by James Axler
“Well?” the trader yelled, “you gonna come out, or you still figure that we want to chill you?”
“Could have done that a long time back,” Ryan countered. He indicated to his people. “We’re coming out.”
The friends emerged from the cover of the old school bus. As they did, they could see that Eula was scoping them. She turned to the trader and nodded. She was satisfied they were who they were supposed to be, which was some kind of comfort, Ryan figured. At least they were safe…for now.
Eula spent the longest time staring at J.B. Her expression was unfathomable, and it made the Armorer feel uncomfortable.
“You don’t remember me, do you, John Barrymore Dix?” she asked. When he didn’t answer, a smile played across her lips. “Don’t worry. It was a long time ago. And no one noticed me back then. No one.”
Chapter Two
Chapter Two
The Past
Guthrie was a nowhere ville, a small pesthole of huts and small hovels constructed from the debris that could be scavenged. The people made some desultory attempts at farming, but the nature of the dustbowl soil meant that the few crops it could produce were stunted and lacking in nutrients. It was off the beaten tracks and ruined blacktops that still crosscrossed the midwest, and those who lived there had a legend that they only landed up there because they got lost on the way to somewhere else. The ville itself was named after the guy who was the first to erect a little hut that fell down many times before others stumbled on him and built a few little huts of their own.
J. B. Dix had ended up in the pesthole ville of Guthrie in much the same way as anyone else who arrived there: by accident, and less than willingly. The skinny youth was quiet, slight, wiry, and wore spectacles that he was almost always polishing. He never said a word if he could help it, although if a person got him talking about blasters, that was another matter. You couldn’t shut him up, and he’d talk about stuff that no one else in Guthrie gave a shit about. So after a while they stopped asking. And he stopped talking.
What they really wanted to know was where he’d come from, why he’d landed in Guthrie and what the hell had happened to cause him to run. But any attempt to broach that subject was met with a greater silence than was usual. And it wasn’t just a matter of his being a quiet kid. There was something else there, a kind of menace that said it would be a real bad idea to mess with him.
So no one did. Except for Jeb Willets, who was big and muscular and therefore so out of place in Guthrie that he was able to bully his way around the ville. He figured the little kid with the bad eyes would be an easy mark. And at first he’d seemed right. He’d taken him by surprise and landed a few blows that seemed to knock the hell out of the kid. But Dix was sly—a feint, a foot, a use of balance that the lumbering Willets wasn’t used to, and the big man was on the ground, unconscious.
Then the thing that really made them leave J.B. alone: while Willets was unconscious, the skinny kid wired his shack to blow with some explosive he’d made. Then, when Willets was recovered, Dix took him at knifepoint and made him watch as the shack blew.
No one stepped in. The truth was, they all wished that they could have done that to the man. Willets was broken, and left the ville soon after.
And no one asked J.B. any questions. They left him alone. He liked it that way.
Of course, a man had to live. And one of the few things that he ever let out about himself was that he came from Colorado way, from a ville called Cripple Creek. He said nothing about family, but only mentioned it by way of saying that since he was young he’d been fascinated by blasters and explosives, and had educated himself in seeing what made them work, taking them apart and putting them back together again in better working condition than he’d found them. He knew the predark histories of the things, and he’d tell you about them while he was taking your beat-up old blaster and making it shiny like new.
The kid had a talent. It was the one time he didn’t shut up, and no one wanted to know, but nonetheless you had to give it to him.
So most of the time you’d just leave the blaster with him, and let him bring it back to you when it was done. That was fine. You paid him jack if you had any, or else you gave him food or supplies of some kind. There were convoys that passed in or near from time to time, and there was usually some service or some goods that Guthrie could use for exchange.
It wasn’t living, but it was existing. You didn’t buy the farm, and that was enough for most people. It was enough for the young J. B. Dix, for now.
That changed when Trader chanced upon the shanty.
“WHY DO WE ALWAYS end up in shit heaps like this?” Hunnaker moaned, idly scratching at herself; she could already feel the bugs starting to bite. She looked out of War Wag One at the expanse of dust, ordure and ramshackle buildings that made up the ville. “We’re supposed to be the best, so why do we bother?”
Trader bit the end off a cigar, spit it over her shoulder and out into the dirt, then clamped the smoke between a grin that threatened to split the graying stubble that covered the lower half of his face.
“Hunn, sometimes I can’t believe how stupe you can be. For someone so smart, you don’t do a lot of thinking. How do you reckon we got to where we are? I’ll tell you,” he went on, not giving her a chance to answer, “it’s because we pay attention to detail. You never know what’s out there until you’ve looked. That’s how come I found the stash that set us up, and that’s how come we keep getting bigger while all those other traders just bitch and whine and wonder how we did it.”
“And you reckon we’ll find something here?” she questioned, her tone leaving her doubt all too obvious.
Poet leaned over them both. “Ever known Trader to be wrong?”
She looked at both men, who were grinning at her.
“There’s always a first time,” she said flatly.
