Desolation Crossing

by James Axler

  “Well, how the hell else are we going to do it if we don’t want to have those riders smush themselves into the wag’s ass?” Raven demanded.

  “That was my point,” Doc replied mildly. “No one has told you by what levels and over what time scale to decrease your speed. There seems to be no way in which you have an operational structure for this.”

  Ramona sighed. “There you go again, Docky. Making everything more complicated than it has to be. We look at the wag in front and adjust according to what it’s doing. Armand baby just leads the way, and we just let him.”

  Doc said nothing, but his mind was whirring. He was no expert on the etiquette of trading convoy operation: he would be the first to admit that, and gladly. All the same, it struck him that there was something a little lax about the way they seemed to do things, and to place their trust blindly in a man like LaGuerre. Faith in a leader was a good thing. The example of himself and his friends when it came to Ryan Cawdor was the example that leaped out at him. Yet, at the same time, they had a structure to their group. People knew what was expected of them in an emergency.

  That did not seem to exist here, which raised the question of how they had managed to get this far in one piece. And the further question of what would happen to them if a real challenge presented itself.

  Doc itched to share this concern. He suspected that he was not alone in having it. Ryan and Jak would probably be unaware of this as yet, having been so isolated.

  It would be good to have them back aboard, then, for more than just their own need of rest.

  C ODY SAID NOTHING in the second wag. The humiliation of being turfed out of the lead wag just so the guy with glasses could ride with Armand and his piece was still fresh. But he harbored nothing against the glasses guy after that firefight. He had handled it well, and the fact that he had been quick to involve Cody and praise him for his shooting had gone a long way toward soothing those pains.

  The stringy, mean-looking shooter was not a man to harbor finer feelings toward any of his fellows, and in a way he saw no reason why they should stop and endanger themselves for the sake of picking up the bike riders. But—and this was where he prided himself on his ability to be a tactical thinker—he had seen how well they had performed in the firefight, as well. Whoever the fuck these people were that LaGuerre had picked up at Eula’s behest, they were shit hot. And the convoy was low on numbers.

  Cody figured that it was playing one lot of odds off against another to stop and pick the good fighters up on the chance that their skills would be needed again, rather than risk losing them to fatigue because of fear of attack once motion ceased. He knew which ones he’d go for under the circumstances, and they were the same ones that the glasses guy had persuaded LaGuerre to take.

  Suited him. He had no desire to end up chilled for the sake of a few minutes’ delay and lack of motion. Maybe that was all it was, in the end, that made him figure that the glasses guy was right. They shared the same kind of self-preservation instinct.

  “Slow this fucker up, and don’t let that asshole behind crash into us,” he said simply.

  The wag driver nodded and began to decrease speed gradually.

  “WELL, THAT’S ONE FOR THE BOOKS, like they used to say. We’re supposed to be stopping and Armand said right at the beginning that we wouldn’t be, so it must be something real important to make him change his mind. Either that or your friend with the glasses is real persuasive. Mind you, Eula seems to have taken a real shine to him, what with persuading Armand to make Cody ride in the second wag, ’cause he’s been with Armand since the beginning. Hell, even longer than I have, which is saying something, I guess. But then, if it means we pick up your friends from the back of the convoy, then it’s got to be a good thing as far as you’re concerned, right? Still, it’s not like him to change his mind once he’s started on a course of action. We’ve never done a straight run without any kind of stop along the way, of course, so mebbe he’s realized that’s it’s not quite as easy as he thought it would be. I dunno. What do you think?”

  Krysty blinked and looked into Ray’s questioning eyes. The small, almost wizened old man had eyes that sparkled and burned brightly. Part of that was no doubt due to the stimulants that he was popping regularly, and which stopped him nodding out at the wheel. But part of it was his personality, and the chem only brought this out. She wanted to answer him, but she realized that she had zoned out so completely that she had lost the thread of what he was saying.

  “Mebbe,” she said cautiously. “I couldn’t say. You know LaGuerre much better than I do. Mebbe there’s something I don’t know that could account for it.”

