by E. E. Knight
"Gate codes," F. A. James said, his voice stressed and cracking. "Is that what you want?"
Valentine kept sharpening the knife.
"There's a spare back-door key—"
"I don't want access to Weathercut," Valentine said, deciding the knife was sharp enough. "I wanted you out of it, Franklin."
"But I'm nobody important," F. A. James squeaked. "I don't even have my own room."
"That's the problem with being a Nobody Important. Someone might decide you're disposable. Kind of like that teenage girl back in Arkansas. The one you, Bernardo Guittierez, Tom Cray, and Sergeant Heath Hopkins raped and then killed."
Valentine smelled urine leaking.
"No! I mean, you've got the wrong guy."
Valentine was a little relieved that F. A. James kept talking. He hated the ones who just blubbered at the end. Cray had spent the last five minutes screaming for his mother.
"Her name was Mary Carlson. Ever catch her name? Bother to remember it? You must remember her face. What did it look like at the end? Now, I figure four guys, maybe ten minutes each—that was a long forty minutes at the end of her life. About as long as the next forty minutes are going to be for you."
James was panting now, and the pillowcase went in and out of his mouth like a flutter valve.
"Mary was into horses. Loved them to death—good at taking care of them too, once she learned what was expected."
Valentine drew the blade across the whetstone. The sound echoed off the cobweb-strung walls of the silo like a cat spitting. "This is a hoof knife," Valentine explained. "Horse hooves are tough to cut, and you need a short, strong blade to get through them. Hoof is way tougher than, say ... the cartilage in your nose and ears, Franklin."
James spoke again from beneath the ghost mask: "Captain Coltrane over in Yaseda, he's got a whole jar full of ring fingers off of girls he collected for the Reapers. You should be going after him."
"I never knew the owners of those fingers."
"I didn't even come. I just did it 'cause the others did, and Hop killed her before I knew he'd drawn his pistol."
F. A. James' story didn't quite jibe with what the others had said. According to Guittierez, the corporal had demanded that the girl be "flipped over" to escape the indignity of "sloppy seconds," then made her—
But Valentine didn't care about the details anymore. The investigation and hunt were over. Now there was just duty to Mary Carlson.
"You see a white collar? The time to confess passed with the investigation. I read the documents. Consul Solon, for all his faults, didn't like civilians mistreated. You could have admitted it. You would have gone to prison, probably, but you wouldn't be hanging here now."
Valentine selected a spot for the first knife cut.
"This is just to scare me, right? You're done—I'm scared. What do you want? What do you want?"
Valentine never remembered much else that F. A. James said during his final moments, cut short, as they always were, because the screaming got to him. Part of him was distracted, puzzled by that last question.
Chapter Two
Hobarth's Truckstart and Trading Post, Missouri, February, the fifty-third year of the Kurian Order: The days of long-haul trucking are all but over.
Nevertheless a few overland "runs" still exist. The Atlanta-Chattanooga -Nashville artery still trickles, as does the old interstate between Baltimore and Boston. The Vegas-Phoenix—Los Angeles triangle is the scene of the yearly "Diamondbacks Run," where supercharged muscle cars roar from the coast to Vegas, where the crews switch to off-road vehicles for a trip to Phoenix, then make a final leg in tractor-trailers running loads back t0 Los Angeles, something of an indulgence for certain wealthy or engine-obsessed Quislings.
Dashboard cameras record the experience, and sometimes the final words of the drivers.
But the longest of the "hauls" still in existence is that from Chicago to Los Angeles, much of which runs along the old lines of fabled Route 66, even if the end point at the Sunset Strip meets the ocean rather more abruptly than it did a century ago.
The veterans of the "Devil's Dietary Tract," as the route is known, make fortunes hauling art, rare firearms, expensive clothing, and particularly electronics from point to point, liquor and consumables flowing west, finished products imported from the rest of the Pacific Rim back east. The Kurian Order shrugs at such baubles for their human herds, or perhaps believes that physical and mental energy expended acquiring a Picasso, a pristine set of golf clubs, or a vintage Remington 700 is activity that isn't being spent resisting the regime. Black marketers are given a wrist slap in most instances. The security services of the great rail companies make sure nothing that can't be hidden in a purse or backpack moves cross-country on the rails—at least without a substantial bribe. That leaves internal combustion engine or pack animal for the traders and smugglers who want to move larger loads.
