The Amtrak Wars: Blood River

by Patrick Tilley

  When Brickman had made his escape from the Heron Pool, Roz had been walking along a corridor in her medical school with a group of student colleagues. They had noticed she was tense but with vital exams coming up, who wasn’t? Without warning, her right leg suddenly buckled, throwing her to the ground, where she lay, clutching her thigh.

  As friends helped her up they noticed blood seeping through her fingers. She shrugged off the incident but was carried protesting into the first aid room where Family medics investigators assigned to her case found a three-inch deep wound caused by a bladed metal projectile which had sliced through the muscle with considerable force. Roz, who had been sharing Steve’s gut-wrenching anxiety during the destruction of the Heron Pool, had also been wounded by an invisible replica of the arrow that had split a wooden strut before burying itself in Steve’s thigh. An invisible arrow brought into being and delivered with the same force and in the same moment of time through the power of their linked minds.

  It was not surprising that Karlstrom felt uneasy. He had no cause to doubt Roz’s loyalty and dedication, but like all members of the First Family, he didn’t like depending on people or things over which he did not have total control.

  But it had to be admitted that in this latest affair, Roz had performed brilliantly. Within seconds of Steve making contact, she had carded herself into a closed video-booth and placed a call to Karlstrom using the special high-priority number he’d given her to memorize. And within an instant of keying in the last digit, COLUMBUS had activated the bleeper in his Karlstrom’s pocket and put a flash notification of her call on the nearest screen.

  From their brief on-screen conversation Karlstrom had gotten enough information to order the commander of AMEXICO’s airforce to make immediate preparations to despatch five of his aircraft – four Skyhawks and a Skyrider mother-ship – on a long-range mission. The pilots were to go on red alert; course and target details would follow later.

  By the time Roz arrived by shuttle at AMEXICO’s headquarters with fuller details of Steve’s predicament, the aircraft on the overground base near Houston-GC was being armed and refuelled, the pilots were kitted up and gathered in the briefing room, and Karlstrom had a map of the lower half of Lake Michigan spread out on his desk.

  From there on in it had all gone like clockwork. If Karlstrom had harboured any doubts about putting Roz on the Red-River wagon-train to help her kin-brother bring in Clearwater and the other two targets they vanished on receipt of ‘Fire-Chief Mackinnon’s radio message that the wheelboat had been deep-fried and was now settling into the water some four hundred yards from the shore. Properly handled, this girl and her brother were dynamite. And it was beginning to look as if he had taken too jaundiced a view of Brickman’s reliability. He was a devious sonofabitch, but then so was every successful agent. His intelligence was unquestioned and his performance in the field had proved he was tough, resourceful and courageous. He was also very lucky. In fact, considering the jams Brickman had been in and the one he’d just gotten himself out of, one could almost say – if you believed in magic – that he led a ‘charmed life’ …

  This was not quite how Steve saw it but he was, nevertheless, glad to be alive. The bomb blast had ripped the lantern from its hook on the ceiling of the passageway outside their cell, but the glare from the blazing roof timbers ahead of the shattered engine room had provided enough light to unlock the neck-boards and wrist shackles.

  After that, darkness had descended and he’d had to feel his way out of the sinking boat whilst fighting to keep hold of Cadillac at the same time. The rush of water rising up the passageway from behind had carried them through the hatchway onto the deck above where they both had a chance to gulp down some more air before being pushed back under by an avalanche of assorted debris that came sliding towards them as the front section of the boat tipped backwards at a steeper and steeper angle.

  There was a timeless moment when Steve had no recollection of anything except a strong impression that he was going to die then to his utter surprise, his head bobbed out of the water and he realized that (a) he was still alive, (b) he still had his left arm round Cadillac’s neck, and (c) a fire-blackened upturned dory and an oar were both floating within reach.

  Righting the dory with the aid of the oar whilst trying to keep the unconscious Mute’s head above water was no easy task but Steve finally managed it. Getting Cadillac aboard was even harder but, having taken the precaution of throwing the oar in first, he succeeded in doing that too. When the Mute was balanced on his navel over the back-board, Steve clambered in over the bow, hauled the rest of his colleague out of the water and laid him in the bottom of the boat.