  It was about as noncommittal as she could get, and from the look on his face, he realized that she hadn’t been listening.

  “Hell, I know I go on sometimes, but I kinda thought that you’d be interested, seeing as it’s your people that we’re stopping for.”

  “I’m interested in that,” she replied, “it’s just that I don’t know why LaGuerre would want to stop for any other reason than J.B. has persuaded him that it would be a good idea to pick up the bikers rather than run them into the ground and lose that defense.”

  “Okay, so you were listening a little. I know I never stop talking, honey, it’s just that I can’t help it these days. I do it when there’s no one else in the cab, too, y’know, so it’s not just you.”

  Krysty smiled at the old wag jockey. “I know, I figured that one out. And it’s not that I don’t care about LaGuerre—on the contrary, the more any of us know about him the better—it’s just that—”

  “It’s just that it becomes one long drone after a while. I know, honey, I’m only too well aware of what it sounds like. Don’t you fret, you just ignore old Ray for now, as I ain’t really got much else to say. I’ll just slow the container down and let it all come to a halt. And I’ll just play some tunes while I’m doing it, so you don’t have to hear me talk.”

  Despite the words, there was no sign of resentment or sarcasm in the old man’s tone as he turned on the ancient tape player once more. Distorted electric guitars roared out of the speaker, squealing in electric pain before a voice came in again, and his quavery tenor joined in. Something about working on a night shift.

  Krysty let the sound wash over her as the container slowed its progress in direct opposition to the tempo of the music.

  R YAN WAS KEEPING the bike upright only by the carefully balanced forces of motion and his own iron will. He suspected that Jak was more alert and awake than himself because he had seen the albino hunt; and when Jak did this, he seemed to switch into a state of being that was almost beyond the limits of human endurance.

  But Ryan wasn’t like that. He was strong and he had stamina, for sure. The firefight had, however, taken a lot out of him. His limbs felt heavy, and his muscles ached in places they usually didn’t. The posture of spending so long on a bike was beginning to reach areas of his musculature that weren’t often called into use for such prolonged periods. His eyes were also heavy. His vision, already blurred by the dust and grime on the goggles and in the air around him, was further blurred by fatigue, a dark tunnel closing in at the edges. Without comm transmissions, and with the white noise of the wag and bike roar to act as an isolation blanket, he could feel sleep inexorably closing on him. He shook his head to rattle his brain and waken himself, but all it succeeded in doing was unsettle his balance so that he wobbled precariously on the bike. He was still executing the patrol pattern he had established with Jak, but it was doubtful as to whether he was actually observing anything as he completed the circuit.

  So it was that he failed to notice that the convoy was gradually slowing. It was as though he was in his own private hell where nothing existed but the bone-aching fatigue and the monotony of the circuit. It took Jak breaking the circuit and adjusting so that he was riding parallel to Ryan before the one-eyed man realized that something was happening. Even longer before he understood that the convoy was coming to a
halt. With Jak still riding parallel, his red eyes dulled behind the goggles, white hair whipping behind him, Ryan slowed his own machine.

  The sound of the massed engines grew less in volume, dropped in pitch as gears changed. Then, for the first time since the journey had begun, he was able to hear the faint voice of the Armorer in his ear. At first he thought that he might be hallucinating, hearing something that wasn’t there: it was only after a few moments, such were his reactions dulled by fatigue, that he realized he was hearing the comm tech for the first time since the journey had begun.

  “Stay in the center of the blacktop, keep the vantage. Repeat, Ryan, Jak, we’re bringing the convoy to a halt to take you on board so that you can rest up. The wags are slowing gradually. Decrease your own speed. Soon as you can hear this transmission, use the comm mics to respond. They’re open, so all you have to do is speak. When we stop for the transfer, we’re going to stay in the center of the blacktop, to keep vantage. Repeat—”

  Ryan heard Jak’s voice, tinny and distorted in his ear over the sound of the wags and the bikes, still only barely audible.