Some say that the "independents"—as the nonrail transportation companies are known—are riddled with Kurian informers. Any firm that helps the burgeoning resistance is quickly seized, its durable goods auctioned and personnel packed off to the Reapers.
Trucks need fuel, tires, and spare parts to run, and of course the crews need food and rest. So on the fringes of the Kurian Order, or within Grog-held territory, there are "starts," where men and machines can be reconditioned for the next leg of the run.
Hobarth's is a typical example of a fortress truckstart, encircled by wire and then an inner wall of broken tires wired together and filled with dirt, a tiny human settlement deep within the Grog territory of mid-Missouri. There's a substantial warehouse devoted to trade with the Grogs, cavernous aluminum barns for the repair of vehicles and the storage of spares. Behind it rusts a junkyard covering a dozen-odd acres guarded by rifles and half-savage dogs. The penalty for unauthorized scavenging is a bullet.
But for the tired, broken-down, and road-weary there's safety within. Even for those without the price of a cup of coffee, the Hobarth staff will feed, wash, and accommodate the most destitute—"three days of a month, three months of a year."
"Christian duty," the staff calls it.
Others are welcome to buy, sell, or trade at Hobarth's store or the stalls of mechanics and craftsmen. There's even a small jeweler under the old three-orb sign, who also acts as a currency exchange, able to deal in most of the Kurian scrips of the Midwest. The local Grogs have become adept at extracting and reconditioning everything from wheel rims to timing belts and sparkplugs, bringing them in to trade for bullets or sealable plastic storage containers, which the Grogs prize for a well-appointed, bug-free hut.
Three high-clearance flatbed tow trucks, armored and armed with machine guns, compose the toughest salvage team an overnight drive in any direction. Two of the team, the front one prowed in such a way that it resembles a vehicular battering ram, fling gravel as they turn in to the main gate, bringing in a rusted cab-over. Once inside the compound and behind the main building, long and flat as Dakota prairie, the crews elbow one another and point at a smallish legworm contentedly pulling up leafless kudzu near the tire wall. A steel-framed ergonomic office chair, complete with ottoman, folding umbrella, and movable windscreen, sits stapled and chained to its spongy, segmented back.
"Argent's in," the green hatted driver of the battering-ram wrecker announces, opening a tow truck door with driver carries no cash, lots of lead stenciled on the side.
* * * *
David Valentine, reading a book as he drank his coffee in the four-table "cafe," recognized Tim Hobarth's step behind—the tow truck driver wore steel-heeled boots, which rapped distinctively on the boarding.
"What's the crawl, Max?" Hobarth asked.
Valentine, who'd left his name in the shambles of a wrecked career in the United Free Republic, drew his cup and book a little closer, making room for the big driver. He'd just as soon continue reading his book with the brew, though the bitter mélange that the Kurians labeled coffee insulted the palate of someone
who'd had the real stuff in Jamaica.
"Omaha's getting set for a fight," Valentine said. To the families who worked Hobarth's, he was just a wandering Grog trader blessed with unusual luck in avoiding the Reapers. Valentine had stopped and visited the Golden Ones, in the fading hope that his old friend Ahn-Kha had wandered home with an epic story of escapades from the Kentucky foothills to Nebraska's far horizons.
"Kur needs those rail lines out of Omaha badly, now that so much south of Missouri is cut and Tulsa's been burned to the ground. The Golden Ones are great fighters, but if they put some big guns into Council Bluffs..."
"Poor dumb Grogs," Hobarth said. The sympathy in his voice belied his words.
