Wasteland Blues

by Scott Christian Carr

  “That’s right,” said Leggy. “Weapons were Rasham’s specialty. That’s how he got rich. Folks would trade just about anything for a firearm. I remember one time, a small band of people holed up in a compound traded a thirteen-year-old girl for two rifles and ten bullets.

  “I made at least a dozen runs into the Wasteland to root through old army bases—twice as lead scout. You boys keep that in mind after we cross the mountains. If you listen to me, and we have some luck, we’ll make it through.”

  “Will we pass any of these bases on the way?” asked Derek.

  “Maybe,” said Leggy casually. “But I don’t suspect there’s much left these days.”

  “Can’t hurt to look,” said Derek. “Can it?”

  Leggy shrugged.

  “How come you stopped runnin’ the Wasteland?” asked John.

  “Things got hairy,” said Leggy, sucking on the pipe. “A few other recovery gangs found out about the bases, started running their own scavenging operations. Now you got armed competitors in addition to the bugs, muties, and the desert.”

  Leggy leaned back into his blanket. “Like I told you boys, there’s at least a hunnerd easier ways to make a living. I liked working for Rasham, but not enough to get killed for him. Bugs and muties is one thing. Armed men is entirely another. That’s about the time I decided to seek employment elsewhere.”

  “Doin’ what?” asked John.

  “Shit, son, you want to hear me jaw all night?” laughed Leggy.

  John shrugged.

  “Maybe another time,” said Leggy. “I’ve heard my own voice enough for one night. I’m turnin’ in.”

  With that, Leggy extinguished his pipe, wrapped himself in his bedroll, and was soon snoring.

  The others followed his lead, not bothering to set a watch. They figured that the Paladins would take care of it.

  Chapter Ten

  The troop rolled on toward Moses Springs. As night fell, John sat at the front of the wagon. The motorcycles had lights on them, white in front and red in back, and he’d spent hours watching the desert flit past in the wash of their glare. The motorcycle men had completely captivated his imagination, and he was determined to take in as much of them as he could. He admired their casual boldness, the surety with which they moved, and the easy confidence that seemed to course through them, even as they sat upright on their machines, as still as statues but moving faster than jackrabbits. To think that Leggy—Nicodemus—had once been one of them, a captain no less. The old coot had risen considerably in John’s estimation.

  Ever since John was a boy he’d known Leggy only as a foulmouthed drunk, mocked by children and spurned by adults. In John’s mind, it was hard to imagine that that wasn’t all Leggy had ever been. But now these bits and pieces of his past emerged like old bones in the sand, and the shape they made spoke of hidden capabilities and marvelous experience.

  John would not have believed a word of Leggy’s talk about being a scout, about traipsing the Wasteland not once, but several times, if the legless alcoholic told his stories back in San Muyamo. Yet here was proof, in metal and leather and human flesh, not twenty yards ahead. The big man, Silas, had called Leggy a teacher, a leader. And John wasn’t about to call Silas a liar, even without the guns and the strength he so flagrantly possessed. Something in Silas’s grim countenance spoke that this was a man who told it like it was. Whatever his sins might be, deception wasn’t one of them.

  John could tell Derek didn’t like the Paladins. The appearance of the motorcycle men had added some steel to Leggy, and that meant Derek’s authority would no longer go unchallenged. Derek glared at the driving men rolling ever forward into the desert night. John wondered if Derek was plotting something, a way to strike down the Paladins. Teddy could probably take one of them, but not two, and not when they had guns. Even Teddy couldn’t survive a shotgun blast.

  John offered a silent prayer that the Paladins would let them on their way soon, before Derek’s anger stirred up something more than resentment.

  ***

  At full dark, John noticed campfires in the distance. He motioned to Derek, who stuck his head out of the tent.

  “Shit,” he said. He disappeared, and reappeared a moment later, Raina firmly in tow, Derek’s hand on the scruff of her neck.

  “Them your people?” asked Derek, pointing her toward the campfires.

