Perdition Valley

by James Axler

  Impulsively, Doc started to quote the old saying that violence never settled anything, but then stopped himself. Violence settled more matters than anything else he had ever seen. It was the war hammer, not a gavel, that brought justice to the world. Sad, but true.

  “How is Lily doing?” Ryan asked, casting a glance her way.

  “Still asleep,” Doc replied. “Which I would guess is a good thing. Aside from being shot, Mildred said she was also suffering from mild starvation.”

  “She was starving, but the bikes were stuffed with MRE packs,” Ryan said, his expression growing hard.

  Studying the fire, Doc shrugged. “Apparently, the Rogan brothers were not firm believers in sharing their prosperity.”

  Sitting on a rock, Ryan grunted at that. The Rogans had enough food to feed a small army, and they starved their slave. That was just stupe. Sounded more like revenge than casual cruelty. Lily had to have offended the brothers in some way. Stolen one of their blasters, or something.

  Pouring himself a cup of black coffee, Ryan admitted that the presence of the bikes and MRE packs raised the important question of where the frag the Rogans had gotten the mil tech. The M-16/M-203 combo rapidfires worked better than anything the companions owned, as did the grens. Plus, those black two-wheelers were in perfect condition, as if they had just come out of the factory yesterday. Or out of a deep storage locker inside a redoubt?

  Politely, Doc offered the powdered milk and sugar, but Ryan passed and took a sip of the black brew. Had somebody found a redoubt? That was a disturbing notion. The villagers at Broke Neck knew the legend of the redoubts, mebbe somebody had discovered the secret of the underground bases. Then again, there could be a second Anthill, a thriving enclave of the predark world still alive and functioning, making machines, weps, war wags, and whitecoats laying plans written in human misery for world conquest. Blind norad, what world was there for folks to conquer anymore?

  Glancing outside, Ryan hadn’t wanted to leave the two bikes where they might be discovered. On top of which, even though the companions couldn’t use the brass of the M-16 rapidfires in their own blasters, all of those grens had to stay out of the hands of the Rogans. Mildred assured him that the lowjack was turned off, and all of the ammo clips for the rapidfires had been tossed down a crevice and covered with dirt. Only the 40 mm shells for the gren launcher had been saved for J.B. to disassemble and extract the wad of C-4 plas from the warheads. He’d molded the deadly material like a block of clay, and stuffed it into one of the homie pipe bombs. That one he’d marked with a strip of gray duct tape. The other bombs were all packed with fulminating guncotton made back in Two-Son ville. Powerful stuff. But the C-4 bomb would be an earthshaker. That would be a nasty surprise to the Rogans.

  “Remember anything else about the brothers?” Ryan asked, leaning the Steyr against the granite wall, and settling into place.

  “Aside from their names, not much,” Doc admitted, sliding on his own coat. “John, Alan, Robert, Edward. But there is no way of knowing which one is gone.”

  “If any.”

  “Oh, one of them is absolutely deceased, my dear Ryan,” Doc said in a hard voice, his hand tightening on the lionhead of his ebony stick. “Of that there is no doubt, whatsoever.”

  Fair enough. “Speaking of which,” Ryan said, taking the other man by the shoulder. “I owe you for saving Krysty from the bastards.” Then the Deathlands warrior paused, unsure if he should say more, but the feelings welled from within and there was no stopping them.

  “She’s my Emily,” Ryan said softly.

  Nodding in comprehension, Doc exchanged looks with the man, then rose to walk away. There were some things just too difficult to openly speak about, even to a good friend in the middle of the night.

  “I’ll go check the horses,” Doc said, heading into the darkness.

  “Use my bedroll when you come back,” Ryan offered, taking another drink of the coffee.

  “Thank you,” Doc said, a sob almost catching in his throat.

  Lowering the cup, Ryan looked puzzled at that, and Doc hurried away, afraid that one more word might break his resolve.

  Walking around the front of the mesa, Doc found nothing out of the ordinary. Satisfied for the moment, he went to the horses. Their reins were tied to a tall cactus. A stallion was diligently chewing on a leather strap, but stopped when Doc approached.

