by James Axler
"Close the door, Ryan. I figure another two days at the most and we'll be in the Darks. I can taste the thin air. You know what to do?"
They had discussed the options, with J.B. sitting in, over the past three days, trying to cover every eventuality. Now there was no more planning or talking to do.
"It's in hand," replied Ryan.
The Trader's face was like a frail old man's, the skin taut as parchment over the cheekbones. The rad cancer was racing through him, devouring living tissue, eating up the hours.
"If there's anythin' after, then I'll be seein' ol' Marsh Folsom real soon, Ryan."
"I know it. We all do."
Trader nodded slowly. "Hear you told your name. Ryan Cawdor. Anyone recognize it?"
"No. Though Doc said he might have heard it. But he can't recall anything for more than a minute or so."
"Wish I had the time to chew over past days with him. Won't happen." Ryan thought the Trader was going to be overwhelmed by one of his coughing fits, but the moment passed. "Look 'round here, Ryan. What d'you see?"
"Spare clothes. Your Armalite. Handgun. Knives. Ammo. Grenades. Couple o' maps. Food you haven't eaten. Pack of cigars."
"That all?"
"Sure. What else should I see?"
"Get me a mouthful of water. Thanks. Nothin'. That's what else you should see. You listed it all, Ryan. It don't add up to much for better'n fifty years of livin'. Nothin' to add up to the pain of the mother that birthed me."
"What you've done isn't here, Trader. It's out yonder. Outside. You kept a lot of folks breathin' that would surely have been chilled."
"I chilled me some."
"Sure. They needed chilling. What you've done is to bring a little light to this pile of shit. Deathlands! If it hadn't been for you, then I'd have been dead. So would J.B., and everyone else in this war wag. You know it, Trader."
The two men remained silent, each locked into old memories. After some minutes the Trader reached out with a wasted, birdlike hand, and Ryan took it. Feeling the bones beneath the delicate skin, he held it gently, like a fledgling. As the war wag rumbled steadily northwest, the two old friends sat together in silence.
They were interrupted by the voice of Hunaker, crackling over the intercom. "Ryan. Ryan and J.B. Come to the driving console. Something you should see."
Chapter Fourteen
As he moved forward, Ryan felt the war wag judder to a halt, the engine out of gear, ticking over gently. On every side men and women had moved fast to their firefight positions, standing ready by the ob slits and weapon ports. But from the lack of urgency in Hun's voice, there clearly was no immediate emergency.
"What is it, Hun?"
"Look out front. Never seen nothin' like it. How 'bout you, J.B.?"
They squeezed in either side of her, peering through the forward screen. Ryan rested his hand on Hun's shoulder, conscious of the musky scent of her perspiration. He blinked his eye to rid himself of the sudden and unbidden image of Krysty, naked, moving beneath him.
"What is it? "he asked.
J.B., not one to waste words, simply shook his head. Hun pointed to the left, to the great jagged peaks of the Rockies jutting in toward them.
"Saw them first on this side. One or two. Feathers. Then this spooky kind of stuff."
Ryan was puzzled. Not many men had been this far into the Darks. The recently lamented Kurt was one of only a handful who had penetrated deep into the rugged fastness and survived. So who had put up all the decorations?
They were made out of branches of trees that Ryan believed were called aspens. "Quakers" they'd named them. Poles had been hewn from the silvery-green wood, with its criss-crossing black scars, then tied into shapes like the tepees that some of the double-poor of Deathlands lived in.
There were three of them, stretched across the crumbling relic of a road. The one nearest the edge was covered in a sprouting bunch of feathers. Red and yellow and golden-brown; hundreds of them. And topping it was a narrow-bladed knife of rusting iron, its haft wrapped in strips of what looked like dried leather or skin.
The right-hand tripod was leaning to the front, set close against a cliff of moss-streaked stone. Melt from a glacier, farther up the mountain, came cascading across the road in milky turquoise torrents. Tufted pink flowers decorated the poles, some of the flowers dead, drooping and falling on the damp earth.
But it was the center set of branches that caught Ryan's eye.