  A few minutes hard pumping got his eyes open and most of the water out of his lungs. Cadillac rolled onto one side and vomited weakly. ‘I think I’m going to die …’

  ‘I doubt it.’ Steve rose, inserted the oar in the stern rowlock and fishtailed the boat southwards, parallel with the shore. It was time to steer clear of any further trouble.

  From the shrieks and cries and the unmistakable ringing clash of steel carried by the wind across the water, it was clear that the Iron Masters who’d made it to shore weren’t going down without a fight. Steve felt a twinge of guilt but Cadillac, for one, was in no shape to start trading sharp iron. It was time for the Kojak to show what they were made of. If things got sticky, there was always Clearwater. She would pull some magic out of the air and blow the Japs back into the water. Or whatever.

  Nyehhh … to hell with it. They’d done enough for one night …

  Chapter Thirteen

  Stu Gordon, a Tracker renegade guarding the eastern approaches to his group’s temporary campsite, set the ‘scope on distant focus and began another slow, patient sweep of the seemingly limitless landscape. Another breaker, Nick Walsh, lay on his back beside him, his eyes trained on the sky while he waited for his turn at the ‘scope. Stu was on the look-out for any roving bands of Mutes, Nick was searching for what the Mutes called ‘arrowheads’ – Skyhawks sent up as forward scouts by the wagon-trains.

  The name, which had been derived from the standard tailless, delta-winged configuration, was no longer strictly accurate. This year, a new, more powerful aircraft had appeared in the skies, one with straight, constant-chord wings and trim tails perched on the end of narrow booms sprouting from the trailing edge of the wing on either side of the rear-mounted engine. An aircraft that also packed a more powerful punch: a fixed forward-firing six-barrelled gun.

  It was a quantum leap from the lone rifleman in the sky and their appearance was a sign that the Federation meant business. In the spring of the previous year, the wagon-trains had made their first penetration of Plainfolk territory, a vast area which, up to then, had provided uneasy sanctuary for groups of breakers like the one Nick and Stu ran with.

  The constant fire-sweeps launched from the wagon-trains and way-stations in the New Territories of Colorado and Kansas had driven most of the groups northwards. Some breakers had decided to try and find one of the westward trails that were said to lead over the Rockies but their group had voted to try and continue their nomadic existence on the high plains of Nebraska and Wyoming. To go west would be to enter uncharted territory. There would no longer be any threat from the Federation but there would be no pick-ups either.

  Renegades were scavengers who lived off what the wagon-trains left behind. They were like seagulls who hovered constantly above the sterns of ocean-going liners. Except they weren’t looking for food. What they needed were compressed air bottles to power their rifles and hand-guns, clips of needlepoint rounds, torch batteries, first aid kits, knives, tools, uniforms, boots – any useful item of equipment that would add a few creature comforts to their rough and ready existence.

  But of course this kind of stuff didn’t just fall off wagon-trains. Good sense suggested you should get the hell out of any area where a fire-sweep was in progress but that was exactly where you stood the best chance of picking up some goodies
. When wagon-trains were stalled by the terrain, they sent out combat squads in pursuit of the lump-heads with Skyhawks riding point. But the Mutes had a habit of hitting back with crossbows and they rarely missed.

  Luckily, each bowman only had a few bolts and he relied on getting them back. That’s when renegades got lucky. Provided you were able to move in quick enough, and the lump-heads were driven off or killed, you could strip the kit off the corpses and cut out the crossbow bolts to trade with the Mutes who were also in the business of pillaging corpses. Despite this there was no serious conflict of interest. The Mutes were trophy hunters. It was the severed heads of Trail-Blazers and their combat knives that were the real collectors’ items. The lumps had no use for rifles or handguns. Like breakers, they took everything they could lay hands on but provided they had a few bits and pieces to hang round their necks or sew onto their leather body armour they could be persuaded to part with precious air bottles and spare magazines.

