Miles picked back up his crutch and very slowly and painfully made his way back up to his feet. He looked down at the two dead men for a moment shaking his head. He then plodded back towards the passenger car. He had much to do and not nearly enough time to do it in.
Evicted
While Kyle slept, Anna made her rounds at the clinic, same as she did each day. Today, however, she spent more time than usual with each of her patients. She asked about their feet, she asked each about their strength. She made careful notes on who was declining, recovering or simply malingering. There was always a few of those. Hangers on that had healed but now stayed to take advantage of the clinic’s relative safety. As she finished with the last patient, she took a seat one of the benches in the common area and looked down at her notes.
The clinic was currently home to 33 souls. Three of these were terminal, she expected them to pass at any time. One was dying of pneumonia, another from what she thought may be cancer and the last simply from old age. She crossed through the three names on her list.
Another man had suffered a nasty fall a few weeks back, both his legs and his pelvis had been shattered. He may recover she thought, but he wouldn’t be able to move for a few more weeks. She crossed his name off of the list.
A young woman, a beautiful girl, had cut herself while out scavenging. A nasty infection had already turned her hand black by the time she had come to the clinic for help. Anna had amputated the hand, but a week later the infection had reappeared in the forearm, so she had to take her arm off at the elbow as well. Now the girl was racked by fever and spent most of the day unconscious. Even the new antibiotics hadn’t helped. She scratched through the girl’s name as well and then looking down did the same to a few more just as hopeless cases.
In the end, Anna’s list had 23 names on it. She lowered her head and tried to fight back the tears, tried to fight back the sense that she was abandoning these people.
“Hey, Doc!” Dante shouted and ran into the circle.
She jumped to her feet, too choked up to reply as she hastily wiped away her tears.
“There’s a young boy out front. We’re not really sure what he wants, but he seems real upset and apparently can’t talk,” Dante explained.
“Juan!” Anna shouted and ran past him towards the gate.
Juan stood in front of the clinic, the three guards on duty were trying to talk to the boy, speaking in soft tones but Juan eyed them each suspiciously. Anna stepped out of the gate and ran to the boy, she threw her arms around him hugging him protectively. Almost immediately Juan struggled free of her embrace and held up a crumpled piece of paper for her. Anna looked down at the folded paper skeptically and then noticed several blood stains on it. She looked up and found Juan’s eyes were locked on hers, they were full of desperation.
She carefully unfolded the note and read the hastily scribbled lines. Her eyes grew wide and then instinctively she looked up and then down the street.
“Oh my god,” she said aloud.
“What is it?” Dante asked concerned.
“Get everyone inside, even the guards. We may be attacked very soon,” she replied and scooping up Juan in her arms carried him back inside.
Kyle emerged from the office and stretched, the few hours of sleep had been a lifesaver. He looked up and saw Anna heading his way, and she was carrying, Juan??
“What’s Juan doing here?” Kyle asked immediately concerned.
“It looks like Miles sent him, along with this,” Anna replied and held the note out to Kyle. Kyle unfolded it and read the simple words.
I had to kill 2 of Murphy’s men. They are going from building to building looking for Coal. We leave now or we die here.
Kyle’s heart skipped a beat, he took a breath and then forced himself to read it again.
“What do we do?” Anna pleaded, choking back tears.
“Just as he says. We leave now,” Kyle said hoping his voice sounded more confident than he felt.
“Why is that?” Coal asked, stepping through the infirmary doors behind Kyle.
“Murphy’s men are searching all the buildings around the museum looking for us. Miles had to kill a couple of them,” Kyle replied and handed the half-breed the note.
“I guess this means Chief Red Bear’s parade is going to be postponed,” Coal chuckled.
“I want you to get over to Miles as fast as you can. Hitch the horses, load him and whatever else he has for us up and head back this way,” Kyle ordered.
“Will do Boss, but even if Murphy’s men haven’t found them by the time I get over there. Moving a wagon across town in broad daylight, no way that’s not going unnoticed,” Coal pointed out.
“I know, no helping that now. I’ll get everyone here that’s going with us ready. We’ll be ready to move as soon as you pull in,” Kyle explained.
“Make sure they are ready to fight too, we may have a heap of trouble chasing us when I get back,” Coal said, and then he was off running for the gate, his rifle in hand.
A few minutes later Anna and Kyle had gathered all of the residents of the clinic together around the fire circle. Kyle even pulled in the gate guards with the exception of Dante to hear his words. Just looking around the circle, Kyle could tell people were scared. They may not know what was happening, but they could sense the uneasiness in the camp, and the fear in Kyle and Anna.
“Is this everyone?” Kyle asked his wife.
“Everyone that can be moved,” Anna replied.
Kyle took a breath and looked around the circle of faces, some of the faces were new, but he had seen them around the compound, others he had known for years.
“Friends, Friends!” Kyle shouted calling everyone’s attention to him.
“I have something important to tell you all. Something that is going to affect everyone here. For, well for a long time now I knew that I wanted to leave this place, this town and escape Murphy and his corruption. I wanted to find a new home, a place with a future, somewhere where I didn’t have to pay someone like Murphy for water, for the right to live. I needed to find a way out, away to cross the desert,” Kyle paused letting the group soak the idea in.
