by James Axler
WHILE LAG UERRE WAS BEING tended to by Mildred, and the wag was being hauled out of the pit, J.B. and Eula took some downtime. Everyone else was engaged in either wag maintenance or attempting to scavenge the remains of the ville, so they were able to rest up for a few precious moments with no one to ask why they weren’t engaged on another task.
J.B. wasn’t used to the idea of doing nothing, and he could see from the way that she was on edge, that Eula felt the same way.
“Didn’t think that you’d want to help me get out last night,” he said hesitantly. “Let alone stop me getting chilled. I owe you for that.”
“I might hold you to that,” she said. There was a silence more of exhaustion than anything else before she added: “LaGuerre has something in mind for you, y’know.”
J.B. frowned. “Like what?”
“When we get to Jenningsville. There’s a reason he agreed to take this run, and it’s not because of the bonus he’s getting for a quick delivery. That’s good, but it ain’t enough for the coldheart bastard to risk his own skin like he’s been doing. Ours, sure. He’d have no worries about doing that, but not his own. So it’s got to be big.”
“And he needs me? Us?”
She nodded. “Look, I’ve got my own reasons for being interested in tracking you people down. You can help me get to the bottom of something in my past, and—”
“You mean us? Or just me?”
“Mostly you,” she said, fixing him with a level gaze. “But you’re not what I thought you’d be. Still, you hold the key.”
“But how—”
“There’ll be time enough for that. You gotta trust me for now. If it was bad shit, I would have been happy to let you be chilled by that mutie bitch last night. No, it’s complicated, but this isn’t the time.”
“Why not?”
“Because whatever LaGuerre has planned is imminent. We’re not far from Jenningsville—another day, mebbe, and we’ll reach the pesthole. That’s when he’ll tell me what he wants.”
“You don’t know?” J.B. watched her face as she shook her head. She was either one hell of a liar, or the trader really hadn’t told her. “I thought he told you everything,” J.B. continued. “Most of the people in this convoy think that you and him are tight.”
She shook her head once more. “Sure they do. Wrong, but I can see why. He knows that I know things. Things about you people. He’s wanted you for his reason, just like I have for mine. That’s kinda tied us together. But once we get to Jenningsville, that’s where it ends. You do what he wants, it goes off, and he rides away a rich, rich man. It don’t go off, and you buy the farm, not him. You’re new, hired hands. He can plead ignorance, and he’s playing odds. He thinks he can charm and talk his way out of it. And he’s right, mostly ’cause he will have delivered what no one else has, and that makes him someone to be took care of, not just chilled.”
“LaGuerre’s a smart boy,” J.B. mused. “But he’s reckoned without you saying this, right?”
“He doesn’t know how I’ve changed my attitude since I’ve actually worked with you people. He thinks he knows me, but he doesn’t. No one does. That’s how I’ve survived so long. He thinks because I’m pussy, and not a man, he understands me. Led by his dick so much.”
“So what do you suggest we do? I could get Ryan and the others, but that would look kinda suspicious, and right now…”
She sucked her teeth. “No, you do that and it could blow everything. Right now, we’re in the middle of nowhere. We get to the ville, could be that what he has planned could be to our advantage. I don’t want to stop it, I just want you to be aware of it. He’s planning something, and it involves you. Just be ready.”
J.B. nodded. He was uneasy about keeping quiet. Mildred, Ryan, Jak, Doc—this concerned them all. But what was there to tell them? At the moment, Eula knew nothing. So, by extension, neither did the Armorer. And pulling everyone together in an open situation such as this would do nothing more than cause suspicion.
She was right, as far as he could judge. Let her try to find out from the treacherous LaGuerre. Meanwhile, when they reached Jenningsville, he would find a way of alerting his friends without attracting undue attention.
“I’m trusting you, here,” he said to her. “I’ll wait, but if it comes to the point where it puts any of us in any danger other than we’d usually expect…”
“I wouldn’t expect anything else from you,” Eula said, leveling a gaze at him. “Nothing else at all.”