  “J.B., read you. Ryan almost out, wondering when fuckers give us break.”

  “Almost, but not quite,” Ryan croaked, his own voice sounding alien and distant in his ear. “With Jak on this. Fireblast, I’ll be glad to get some rest.”

  Now aware that the convoy was coming to a halt, Ryan regulated his own speed so that it came in line with that of Jak, and of the rest of the convoy. Within a few hundred yards of contact between the riders and the rest of the convoy being reestablished, the convoy eventually rolled to a halt, the sound of the wag engines dying on the twilight air, being replaced by a silence that was almost as sweet to Ryan and Jak as the still dustbowl air that they could now breathe, untainted by wag fumes, dust and dirt thrown up by the blacktop.

  Krysty and Mildred jumped down from the high cabs of the refrigerated container trucks almost before their engine noise had faded on the air. Both had reason. They wanted to escape their respective wag jockeys as much as they wanted to check on Jak and Ryan. They were beaten to their target by Doc, who had been closer.

  Jak managed to dismount his bike with ease. He looked tired as the goggles were removed to reveal eyes that were redder than Doc had ever seen, but he had flipped over into hunter mode, and was proving once more his ability to run on empty.

  Ryan was finding it harder. He halted the bike, veered to one side, and as he flung his leg across to dismount almost overbalanced, stumbling as it seemed that the weight of the bike would pull it over on top of him. Jak let his machine fall, moving easily across the distance between Ryan and himself to catch the machine before it trapped the one-eyed man.

  Machine secured, Ryan found himself saved from falling by Doc’s spindly yet strong limbs.

  “Easy, my friend,” Doc said softly, “you have come too far to injure yourself merely by falling over.”

  Doc’s good humor was the boost Ryan needed as he righted himself, finding strength from the old man’s gesture.

  “Take a lot more than that to take me out, Doc,” he re plied with as much of a smile as he could muster through his fatigue.

  “Good, for there is much we must discuss, I think,” Doc said in more of an undertone.

  Krysty and Mildred had reached them as Doc’s murmured imperative died away.

  “Shit, Ryan, you look all in. Let me check you,” Mildred said, taking over from Doc and snapping into medic mode, checking the one-eyed man’s remaining orb, as well as his pulse.

  “Thought you’d both have to buy the farm out here, lover, the way this coldheart drives his crew,” Krysty added in a tone as low as Doc’s had been. She had, by now, taken over the role of supporting Ryan while Mildred moved on to check Jak. Not that there was much need. The hardy albino was looking as though he was ready to go again, only the layer of dirt and grime and the redness of the skin around his already blood-hued orbs giving lie to this.

  “Hell of a firefight,” Ryan said shortly, every word seemingly an effort to overcome fatigue, “but it’s been quiet since. Why didn’t he stop?”

  “Fool wanted to do this run nonstop, and when he said that he meant it,” Mildred stated. “Makes you kind of wonder if he lost his other sec men in exactly the way he tells it.”

  “I would venture that nothing that issues from Armand LaGuerre’s lips should be taken as entirely truthful,” Doc muttered darkly. “If one was of a suspicious nature, it would be worth inquiring to one’s self what those sealed containers really held.”

  “And what, mebbe, he’s really going to be doing when we get to our destination,” Krysty added.

  THE ARMORER HAD BEEN on the point of leaving the armored wag and heading back to check on Ryan and Jak when he had heard Doc’s voice come through the comm receiver. He turned, half his attention on the trader and half on wondering if there was a way he could chill the receiver before someone said something that would cause a problem. He’d had every intention of sharing his concerns with his friends, but only when he’d made sure that the comm mics were removed from both Jak and Ryan. The tech was so small that it was easy to forget it was there, especially as the noise of the convoy had rendered it useless for so long.

  What he heard next just proved that he was too late. If Ryan and Jak had been alert enough to realize that their mics were still live, then Mildred and Krysty had just simply forgotten about them.

  The words were damning. J.B. stood in the middle of the wag, watching the impassive faces of both LaGuerre and Eula.