Almost immediately a wave of scoffs, curses, and objections echoed through the crowd. Kyle very clearly heard one man say to another. “There’s no way.”
“There is away,” Kyle shouted drawing the attention of the crowd back to him.
“A week ago I found a way. Today we have the water, we have a guide, and we even have horses and a wagon.”
Another murmur rose through the crowd, this one raised in voices of hope instead of fear. Kyle shouted over the crowd again, knowing he was about to destroy many of those hopes.
“This’ll not be easy. If you want to come with Anna and me, you are welcome. Anyone will be welcome to join us. First, you need to understand that you’ll be walking most of, if not all of the way across the desert yourself. The wagon will haul our supplies, our water and our injured. This is not a free ride you’re being offered, just a chance,” Kyle’s words seemed to temper the crowd’s enthusiasm a bit.
“Where are we going?” a woman shouted.
“North,” Kyle replied.
“What's in the North?” the woman pushed.
“To be honest I don’t know,” Kyle said simply.
“You mean to say you don’t even know where you’re headed?” another voice from the crowd asked.
“I don’t, I have no idea. I just know that Murphy controls all of the water here. Soon enough he’ll control the whole town. Then he’ll control all of us. I know I would rather die out in the desert trying for something better than just surviving here, under his rule,” Kyle replied honestly.
The crowd noise rose again, Kyle heard voices of agreement and others of descent.
“There is more, please let him finish. Tell them the rest,” this from Anna now standing and looking at Kyle. The Scavenger realizing what she meant replied with a reluctant nod.
“There’s so
mething else, whomever comes with us, well you’re going to have more to worry about than just the desert. Men will try and stop us, men that want our horses, men that’ll take the water, men that don’t want to see people leaving this town. Murphy’s men,” Kyle said and the reaction was immediate.
The crowd went silent, the murmuring and side conversations stopped. Almost every eye focused on Kyle now, though a handful looked sullenly down at the ground still trying to process his words. One woman covered her face and cried into her hands. Kyle looked over at Anna, she looked just a dejected as everyone else. It was in that moment that Kyle realized just how much the last few weeks had changed him. He had been like all of these people, scared to step out of the shadows, scared to let men like Murphy notice him. The thought made him hate the man, even more, he had stolen something from all of them.
“You’ve killed us all you bastard!” a man shouted angrily from the back of the group and a handful of voices rose in agreement.
Just across town Coal was having troubles of his own. He stuck to the side streets and back alleys, staying out of the open and cutting through burnt out and derelict buildings whenever he could. As he neared the industrial sector, he began to notice other people coming from that direction. The men looked dejected, many of the women were in tears, and a few showed signs of violence. It looked like Mile’s note had been right, Murphy’s men were moving systematically through the area. They were rousting out everyone they found, and it looked as if they weren’t being gentle in the process either.
Coal came up to a narrow alley between two large buildings and risked a quick glance around the corner. A pair of men stood at the far end of the alley. They were too engrossed in their own conversation to notice him. He quickly ducked back around the corner.
“Looks like we have our first customers of the day,” Coal mumbled to himself.
He turned examining the building next to him, the first floor was a burned husk full of charred wood and twisted metal. Looking up he saw a hole just large enough for him to squeeze through. Kicking off the edge of an empty window sill he could just reach the edge of the hole, and he hauled himself up and into the second level.
“It’s fucking bullshit I tell you and I don’t care what Vincent says,” one of the men remarked.
“We’ll Murphy pays the bills, so what Murphy wants he gets. Besides, I didn’t see you telling the man his plan was shit to his face,” replied the other as he glanced back down the alley.
“That’s because I ain't near that stupi…” The other man was cut short as a brick smashed down into the top of his head with a sickening crack.
His fellow goon spun around and looked down in confusion at the crumpled guard. He glanced up just as Coal leaped from the second floor and crashed down on to his shoulders from above. The men collapsed together into a heap, Murphy’s man screaming in pain. Coal rolled on top of him and hit him twice in the face, momentarily stunning and quieting the injured man. The half-breed looked down and could see the man’s collar was broken and was protruding out of his shoulder.
Coal pulled his hunting knife from his belt, just as the man’s eyes refocused and he let out a pained whimper. Coal grabbed him by the hair with one hand and put the knife to the man’s throat with the other.
“Please!” the helpless man whimpered.
Coal found himself pausing, holding back the killing blow, but just why he couldn’t say. “Fucking Kyle!” the half-breed cursed.
“I’m, I’m not Kyle, please don’t kill me!” the man croaked out in confusion.
“I know you’re not Kyle asshole! He’s taller and has a fucking habit of letting assholes like you go!” Coal growled back and then quickly glanced up and down the alley.
“Please don’t,” the goon begged.
“Okay. If I promise not to kill you, will you promise to stay right here and not tell anyone you saw me?” Coal asked pulling back the knife just a bit.
“I swear it, not a word,” the man replied through gritted teeth.
“Well, okay then, now I believe you,” Coal said hammering the butt of the knife down on the top of the man’s head, knocking him cold.
