by James Axler
None of the companions were sure if the deadpan Native American was joking, and refrained from comment.
The first nest of huts and tents belonged to the people of Haigh, whose baron was John the Gaunt. A severe name for a severe baron, and that was reflected in the dour and downbeat appearance of their encampment. The material that comprised the tents was of dull, stained colors, and the women and children were quiet, going about their chores and play with a deadened demeanor, as though just going through the motions. They hardly looked up as the patrol passed through.
"Can't see these being much trouble," Mildred said. "What are the men like?"
"Like this," Crow replied. "They work hard and keep themselves to themselves. Haigh's not a rich ville, and they've had to work their land hard and drive hard bargains based on work rather than jack. They like to keep their energy for work, because that's all they had to keep them alive for a long time. The road and the well will bring them more than they could ever dream, but John the Gaunt won't let them get soft on it. I'd figure they were part of some old religion before skydark, and that harshness has stayed with them. They're the last ones I'd bet on to be sabotaging the works. One thing, though—don't be fooled by how quiet and peaceful they seem. You cross these people, and they're the hardest fighters you'll ever come across. Even the bastards from Mandrake avoid them, and they'll fight anyone."
As Crow finished speaking, a woman holding a roughly made broom walked toward them, unflinching of the animals as they twitched at her approach.
"Good day to you," she said in a monotone. "There is no need," she added as she noticed hands ready to unholster blasters. "I have no quarrel with you. I merely wish to ask a question."
"Well, that's fine," Crow said in an even and friendly tone. "Ask your question, my friend."
"I know of you," she said, looking directly at Crow. "You are from the Baron Silas. I would be thinking that these are outsider mercies brought in to stop the sabotage."
When Crow answered her with a nod, she continued, now addressing the companions. "Do you be thinking that you can stop an entire army? For that is what this camp be. I have no love for any others, and they not for me. But if they wish to cause war, then are you enough?"
"I don't know," Ryan said simply. "It depends on who is causing the trouble."
"Are you so naive that you do not realize that all cause trouble for all? We fight each other, because it is not right for us all to be so close."
"But mebbe the sabotage isn't from you all," Ryan said. "Mebbe your fights only give cover to those who want to stop the well."
The woman said nothing, but assessed the one-eyed man shrewdly before finally saying, "I think you may be capable." With which she turned and returned to her hut, sweeping as though they were no longer there.
The patrol moved on, and when they had reached the obvious demarcation point between one ville and another, Dean whispered, "Are they all that weird?"
Crow allowed himself a wry grin. "Start with the strangest and everything else is easy to take in," he answered cryptically. "You'll see, son, you'll see."
The lines marking the boundaries between the different groups within the camp were clear. Within a few yards of the spot where they had stopped to speak with the woman, they turned a corner and entered somewhere that seemed entirely different.
The huts, shacks and tents were constructed in a different matter, seeming to veer over and be ready to collapse. It was obvious that little effort had gone into their construction, although they were garishly decorated in paints and dyed fabrics in a collision of orange, white and green. The women talked, the area was dirty and the children ran riot. There had been some indication of this in the distant noise as they had rode through the quiet of the Haigh sector, but nothing could have prepared them for the sudden contrast.
The children whirled in and out of the horses' hooves, disturbing the animals and causing all the companions to tighten their grips on the manes. The women ignored their children and carried on conversing in loud voices, not caring what was occurring and seeming not to notice the riders among them.
"Bedlam," Doc whispered.
This part of the camp smelled strongly of distilled spirit, and there were signs of smoke from some of the huts that suggested the inhabitants were either brewing spirit or else had forgotten to extinguish fires and were about to lose their homes. Not that it seemed that they cared.
"So who are these?" Ryan asked, trying to keep his voice level.
"This, my friend, is the Mandrake sector. Putting these people next to those from Haigh wasn't the best piece of foresight anyone ever had," Crow remarked sardonically. "To say they loathe each other would be an understatement."
