Dean Ing - Quantrill 2

by Single Combat(lit)

  No mystery about that necklace. Sipping the muscular punch of the Rocksprings grange ladies, Ted confided that a synthesizer may be a Pandora's box that no one, and no government, should unlock. So what am I to do? One decision, at least, which I can defer. But Childe will not wear it again!

  Fingertips raw from sewing, but what an effect that deerskin has below those green eyes. Rocksprings girls would have swallowed him like a gingerbread man.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  By Monday, the synthoderm had done its work so well that Quantrill scarcely felt his abrasions. He used the microwave scrambler link on his 'cycle to contact Indy Base and, for an anxious few minutes, felt cast adrift when three successive listeners failed to identify him.

  To the fourth, a suspicious knave with a New England accent, he said, "Just pass the word to Lufo or Ethridge that I'd like to know if our, ah, little canister from Sonora was of any use. And ask the Governor if he'd like me to accept a job at Schreiner ranch."

  After too many minutes the knave was back, no longer suspicious but not very helpful either. Ethridge was in briefing but sent word that the canister would make a fine suppository for someone named Control. Neither Lufo Albeniz nor the Governor were available. If the Gov wanted Quantrill at Schreiner's spread, seemed like plain yankee horse sense to get on a payroll. And don't bother Indy Base again for a few days; they were busier than a one-armed man in a bull-milking contest.

  By mutual consent, Quantrill and Sandy passed up lunch, forearm deep in a lime-and-'dobe mess with which they plastered crannies between the upper logs of the soddy walls. When the blue northers swept down from Canada, she warned, the wind would chew up his spine with icicle teeth. With Mex heating oil so expensive and mesquite so damnably plentiful, the provident settler built ricks of mesquite firewood near the North side of a dwelling and hoped part of that windbreak remained for spring barbecues.

  Child came frisking into the clearing near dark. Quantrill knew better than to ask her about her playmate; if and when they were ready, he would know. He knew on Wednesday.

  He had worn through a pair of work gloves cutting mesquite and stacking it on Tuesday. Wednesday morning, he paused with a tender biscuit halfway to his mouth. "It just occurred to me," he said in puzzlement, "that you don't have any vehicle big enough to pull all those damn' mesquite trunks into the clearing. How'd they get here?"

  Childe exchanged glances with Sandy who smiled, "Don't believe the old saying, 'pigs is pigs', sometimes pigs are trucks!"

  He took a bite, thinking of the heavy red-hearted tree trunks, some as thick as Childe's body. "Good God," he said.

  "You ought to be glad he can use those tusks for peaceable chores," Sandy replied. "By the way, do you mind if Childe takes that shirt you're wearing? You can wear the new one instead."

  To Quantrill's puzzled glance, Childe piped, "He wants your smell." The earnest little face said that the request was no small matter.

  He exchanged shirts slowly, almost reluctantly, muttering about the unbelievable hocus-pocus a man had to undergo, just to get on good terms with a hog.

  Sandy: "Quit complaining; your smell is your personnel file. If you'd rather not meet him today, I can-"

  "No, the sooner the better." He handed the shirt to Childe who performed her usual limber disappearance. "I want to know where I stand with Ba'al before I leave-and that might be any day now."

  "But you'll only be in the next county."

  That depended, he said. "If something goes wrong with the Indy plans, I might, um, have to disappear into Mexico for awhile." He did not add that Mexico would be only his conduit back to Eureka for a singleton mission on his own. It was all very well for Jim Street to talk of bloodless surgery against a secret police system; but if Ethridge failed, Quantrill would wield a deadly scalpel until they caught him.

  "You don't fool me, mister," Sandy said. "You're just looking for an excuse to get out of cutting firewood."

  To disprove that charge, Quantrill spent his next hours among the gnarled mesquite. But he worked slowly. He was not going to tire himself when he might need all his energy later.