It was much the tallest, well over a tall man's height, blocking the trail. Ribbons of material were festooned all over it, tied in place with rawhide thongs. Small metal stars of brass and copper dangled from the silks and satins, chiming against one another.
And on the top, held in place with circling strands of green wire was... "A human head," said J.B.
The eyes had gone, and half the teeth were missing. The lower jaw dangled in a macabre leer, kept by a thread of gristle. There were still a few shreds of leathery skin clinging to the yellowed bone.
"What's that on its forehead?" asked Hun.
"Bullet hole," replied J.B.
"Looks like a warning," said Ryan.
"Do we stop, or go on, or what?"
"We go on."
War Wag One rolled forward again as Hun engaged the gears, driving straight for the center of the sets of aspen poles, crushing it beneath the heavy wheels. Ryan watched through the front screen, imagining he could hear the brittle crack as the skull was splintered, but through the armor he knew that was absurd.
In the next hour they came across three more sets of the weird signs. Both J. B. Dix and Ryan Cawdor stayed in the main control cabin, keeping the combat vehicle in a state of full fighting readiness with everyone on alert.
"How far?"
Hun threw the question over her shoulder. The trail ahead was becoming steeper, and the gauges showed a sharp temperature drop as night closed in on them.
Ryan eased the white scarf around his neck. "Not sure. All we can do is put together everything we know and add in Kurt's ravings an' what Krysty knew. Best map we have don't show us much. But if there's this Stockpile or Redoubt up there, then it's close to a place called Many Glaciers. Near as we can figure."
"We stoppin' soon?" Hunaker asked.
"Yeah. Give it another ten, then pull on over. That looks like a meadow along that river. Trees far enough back to cut down an ambush."
"What d'you think about those poles?" J.B. asked him, blowing out a perfect ring of smoke from the dark, evil-smelling cheroot.
"Warnin'. Some mutie religion trick. Maybe we're on someone's home turf. I've heard nothin' on any townies movin' up here."
Within a few minutes the huge war wag had finally pulled over for the night, and the usual sentries had been posted. Supper was cooking, and around a fire most of the men and women in the team were making and mending-cleaning armaments and repairing clothes.
Unusually in the Deathlands, the water was good. Ryan walked down and sat down on a large boulder, riven by the frosts, and flicked pebbles into the river. Alongside the rocks were patches of creamy Indian paintbrush and splashes of golden vetch, absurdly rich, their colors still bright in the last shards of the evening sun. The sky was a sullen red, streaked with wind-torn clouds in gray and purple. Over the tops of the highest range of mountains there was the usual silver lace of lightning.
Ryan Cawdor was not a man given to endless agonizing and self-doubts. But on this beautiful evening he felt a rare sense of melancholy. Things were changing. The majority of his friends had been chilled within the past week, and now Trader's race was damned near run. Whatever happened up in the topmost trails of the Darks, it would mean an ending of the old ways of life that had been his ways for over ten years.
"You look like a prickless mutie in a gaudy-house, Ryan."
"Hi, Krysty. Guess Trader's sickness has really gotten to me. He was almost like a father, if that don't make me sound like a stupe."
She sat down by him, stretching out her long le
gs, staring at her own reflection in the polished leather of her boots. "You don't sound like a stupe. I've only known the Trader a short while, but he's... somethin' special."
On the farther side of the valley, up a slope of rough scree, Ryan caught a flicker of movement. His rifle was still in the war wag, but his pistol flowed into his fingers without any conscious thought, only to be bolstered again when he recognized the white blur as one of the hardy mountain goatlike creatures that thrived near the tree line in the Darks.
A bright blue bird with a spiky crest came to drink near them, dipping its beak into the water in delicate, jerky movements. The smell of cooking stew came on the breeze to them.
"Hungry?" Ryan asked, turning his head quickly, finding that Krysty was sitting closer than he'd thought. So close that their noses almost touched and her veil of crimson hair brushed lightly against his cheek.
Her green eyes drilled into his and she half opened her mouth, saying nothing. Despite the cool of the evening, Ryan was perspiring.