  “I know exactly how you feel,” the scholar whispered sadly, scratching the animal behind the ears.

  The horse chuffed in pleasure at the treatment, then settled down. It was just nerves, Doc realized. The horses could tell the people were tense, and that made them think a predator was close. How right they were.

  Choosing Jak’s mare, Doc started untying the reins. The animal looked suspiciously at him, but didn’t make a sound. Doc had been counting on that. Trained by sec men to hunt stickies, the noble beast knew when to be quiet. And the slightest sound could ruin everything.

  Standing guard alone, Doc could have left at any time. But that would have left the others unprotected, which was not acceptable. So he had been forced to stay and bide his time until somebody else took his place. Now he could finally depart without endangering the other companions. His pockets were full of spare ammo, and he carried enough MRE packs for a week. That would have to do. Whoever was supplying the Rogans with predark technology wanted Doc alive. But he knew from bitter experience the others would not be under that blanket of protection. Anybody who stood between the Rogans and Doc would be chilled. Or worse, they might be captured alive for the unknown master of the Rogans to use in his experiments.

  Doc climbed onto the horse and rubbed its muscular neck. Shifting its hooves on the loose sand, the horse gave a little whinny, and Doc quickly fed it some sugar he had been saving as a bribe. Readiness was all, as Ryan liked to say.

  “Goodbye, my friends,” Doc whispered, shaking the reins to guide the mare away from the other animals. His heart was heavy, but his mind was made up. To protect the others from the brutal administrations of the whitecoats, he would have to leave the companions forever.

  Doc would lead the Rogans on a desperate chase across the shattered continent. His travels with the others had taught him a thousand places to hide, and a hundred tricks to use against being tracked. It would take them years to capture him, perhaps never. But Doc would buy the others a slim chance at life. No matter the price. Somehow, he felt sure that Emily would approve.

  Keeping the mare to an easy walk away from the mesa, Doc stayed alert for any of the companions to check on the horses. But the night was quiet, and he proceeded along until a cresting dune took the mesa from sight. It was done.

  Breaking the horse into a gallop, Doc set off toward the north. With luck he could lure the Rogans away from the companions and the redoubt in the western mountains. After that…well, Doc had escaped from a hundred deathtraps before. Maybe he could do it one more time.

  Time. It really was all just a matter of time.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The crescent moon rose high behind the thickening clouds, the flashing sheet lightning and rumbling thunder of the angry heavens not harbingers of a coming maelstrom, but merely reminders of the long-past apocalypse. Nature it seemed, had a very long memory, and never forgave a transgression.

  Galloping through the night, Doc leaned low over the horse, moving to the rhythm of the powerful animal, its unshod hooves throwing back a contrail of sand and dust. He tried to keep his mind blank, to concentrate on the future. But the past kept intruding into his troubled thoughts. Had he done the right thing? What if the Rogans attacked the companions when they were down one blaster? What if…what if…

  Slowly, the long hours passed and the land changed from flat desert to hilly terrain. Doc was still waging his internal conflict when he heard the chuffing noise of the horse hooves on sand abruptly change into ringing clangs. Eh? Shaking the dreams from his eyes, Doc realized that the horse was galloping at breakneck speed and was
thundering across the remains of a predark bridge. Flooded with cold adrenaline, Doc urged the horse on to greater speed. The structure was shaking from the pounding hooves, bits and pieces falling away to disappear into the darkness below. Lost in his private reverie, Doc had failed to stop the animal from entering the crumbling ruin, now it was too late. Speed was his only hope, to outrace the spreading destruction caused by their very presence.

  Then Doc saw the end of the world. Only fifty feet ahead, the bridge ended in fused girders and loose cables dangling to sway in the wind. Unexpectedly, the horse started to gallop even faster. The beast was going to try to jump across the valley!

  “Whoa, girl! Whoa!” Doc shouted, frantically tightening the reins, but it was already too late.

  Straight over the edge of the bridge they went, rider and mount, sailing through the air to gracefully descend until slamming into the sloped embankment. In stunned horror, Doc heard the legs of the horse snap as he went flying out of the saddle. The mare screamed as he hit the dirt hard and went tumbling into chaos.