  “Yes,” said Raina. “Our settlement is just outside the town.”

  Derek pursed his lips. “Hey, old man,” he shouted back inside the tent. “If there’s trouble, which side are your boys gonna be on?”

  Leggy inched himself forward and surveyed the scene. Then he grinned. “If you’re thinkin’ an ambush, I expect they’ll be on my side.”

  Derek scowled.

  “Your side?” asked John.

  “Don’t worry, son,” said Leggy, patting John’s shoulder. “Just stay close to me. But I wouldn’t worry too much. I ’spect the Bedouins will have some questions, but I’m sure this pretty lady here is as good as her word, yes?”

  “Of course,” said Raina. “I’ve already pledged your safe passage.”

  “Still though,” said Leggy, eyeing the distant fires, “it won’t hurt to have Silas and Corrin around. Not one bit.” He winked at Derek.

  ***

  They hit the outskirts of the Bedouin camp at speed. Tented wagons were drawn up in circles around bright cookfires. Shadowy faces peered out of the night at the strange scene—Paladins carting a battered Bedouin wagon home.

  Tariq poked his head from the tent and began to shout happily in his own language. Soon young boys were chasing the wagon, shouting in return. Then the motorcycles began to slow.

  “Get on that brake, quick,” ordered Leggy as the wagon caught up to the slowing motorcycles. “Shit! Pay attention!”

  Derek slid into the wagon seat next to John, clutched a wooden lever and eased it forward. The caravan rolled to a halt.

  The glare of the motorcycles’ headlights starkly illuminated a crowd of robed figures. Some of the group bore spears, others short clubs. John thought he might’ve caught a glimpse of an old rifle among the robes of one of the men, the rusty barrel pointed at the ground…for now.

  Then one Bedouin, the oldest of the group—a frail, wrinkled man with weathered eyes, wispy hair and sunbaked skin—stepped forward. He raised a hand. Silas regarded the dry, cracked skin of his palm and returned the gesture.

  “What is this riddle?” asked the Bedouin elder, studying the spectacle of the wagon. “That one of our wagons should return to us in such a fashion? I see by the markings that this is the train of the family Caliph.” The old man turned to regard Raina and her son. “Where is your husband? Or your father or brothers?”

  “Killed,” said Raina, stepping down from wagon, Tariq in tow. She did not meet the elder’s eyes. “There was a nest before Storum’s Basin. Bugs killed all my kinsmen.”

  A murmur of horror trilled through the crowd.

  “How is it that you have lived?” asked the elder.

  “These men,” she said, gesturing to the group in the caravan. “They chased off the bugs before they found me and my son. And they burned the nest.”

  Figures crept from the shadows toward them. Derek eased the knife from his sheath.

  “Steady,” whispered Leggy. “They ain’t done nothin’ yet.”

  “Might be too late when they do,” said Derek, but he left his knife undrawn.

  Raina now stood before the men who had blocked the road. She spoke to them quickly, in her own tongue.

  John held his breath. He squeezed his thighs together, afraid he might wet himself. He could see that the night was full of robed figures, lurking in the shadows all around them. Surrounding them. They could swarm the wagon in seconds, Paladins or no, and spirit them al
l away into the inky darkness of their camp. Their fate rested with Raina now.

  John wished Derek hadn’t been so cruel to her since that day they discovered the ruins of the caravan. Elder Hale had told terrible stories about what the Godless Bedouins did to those who trespassed against them. John didn’t want to wake in the Heavenly Kingdom to find that his pecker had been cut off and stuffed in his mouth—surely the Lord could understand that and see fit to be merciful. John crossed his legs tighter, clenched his teeth, and waited.

  ***

  The discussion lasted two, maybe three minutes. Several men spoke to Raina, questioning her closely. The Paladins sat, unmoving, their machines idling, headlights burning a path in the darkness toward the gate to the town. The steady rumble of the bikes’ engines cut into the babble of the Bedouins.

