by James Axler
"They are too powerful. Too many men and too many blasters."
Ryan was at the Trader's elbow. "That's how the world is, Chief. You had it. They come and took it. Now they got it."
"With help we could take it again. The land is for the people. There have been people there for hundreds of years. Navaho and Hopi and our people. You would not send all baron's sec-men into darkness. Send some. Open doors. We will take the rest."
The Trader hesitated and glanced at Ryan, who shook his head. The older man spoke to Slow Eagle. "My war captain thinks like me, Chief. No percentage in it. We stand to lose some good men and women, and we might not get the gas we need. What do we win?"
"Honor."
Ben was standing near them. "Honor," he said. "Who has honor? He that died today. Honor's another word for dying well."
The Trader sighed. "That's about right, Chief. Wish you luck. Take back your ville and I'll gladly come and trade with you."
The Apache looked him in the eyes. "There will be no trade. What we have lost will not ever be won again. I see that."
"Real sorry. But it's getting close to dark and we best get back to the wags. Wasted time visiting the redoubt. Nothing there for us. Nothing at all."
Over to the west, the orange sun was sinking into a bank of dark thunderheads.
Chapter Twenty-Five
ONE TANKER OF GASOLINE had arrived when the two war wags eventually returned to the pale adobe walls of Towse ville.
Baron Carson wasn't particularly interested to hear that they'd located the redoubt. He asked if it held any weapons or any gas. Once he'd learned that the fortress was completely ruined, he completely lost even minimal enthusiasm.
The deal on the gas meant that the fuel tanks of War Wags One and Two were now partly full, but their consumption was enormous, with a poor miles-per-gallon ratio. Carrying all that steel, the wags were the ultimate gas guzzlers.
Carson shrugged his narrow shoulders when the Trader tried to press him about when the rest of the fuel would turn up.
"You can't eat the chicken until the egg's been laid," he drawled. His slitted eyes peeked out at the Trader and his mouth trembled into the beginning of a grin.
"Could wring the chicken's neck soon as look at it," the Trader replied, "if it don't hurry up and squeeze out the rest of the damned eggs."
"Patience is the greatest of human virtues," the baron uttered with a virtuous nod to the sky.
"A .38 through the eyeball settles most arguments."
Alias Carson finally managed his thin lizard smile. "Guess I like the cut of your coat, Trader. Shame you can't stick around here a while longer. Talk gets precious in Towse."
"I'll give till noon, day after tomorrow. Then I start to get angered some," the Trader warned. "No more extensions."
"Your wish is my command, Trader. Or should that be your command is my wish? I always get sort of terminally confused with that old saying. Know what I mean?"
The run-in with the Apaches had only raised a flicker of interest from the baron. But his sec-boss had been a whole lot more excited to hear all about it.
"You chilled their fucking giant?"
Ryan and the Trader had talked to J.B. in a council, and they'd agreed that they'd only give the bones of the confrontation with the Indians and avoid any mention of Ferryman or the request to help them against the baron. Ryan's fight was forced upon them as the price for walking free from the ambush. The sec-man accepted the amended version without any question.
"Got lucky," Ryan said.
"Luck like that you made yourself. It's called 'skill' not 'luck,' Ryan."
"Mebbe."
That evening, the Trader beckoned for Ryan to go walk with him around the perimeter of the ville, and the two men strolled through the warm evening. During the afternoon, the temperature had risen sharply and the wind had dropped. Now, close on ten o'clock, the thermometers were showing better than twenty-five degrees centigrade. The crews had all moved their sleeping bags outside, away from the ovens that the vehicles had become. To economize on fuel, the Trader had ordered power units switched off or down to low.
As they crossed the narrow bridge over the river that foamed through the pueblo, the Trader paused and leaned on the handrail, staring down into the water. He reached into the pocket of his combat jacket and fished out a black cigar.
"If things was different, Ryan, this could be a hell of a good place. Guess it was, once. Now…too much edge. Too much closed doors. Too much not knowing what kinda game's being played."