  Rocks, trees and cactus flashed by as Doc helplessly careened down the side of the hill. Totally out of control, the horse and rider tumbled wildly along for what seemed like miles until suddenly hitting flatland in a jarring crash.

  Long minutes passed as the dust cloud of their journey settled onto the two bedraggled figures, the noise of their descent echoing off the canyon walls into the distance. It was quite a while until the loose rocks stopped rolling down the slope, and even longer before either Doc or the horse moved.

  Groaning into life, Doc painfully sat upright, gingerly checking himself for damage. He was astonished to find only bruises and scrapes. His ebony swordstick was gone, as was the LeMat, along with numerous small items from his pockets. Forcing himself to stand, Doc pulled out a butane lighter and flicked it alive to check the ground nearby. A MRE pack was only a few feet away, his stick lying on a cactus at just the limit of the weak light. Shuffling over, Doc groaned as he bent to retrieve the MRE pack, and stuffed it into a pocket. Moving in an outward spiral, he located a pipe bomb, and then more items, painfully gathering the ones not smashed.

  Finally, he located the LeMat. The Civil War blaster seemed completely undamaged from the fall. The cylinder rotated freely, and the big hammer clicked back into the firing position without any hindrance. Whether any of the charges were still loaded in chambers was another matter entirely. But Doc had plenty of reloads for the wep, and the Ruger was fully loaded, so he was still armed for the moment. Thankfully, his wallet was still safe and secure inside his frock coat.

  Sitting on a rock to catch his breath, Doc flexed his shoulders and moaned. He hadn’t felt this bad since the last time he had been whipped at a post. Then anger flared, and Doc muttered a bitter curse. Idiot! He had fallen asleep at the wheel, and paid a terrible price for his foolishness.

  Then an anguished whinny caught his attention, Doc quickly limped over to find the horse lying against a small juniper tree. The berry-filled branches covered the mare like a protective shroud, but blood dripped from the pointy leaves.

  As Doc approached, the horse struggled to stand, and began to scream at the effort, crying hysterically from the incalculable pain of its broken legs. Kneeling, he tried to calm the animal and ascertain the level of damage it had suffered. In the dappled light from the clouds above, Doc could see that all four of the legs were bent at impossible angles, sharp white bone sticking out of the hide in spots. No blood was spurting, but that hardly mattered. Four broken legs. Sadly, the old man knew that there was only one cure for a horse with that sort of injury.

  “There, there, old girl,” Doc whispered gently to the writhing animal as he pulled out the Ruger and thumbed back the hammer. “Hush now. Settle down, it will all be over soon. I promise. Hush now, old girl, easy does it.”

  Listening to the calming voice, the mare stopped trying to stand on its shattered limbs and lay there gulping air. There was moisture in Doc’s eyes as he placed the cold barrel of the .44 Magnum revolver against the forehead of the injured animal and fired. The muzzle-flash illuminated the beast as its whole body shook, and then the mare went limp forever.

  A coyote howled at the sound of the blaster shot, and Doc wearily stood to holster the wep. There was no way for him to bury the animal. He would have to leave it for the scavengers of the night.

  “Sorry,” Doc whispered to the dead horse for no logical reason. “I am so very sorry.”

  Tugging the saddlebags free from under the body, the old man checked the supplies, then draped them over a shoulder. Brushing back his hair, Doc hitched his gunbelt tighter and started to walk away quickly. The noise of the shot, mixed with the well of fresh blood, would attract all sorts of things that he really didn’t wish to encounter.

  Glancing around, Doc saw only darkness along the sloping side of the valley, chasm, whatever the hell he was at the bottom of, and knew there was no way to reach the top from here. Moving downslope, Doc reached flat ground once more and looked around, trying to decide on a direction. There was only utter blackness around him, the storm clouds moving in to completely cover the crescent moon and steal away even that weak illumination.

  Vaguely, Doc thought that he could see the opposite side of the cliff he had gone over so unexpectedly. It seemed to be just as impassable. So traveling north or south was no longer a viable option. The man was left with east and west, and west would send him toward the Mohawk Mountains and the Rogans. No, not that way. With the decision made, Doc shifted the saddlebags on his shoulder and started due east along the floor of the valley into the black unknown.