  Late in the morning he heard a familiar whistle. He turned, surveying the scrub, and then laid the saw aside as he saw Childe above the brushtops seventy meters away. She towered over the shrubs, his shirt slung over her thin shoulder, and with one hand she gripped the neck bristles of the demonic Ba'al. For one stunned moment Quantrill considered calling the whole goddam thing off.

  Ba'al stood quietly, his enormous bristly shoulders aimed at the soddy, head turned in Quantrill's direction. Downwind, of course; oh yes, Ba'al knew where Quantrill stood. The long muzzle lifted, the tip of the snout flexing as it tasted manscent, the flywhisk tail switching impatiently. Childe whistled again, a subtly different tune. Quantrill estimated the great beast's weight at a full five hundred kilos, most of it forward of the sloping hindquarters. Childe actually sat astride his neck, feet hooked under his chin.

  As Sandy strode outside, Quantrill saw the vast bulk suddenly trotting toward her, grunting, Childe leaning forward in effortless unconcern as she waved. Quantrill watched the movements of her huge steed with wariness, noting how suddenly those little hooves could accelerate such a massive bulk. Little? Well, only when compared with Ba'al himself. Quantrill was more concerned with the great head, as big as a horse's, and the twin scimitars that flanked the snout.

  From long practice, Quantrill assessed the strengths of the boar, and wondered where weaknesses might lie. Such an opponent could accelerate like a big cat; would probably lower its head to bring those tusks into position for goring-and eviscerating. For all its thickness, that grizzly neck could twist sharply, directing the ivory tusks in any direction. The hooves would be murderous, and the brute was anything but stupid.

  Perhaps Ba'al had no weaknesses. And perhaps, Quantrill thought, he would be wise to stop thinking of Ba'al as an opponent.

  Sandy slipped an arm behind the boar's pricked ears; spoke with Childe as she scratched the sloping forehead; then looked around her. Childe pointed toward Quantrill who had not moved from his position, and Sandy trudged across the clearing.

  Voice unsteady but determined: "I don't think he'll be as grouchy if you're holding my hand. If he lowers his head, you be ready to run for the soddy," she said, and then, "Are you sure you want to go through with this?"

  He gripped her hand. "Yep," he lied, and together they strolled toward the watchful beast.

  Childe continued to scratch and cajole the boar as the others neared him. At a low peremptory squeal from the great muzzle, Childe put up a restraining hand. Quantrill stopped, one foot planted for retreat, while Childe grabbed the dark gray neck ruff. Quantrill saw indecision in Sandy's face but only intense concentration in Childe's expression. As though cautioning a playmate in some serious game the little girl said, "Don't move, now." With short mincing steps, Ba'al began to circle the object of his scrutiny.

  "Better move away," Quantrill said softly to Sandy.

  "I don't know," she quavered.

  "If you don't know, then move away," he gritted.

  He did not turn his head but kept his legs flexed, listening to the steady thud of hooves, the snorts and snufflings behind him as Sandy backed off. He resisted the urge to giggle wildly, hearing Sandy's soothing, repeated, "soooo, pig." The small of his back itched like fury. He did not scratch.

  When the huge boar completed his circuit, he stood almost near enough for Quantrill to touch, ears twitching fore and aft, eyes roving up and down. Then a peculiar ripple of shoulder muscles; Childe responded by shinnying down from her perch. The tiny girl and the great beast exchanged grunts and subtle headwags. "Just you and him," she said, nodding to Quantrill, stepping aside.

  Quantrill showed both hands, spreading his arms slowly, then stood erect. This displeased the boar who snorted and reared, forequarters rising so that the forward hooves pawed higher than a man's waist.

  Quantrill stepped back in a defensive s
tance, and too quickly. Ba'al dropped instantly to all-fours, his vast head lowering. The next moves sequenced almost too quickly for Sandy and Childe to follow.

  As Quantrill sprang backward, Ba'al rushed forward to close the gap-but without lowering his head. Quantrill did not wait to see if this was a true charge, but skipped aside in a double leap like a sidelong fencer's balestra ending with a shoulder roll, the total maneuver covering ten meters. He danced to his feet ready for a sprint to the soddy; judged it hopeless; prepared to dodge again.

