked on unsteady feet from the room.
Coal
The climb out was harder than it should have been. By the time Kyle pulled himself out of the hole, he was lathered in sweat and collapsed on to his back panting for breath. The sun was well up, and the flat rock surface was already uncomfortably hot through his tattered shirt. After a time, Kyle stood and pulled up the knotted line after him. His bulging pack now loaded with his new-found wealth tied at its end. Once it was clear, he untied the pack and dropped the end of the rope back into the darkness, again one less thing he would have to carry back to this place. Though after last night’s painful awakening, he would be in no hurry to come back. At least not until he had a better idea of what actually had happened. Why the raiders had left him alive.
He shouldered his pack and made a slow descent down the rough gorge, rolling the night’s mystery over in his head as he went. The scree and sand were tricky enough to navigate down, but Kyle managed to make it without twisting an ankle. Following his own tracks out he made better time across the valley floor then he had on the walk in. Before he had reached the cut-back trail up to the highway, he had already given up on unraveling the mystery. He would talk at length with Miles when he got back to town. He owed the Engineer his cut one way or another. But he could already hear the old man’s response. It was a common one he used these days when dealing with the world's mysteries as a whole.
“Without the right variable, any equation turns impossible,” Kyle smirked and shook his head.
Kyle looked up, a grin still on his face, and saw Coal sitting cross-legged just off of the trail 30 feet ahead. The Indian replied with a toothy grin of his own and waved. His other hands casually rested on the .30-06 rifle across his lap.
“Howdy,” said Coal.
“Hi…uh…Mr.Coal,” replied Kyle, dumbstruck by the Indian’s sudden and casual appearance.
The lean Indian was known around town as a hard man. Kyle had seen him in the market, but the two had never spoken. A scout, a tracker, and a bounty killer for anyone that had enough to afford him the stories around town said. Most of the stories emphasized the Killer part in particular. Had he been part of the group that had tried to kill him last night?
“Mr.Coal? I like that, I don’t know if anyone has ever called me that. At least that didn’t work for me. Your name's Kyle, right? Shacked up with the medicine woman back in town?” said Coal, neither his grin nor his gun hand wavering.
The fact that the Indian knew Kyle’s name and worst yet about Anna sent a chill up his spine, but more than that it made him angry. That anger kept the fear from Kyle’s voice as he asked, “You come to kill me Coal?”
The Indian’s grin was gone, vanished as if it had never been, his tone became hard. “So much for the Mr., I guess. No, Kyle, I’m not here to kill you. Is there some reason you think you need killing?” replied Coal an edge to his voice.
Coal wore mirrored aviator sunglasses, and Kyle couldn’t see his eyes through them. But he felt the tension rise between them if there was going to be killing it would happen any moment. Kyle held no sense of false hope, the man was a paid killer, a good one. Kyle had no chance if it came to violence.
“I was attacked last night. Raiders, I think,” Kyle said awkwardly.
“Well, I don’t know nothing about that. Seems to me you’re still alive though, so it must have worked out better for you than for them I guess,” Coal pointed out.
“Why are you following me?” asked Kyle. Letting the Indian believe he had killed the raiders may buy him a little respect from the man, of course, it may also get him killed.
“Why Kyle, I wasn’t following you, I just kinda stumbled upon you. In fact, I was chasing a fucking falling star,” replied the Indian. He stood, the butt of his rifle now resting on his hip.
“What were you doing out there Kyle?” Coal asked.
Kyle looked back as if he didn’t know where Coal was pointing. He turned back to the Indian and regarded him for a moment. The man was in his early 30s with short black hair. He was of average height with a lean, wiry frame. He wore a western style long sleeved shirt, worn blue jeans and was barefooted. Besides the rifle, he wore a wide leather belt around his waist, it showed a dozen rifle rounds, and a large bone-handled hunting knife in a rawhide sheath.
Kyle made his decision, why he couldn’t say. “There’s an underground kind of facility, dug into that mesa back there. The only way in is through a hole in the roof, I left a rope tied there. It’s destroyed mostly, burned out, but there’s water there. A small pool…not much…” Kyle trailed off before he began to ramble. Coal was staring straight at him, expressionless again. Damn right scary.
“And raiders?” Coal prompted.
“There were raiders, a few… but not anymore,” Kyle replied.
“Why tell me?” the Indian asked in a hushed tone.
“I, I’m not bragging…I just…” Kyle began.
Coal cut him off. “I don’t mean about the raiders. I mean about the water.”