It was utterly inevitable that they should kiss. And having kissed should kiss again, and again. His hand was holding the back of her neck, and her hair seemed almost to caress his fingers. His tongue thrust between her parted lips, and her sharp teeth nipped him, so gently. His right hand slipped down the rough material of her overalls, finding the zipper, lowering it in a whisper of movement. He felt the warm swell of her breast as his palm cupped it, and the nipple harden like a tiny animal. Her own hands were delving under the long coat, but the wealth of guns and the panga hindered her from reaching and touching him.
"Ryan..." she panted. "Please, can?.."
"Where? In the war wag?"
"No!" Vehemently. "Not in there. Out here where you can breathe free. Over there, in those trees beyond the river."
Caution, and the memory of those odd totemic warning signs, made him hesitate. But his desire overcame all resistance and he took her by the hand and they walked together, jumping a narrow brook, finding a space of cropped grass alongside a quiet pond. Trees hid them from the war wag, and the gathering darkness kept their secret.
It was too cold for them to strip, but she wriggled out of the overalls, and he pulled off the dark gray denim trousers, laying the LAPA ready to hand.
They were both desperate enough not to waste time on any preliminaries and he roiled on top while she guided him into her. Krysty moaned softly as Ryan penetrated her, thrusting, feeling her moistness and heat close around him. She locked her heels in the small of his back, drawing him deeper, pushing up with her hips at his steel-hard maleness.
They reached a juddering, simultaneous climax, and he lay down on her, his face buried in her neck, panting as if he had run a long distance race across broken ground. She touched him on the side of the face, kissing him with an infinite tenderness.
"That was so good, Ryan. So good that I'd like to do it again."
The second time, later, in the velvet blackness of the forest, was slower. They explored each other's body with fingers and lips, touching and arousing each other. Finally he lay back, the short grass prickling his buttocks as she straddled him, lowering herself teasingly slowly, so that the tip of his erect penis touched and entered and then withdrew. Until she smiled and enveloped him, throwing her head back as she pumped and rose and fell. The girl's mouth opened and she sighed with the pleasure of their lovemaking, her teeth white as wind-washed bone in the twilight.
The second orgasm was without the hurry of the first, and for many minutes after they lay tangled in each other's arms. The night's cold stole over them and eventually they broke apart and pulled on their clothes.
"They'll be lookin' for us," said Ryan.
"Not if they guess that we... Look, there, beyond that fallen tree."
Ryan followed her finger, reaching for the pistol, then checking the movement. Some hundred paces away from them, only a smudge of light against the dark trees, he saw a man. Standing silently watching them.
"Who is he?"
"Looks like a mutie." The man was old, and as Ryan's eye adjusted to the night, he could make him out more clearly. Barely medium height, with silver-white hair tied in two long braids, each with a scrap of red ribbon knotting it at the end. He wore a robe of some kind of animal hide, and it was decorated with a staggeringly complex design in multihued threads and silks. His face was dark, the eyes hidden in the deep sockets.
In the hair was a single feather, white as fresh snow.
Even as they watched him, the old man moved back a couple of paces and then vanished among the pines behind him. It was done with great grace. Suddenly the space where he had been was empty.
"Goin' after him?" asked Krysty.
"No. Could be a trap. Maybe he's the one who put them signs up, warnin' us to stay away."
They moved fast, back to the safety of the war wag. Ryan's hand never left the butt of the automatic. Nobody said anything about their absence, although Ryan caught Hunaker giving a sly wink to Samantha.
* * *
In the morning the Trader had gone.
The only person who had seen him leave was Abe, who had been on guard on the river side of the war wag. Everyone gathered around the lanky man as he reported to J.B. and Ryan Cawdor, just after dawn.
"No warnin', but he was behind me. I turns and he pats me on the shoulder, like he did when you'd done somethin' real good. Know what I mean? I says to him, like, how's he doin' and he says he's never better."
"What was he wearing?" asked J.B.