  Ba'al just stood quietly, grunting, flicking that ridiculous tail, studying the man. Childe clapped her hands in glee. "You funned him," she explained.

  "Great," Quantrill said, spitting dust, searching for a fist-sized stone but, to his good fortune, finding none. "He's scaring the shit out of me," he added, and straightened up.

  Again the boar reared, a faint squeal issuing from his muzzle. "You're too high," Childe called-and then Quantrill realized that the boar was interpreting his erect posture as a dominance ploy. Flexing his knees again, Quantrill waited, now sharing the same eye-level with Ba'al, neither dominating nor submitting. The forequarters danced, the great head lashing side-to-side. A demonstration; a show of the boar's virtuosity with natural weapons.

  Quantrill found himself grinning. He couldn't match that demonstration if he wanted to. Instead he went down on one knee, held his hands forward. In his mouth there was not enough spit to float a paramecium.

  Then, each hoof placed with silent precision, Ba'al stepped forward; snuffled the open palms; placed his snout between Quantrill's hands. The reddish little eyes were wary, and level with his own. The musky scent, he told himself, wasn't all that bad. He wondered if Ba'al was thinking the same thing.

  Childe was cheering. "Scratch under his chin," Sandy called, and Quantrill did it. A soft repetitious grunting said that he was, at last, doing something right. A moment later, Childe and Sandy crowded close to scratch the boar's thick hide, laughing in relief.

  In the next few minutes Quantrill learned that a Russian boar could be charmed by a belly-scratch, and that Childe was adept at searching out ticks within the secondary fur under Ba'al's coarse bristles. In all, Quantrill counted twenty-three scars, some of them obviously bulletholes in a hide tough as kevlar. From time to time he caught the eye of the indolent boar and knew that the animal did not wholly trust him; might never trust any man. Quantrill felt no disappointment. He felt exactly the same about Ba'al.

  When Childe rode away to play that afternoon, Quantrill strode into the soddy and stretched himself out on his mummybag, exhausted. To Sandy he admitted that every fiber in his body buzzed with fatigue. "How could I relax," he sighed. "This is the only time in my life I've ever felt-well,-like I might be second-rate."

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

  A dying sun peeked beneath the overcast, a brief burst of pink and saffron against the bellies of bruise-tinted clouds that hinted of rain before morning. Quantrill tightened the tarp over his hovercycle, glad that he would not have to traverse fifty klicks of mud on a wheeled vehicle the next day. He hurried back to the soddy at Sandy's whistle: already he knew the bright three-note tune of 'come and get it'.

  After dinner, the first wind-driven drops pattered against the window as Sandy shopped for a favored holo channel. The FBN channel was showing a rerun, and Sandy almost switched before the glowing legend crawled across the top of the screen in high relief: TECH DIFFICULTIES FORCE CANCELLATION OF FBN SPECIAL. 'THE QUANTRILL REPLY', SCHEDULED FOR THIS TIME.

  Sandy turned to Quantrill who sat frowning with a handful of popcorn halfway to his mouth. "You? On a Fed channel?"

  Shrug: "Not unless it's a countercharge against me. I made a dumb threat right after I-well, never mind. It was plain stupid. Anyhow, I'm not the only Quantrill in the world."

  "That's debatable," she smiled, and tried the clear Mex channel which was nearing the end of its newscast.

  A silver-haired gentleman sat alone while be hind him a crudely animated logo showed a silhouette running endlessly toward a green and yellow banner with a central star-flecked blue orb. ". But the Brazilian embassy would not comment on the rumor that Salter's defection is connected with the sharp seismic jolt which struck Utah's Cotton-wood Canyon area earlier today. Now for the weather-"

  But Ted Quantrill was on his feet, grinning. "Cottonwood Canyon? Seismic, hell; Ethridge got through!." He stood with arms spread, staring up as if to focus on something far above the low ceiling. "Hear that, Sanger? Now you can sleep." He turned, the light fading from his eyes, only half-aware of the startled looks from Sandy and Childe. Lowering his arms he said more softly to himself, "We can all sleep."