Valentine liked Hobarth. He possessed some feeling for the creatures Kur had brought from other worlds to help subjugate humanity. Some of the tribes found themselves in wrecked and poisoned lands after the fighting was over, and a few, like the Golden Ones, had turned against the Kurians.
"The Golden Ones are a long way from dumb," Valentine said. "And they know engineering. They've got a network of tunnels under Omaha you wouldn't believe if you didn't see it, and they've rigged a few likely buildings to collapse. I wouldn't want to be part of the Omaha garrison, assuming the Iowa Guard takes it. They're recruiting out of the scrub-country clans again, looking for tribal support. Doubt they'll get it."
"How's business otherwise?" Hobarth asked.
"Lean. Omaha just wants optics and precision tools." It had been so long since he'd talked to another man that Valentine felt his mouth running on of its own accord. "Those are tough to come by, especially when they don't offer much in return. Leatherwork I can sometimes sell, but pottery? Oh, that reminds me. I might have a connection in Springfield for you for tires. That Grog molasses tobacco is getting popular in Chicago."
"Wonderful. Hey, I talked to Gramps again about you. He's upped the offer to a full family share if you join up."
"I told you before: I'm a crap driver."
"You'll learn, Argent. We could use you and that freaky hair of yours." Valentine had once explained that a nearby Reaper had caused his hair to stand on end. "The spring run to the coast is gearing up. See the world, you know?"
"Tourism through scratched-up goggles at the trigger ring? Not my way to see the country."
"Oh, I'm not talking hired-gun stuff. Scout salvage. You have a knack for getting in and out of places none of our clan come within a Reaper's run of."
Hobarth's was a great place to take respite, but Valentine wondered about settling down there. If he joined up, the next thing they'd expect was for him to marry—and there were a couple of widows near his age attached to the truckstart. Lora, who worked in the garage, never failed to do her hair and put on her best when he visited. Problem was, her conversation was limited to engine blocks, fuel injection, and ethanol when she wasn't parroting the New Universal Church propaganda she'd learned as a child.
"I'll think about it. Promise," Valentine said.
Hobarth was canny. He knew "Max Argent" well enough to know that if he wanted something, he jumped at a chance, whether it was a night on clean sheets or a volume in the little library that existed in the Hobarth attic.
"Reading again? Confed..." Hobarth knew parts manuals and truck manufacturers, but preferred the pool table and old pinball machines of the family rec room when it came time to unwind.
"Confederacy of Dunces," Valentine supplied.
"Sounds like the ministers in Kansas City. I hear there's cholera. Both sides of the river."
Kansas was bleeding again, and much on the mind of the whole Hobarth clan. She had broken into warring factions, supported by the UFR in the east and the powerful Kurians of the Southwest on the other side of the Arkansas River. "Route 666" had become tougher than ever.
Valentine contemplated his tea. "One of them will get bled. The Kurians don't like people dying without orders and proper processing."
Hobarth stiffened a little. It didn't do to say such things, even deep in the relatively neutral Grog lands.
Valentine changed the subject. "I'm about done with this. Can I get up in the book attic? I want to look up an item or two."
"Look something up? It's not an archive. It's a paper junk heap. Most of the stuffs falling apart."
"I saw a book there last trip. I just want to read up on it a little more."
"Wonderful. Do us a favor and clean up a few cobwebs while you're up there, okay?"
"Gladly."
"You accommodated?"
"Yes. Don't worry, the Dragon Lady's charging contractor rates. I had some Iowa scrip I wanted to dump anyway."
Hobarth smiled at the use of his aunt's nickname. "I'll tell everyone to be extra nice. You staying long?"
"Maybe a week. My worm needs a few days of feeding."
"You could use all that in-wall time to take a bath, you know. You could read in the tub."
"What, and lose my camouflage? The critters confuse the Reapers, you know."
"Wonderful. Something about you's just a bit out of alignment, you know that, Argent? And I don't mean that busted-up face of yours either."
* * * *
Valentine didn't enjoy exercise. He'd rather heat his muscles chopping wood, or even digging a latrine ditch or picking apples, so something might be gained out of the calorie loss. He looked on exercise as a routine maintenance activity, like adjusting straps, darning socks, or sharpening and oiling a blade. It was not an end unto itself, but preparation so his body would be ready when called upon.