  Then three men approached the wagon, Raina following. They stopped several feet away and looked closely at the travelers. Derek’s body was rigid. If they moved he would spring, taking as many as he could with his knife before they brought him down, screaming all the while for Teddy to kill as many as he could.

  The three men did move, but slowly. They bent, first one knee, and then a second, then bowed until their foreheads touched the dust. They put their faces in the dirt three times, then stood. The leader spoke.

  “This woman says you have been rewarded with goods from the caravan. But what you have done cannot be measured in goods. Her debt to you is too great for any one person to pay. Therefore, the whole people must pay.”

  He reached into his robe and tore four strips of cloth from an intricately woven undergarment. “This is the token of the house of Caliph. If you show it to any of our people, on this side of the mountain or the other, they will come to your aid. So say I, Amit, of the house of Caliph.”

  He tied a strip around each of their wrists, and then embraced them one by one. The figures who had been surrounding them had melted back into the darkness. Only Amit, Raina, and Tariq stood before them.

  “Peace,” said Raina, bowing to them.

  “Bye Teddy,” said Tariq. And then they too stepped into the darkness, and were gone.

  The Paladins killed their engines, dismounted, and walked the bikes over to the travelers.

  “Now what?” asked Derek.

  John sidled away to relieve himself into the darkness at the side of the road.

  “Let’s get our gear out of the wagon and get into town,” said Leggy.

  “How far is it?” asked Derek.

  “Not far,” said Silas. “Maybe a mile. We’ll ride ahead and tell the gatekeepers you’re coming.”

  The motorcycles roared to life and flew on before them. The travelers hitched their gear on their backs. Teddy took up his old station behind Leggy’s chair. They pushed forward.

  “Shit,” said Derek after they’d gone a few hundred yards. “All that trouble and what do we get out of it? A smelly rag from some gypsy’s underwear. I was expecting serious loot.”

  “No, Der Der. This is a good present,” said Teddy. “We got a family again.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Moses Springs sat nestled among the foothills at the base of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. The outskirts of the town supported stingy groves of apricot trees, date palms, and a few ranches that herded handfuls of bony cattle.

  Like Sanger, Moses Springs was a gated town and a center of trade and commerce for a surrounding web of homesteads and small villages. At night it buttoned itself up tight against the perils of the desert.

  The Paladins were waiting for them at the gates, which were constructed from thick wooden posts on creaking metal hinges. A quartet of guards eyed the travelers curiously. Their party didn’t seem like much, certainly not enough to warrant the attention of the Paladins, but there it was.

  The travelers passed through the gates, which swung quietly shut behind them. The Paladins led them a short way to a two-story wooden building, their headquarters and barracks. Derek noticed a man patrolling the roof of the Paladins’ home. Moonlight glinted off a rifle barrel.

  “Home sweet home,” said Silas. “We can give you supper and a few cots, if that’ll suit.”

  “Sure will.” Leggy smiled. “We been sleepin’ out for quite a bit. Won’t mind a roof over my head for a night.”

  They came into a large common room warmed by a wood stove. A rough-hewn table stood in the middle of the floor. The good smell of cooking meat came from a room on their left. On the right was a cloakroom.

  “Stow your gear in there,” said Silas, “then go ’round back and have a wash. I’ll see what Champer has on the pot.”

  They tucked their bags into large cubbies and found a door leading outside to a hand pump. Teddy worked the pump while the others soaked their heads and washed the road grime from their hands and faces. The water smelled slightly of sulphur and was metallic-tasting, but it flushed the road dust from their mouths and faces. They came back to the common room dripping a bit but feeling refreshed.

  “You recognize this place?” asked Derek, his eyes shifting right and left, getting the layout of the rooms.

  “Nah,” said Leggy. “Back when I was with the Paladins, we operated out of an old barn in the hills. Looks like these fellows are doin’ a bit better.”