  “Good to know what your people think of me,” LaGuerre said over the relayed conversation, his tone amused. “Of course, they’re only agreeing with what you think, right? And they’ve got a point. I work my people hard, and then we play hard. That’s how we get ahead and stay there. If your people don’t want to take those risks, then you know what the hell you can do. But I’d say neither of us has a choice.”

  J.B. listened, but as he did so his attention was focused on the woman. LaGuerre was a coldheart, but he was also obvious. He had no real guile. Eula was different. She was the one who J.B.—that all of them—had real cause to watch. She had guile in plenty, and the masked motivation to drive it.

  “Go and talk to them, tell them what the hell you want,” LaGuerre continued. “Man, what you gonna do? Stay out in the middle of this pesthole with no transport? Or carry on with me and hope for the best?”

  He was right. Their options were less than zero.

  J.B. turned and left the wag, feeling Eula’s eyes burning into him, making his way to the rear of the convoy. The cabs of the two large containers were empty, their drivers making the most of the opportunity to stretch their legs and piss in peace. The same was true of the crews of the other two wags, taking advantage of downtime that would be brief but welcomed for its unexpected appearance.

  His approach had an urgency that made the others look up. Maybe—just maybe—it would stop anyone else from saying something they would regret. As he drew near, J.B. tapped his cheek. He was greeted by puzzled expressions until Jak reached up to his own face, touching the mic and cursing softly as he realized they had been overheard.

  “Stow the bikes on the rear wag,” J.B. said loudly, indicating that the mics should be removed and stored in the bikes’ saddlebags. There was a silence that fell over them until this was done. And then, stepping away, Ryan said softly, “How much?”

  “Everything. Clear as if you were standing in the wag with us.”

  “Shit.” Mildred spit. “How—”

  “Do not berate yourself, or any of us,” Doc said calmly, “for what is done is done. The question is, what was our trader friend’s reaction?”

  J.B. shook his head. “Bastard wasn’t at all surprised. But that’s okay. He’s not the dangerous one. He wasn’t going to stop, but he’s just a coldheart, and one that’s easy to read. It’s the woman that’s really dangerous. She wants me chilled, I’m sure of it. But in her own time.”


  “Why?” Mildred asked simply.

  “If I knew that, I’d have a better idea of how to handle her,” J.B. said thoughtfully. “It’s not just her and me, though. She’s got something on LaGuerre. Scum like that doesn’t just trust a person like he does her, not unless there’s something in it for them. Mebbe if I could find some way of getting her to open up about where and how she knows me…”

  “Listen up,” Ryan interjected hurriedly. He had seen Eula approaching from the front of the convoy, and knew there was little time. “Be triple careful, J.B. Rest of us be the same. We know what LaGuerre’s capable of, but she’s an unknown quantity. Got to be prepared for all possibilities.”

  J.B. had turned as soon as Ryan interrupted him. The one-eyed man would only do that for a reason, and it was obvious as soon as she caught his eye. He had stepped toward her, partly to block her, and spoke loudly over Ryan’s last words.

  “What’s the hurry? Afraid we’re saying nasty things that might hurt your feelings?” he almost yelled.

  “Nothing you could say could hurt me, John Barrymore. Not anymore. But we’ve got to get moving, so get the riders into the wag, get everyone else back at their posts, and let’s get moving. I don’t want us getting caught because you people want to conspire among yourselves.”

  She turned and ran back to the armored wag, leaving J.B. to puzzle over her first words.

  What had hurt her so badly? And what did it have to do with him?

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Ten

  The Past

  His head hurt. Badly.

  As J.B. opened his eyes—as slowly and carefully as was possible—the slightest hint of light made him want to close them again. The light was like needles in his eyes. Bastard stupe phrase—how did you know what needles in the eyes were like unless some coldheart had plunged them in? In which case, the light wouldn’t mean anything to you anymore.

  Wandering—his mind was wandering, and he needed to concentrate, so he could at least remember where the hell he was.