“I don’t know. I guess, I mean it’s a desert. Water shoul
d belong to whoever needs it. Not just, not just any one man,” Kyle mumbled in reply.
Coal was silent for a minute longer and then shook his head, having come to a decision of his own it seemed. “I think you're right Kyle.”
“Also I figured any lie I came up with, you would have just seen through. You would have been able to track me back and find it for yourself,” replied Kyle, adding a slight grin hoping to relieve any remaining tension.
“That’s true,” said Coal. “That would be after I shot you,” he added with a laugh.
Kyle did not laugh.
Coal turned his back on Kyle and walked back up the trail. When Kyle didn’t follow, Coal stopped and waved for him to catch up. “Well come on.”
The Scavenger and the scout walked side by side up the path in silence. Kyle, more than just a little confused as to what was going on. Just before they reached the level of the road Coal stepped off the trail into the brush, after a moment of hesitation Kyle followed. Just out of sight two horses and a mule were tied in the relative shade of the scrub. Before the world had gone to hell, a man’s status would be judged on his means of transportation. The same still held true now, just the extremes of wealth had changed. A horse marked Coal as a wealthy man, more than one, made him obscenely wealthy. The fact that Coal’s “ranch” in town boasted a half-dozen ponies was common knowledge.
The source of his wealth was no secret. Coal was a hunter, his rifle and his ranch provided a steady supply of dried and cured meat to anyone in town that could pay, that was all well known. But the bounty hunting was what he was notorious for. The City Council, the Black Jackets, Councilman Murphy, he had done work for them all at one time or another. If you crossed the wrong people, people with power and the ability to pay, they would send Coal. Murder, robbery, rape, disrespecting the wrong people, seeing the wrong thing. It didn’t matter why you were on the run, if you had to run, in these parts Coal was the one who was paid to follow you.
The horses wore no saddles and only had rawhide strips for reins. The mule was on a long lead tied to one of the horse’s tails. Across the mule’s back, a piece of stained canvas attempted to keep the flies off of what appeared to be the remains of a large deer and a pair of coyotes. Coal checked the animals over, adjusted the straps on the mule’s tarp and then turned back to Kyle.
“Water is a precious thing these days, more so out here. Do you know that my people consider it an insult to be given a gift and not be able to return one of greater value Pale face?” Coal said in a mocking solemn tone.
“Is that so?” Kyle asked skeptically.
“Well, honestly I’m not sure. But I think I saw that on T.V. when I was a kid and I kind of like it. So I’ve decided I’m going to try and bring it back. And lucky for you I’m a very rich Indian,” he finished the words with a laugh and handed Kyle the reins of the second horse.
“You’re giving me a horse?” Kyle said in disbelief.
“Oh fuck no,” Coal replied still laughing. “But I’ll let you ride her back to town with me. You can be my Tonto.”
The Indian slung his rifle and grabbing a hand full of horse mane jumped onto the lead pony. Kyle just stood for a moment looking from the reins in his hand up to the Indian. The ride would save him 2 days of walking. Hell if Coal pushed on after dark they would probably make it back to town late tonight. Not to mention Coal’s rifle and reputation would be enough to dissuade all but the boldest of raiders. Kyle’s hand tightened around the strap of his bag, his little treasure was his way out of this life, protecting it would need to be a priority. The only question was if he could trust the Indian? He seemed honest and straightforward enough. Kyle truly believed if Coal meant to cause him harm he would have told him as much. Of course, all of those points also described a rattlesnake fairly accurately as well.
Looking back up at the waiting Indian, Kyle again made the decision to trust the man. “Mr. Coal, I humbly accept this gracious gift you offer. I thank you," Kyle finished his improvised speech with a nod at Coal. Coal’s smile went flat for a moment as if trying to decide if he was being mocked. Then he slowly returned the nod.
Kyle made several very poor attempts to mount the horse before actually succeeding. Coal grinned at his struggles openly until Kyle finally found his way onto the mare’s back. Coal was already turning his horse and moving upslope.
Kyle sat atop the motionless horse for a moment. The animal turned its head to eye him warily.
“Ahhh Coal? What do…how does this work?” he asked to Coal’s back. The Indian laughed in reply and shouted.
“Come now Tonto, just shout Hi HO Silver, away!!!!!”
After the first hour of feeling utterly foolish, Kyle had given up all pretense of actually directing the animal. The beast seemed quite content to simply follow Coal’s horse no matter what Kyle did with the reins. He still held them at least to make himself feel like he was in control of something. The mule weighted down with its load trudged along steadily behind them; its reins tied to the Kyle’s horse’s tail.