Trader and Poet were still laughing sometime later, when they took a look around the ville. By the time they’d finished, the smiles had gone and they were figuring that maybe Hunn had been right. There was nothing in this pesthole to interest them. They’d made some sparse business, just for the sake of it, and because Trader had a few commodities, he was overstocked with that he could afford to let go at a low rate. Never knew when they might come back this way, and they wanted a hospitable rather than hostile reception. Come to that, it would ensure they left on friendly terms, rather than in the wake of a firefight. Because these were mean folk, more so than in many other places. The misery of their existence saw to that.
So it looked as though this little detour would draw a blank, and it would be little more than just some wasted fuel.
Until the one thing that had been nagging at Trader the whole while suddenly clicked in his mind.
“You notice something about these folk?” he asked Poet in an undertone.
“Other than they’re being meaner than a mutie rattlesnake with a jolt hangover?”
Trader’s grin returned. “Yeah, other than that. Take a look at their blasters.”
Poet allowed himself a surreptitious study as they walked, before answering. “Nice gear. Wouldn’t like to have to face them down with those, even with all the ordnance we carry.”
“Too true, Poet. But think about it. This place is knee-deep in its own shit, with nothing to offer us in any way…to offer anyone who passes through. So how come they have such good ordnance?”
“Let me ask a few questions,” Poet replied.
Which didn’t prove too hard. There was only one bar in the ville, and although the brew it purveyed was of a poor quality—indeed, Poet felt he’d drunk better sump oil than this filth—it was all the locals had, and they were more than happy to let a lonely traveler spend some jack on getting drunk with them. He had plenty to spare, it seemed, and was more than happy to spend. Get him drunk enough and there was the chance of rolling him, boosting the local economy and getting one over an outlander, which was always a local favorite.
Except that Poet had drunk more,
and far better, men under the table than lived in Guthrie. And for all its foul taste, the local brew was nowhere near as strong as some that he’d tasted over the years. So it wasn’t long—and not so deep in his pocket as he’d feared—that Poet had turned the tables and had the locals on the subject of their hardware. A little flattery about how good their blasters were compared to some he’d seen on his travels, and they were soon telling him about their little secret advantage in the matter.
And it didn’t take them much to start speculating on J. B. Dix, the taciturn and private teenager who’d arrived the previous fall had been a hot topic of conversation ever since. Tongues loosened, Poet had to put up with a whole lot of speculation that was of no use to him. But he did work out—among the drivel and drunken babble—that the young man had a rare talent that he figured Trader would feel wasted in this backwater.
So it was that the following afternoon, while Poet busied himself and those he had drunk with still nursed the mother, father, son and daughter of all hangovers, Trader made his way to the small shack that the mysterious J. B. Dix had made his home.
“Speak to you, son?” Trader had asked as he hovered in the doorway. The young man said nothing, hunched over an old Smith & Wesson .38 snubbie, meticulously cleaning and reassembling the blaster. The pieces he had finished with were immaculate; the pieces he had yet to reach looked as if they came from a different blaster. Trader was about to speak again, when J.B. finally answered.
“What do you want?” he asked in a tone that was neutral but brisk. He didn’t bother looking up.
“I heard you’ve got a talent for this sort of thing,” Trader said, realizing that niceties would be wasted, and that it would be best to cut to the chase. “I’ve got some ordnance that needs work. You care to take a look?” He didn’t feel it necessary to add that the ordnance had been fine until he’d told Poet to work on it.
“It’ll cost you,” J.B. said simply.
“We’ll see,” Trader replied. “See what kind of a job you do.”
“It’ll be good,” J.B. answered. He said no more. He was still absorbed in his work, and still didn’t look up.
After a pause, Trader said, “I’ll be back.”
He left without another word from the taciturn teenager. As he walked back to War Wag One, through the filth and misery that was Guthrie, he mused on how come a man with such a talent should end up here. He hadn’t originated from here, and he hadn’t been here that long. So what had happened that had forced him to flee wherever it was that he came from and seek to bury himself in this back of beyond pesthole?
Trader was a student of the human condition. Not just because people fascinated him, but because it was a necessity in his occupation. You didn’t learn to read people, and damn quick, then it was certain that you’d end up with a bullet or a knife in your gut, and all your jack in someone else’s hands. So you learned to read people pretty quick. Generally. But this boy was something different. He gave so little away that it was hard to get any kind of a handle on him.
But Trader had a gut feeling. The kid did good work, and he obviously took pride in it. That attention to meticulous detail said something about his nature. And he seemed to be reserved by that nature. If something had made him run, it wasn’t so bad that he was nervous about it. It really did seem as though he just felt it was no one else’s business.
Okay, then, let’s see how he does with the blasters, Trader thought. He found that Poet had finished his allotted task, and he sent him along to the kid with the screwed-up ordnance. Poet returned a few minutes later, shaking his head. Kid had said to come back tomorrow and hadn’t even bothered looking up. Poet found him hard to fathom.
So how the hell the rest of them would take him—especially someone like Hunn—was an idea that kept Trader amused for the rest of the day.