Ryan nodded. Away to their left, in the adobe block that housed the sec-men, a shuttered window was thrown open, splashing a golden rectangle of light across the square. Someone shouted an obscenity, and the lamp was extinguished. But the shutters remained open and Ryan was conscious that someone was standing there watching them.
"Too many eyes, Trader. Not enough mouths."
"How d'you make Baron Alias Carson?"
"Not like most barons. Doesn't swagger around with a pair of matched .45s in a handtooled Mex rig, but he runs a real tight ville."
"What's he want from us, Ryan? You tell me the answer to that."
He didn't reply immediately, sifting and weighing his feelings, allowing them to meld. "Only two possibilities."
"Yeah?"
"He's straight and the gas'll come. Or not."
"Some came, like he said." The Trader picked at his mouth and spit a shred of tobacco into the tumbling stream.
"Guess you trust him…and carry a loaded blaster."
"How about this woman?"
Ryan watched the far-off pattern of silver lightning playing on the peaks of the distant mountains.
"What about her, Trader?"
"Figure she knows his plans?"
"Could be."
"You just seen her the once?"
"Yeah."
"Why not see her again?"
Ryan laughed. "Now, what does 'see' mean?"
The Trader also laughed, a sudden, harsh barking sound. "I don't care what it means. Just spend some time and talk some with her. See what you can find out."
"Spy?"
"Prefer to say it's a recce in a hostile zone, Ryan."
"How about the baron?"
"Steal food from a man's dish, in front of his face, and he'll likely get angered. Take it from the back shelf of his larder and he won't even notice it's gone."
"I'll be careful."
"Know you will."
They stood together in a companionable silence. Ryan noticed that the window had been closed in the sec-men's headquarters. The lightning was becoming ferociously brilliant.
"One of the women who brings us food said there was big storm brewing," the Trader observed. "She was part Navaho and said she could feel it."
"Could be right. The night doesn't feel good. Too quiet. Too sticky."
The Trader took a last draw on his cigar and flicked the glowing butt into the river, where it vanished silently.
The chance came next morning.
McMurtry wandered over to watch the crews of wags going through their daily ritual of checking and cleaning all blasters under the eyes of J.B. The ville's sec-man was wearing a faded blue sweatshirt with a slogan printed on it that was barely legible—If You Find Me, Can You Tell Me Where I Am?
"How you guys doing?"
Ryan and the Trader were standing together, near the big front wheels of War Wag One. They turned at the approach of the sec-man.
"Doing fine. How's the Harley?"
McMurtry's narrow face brightened. "Real good. Going out on it at noon. Sharona's off on one of her painting gigs. Baron wants two of us with her in case the skins get a taste to pick her off."
"Painting?" the Trader asked. "You mean like making up pictures?"
"Sure. We don't go far. Baron wouldn't let her. Old ranch near the water at Abbyqu."
Ryan glanced around. "Sure wouldn't mind getting out of this damned place for a few hours myself. Think the baron mind if I
came along with you?"
"No. Can you ride a two-wheel?"
"Yeah. The woman ride a two-wheel?"
"Bitch can ride anything." He paused, and the grin broadened. "Or anyone!"
When Ryan went out to join McMurtry, the Trader came with him.
"Don't lose sight of why you're going out with the woman," he said, patting Ryan on the shoulder. "It's a dirty job, my friend, but someone has to do it."
"I'll close my eyes and think about you and the war wags."
The baron came out of his living quarters and joined them as they reached McMurtry by the four motorcycles.
"Understand you'll be joining the art school outing, Cawdor."
"Going along for the ride, baron." The words were no sooner out of his mouth than he wished he'd avoided the word "ride," bearing in mind McMurtry's lewd comment about Sharona Carson.
"There's not been any trouble with Indians up that way for some time, but you all keep your eyes open. Return if there's any suggestion of harm."