Their conversation was cut short by the approach of Krysty and Ramona.
“J.B., what the hell are you doing sitting on your ass when there’s so much to be done?” Krysty asked in perplexed tones. “That’s not like you.”
“Hell, hon, you ask me they ain’t so much sitting on their asses as about to give them some exposure.” Ramona cackled. “You should find a wag, else you’ll get sunburn on your butts out here,” she added with a wheezing laugh.
Eula shot the dark woman a venomous look, got up and walked off.
“Well, she sure got something up her ass, you know what I’m saying?” Ramona mused as she watched her go.
“You really don’t like her, do you?” Krysty asked.
“No,” Ramona replied bluntly. “There’s something ’bout that girl that sure ain’t right. You should stick with the sister, four-eyes,” she addressed to the Armorer. “That one’ll shoot you in the back soon as go down on you. Probably one for the other.”
J.B. watched Eula go. Should he tell Krysty? Would he have the chance with Ramona standing there?
“C’mon, dickweed, they’ve just hauled Armand’s pride and joy—and I don’t mean the one on his pants—out the hole. We gotta clean that fucker up and get poor Zarir in the ground.”
Ramona led Krysty away, beckoning to the Armorer to follow.
The moment had passed.
How important would that prove to be?
THERE WERE THINGS that needed to be done before the convoy was finally in a position to move.
The first was the removal of Zarir’s body from the driving seat of the armored wag. Rigor had set in, and it was a grimly humorous sight to behold as he was removed from the rear of the wag in a semisitting, semislumped position, carried out at an absurd angle and placed on the ground.
The men of the convoy had already begun to dig a grave for him. It was time-consuming, and LaGuerre moaned briefly about the delay, but despite the fact that their chilled were usually left to rot and provide carrion, there was something about the manner in which he had bought the farm that caused all of them to take pause and decide that a burial was right.
They dug down three feet, figuring that this would be enough to prevent his being dug up, although the position of his set limbs meant that he was not, in places, as deep as they would have wished. Short of breaking the rigor-stiffened limbs, there was little they could do. After they had lowered him in, Cody said a few brief words. Haltingly, he said all there was to say—none of them had known the silent wag jockey, but as LaGuerre’s pilot he was one of them. And the way in which he had bought the farm seemed, somehow, stupe.
After he had been covered, the earth mounding up to mark the spot where he lay, they left him and returned to the armored wag.
Now, in a situation that benefited more the living, all of them felt that they could be more proactive.
The wag needed hosing down, to get rid of the stench of blood, flesh and decay that now filled it. Water was at a premium, so sand blasters were used on the rear doors to scour the outside of the vehicle. The inside was scrubbed. It took a team of six several hours in the rising heat to remove as much of the stench as was possible.
While this was taking place, repairs had to be made to the front of the wag. Ryan and J.B. rigged up a tent-cover construction that kept as much of the increasing heat as was possible off the front of vehicle, enabling the mechanics to work.
There were a few problems to overcome. First, despite the reinforced armoring
at the front of the wag, the force with which it had struck the bottom of the pit, driving it into the earth, had caused the front engine cab to crumple. There was no real damage done to the engine, as the strength of the armoring had prevented any impact trauma. But the ventilation ducts that enabled the engine to cool, and maintained a flow of air around the working sections of the wag, had been dented and closed up by the impact. While members of the convoy worked to open these up, and straighten dented armoring that was resistant to the kinds of force they were able to use, those with the greatest engineering skills both checked and maintained the engine, and paid attention to the interior workings of the wag.
The steering column had maintained some damage. The actual column itself was sturdy enough to remain stable under the impact, but the force with which it had struck the floor of the pit, combined with the force with which Zarir’s chest cavity had struck it before giving way, meant that some of the circuitry and wiring within had sustained minor damage. And the wheel itself had buckled, the bent metal no longer true to the pressures put on it in the course of use.