  At that moment a large, red-faced man tramped into the common room from what must have been the kitchen. His hair was pulled back in a greasy kerchief and he was decked out in sweat-stained, homespun wool. One meaty arm strangled a wide-mouthed cook pot, the other balanced a tray of bowls, spoons, and a fresh-baked loaf of sourdough.

  “If you fuckers weren’t friends of Silas I’d give you a kick in the ass,” he said. “I just washed every goddamn dish and plate in this place. Supper’s at six o’clock, not half past midnight. But Silas says I gotta feed ya. Well sit down, goddamnit.”

  The group approached the table sheepishly. The red-faced man slopped thick stew into the bowls with great sweeps of his arm, nearly knocking John in the face with his elbow as he did so. Silas and Corrin joined them at the table.

  “Eat up, but don’t blame me if you get nightmares or gotta use the shithouse at two a.m.,” said the man. He dropped the cook pot on the table and disappeared again.

  The group fell to eating without much talk. The stew was a concoction of meat, potatoes, beans, and stringy carrots in a thick gravy. They ate to the bottom of the first bowl and sopped up the juices with the bread, then ladled in more stew. The fat man appeared with another tray, this one sporting mugs full of drink.

  Leggy sipped his. His eyes widened. “Sweet Jesus, I’ll be damned if that’s a beer.”

  “Sure is,” said Silas. “Champer got his own works out back and kegs in the root cellar. You work miracles with a little hops and barley, don’t you, Champ?”

  “And I could work a hundred more if you bug humpers just kept to the shittin’ schedule and let a man get some goddamn work done.”

  Silas grinned. “Champer doesn’t need firewood to cook. He curses so hot he can sizzle a horse-steak just by talkin’ to it.”

  “Bah,” muttered Champer, disappearing into the kitchen again.

  ***

  When they finished eating, Silas motioned to the fireplace at the far end of the hall. “You can bunk down there, if you don’t mind. All the rooms upstairs are filled. We got two spare cots, so you’ll have to draw straws to see who gets the floor.”

  Leggy and Teddy won the draw. Silas and Corrin went off to bring in the cots. John stacked the dirty bowls and empty mugs onto the tray and carried them into the kitchen, which was large and spotless. Champer was in the corner, stacking firewood for his stove.

  “Can we help you clean up?” asked John sheepishly.

  “Help? How’s a rabbit turd like you gonna help? Just get the fuck out of my kitchen. Breakfast’s at six
a.m. Beans, bacon, and biscuits. If you sleep through it, you can ask your momma for a bag of farts. Now piss off.”

  John fled.

  They bedded down next to the fireplace, which was fading to embers. Teddy, far too large for the cot offered him, surrendered it to Derek. Corrin had disappeared, but Silas sat with them a bit.

  “Nicodemus says you’re going over the mountains and into the Wasteland. Can’t say I’m thrilled with the idea, but it’s your necks,” said Silas. “We, that is the Paladins, don’t operate on the other side of the mountains. The trails are too rough on the bikes, and we got enough to do running the roads around here. The Bedouins carry on some trade, but they don’t send caravans up that way too often. You’re gonna be on your own.”

  “I prefer it that way,” said Derek.

  “What’s it like in the mountains?” asked John.

  Silas shrugged. “There’s a few settlements up there, a ranch or two, but they don’t take to strangers. Plenty of bandits, some hermits and loners. And wildlife, bears and mountain cats. Sometimes they come down to Moses Springs to hunt. A mountain cat killed three cattle and an old herdsman two weeks ago. I saw its paw tracks myself.” He held his hands apart to show the size of the creature’s print. “One swipe would take your face off.”

  Silas cracked his knuckles and frowned at his old running-mate. “You’re heading into rough terrain, Nicodemus. I ain’t sure about that chair of yours. You might want to think about trading in your wheels for a good pack donkey. That’s what the Bedouins use to haul goods over to the other side. You can trade for one at the bazaar in town.”

  Leggy scratched his chin. “I don’t know if I’m too keen on riding a donkey.”