  While searching for another newscast, Sandy bestowed a searching smile on him but murmured only, "What-on-earth?"

  He chuckled, breathing deeply as he watched the screen. "I guess we missed the best part, but we can watch again at eleven. Now, if you'll turn that thing off awhile, I'd like to tell you about a girl named Marbrye Sanger."

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

  Long before he had finished, Sandy knew that Sanger was the woman of whom Quantrill had only said, "She died," with quick incisiveness to block further inquiry. Ted Quantrill was no yarn-spinner, certainly not with a lump in his throat, and Sandy was forced to interpolate often. Intuition told her that she must not ask questions or make comments, that this account was Quantrill's memorial service for his closest friend. In his memory, Sanger had lain in state until her killers were accounted for. Now perhaps he could allow time to bury her.

  When he completed his tale, Sandy was weeping quietly. "I'm sorry," he said with a touch on her arm. "I've got no right to make you feel this way."

  "You told me some very important things, Ted-one thing that you probably don't realize." She wiped her cheeks and went on, managing a smile for him. "And it makes me very happy. You demanded justice for Marbrye Sanger, but you didn't demand it by your own hand."

  He thought of his plans, now fading, for a bloody surgical strike in case Ethridge failed. "The thought crossed my mind," he growled.

  "But you place justice over revenge. If you can feel that way after all those devils did to you, then they failed in the most important thing. They didn't rob you of all decent human values."

  Muscles knotted at his jaw. He hesitated for a long moment and then forced himself to say it. "I killed people, Sandy. Not all of them were guilty of any real crime. I don't want to mislead you about that. I was very good at it."

  She responded with a serious nod, and then surprised him as her grin broke through. "I saw how good you must be, today. When you've known Ba'al awhile, you learn to read his expressions. I don't think he's ever seen a human move as fast and as far as you did in avoiding him today. He respects that."

  "Respect from the devil; I love it," he said wryly. "Well, we're two of a kind. Hey, you know what? I'm hungry."

  Sandy tucked Childe into bed and brewed strong bitter coffee to go with the coarse pecan pralines she kept on a Childe-proof shelf. In retrieving the candy she displaced the sketch which fluttered down, Quantrill catching it in midair, studying it in the firelight as they waited for the eleven o'clock news.

  She might never have a better excuse for asking: "If you ever do find that necklace, what will you do with it?"

  Without hesitation: "Hand it over to Jim Street. I can't think of anybody better-equipped to make decisions about a thing that could permanently alter the way people live."

  "Maybe you're right," she said, doubting it. Nibbling and sipping, they wrangled over the uses to which a synthesizer might be put-if every home could have one. Medicines, fuels, gold-if any precious metal could be amassed in endless quantity, what would that do to a gold-based economy? If heroin were free, what then?

  "Now you see why I'd drop the damn' thing in the Gov's lap," Quantrill said, licking the last traces of praline from his hand.

  "Instead of burying it somewhere," she said almost hopefully.

  "N
ot with a million bucks' worth of Venus opal I wouldn't-hey, watch that coffee."

  Sandy blamed the coffee spill for her agitation. The prospect of great wealth had never been real to her. In some ways she equated wealth with evil-and whatever else it might do, it would change her life irrevocably. More than ever, now, she resolved to wait for the time when her wisdom might be equal to the problem. "Uh, it's almost time for the news," she said, and switched on the holo trying not to imagine a new expensive set two meters in width. Only later would she imagine a ranch of her own, ten kilometers in width.

  FBN news led off with a brisk, business-as-usual list of topics: "A deranged Search & Rescue official is charged with treason; President Young is under his physician's care with a mild stomach ailment; and Zion is briefly shocked by a small earthquake. All this and more-"

  "Horseshit," Quantrill snapped. "Try the CBS Deadline News."