Ray took this task upon himself. Mildred assisted him, as he insisted that the repair was like a medical operation. It was a conceit that she was prepared to allow him until she saw the delicacy with which he carried out the repairs. Wires and circuits were manipulated, reconnected and replaced with pieces plundered from the old comp boards in other parts of the wag. Ray’s fingers moved with a grace and deftness of touch that she would not have believed possible.
When he had finished, and his face had lit up like the control panel when he tested the steering and dash controls to find them in fully restored order, Mildred was inclined not so much to humor him as to wholeheartedly agree that he had shown a surgeon’s precision in some of his work.
Finally, the armored wag was ready to move on. It looked battered, and LaGuerre complained about the smell as he shuffled in through the rear door, but it was roadworthy and showed, all things considering, little in the way of damage.
By this time, the sun was beginning to lower in the sky. It had taken them all day to remove the wag from the pit and make it roadworthy again. But finally they were able to continue on the journey. Cody took Zarir’s place at the wheel, easing himself into driver’s position, adjusting the seat until it suited his smaller frame. Then the convoy moved out, heading back toward the road, with all personnel in the positions they had assumed prior to the firefight.
But other things had changed. The atmosphere between the Armorer and Eula was easier, which confused LaGuerre as he sat glowering at them. And J.B.’s attitude to the trader had changed. Before, he had been confused as to whether the man was triple stupe or cunning.
Now, he just had animal wariness. He was waiting.
And he was ready.
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Sixteen
Jenningsville lay roughly eight miles from where they reentered the blacktop. It took them some time to navigate their way back, the tracks left the previous night by the pack and by the convoy having already been almost eradicated by the ever-present, low-level swirling winds of the dustbowl. J.B. directed Cody, taking bearings and guiding them. Cody, for his part, adapted to the controls of the armored wag with ease, and by the time they hit the road once more, it was as though he had been piloting the vehicle since they had originally set out.
The ribbon, broken by time and the environment, was nonetheless consistent enough to present a black line to the horizon that the convoy settled easily into following. The wags were lined up as before, with Jak remaining in the second wag, and Ryan in the rear with Doc, Raven and Ramona. LaGuerre had been too preoccupied—both by his injuries and by the shift in atmosphere between J.B., Eula and himself—to insist that the motorbikes be taken from their secured positions on the rear of the wags and brought back into action.
Despite the fact that it was a battered and bruised convoy, with no sec at the rear, the procession made good time. Cody was less inclined to put pedal to the metal than Zarir had been, but considering where that had got them previously, no one was going to complain about that.
Except LaGuerre. He grumbled that his bonus would be cut because the convoy would be a day later than his estimated completion time. J.B. questioned him about the estimated time, and the time usually taken, and found for the first time that LaGuerre had pushed them to a schedule four days ahead of the usual run time.
“So you lose a quarter of the bonus?” he concluded. “You’re sitting there giving us shit about losing part of the jack when you’re still alive and collecting three-quarters? Selfish bastard. You could have bought the farm because you weren’t straight with me. We could all have bought the farm.”
LaGuerre was incensed. This was his convoy, and the outsider was giving him shit? He was about to say that the jack would be split among the convoy so they were all losing out, but that was only partly true, as he would keep the majority, and J.B. would know that. He was about to say that he had hired them to stop this kind of shit happening, to stop them being attacked, but he knew J.B. would only point out—rightly and possibly forcefully—that they were still alive and on the road, with a minimum of casualties and a whole lot of chilling behind them.
Frankly, LaGuerre felt that he was only tenuously in command of his convoy now, and that if he said too much then he would join those whose blood had been spilled. So he didn’t make any of the answers that sprang readily to his lips, settling instead into a sulky silence as the ribbon of the road unfurled in front of them, taking them—thankfully, as far as he was concerned—to their destina tion. He just wanted this to be done. He wished he had never set eyes on J. B. Dix and the people who traveled with him.