"So this is a source of trouble?"
Crow shook his head. "Baron Silveen is a rich man, and he wants to be richer. He's sunk a lot of jack into this, and he won't be too keen on it going west because of some squabbling. These are fierce, short-tempered people, but they fear their baron more than anyone else."
"Enough to stick to his word when they're this far away?" Ryan queried, looking at the groups of women who were eying them suspiciously, the children who were throwing stones at one another—and at the horses' forelocks when they thought no one was looking—and at the few older men who lurked in the doorways of the huts, eying the patrol suspiciously.
Crow laughed. "If you'd ever met Baron Silveen, you wouldn't be asking that question. Take it from me, no one would want to cross him. That's not to say that some, fired up by the spirits, may not."
"And they're the ones to watch out for," Ryan muttered.
"Yeah, but how do you tell?" added J.B., who had ridden up to join them. "Ryan," he continued, "don't be fooled by the way they look—take a look at some of the blasters, then sniff the air."
Ryan frowned, and tried to get a look at the blasters carried by the women without being spotted. The Armorer was right. Although the women seemed unkempt, and their clothes were colorful, tight fitting and sluttish, the handblasters that all of them seemed to pack were, as far as he could tell from what was visible, highly polished. If they kept the visible part of the blaster in that good a condition, then chances were that the mechanisms were also well maintained. And the air? The one-eyed man was about to comment to J.B. that he could smell the chemical aroma of plas-ex being broken down and reconstituted, and possibly homemade explosives, too, when a sudden flurry of violent activity distracted him.
A fight had broken out among one group of women. Ryan hadn't heard the argument that led to it, but Krysty and Mildred had. Two women were arguing about an old man who lurked in the doorway of one of the huts, and did nothing to stop the argument. In point of fact, he seemed to revel in the sudden chaos he had caused.
"I tell you he wouldn't go with you if you was the last woman on the face of the world, which you'd have to be to get any attention from a man," the younger of the women added to drive her point home.
The older woman—who was about a hundred pounds heavier and had dark red hair shot through with silver—replied angrily, "Shit, he must hate being the father of such a gaudy slut. How many of these kids are his?"
This was too much for the younger woman. Despite her inferior weight, she yelled in incoherent fury and threw a haymaker punch that caught the older woman on the side of the head, making her stagger backward with a startled yelp.
She recovered quickly, however, and charged back at her opponent with a snarl, catching her under the chin with a roundhouse blow that would have rendered her unconscious had it properly connected. It didn't, but it was still hard enough to knock her backward into the rest of the women, who were now beginning to draw up sides for the fight.
It looked as if it could get out of hand quickly, and Krysty and Mildred knew they had to act. They also knew that it would stamp the companions authority hard if they were the ones to quell the disturbance, rather than the men.
The two Mandrake women were locked together now, wrestling in a small circle, the better
to try to gain the upper hand. The other women were closing in, swapping insults with each other depending on the sides they had chosen. There were some blows being flung, but so far it hadn't escalated into a full-scale fight.
And it wouldn't if Mildred and Krysty had anything to do with it.
Both women were off their horses and into the midst of the fledgling fight before anyone had a chance to react. A glance between them determined that Krysty would take the older woman and Mildred the younger. Krysty was slightly taller than Mildred, and would have the height and leverage advantage to overcome the weight of the older woman, whereas Mildred's lesser height would enable her to fight face-to-face with the younger woman.
But first they had to get them apart.
The speed and unexpectedness of their attack gave them an advantage in breaking through the crowd, both women using their elbows and heavy boots to crack shins and cause the crowd to part as their ribs became the object of a series of blows. It didn't take a second for Mildred and Krysty to reach the center of the action.
The two Mandrake women were still locked together, neither giving ground, all their attention focused on each other. This made it simple for the outsiders to part them. Mildred jabbed her opponent beneath the rib cage with a straight-finger blow that sent a searing pain through the woman's kidneys and took her breath away. She folded onto one side and tried to throw her balance over to compensate.