Next morning, Trader felt that he should go and conclude this business himself. Mulling it over while drinking the night before, he’d almost made up his mind to ask the kid to join them without even waiting to see what his work was like. Hell, he could see that from everyone in this rotted ville. The only real question was how the kid would fit in. He’d either fit or fuck off pretty damn quick. So scratch that. The real question was whether the kid would want to fit with them.
Only one way to find out.
When Trader arrived at the ramshackle hut in which J.B. had made his home, he found that the kid was ready and waiting for him.
“Sit down,” J.B. said, gesturing to a chair. Trader eyed it warily. It looked like it might collapse under his weight. He very carefully sat. The kid met his eyes, staring at him as though trying to work him out. It was rarely, if at all, that it was this way around, and Trader found it an unnerving experience. “So,” J.B. said finally, “why are you jerking me around?”
“What makes you say that?”
The briefest of smiles—only the vaguest of amusement—flickered across his face as he gestured to the immaculately cleaned and restored blasters that lay on an oilcloth by the table.
“There was nothing wrong with your blasters. Least, there was nothing wrong till you or one of your people tried to mess them up.”
“What makes you say that?” Trader repeated, keeping his voice even.
“Normal wear and tear, stupe assholes misusing ordnance…that’s easy to spot. Just like it was easy to spot that someone had tried to make these blasters looked misused, and to fuck up the most difficult shit to fix. That just doesn’t happen in regular use. Mebbe one in ten, if you’re unlucky. But not every single one.”
Trader grinned. “You got me. I wanted to see how good you were.”
“Why?”
“Because I want you to join us. I don’t know why you’re stuck in this pesthole, and truth is, I don’t care. But I do know this—you’re wasted here. We could do with someone like you.”
“Whoever messed those blasters for you knew what they were doing.”
“True enough,” Trader agreed, “but while they might have been able to put them right, they wouldn’t have known that they’d been deliberately messed with to begin with. That, Mr. Dix, is a true talent. And I could do with true talent. I’ve got the best convoy in these lands, and I got it by keeping my eye open for opportunity. Way I fig ure it, we pick up armament to trade cheap that are fucked up, you fix them and we make a good profit. More than we do now. And with you one of us, we get to have the best armory of any convoy should anyone try to mess with us.”
“And I get?”
“Good jack. I look after my people in other ways, too. You play straight with me, you won’t find a better boss nor baron anywhere. I figure that if I treat my people good, they won’t rip me off or run. Mind, you step out of line and I’ll chill you myself.”
J.B. said nothing for some time, just stared at the man in front of him. Trader felt like the young man was trying to stare deep into his soul, to work him out. It wasn’t pleasant, but it was promising: someone this careful was liable to screw up easily.
Finally, Dix broke his silence. “As long as there’s no more stupe tricks or tests like this one,” he said, indicating the oilcloth of blasters, “then I’m in. It’s about time I got out of this no horse shitheap.”
Trader’s face split in a broad grin. “Reckon you’re about right,” he said simply. “Welcome aboard War Wag One.”
Chapter Three
Chapter Three
The Present
In the moments since Eula had spoken, a silence had spread uncomfortably over the oddly clustered group. On one side stood Eula and the trader. On the other stood the six friends. J.B. was staring at the young woman. The others were dividing their attention between the Armorer and Eula, trying to fathom what ghost had just snaked from J.B.’s past, and how it would affect them.
J.B. was aware that whatever he said next would be of the utmost importance. The armored wag in the distance was linked to the trader—and probably the young woman who was the convoy armorer—by the discreet h
eadsets they wore. Only now, up close, could he see the small stalk of clear plastic housing the mic as it sat in the trader’s beard. Eula’s was a little more obvious. No doubt they were powerful enough to be picking up every word that was said out here, so close were the two sides.
Problem was, he had never seen this young woman in his life, and had no idea who she was. The name meant nothing to him. The face, likewise. If he said as much, how pissed would these two people in front him be? And if they were, then how much would that affect the actions of the armored wag that lay some distance back? Take out these two and take scant cover, and what chance was there of surviving attack? With the mics, was there even the chance of taking that cover before being picked off?
They were outnumbered and unsure whether the supposed enemy actually was the enemy at this moment. The wrong word was all it would take to make the situation explode.
For a man whose way with words veered between minimal and clumsy most of the time, this was a no-win call. But he had to say something. The weight of expectation was upon him. That was a phrase he’d heard Doc mutter in the past, and he had never understood it until now.
“Listen,” he began haltingly, “you say you know me, but I gotta tell you, I don’t recognize your face, and you’re not that old. I mean, I spent a lot of time with these people over the past few years, and you would have been a child, and…”
He could feel the others watch the trader and the woman, could feel the tension as they waited to read body language, the tightening of their posture as they prepared to act.
The trader looked at the woman beside him. She looked, in turn, with a level gaze at J.B.
“Well?” the trader asked.
She shrugged. “He’s right. I remember him, but it was a long time ago, now. I was just a kid, and he wouldn’t have noticed me back then. Always interested in ordnance. People came second. Bet they still do. Got a point, though. Blasters don’t let you down like people do.”
Was it Mildred’s imagination, or did Eula look just a little too hard at John when she said this last? Was there an undertone there that suggested she should be watched, that she should not be trusted?