Ryan glanced at the machines they'd be riding. McMurtry had his Harley. The other sec-man, called Smitty, was a long-haired, bearded man, carrying forty pounds excess around the guts. His bike was a much-rebuilt Suzuki. Ryan had an antique English Norton, 350 twin, its chrome winking in the patchy sunlight. Sharona Carson had a chopped Harley, which had been converted into a trike with raked sissy bars, and had a small, two wheeled trailer at the rear.
At that moment, the lady herself appeared and posed briefly on the shadowed porch before striding across the patterned sand toward them.
Ryan had once been shown a page from a frail, crackling women's fashion magazine, which had shown a skinny, elegant woman dressed in a bizarre fantasy of how someone imagined pretty Indian girls looked. Sharona Carson seemed to have decked herself out on the basis of something remarkably similar.
Her hair was braided, with tiny beads and semiprecious stones knotted among the strands so that it constantly tinkled. A pair of smoked glasses hid her eyes; a pale lilac scarf was tied around her throat, chosen, Ryan figured, to match her invisible eyes; her jacket of golden leather was unzipped, showing a low-cut blouse of silver satin; the fringed skirt in light cream suede fell just above the knee; soft boots in matching suede, low-heeled, fitted just above the knee.
"Looks a barrel of jack," the Trader whispered in Ryan's ear.
"Dirty job, Trader," Ryan replied.
They set off in convoy. McMurtry was in the lead, with Sharona immediately behind him. Ryan came third, grateful for the goggles and scarf that J.B. had pressed on him. Smitty, his two-wheeler coughing spasmodically, brought up the rear. The highway was straight and clear leading north, but the mountains had disappeared behind towering chem-clouds of purple.
Chapter Twenty-Six
ALL FOUR of the bikes were fitted with heavy-duty ribbed tires for off-trail riding. Every now and then the blacktop was in such poor condition that Ryan was thankful that they possessed them. He enjoyed the ride, in spite of the bouncing and jarring.
And despite having to detour around earth slips or fallen trees or washouts, they still made excellent time. They reached the outskirts of the abandoned, scattered village of Abbyqu in less than two hours.
They were surrounded by outcrops of twisted rock, layered in a dazzling variety of colors, ranging from a soft muted gray to vivid pinks and oranges. Millennia of wind and rain had tormented the cliffs, producing sculptured forms that even Ryan could recognize had their own bizarre beauty.
Smitty's Suzuki began to give more trouble, its coughing growing worse. "Mother's blowing too fucking hot!" the bearded man yelled, holding up a hand. He pulled off to the side of the road near a clump of stunted sycamores.
The others all rolled to a halt. Sharona looked back over her shoulder. "We're nearly at the ruins of the old ghost ranch where I want to do some painting. Mac, you stay with Smitty and get his hog fixed up. Me and the outlander'll go up the trail and stop there."
McMurtry wasn't all that happy about her suggestion. "Best we stick together."
"No. Time's wasting."
"Baron said—"
"I know what he said, Mac. But we're so close now."
Ryan, standing astride the big Norton, was just glad to have the weight off his backside for a few blissful minutes.
"Shouldn't take more than a half hour for her to cool down some," Smitty said, getting off the two-wheel wag and kicking the stand into place.
"Come on, Mac. We all got blasters. Any sign of trouble and I'll shoot off a couple of rounds, and you can come a'running."
The sec-man was clearly unhappy at the suggestion, but he was also clearly frightened of the baron's , wife.
"Sure."
"Come on, Ryan," Sharona said. "See you two in a while."
"Take care," McMurtry called.
Just for a moment Ryan wondered whether the parting shout was directed at Sharona or both of them. Or just him.
The cliffs rose gently to their left. The air was stifling, but there was now a breath of roasting breeze coming from the northeast, where the sky was looming black over the Sangre de Cristo range.
Sharona throttled back as the tumbled ruins of an old ranch appeared close ahead of them. A windmill, its tower grotesquely rusted, shuddered and creaked in the rising wind. Dry as ancient bones, the fallen remnants of stock fences lay scattered everywhere. The roof had long gone off the adobe house, but the walls were still secure. At one end there was a solid extension, looking newer, with a workmanlike roof still in place.