Her opponent could have used this to her advantage if she, too, hadn't also come under attack. Because of her weight and stance, there was no option for Krysty to do anything but take a handful of the woman's hair and pull back. She had to hope that her opponent was sensitive to having her scalp pulled, and didn't have the kind of bull-like neck muscles that would preclude it working. In this she was lucky. With a gasp of surprise and sudden pain, the older woman jerked her head back, leaving her throat and neck open to attack.
Krysty wasn't slow in following this up. Still grasping the older woman's hair firmly, she chopped at the exposed throat, hitting hard on the windpipe and cutting off the woman's breath. It was all she could do to stop herself from blacking out at the sudden shock, slumping against Krysty and almost throwing her off balance. But Krysty yielded to the slump and then pushed back, reversing the momentum so that her opponent was thrust away from her. As the older woman careened away, Krysty still kept hold of her hair, using it to twist the woman's head and deliver a punch to her temple that caused her to fall the rest of the way into unconsciousness. She dropped like a stone as Krysty let go of her hair.
Mildred was also in the process of finishing off her opponent. Doubled with agony, and with no breath in her body, the younger of the two Mandrake women turned to face Mildred, her face contorted by pain and rage. She made to grab at the black woman's swinging plaits, but Mildred was too quick, dodging her grasping hands and swinging up her leg in the same movement, catching her opponent in the abdomen with the toe cap of her heavy boot. As the woman pitched forward, Mildred finished her off with a blow to the back of her neck, delivered with the straight edge of her right hand.
Before both Mandrake women had settled in the dust, Krysty and Mildred were back-to-back, ready for the rest of the pack to attack.
It didn't come. Instead there was a sudden hush, and the other women stood around, not knowing what to do or who would be the first to break forward.
Mildred stalled them. "Listen to me. I don't know what that was about, and I don't care. I just know that we're here to keep the peace, and if it means beating the shit out of every last one of you, then that's what we'll do. But you don't give us crap and everything'll be fine. You understand me?"
There was a silence, followed by a low rumble that could have been a grudging assent, but was certainly not dissent.
"That's okay, then," Mildred said as she and Krysty relaxed slightly, then made their way back to their mounts. "Just remember that, and we'll have no argument with the people of Mandrake."
As soon as Krysty and Mildred were on horseback, Crow kicked his steed into motion, and they left the narrow street in the Mandrake sector of the camp, with a grudging respect and possibly resentment behind them.
When they were out of earshot, Crow murmured, "That was impressive. They'll be looking out for you now. Mebbe need to watch your backs from some, but you'll get less shit from others."
"That," Mildred replied, "is the general idea."
THE REST of their journey around the camp was less eventful. The sectors that housed the people from Water Valley and Running Water they had already encountered on their journey into the camp with Baron Silas. There was nothing new for them to learn from there as of yet.
Moving on, they came to the sector where the people from Salvation itself were housed. It came as no surprise to anyone that they had the best-constructed home site. The huts and shacks were put together from a better quality of salvaged material, and the manner in which they had been constructed suggested that a ville of engineers had been at work. Even the tents were of a stronger fabric, which looked as though it had been chosen with care from that available to make a series of moveable homes that could be transported and reerected with ease. Ryan, and J.B. in particular, had to admire the way in which the host ville had managed its section of the camp. Crow was well known here, and it soon became apparent from the comments they met with that word of this new sec force had spread among the natives of Salvation. The companions were told that it was up to them to stop the sabotage and keep the jack bonuses going up for the workers and their families.
"One thing I do notice, though," Ryan commented as they left the Salvation sector. "They all blame different villes for the damage, just as the woman from Haigh blamed someone else."
"Could be bluff," Crow replied. "Could be that they want to blame someone else to cover themselves. Could be they want to blame someone else just because they're different."