The riders rode out in the same direction that Kyle had come. Only once the state route became more obvious, Coal broke from what was left of the road and skirted it east. The scout always rode in front separated by Kyle from about 15 feet at all times and riding in silence. At first, the Scavenger found it unnerving but guessed this was how Coal spent most of his time out here, alone. The scout was always engaged, he was constantly scanning and searching the horizon, the brush, the trail, always on guard. His rifle rested with its butt against his right hip. The long gun at the ready and on display for anyone that may be watching.
They rode on for hours, leaving any sign of the road behind. Kyle had been out many times in the last few years and had a bit of a reputation for a Scavenger that knew his way around the wastes. It had become his proverbial “Niche” to scavenge the sites too far out for most of the Scavs to risk. An old service station up on the State Route, a summer lodge almost a week’s walk south and so on. Each was a risk, an investment of time, effort and water that sometimes never paid off. The risk was high, but so were the rewards if he found a place that hadn’t been picked clean a decade ago. Most Scav stuck to town, delving into the same ruins day after day, digging tunnels to access collapsed basements. Most of them just surviving day to day on the rusted nuts and bolts they could strip from long-dead structures.
Not long after they had left the ruined interstate, Kyle had become utterly disoriented and lost. Reputation or no, Kyle’s navigation skills rested on knowing where the old roads should be, a handful of recognizable landmarks and a dedication to not losing sight of either. Coal was playing on a whole different level. The Indian had led them into a series of washes as soon as they had left the road behind. They now moved between mesas and canyons that Kyle had never even seen. The only means of navigation that Kyle was sure that Coal was using was keeping the sun perpetually on their right. Any other man and Kyle would have questioned if he knew where they were going. But the set of Coal’s shoulders the easy way he surveyed the land spoke of confidence, utter and complete confidence, he was at home out here.
Another thought occurred to Kyle. Out here without even a hint of where they were or even in which direction the road lay, the Scavenger was completely at the scout’s mercy. Any fear that Coal had that Kyle may try and pull something, back shoot him and rob him would be tempered with the fact that Kyle would be stuck out here. He would be good as dead. Though that thought had never crossed the Scav’s mind, he had to give it to Coal, the scout had covered all the angles.
They rode on in silence, the hours and the desert slowly sliding by. The pain Kyle felt from riding the barebacked unfamiliar animal subsided into just a constant ache. The heat, the fatigue, and the constant swaying had the Scavenger fighting to remain awake. He soon found his head sagging on to his chest, and he snapped his head back.
Coal had slowed and was now riding next to him. Obviously the head nod had lasted a bit longer than the split second h
e thought it had. Kyle thought he should say something, to at least make it seem like he hadn’t fallen asleep when Coal beat him to it.
“If you have to look at least don’t make it obvious. The ridgeline to the east. The rocky outcropping just shy of the saddle,” the Indian said in a low matter of fact tone.
Kyle was still a bit groggy. “What? East?” he replied.
“Fuck. How about the only ridge you can see, on our right,” Coal growled.
Kyle made to stifle a yawn, having to only half fake it and looked to his right, counted three heartbeats and then turned his head away.
“I didn’t see anything,” he whispered to the Scout.
“Three men, eyeing us. Raiders I imagine,” Coal said in the same matter of fact tone.
“Really? I didn’t…are you sure?” asked Kyle fully awake now.
“Well, I guess I can’t be completely certain," came the Indian’s reply. “I mean I guess it could be three women up there fixing to jump us, but that just seems too much to hope for,” Coal said with a slight chuckle.
Kyle just stared at the Indian and sighed.
“What do you think they want?” he finally asked.
“You mean if they are raiders or if they are women?” asked Coal now openly grinning.
Kyle didn’t even hazard a reply.
“Well the answers the same either way, rape us, kill us, take our stuff. You know the usual raider stuff. It’s really one of the few equal opportunity careers out there these days,” replied Coal.
“Well man or women, shouldn’t we be beating hell for leather, or something like that?” asked Kyle.
“Naaa, there just three of them and they don’t have any guns, or they would have already started using them I imagine,” replied Coal.
“How can you be certain there is only three of them? Couldn’t they just be lookouts for a larger group?” asked Kyle, his voice starting to sound alarmed.
“Well I can only see three, and besides the bounty paper, The Council put out said there was only three reported,” Coal calmly stated.
To Cross a Wasteland Page 4