  It was a dangerous game because you could get your own ass blown off while you were waiting to pounce. And there was an even greater risk of that happening if you decided to ambush linemen on their way to the wagon-train when they were most likely to have used up most of their ammo – or thrown it away to cut down on the weight they had to carry.

  Breakers like Stu and Nick had no qualms about attacking Trail-Blazers. Renegade Trackers and lump-heads were bracketed together as vermin: to be exterminated – which was probably why the Mutes allowed the ‘redskins’, as they called them, a certain amount of elbow room. Provided you didn’t set up a permanent camp on a clan’s turf, and hunted game in an economical fashion, the lumps left you pretty much alone for most of the year. There was only one danger period – the last three weeks in April and the first week of May – when the Mutes made their annual cull of renegades. That was when breakers went to ground. If you didn’t lie low, you risked being captured, or killed if you used force against your pursuers. Those that fell into the net were traded at the Mutes’ annual jamboree on Lake Superior and shipped to an unknown destination in the east.

  The lumps looked on the annual round-up as a game which, even if those being chased didn’t think it funny, was conducted in a free and easy fashion and with evident goodwill. If you gave ’em a good run before being captured they sometimes let you go. But for many breakers, who had risked everything to break free of the Federation’s claustrophobic regime, death was preferable to a life of slavery.

  That was why Stu Gordon and Nick Walsh were on lookout duty along with six other guys covering the north, south and western approaches to their camp overlooking the North Platte River in Nebraska.

  But there were additional dangers breakers faced which were harder to identify. Besides the general hazards of surviving on the overground, avoiding wagon-trains and the annual Mute round-up, there was the threat posed by the roving presence of FINTEL squads – Trackers whose job it was to gather field intelligence to help the planning of wagon-train operations and, worst of all, undercover Feds, disguised as breakers, and working singly or in small groups.

  These slimy bastards were the real ememy. Their job was to shaft breakers whenever the opportunity occurred and their preferred method was to boobytrap dead bodies with small-anti-personnel mines. They also left ration packs laced with cyanide, poisoned water filtration kits and first aid bags containing hypodermics filled with junk designed to kill, not cure.

  All in all, a nice bunch. But while the threat they posed was strictly bad news, their presence on the overground did bring one positive benefit. They were maintained in the field by airdropped supplies which were fed into a network of small underground dumps. These were always extremely well-concealed but they could be found if you knew where to look and what to look for. It needed a lot of experience but the leader of their group – a guy called Malone – had a real nose for it. But even his years of experience did not mean the group was totally fireproof. Last year over thirty guys had been lifted by the M’Call, a big Mute clan whose beat – depending on the time of year – ran from navref Caspar in Wyoming down the line of the North Platte to navref Kearney.

  Stu Gordon grunted as he picked up something in the ‘scope. ‘What the eff-eff we got here …? Hey, Nick! Take a look.’

  Walsh took the ‘scope and aimed it in the direction indicated. ‘What am I lookin’ for?’

  ‘Three guys and a bunch of animals. Follow the line of the river beyond that second bend there, see? You’ll come to a clump of trees on the bank to your left –’

  ‘Got it …’

  ‘Now pan left – easy now. There’s a faint trail. If you’re lookin’ at more trees you’ve gone too far.’

  ‘I have. Wait a minute … Yeah, okay, I’m on it.’

  ‘Good. Now follow that line up towards the horizon.’

  Walsh found the target. A group of strange four-legged animals. The first three had men astride their backs. The head of one of them was covered by a helmet with a wide sweeping brim. He and another guy were carrying what looked like green flags on the end of poles but at this stage, they were still too far away to make out any details.