"Usual. Carryin' that old Armalite of his. Steppin' good, not stooped like he's been. No cough. Looks past me to the trees and the snow up beyond. Real cold. I seen his breath plumin' out. Says he's goin' for a walk, and not to take on if he's gone some time. That was about three, maybe four hours back." Abe shook his head, the long flowing hair moving from side to side. "He sure looked pretty to me, up and walkin' tall."
"He say anythin' at all, apart from that?"
"No, Ryan. But he did say there was a letter for you. Said he'd got a scribbler to write it weeks back when we was on the road to Mocsin."
Ryan spun on his heel to go and look for the letter. But Abe coughed. "Yeah?"
"There's one other thing, Ryan. But it's kind of stupid."
"Go on."
Abe glanced away. "No, Mebbe in a while. I got to think on it some. Go read your note." It didn't take long.
It was on the steel table in the corner of the Trader's cabin. The edges of the handmade paper were crinkled. The letter was stained with machine oil and what looked like ketchup smeared over the bottom half. Because of his own illiteracy, the Trader had been forced to get a writer to produce the note for him. Which may have led to its brevity and lack of emotion. Or it may just have been the way the Trader was.
"Hi Ryan," it began.
If you're reading this then it means I'm dead. This rad cancer's been eating my guts for months and I know there's no stopping it. So this is me saying goodbye and the best of luck. If it goes the way I hope, I'll just walk away one night so don't you blasted come after me. Please. That's the Trader asking and not ordering, Ryan, old friend. We've been some places and done some good and bad things. Now it's done. That's all. I thank you for watching my back for so many years. You and J.B. watch for each other.
There was no signature.
So he'd done it. Ended his life in the same quietly efficient way he'd run it. Minutes later, as Ryan walked through the war wag, there were several of the women, and some of the men, red eyed. Samantha was weeping on the shoulder of Hennings. Rintoul was clicking his fingers in a nervous, abstracted way, and Finnegan's usual good nature had vanished.
"Break this up," called Ryan, making them jump and turn hostile faces his way. "Trader went as he wanted. Save your sorrow."
Outside in the freshness of morning the rising sun was tipping the hills to the west, turning the snow to blood. Abe was sitting on the ground, nursing his own M-16 rifle, gazing out across the river toward the forest. Ry
an hunkered alongside him.
"Tell me, Abe."
"What?"
"You was goin' to tell me. Somethin' that Trader said or did. At the last?"
"No. Wasn't like that, I told you allhe said. Then he just walked off, over there." He pointed with the muzzle of the gun.
"Then what?"
"I thought I saw somethin' there. Just by that ridge of light rock, over toward where that pond lies."
Ryan followed the man's stubby finger, seeing that he was pointing in the general direction of where he and Krysty had made love the previous evening.
"This was before Trader went or after?"
"Like after. I seen him walkin' away, and there was a good moon up, so he showed clear. I watched, and then I saw this thing up there, like it was waitin' for the Trader. First I figured he..."
"A man?"
"I'm tellin' ya, Ryan. I figured he might be one of the muties that done the feathers and skulls and stuff, so I get a bead on him, ready to ice him. Then I see the Trader lift a hand to him, and this old man lifts a hand back. They meet up and go under the trees and that's all I see. No danger, so I don't raise a warnin' for everyone. Then, the Trader... he don't come back."
"Tell me about this man. This old man, you said. What was he like?"
"He had silver hair in braids, one on each side. And a long coat with some fancy patterns on it."
"Anything else?"
"Yeah. Isaw it through the scope in the moonlight, in his hair, the old man had a long white feather."
* * *
Nobody ever saw the old man with the white feather in his hair. Nor was the Trader ever seen again.
Chapter Fifteen
The roads high in the darks were as bad as anything any of them had ever seen. Bucketing ribbons of twisted concrete vanished into rivers and never came out again. Whole slabs of the hillsides had melted during earth tremors a century ago. They were looking for the remains of a township shown on their tattered maps as Babb, but the devastation was so total that they had little hope of finding it. Lakes had filled in where there should have been dry land, and tiny feeder streams had become howling torrents of angry melt water.