If the Armorer had known that those thoughts were running through the trader’s head, he would have been on triple red. As it was, he put the lapse into silence as nothing more than sulking, and returned to his task of ensuring that the remainder of the convoy’s journey was smooth.
DOC AND R YAN WERE using the respite of the uneven journey to try to discover a little more about the ville to which they were headed. It was a fruitless task, as it seemed that their traveling companions were as much in ignorance as they were themselves.
“Hon, we ain’t never really headed out this far before,” Ramona murmured distractedly as she kept her eyes on the road ahead and the rear of the refrigerated wag that rose above them through the cloud of dust it raised. “The only thing I could tell you is what I heard from others. And we all know how reliable that kinda talk is, right?”
Doc smiled wryly. “Careless talk costs lives, and loose lips sink ships, I assume you mean by that.”
“Uh, sure,” Ramona replied, resisting the temptation to cast a bemused glance over her shoulder.
Raven looked at Ryan from her position on the bunk and raised an eyebrow, gesturing to her temple with a forefinger. Ryan grinned and shrugged. He knew Doc had seen her, but knew equally that the old man didn’t care. For Ryan had heard Doc use the expressions before, and knew that they were phrases he had picked up on his travels through time. They had once had meaning, and from the context in which Doc always used them, Ryan had worked out what they meant. But to explain this to Raven and Ramona would only make them look at him in the same way they regarded Doc.
“So you are saying, in effect, that we know little about the place we are about to visit?” Doc continued. “Your glorious leader, having struck a deal with people he has never dealt with before, expects them to pay up without any problems? Or is that, perhaps, why he wanted ourselves along for the ride?”
“Y’know, you could be right about that last bit,” Raven mused. “After all, Armand and Eula were together on wanting you with us ’cause of what they’d heard. And you ain’t proved them wrong so far.”
“Very gracious of you to say so,” Doc demurred, “but on the other hand, you have not exactly seemed to be helpless when trouble has arisen. Which suggests to me—and I don’t know what it says to you, R
yan, dear boy—that LaGuerre does not, how shall we say, trust his buyers.”
“I wouldn’t if I was him,” Ryan mused. “When we rode with Trader, we never did a deal as big as this with a ville we hadn’t dealt with in a smaller way before. Trader would always sound out anyone he could find on what the setup of a ville was, and would only deal small-time the first time around. It’s the only really safe way to get a measure of who you’re dealing with…at least, as much of a measure as you can.”
“Makes sense to me,” Raven said, yawning. She lay back on the bunk. “And I gotta say, Armand usually gives us a better briefing at the start of a run than he did this time around. Mind, we didn’t exactly get this the usual way.”
Ryan and Doc exchanged glances. That was something that they had suspected for a long while.
“Raven, hon, I think you’re letting that mouth of yours run away with you, now that you can’t fill it any other way,” Ramona cautioned. “These are good folks, but we don’t need to tell them all our business, right?”
“I do not think you have to, dear lady,” Doc said kindly. “It does not take much imagination to put two and two together and come up with the square. Your resourceful leader hijacked another convoy, who may perhaps have dealt with this ville before. Presumably his intel told him of the fee and the bonuses, and so he now plans to collect a fee agreed with someone else. Tell me, is this a common practice for you?”
Ramona sighed. “Not exactly. He does this when times are hard, and just lately—”
“So we’re carrying someone else’s goods to someone else’s buyer, and we’re supposed to just collect like nothing’s going to happen?” Ryan sighed. “Shit’s gonna hit just like the sun always rises, and we’re supposed to be ready for it when no one’s thought to mention this?”
“Armand does things his own way, and when you travel with him, you just kinda…get used to it, I guess.” Ramona shrugged.
Ryan felt an anger build within him. His people were being put into a dangerous situation. That was nothing new. But this time they were being put in a dangerous place that they couldn’t possibly have known was dangerous. As with the attack from the pack, Ryan felt that his people were being forced to do their job with blasters on safety and one arm tied behind.