  During their time before going over the side – the breaker term for what the Federation called desertion – neither Gordon nor Walsh had spent a lot of time tuned into the Archive channel or hung around with anybody who had. As far as they were concerned it was ‘now’ that counted, the only history they were obliged to be familiar with was that of the Federation, beginning in 2051 AD. Any reference the obligatory lessons made to the pre-Holocaust period concentrated on its negative aspects – all of which had been eliminated by the Federation, a point which their teachers and the supporting video-programs were at pains to stress. Ad nauseam …

  This meant that neither renegade realized they were looking at a herd of some eighty horses – part of the spoils of the Kojak’s great victory over the Iron Masters – led by three riders sitting proud in the saddle. As they had every right to be.

  Walsh lowered the ‘scope. ‘D’ja ever see anythin’ like that before?’

  ‘Never.’ Stu Gordon slithered down the sloping rock face to take himself off the skyline then sat up and waved to attract Malone’s attention. ‘Hey, Chief! Somethin’ here you might wanna see!’

  Malone handed the map he’d been examining back to one of his four lieutenants and clambered up towards Gordon and Walsh. Walsh handed him the ‘scope and went back to his skywatch. Guys on guard duty who failed to remain alert soon found out why Malone had remained the honcho of one of the largest and best-equipped bands of renegades for so long. The hard way.

  Malone focused up on the advancing herd. Some of the riderless horses had saddles with raised pommels and seat backs. They were grouped in a loose V-shape behind the lead animals with a few strays running wide on each side and to the rear.

  From his almost head-on view of the herd it was difficult to judge their speed but from what he’d seen of buffalo on the move they appeared to be covering the ground at a fast clip. The horses were, in fact, moving at the canter but Malone’s knowledge did not embrace the technical terms used to describe their gait. He lowered the ‘scope. ‘Hmmmm… interesting.’

  ‘D’you know what they are, chief?’

  ‘Yeah. They’re horses.’

  ‘Horses? Ahh, I know the word,’ said Gordon. ‘I didn’t know it was the name of an animal. I thought it was –’

  Malone interrupted with a knowing smile. ‘– just another name for your prick.’

  A word which, in its turn, was yet another drawn from the vast lexicon of slang for the male and female sex organs and the adjacent orifice which, in the pre-Holocaust era, a significant and tenacious minority had elevated from its humble function as a drainpipe through which fecal matter was pumped from the bowels into an object of veneration. ‘Putting the horse between the shafts’ – a phrase mainly employed by Young Pioneers – was one of a host of euphemisms spawned over the centuries by man’s compulsive need to simultaneously embr
oider and deride the coital act.

  ‘If you’d spent more time checking the picture archives ‘stead of playin’ arcade games you wouldn’t need to ask,’ continued Malone. ‘Even so it’s a surprise. According to the stuff I scanned, horses were one of several kinds of domestic animals that were wiped out during the Holocaust.’

  Gordon frowned. ‘What does “domestic” mean?’

  ‘Tame. People used to raise ’em and feed ’em. Some of them they used to eat, others – dogs for instance, that was kind of like a wolf – were trained to hunt game and guard the homesteads. Sounds hard to believe but people used to live with ’em in the same room.’

  The two breakers laughed disbelievingly.

  ‘Sounds crazy, I know. But that’s the way it was. And before we invented trains, planes and wheelies – when there weren’t any engines to move things – folks used horses for transportation. For thousands of years there were big herds of wild horses roamin’ the plains. The way the buffalo do now – only horses are a lot brighter. Guys would round ’em up and break ’em, knock ’em into shape, so they know who’s boss. When you’ve got animals haulin’ a load they gotta stop when you want and move when you say “Move” – right?’

  ‘You mean like the D.I.’s at boot camp.’

  Malone smiled. ‘Exactly. Break ’em then remake ’em. It’s the only way to deal with animals like you. That’s how the First Family keep us tied to their wagon. Horses were used to haul carts – cargo wheelies. Only they were the traction unit. That’s how we got the term “horse-power” for measuring an engine’s output.’

  ‘Really? I didn’t know that,’ said Gordon.

  ‘Well, stick with me. You’ll learn somethin’ every day. But as well as hitching ’em to carts and ploughs, people also used to ride on their backs – like those three guys are doing now. Question is – where the hell did they come from?’