  After a few miles, the valley opened onto a darkling plain as inhospitable as the far side of the moon. Trying to continue in the same direction, Doc slowed when something loomed in front of him in the night. Pulling a blaster, Doc advanced slowly until he saw it was merely some ruins. But whether the destruction was recent, or from predark days, he couldn’t really tell. The walls were adobe, but lots of folks used that abundant material nowadays.

  Circling warily around the structure, Doc saw that it was a military installation of some kind. The ramshackle fortress was in total disrepair. The walls were crumbling apart, with loose bricks scattered across the ground. Explosion damage? Perhaps. The roof of the outbuilding had collapsed inward, with the windows only gaping holes, the glass long gone. There was a stable that didn’t look in bad condition, and a stone well surrounded by a nest of tumbleweeds. However, Doc had a full canteen and saw no reason to rest this soon in his travels.

  Leaving the ruins behind, the man trundled onward, the saddlebags becoming constantly heavier and starting to chafe his back until the old man was forced to call a brief halt. As he rested, Doc unhappily started to sort the supplies into items that could be safely abandoned and the ones deemed vital to survival.

  He was still shifting through the saddlebag when the softly moaning wind carried a faint smell of wood smoke. Doc jerked up his head at that, then froze at the delicious aroma of roasting meat. That meant people. Was he near a ville? Possibly. But of course, it could also just be some pilgrims, or travelers, making camp for the night. Such as the Rogans.

  Briefly, Doc debated the wisdom of trying the other direction across the valley when a soft chanting came to his attention. The words weren’t in English, but a singsong tongue of flowing syllables that resembled Apache. Doc knew that there had once been Indian reservations in New Mex, but he didn’t think that this was Apache land. Then again, the Indian nations had been at war with one another long before the Europeans arrived, so it was eminently possible that the Indians who survived skydark built new nations amid the technology debris of their former conquerors.

  Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, Doc started back toward the perdition valley when there came a motion in the air and something stabbed down into the ground directly in front of the scholar. He recoiled at the sight of a wooden spear sticking out of the dirt, a tuft of eagle feather
s on the long shaft fluttering in the breeze.

  Spinning fast, Doc drew both of his handblasters and waited for the next move. The Indians of old valued courage and honor above everything else, as did some of the Deathlands barbarians. A warrior was often welcomed with open arms, while a frightened outlander would be slain on the spot. The slightest sign of weakness now could mean his immediate death. That spear hadn’t missed him. It had gone exactly where the caster had wanted it to land. This was a calling card to announce the arrival of the owners. However, the big question was whether this nuke generation of Indians would have the same social ethics as their long-gone ancestors.

  Softly, there came a patting noise like distant rain, and a dozen people on horseback rode into view.

  They were big men and women, all of them dressed in loose leather vests and pants laced together with rawhide cord. Everybody had a headband supporting an assortment of feathers in the rear, although the number and color of the feathers was different for each, and all of the riders had delicate scars on their faces in elaborate designs.

  A couple of the Indians carried a quiver of arrows and a bow on their backs. The rest held bolt-action longblasters with bandoliers of brass across their chests, and every horse had a scabbard attached at the saddle carrying a wooden spear. Only one man had a handblaster in a beaded holster at his side, the grip turned backward for a crosshand draw. His scabbard was empty.

  Not knowing what else to do, Doc holstered the LeMat, and then touched his heart, lips and forehead in the greeting. It was a very nonthreatening gesture and hopefully would be interpreted as a sign of friendship. Try as he might, the old man couldn’t think of any other nonverbal greeting, aside from wiggling his fingers hello, which would just look ridiculous.

  The riders seemed puzzled at the gesture, but not offended. An older warrior with gray in his hair talked in the flowing tongue to a young woman, and she replied with a guttural snort.

  That didn’t sound good, so Doc walked backward to the spear and yanked it from the ground. The Indians became instantly alert. They openly placed hands on weps as the old man approached them again, then halted.