But he could combine it with a more interesting activity, like fishing.
So during his stay at the truckstart, every morning he'd sling his tackle on the legworm's harness and goad it out to one of the ponds or creeks, provided there wasn't a winter fog or cold rain. The Reapers sometimes prowled in daylight if the overcast was heavy enough.
So with a clear morning and in hope of a torpid catfish he'd prod his legworm out, where it could pull up bush in peace while he fished. On the way there and back he jogged from one side of the legworm to the other, practiced leaping on its back or mounting it using low tree limbs to swing himself up, until his breath came hard and fast and his bad leg ached. If the fish weren't biting, he'd practice with his battle rifle—a few cartridges now and again could be replaced, and there was no such thing as a wasted shot if it kept you in practice. The time might come when being able to eat, or draw one more breath, would depend on a single bullet.
Besides, the women at the truckstart believed the smell of gun smoke to be an improvement.
Evenings he'd spend in the attic library, unless a truck came in. Then he'd join the rest of the Hobarth's gang and listen to the latest news, reports of road conditions, and shortages, always shortages. Valentine would borrow any kind of printed material—even Kurian leaflets sometimes carried clues as to the progress of the UFR. He read them with the mixed emotions of an estranged relative catching up on family events.
He lingered at the truckstart until he found a driver Tim Hobarth recommended who was heading south into the UFR. He entrusted the woman, a wispy-haired piece of leather who went sleeveless even on a cold day and drove an ancient diesel pickup pulling a high-clearance trailer, with a letter and coin for postage. He'd addressed the wax-paper packet to "William and Gail Post."
Post would make sure his information about the Iowa Guard's movements got into the right hands. A few Bear teams and some Wolves inserted into Omaha would make a world of difference.
Valentine spent the rest of the afternoon and evening moody and anxious to be off. He'd staved off the empty feeling by composing his letter to Southern Command and seeing it sent on. With that done, the guilty memories marched right back into his forebrain and set up residence. Finishing with Mary Carlson's murderers had left him empty and with too much time to think. Now free to get back to St. Louis, conscience partially cleared by his plea for help for the Golden Ones...
He spent his last evening at Hobarth's wander
ing the acres filled with wrecks, getting glimpses of the old world through faded bumper and window stickers and business information printed on car doors and rear windows.
warning:
frequent stops at garage sales
get any closer and you'd better
be wearing a condom
in the event of rapture
this vehicle will be empty
It was empty, unless you counted mice and spiders.
They weren't all pre-2022. Valentine saw one that he'd been told was popular in the early years of the Kurian Order. A smooth-sided luxury sedan with the half-sun, half-moon logo of the short-lived New World Fiber Network sat there, slowly hollowing like a rotten tooth as pieces fell away. Its rear-door sticker placed it firmly in the post-'22 generation:
i don't fear the reaper
Valentine heard a dull growl and turned, expecting to see one of the Hobarth dog pack. One good stare and they usually calmed down enough to make friends, animal to animal.
But he saw a quivering black-and-tan dog standing between the rows of creeper-covered cars, looking through the gap toward the next row. Valentine had time to see a barrel move before he heard a quick hiss and felt a firm tap just behind the neck.
He started to crouch, but the world turned gummy, and his defensive stance loosened into a kneel. Then he felt grass against his cheek and dirt in his eye, but that didn't matter. A pleasant, dark warmth beckoned and he gladly slid down the hill toward it.
* * * *
Motion, and the smell of corn.
The corn came from fabric covering his face, probably a feed sack over his eyes. A cloying, wet mess in his pants. He tried to rise, but handcuffs held his wrists together behind him. Fight it fight it fight it.
"Hey, he's coming out of it already," a husky voice said. The words were being bent and twisted in his ear, where a surflike roar fought with a deep thrumming reminiscent of the old Thunderbolt's engines at high revolutions.