"Yeah, and it could be that no one there actually knows anything about it," J.B. countered.
Crow looked at him shrewdly. "Ideas?" he asked simply.
J.B. shrugged. "Not yet."
But the Armorer continued to think about it as they traveled around the rest of the camp. They had already seen the work sites, and knew the layout. It was hard for anyone to hide there, and so the sabotage had to be perpetrated at a time when everyone not involved on the task would be safely out of the way. There was too much risk of anyone being seen during daylight and working hours, as not only were there sec patrols but also it was highly unlikely that any of the individuals involved would want to sabotage their own areas of work and so put their own jack bonuses at risk. Other areas and other workers' bonuses, maybe, but only a stupe would do that to himself. And J.B. was sure that this was not the work of a stupe.
So if the sabotage couldn't be done by day, then it had to be done by night. By necessity, the sec patrols at night were concentrated on the camp, to stop any fights that may break out inside. This left the work site relatively open to attack. But the problem any saboteurs would then have was in getting out of the camp, going about their tasks, and getting back into the camp without being seen—if not by the sec, then by someone from a rival ville. The fact that no one seemed to have any definite facts, within such a closed hothouse atmosphere, made J.B. wonder if Baron Silas and his sec men were looking in the wrong direction.
As this passed through his mind, he wondered if he should talk to Ryan about it, so they could begin asking questions. But one look at the one-eyed man riding next to Crow dissuaded him. It wasn't that the Armorer didn't trust the Native American, it was more that he didn't want anything of his notion getting out—particularly to Baron Silas—until such time as they had a chance to investigate its validity.
Besides, there were still four sectors of the camp with which to become familiar.
Crow led them into the sector that housed the workers and their families from the ville of Dallas. It was immediately obvious to all that Baron Silas had deliberately planned th
e camp so that the poor folks of his original home ville would have their noses rubbed in the dirt by being placed next door to the richer constructions of his new ville. For the Dallas camp was dirty and disheveled, and the women and children who were on view seemed downtrodden. They had no life or energy and appeared to be almost completely disinterested in the mounted party as they rode down the small streets of the camp. Their huts and tents were hovels that hung loosely together, constructed of materials that the other villes would have thrown away, and completely devoid of color under a mantle of dust.
"I fear these are least likely to be our culprits," Doc murmured as they passed by almost unnoticed.
"Could be that they want revenge," Dean argued.
Doc shook his head sadly. "No, my dear child. These are people with the fight knocked out of them. They just want the scraps from the table—though they do appear to be the kind of whipping boys who would be singled out for blame, should it need to be apportioned."
"No one believe it," Jak interjected. "Smell of fear, being chilled. Quarry," he added dismissively.
"I'd agree with you there," Crow said, listening intently. "Thing is, for a variety of reasons everyone I've shown you so far would be too obvious. Dallas is too downtrodden. The people of Water Valley and Running Water look too different to hide easily. Haigh is too strictly run, and Mandrake is too damn loud to do anything except out front."
"And Salvation?" Ryan queried.
Crow allowed himself a smile. "The enemy inside? Mebbe, but there's too much for everyone to lose. These last three villes, though… They don't look 'different,' so they could blend in easy. And they've all got reason to hate the other villes, and each other."
"Yeah?" Ryan stopped his horse. "Fill us in some background before we look them over."
Crow also stopped, and when the horses had clustered, he said, "Carter, Baker and Hush are basically parts of the same old predark stock. They have common stories relating to oil jack from before the nukecaust. Like a lot of areas that were old well places, they're very white, which means they hate the villes that aren't, and even Mandrake they hate because of it's predark allegiances. They're also pissed because they aren't rich. And because Salvation will be. Never mind that their barons have done this to get a share of the jack. They don't think like that. And they're close to those they hate, and the place that represents their being under the hammer to Salvation. So if they get some spirit, or some jolt…" He shrugged.