It was a beautiful and picturesque place, and Ryan found his imagination stirred by it, wondering for a passing moment what life must have been like in such an idyllic location before the long winters took the land by the throat.
The two engines both cut at once, and silence came flooding in. But it wasn't a total silence. Ryan could hear the squeaking of the weather vane, the rising breeze stirring the top branches of the live oaks where the corral had been and the river, moving determinedly along on its own private business.
Sharona swung off her chopped trike and stretched her arms high above her head. "My sweet Lord," she moaned, "but I'm stiffer than a grizzly's dick."
Ryan also dismounted the Norton, relieved at the peace. "Want me to give you a hand with that painting stuff?" he asked.
"No, Ryan. I want you to give me some good loving with that pork mortar you got tucked into your pants. And I mean now!"
There was no time to be wasted.
"We got a half hour, tops. Then them two lamebrain dickheads'll be riding in to protect the baron's possessions," she said. "Inside. No, not the main house. That's long fucked. The storeroom. There's a mattress and some emergency rations there."
Ryan rode with it. He consoled himself with the thought that he was, after all, merely obeying the orders of the Trader.
Sharona left the door ajar so they could listen for the approach of the bikes, even though the fast-rising wind was already drowning out the sound of the river. As they went inside, Ryan caught a last glimpse of the sky to the northwest, and the sight made him hesitate.
"What's wrong?"
"That storm. Coming this way faster'n a one-legged man in a forest fire."
Sharona, her dark glasses already in her pocket, stepped back outside to look where he was pointing. "Yeah," she said. "It'll blow over."
"I don't know. Those clouds are boiling. Look at them. I never seen…"
The massive nukings of the last and final war had not only had a terrible effect upon the face of the planet, it had permanently upset the balance of the world's climate.
Now there were storms throughout the American continent that were more devastating than any prior to day-dark. Ryan had experienced many of them during his life, but he'd never seen a sky quite like the one that was menacing them now.
Far above the cloud layers was a line of startlingly vivid silver, and this seemed to be giving birth to a constant cascade of lightning, great spears and sheets of fork
ed lace that dazzled the darkness. It was impossible to make out where sky and mountains were conjoined, because of boiling dust. The clouds themselves were mainly purple to black, but they were streaked with fiery crimson and slashes of a wicked green. Despite the wind, they could both hear the sound of almost continuous rolls of thunder.
"Told you. It'll blow over. Come on, lover. Let's get inside and comfortable."
She turned to him, standing so close that he was enveloped in the musky scent of her perfume, combined with the feral odor of her sweat. Sharona reached out and allowed her fingers to brush gently across the front of his pants.
"Well, I'm glad some part of you wants to get inside."
Ryan decided that afternoon that he really didn't like having the initiative taken away from him during lovemaking. It was good and exciting to find a woman who was as enthusiastic as Sharona Carson, but she only really wanted it on her terms, her way, when and how she wanted it.
The first time was standing up, her beaded hair rattling against the adobe wall behind her. There wasn't any tenderness or any foreplay. She simply dropped her panties in the dirt and quickly unzipped Ryan's pants, cool fingers reaching hotly for him.
The second time was nearly as quick.
Sharona was so hot to boogie that Ryan barely managed to reach his own climax before she was hustling him for seconds.
"Sit down, lover. Quick, before those two bastards come 'n catch us."
She pulled his trousers to his ankles, waiting impatiently while he sat down, back against the wall. Sharona stood astride him, the heels of her suede boots easing his legs farther apart. The hem of her short skirt was only inches away from his eyes, and for a moment he considered leaning forward and using his tongue, but she—
"Keep still and let me move," Sharona hissed as she lowered herself onto him, impaling herself with a gasp of pleasure on his swollen maleness. Her gold leather jacket was open, and she shrugged it off so that he could admire the way her nipples thrust hard at the silver satin of the tight blouse.
"Oh, yeah," she moaned, rising and falling, eyes squeezed shut as she lost herself in her own pleasure.