Coal moved down to the edge of the alley then glanced around the corner. Half a block down another pair of men were questioning a group of street kids they had apparently just pulled from one of the rotting buildings. Looking down the street the other way Coal saw a group of four men cross the street and enter a large warehouse, even from here Coal could make out Vincent’s huge frame among them. Beyond them on the next block lay the museum. Coal ducked back into the alley before he could be seen. That was a lot of eyes across a lot of open ground he thought and then looking back at the unconscious men had an idea.
Coal stripped the tattered Army jacket off of the dead goon. It had a thick green stripe painted across the bicep of the right arm. He scooped up the ball cap off of the unconscious man and put that on as well. Coal looked down at his rifle for a moment, then pulled off the man’s pants and tearing them into strips wrapped them around the rifle. If he carried it like a club instead of a rifle, at a distance, he hoped no one would recognize it as a gun.
As he turned to leave the alley, Coal had a quick thought and then chuckled. He turned back to the two men and after a few quick adjustments slipped into the street, leaving both of them with their pants pulled down and in rather sexually suggestive positions.
“They are going to have some splaining to do,” Coal giggled to himself and boldly strode out into the street.
As Coal moved down the street, he neared the pair of men questioning the kids. One was yelling at the group, taking a moment to slap one or another seemingly at random between breaths. The other man leaned against a wall watching it all with a bored expression. Coal kept his eyes straight ahead and kept an even and steady pace, he felt more than saw their eyes on him. A moment later that feeling was confirmed.
“Hey, Chuck, where the fuck you going?” called a voice.
“Going to take a shit. Want to join me?” Coal called in reply and the flipped the man the bird without looking up at him.
“Fuck you,” came the reply. So far so good it seemed.
The answer must have satisfied the voice as no one else called out after him. The half-breed continued down the street nearing the museum with each step. He passed by the warehouse he had last seen Vincent and his men enter, but neither saw or heard any sign of them now. If they were searching each building and moving down the street in the same direction as Coal, the museum would be next. Coal quickened his pace.
A few moments later Coal ducked inside of the massive structure and broke into a run and heading straight for his horses in the cattle car. Up ahead in the gloom, Coal could see two bodies lying next to the line of railcars. A few cars down a dim red light shone out of the open door of a boxcar. Coal moved down the line of cars cautiously. He slowed when he reached the bodies carefully stepping over them and pausing just long enough to make sure neither of them was Miles. Coal slowly crept up to the edge of the open boxcar door. A plastic milk crate full of an assortment of glass liquor bottles was the first thing he could see. Well hell, Coal thought, perhaps this wouldn’t be that bad a trip after all. Peeking further around the doorway Coal could see the room was filled with books, a few chairs and dominated by a pair of dry erase boards. It looked like some kind of classroom or something.
A man crouched over a pile of books and was quickly shuffling through them, occasionally shoving a few into a leather satchel he carried. He held a burning road flare up for light and was mumbling to himself as he searched.
“Hey old man,” Coal called.
In response Miles spun to face the door and fell backward onto his ass, dropping the flare and raising his pipe rifle in the same motion. Coal ducked back behind the cover of the doorway.
“Don’t shoot me you old fuck!” Coal shouted.
“Coal!” Miles shouted back making the name sound like an accusation.
“I know how
it is Miles, you smoked those two sons of bitches, and now you have a taste for it. But you have to fight it, Miles, fight the bloodlust!” Coal shouted back.
“What?” Miles demanded.
“Never mind,” Coal replied stepping back where Miles could see him. “What are you doing?”
Miles looked around the room as if embarrassed for a moment. “Just grabbing a few things we’ll need for the trip,” he replied.
“Well, you’re done now. The wagon is leaving just as soon as I can get the horses hitched,” Coal informed him.
“Where are Kyle and Juan and all of the rest?” Miles demanded.
“We are picking them up on the way out of town. Now let’s fucking go!” Coal replied.
“Coal!” A voice boomed from out of the shadows. Coal and Miles both froze.
“Step out here where I can see you Coal,” the voice said again.
“Fuck!” Coal said to himself.
Turning the half-breed stepped away from the boxcar door. Thirty feet down the track, next to the two bodies stood four men. Vincent stood out even in the darkness. The giant slowly looked down at the dead men and then spoke.
“Is this your doing Coal?” Vincent asked with a grin and nudged Brooklyn’s body with the toe of his boot.
“Sorry, can’t take credit for those,” Coal smirked.
“Miles!” Vincent’s voice boomed again, and after a moment of hesitation the old man appeared in the door of the railcar, he held the road flare high bathing the scene in red light.
“You fucking traitor, you’re going to pay for this!” Vincent shouted at the old man. To Miles credit, he didn’t bat an eye or look away. In Coal’s eyes, the man gained another point of respect at that moment.
“Don’t you know this guy’s backstory? It’s kinda what he does,” Coal remarked.
“Fuck you Coal,” Miles hissed back without taking an eye off of Vincent and gained another point of respect from the Indian.
“Give up Miles, you still have a chance to come out of this thing alive. Coal on the other hand, well you’re a dead man,” Vincent said.
To Cross a Wasteland Page 32
