by James Axler
“Guess you’re becoming a regular, dude.” Esquivel smiled as he downed his measure.
They stood and drank for some time, talking about nothing, both avoiding the subject of Olly and Budd. Neither wanted to get into a deep discussion. They were saved from any further fencing when Ella-Mae walked into the bar.
“Figured that’s what she meant,” Esquivel murmured to J.B. “I’m gonna make myself gone, but not a word to anyone, or I’ll end up feeling the rough edge of Xander.”
“Thanks,” J.B. murmured back. “But you don’t have to put yourself at risk.”
“I figure you’d do the same for me,” he whispered as Ella-Mae approached. “But watch your back.”
J.B. was about to ask him about this last, cryptic comment, but the sec man was gone.
“Hey, fancy seeing you here,” Ella-Mae said playfully.
“Yeah, just fancy.” J.B. replied, ordering her a drink. Was it his imagination, or did Icepick glare at him as he set the glass down for Ella-Mae.
They talked and drank. Most of what she told him was what he already knew: how her talents as a mechanic had kept her away from having to sell herself as a gaudy. How she’d seen her mother drink herself into oblivion because she hated selling herself. How much trouble she had from men who couldn’t understand that she wasn’t for sale. Suddenly something clicked and J.B. realized what Esquivel had meant by his last comment. Looking around, J.B. could see that he was getting stares—not from convoy members who were drinking themselves senseless at inflated jack prices, but from ville dwellers who were drinking in the bar.
There was nothing J.B. could tell her about himself. The realization that her talking to him, wanting to be with him, was causing friction with the locals made him aware that they should get the hell out as soon as possible. She caught him looking around from the corner of his eye.
“Am I that boring?” she asked, a grin playing around her lips.
“It’s not you I’m worried about,” he replied.
“Then mebbe we should go where there’s no one else to worry about,” she said, moving toward the door. J.B. followed, scanning the bar’s customers for any potential trouble. There were hostile glares, but no one rose to follow. Nonetheless, as he followed her through the streets, J.B. said very little other than to answer her questions in a perfunctory manner. He was triple red for any trouble that may be following on his tail.
“I think we’re alone now,” she said softly as he followed her into her shack and she closed the door behind him. He stayed her with a gesture, then checked through the window. Satisfied, he turned back to her.
“Yeah, now I’ll agree.”
She moved toward J.B. and put her hands behind his head, pulling him to her until their mouths touched. She was clumsy and hesitant.
“It’s been a hell of a long time. I’m out of practice, babe,” she said before trying again.
“You’re getting the hang of it,” he said softly when she paused. There was something at the back of his head, something that this was triggering. But the thought was gone when she stepped back and took off her shirt, revealing full, pendulous breasts and a waist taut and muscled from her work.
“There are a few more things you might be able to help me to remember,” she said softly.
First there had been the barfight and now this.
It was going to be another long night.
Chapter Eleven
The rising sun had never been such a welcome sight. As the inhabitants of Nagasaki slept, so the companions emerged into the encroaching day, blinking from the light and the lack of sleep. Despite moving to the ranch house, none of the five companions had dared to risk sleep, fighting back their prickling eyes and wandering minds.
All five had emerged into the ramshackle streets of the shantytown hoping that whatever passed for fresh air in the stinking ville would restore some kind of awareness and edge to their clouded minds.
“What kind of hell is this?” Doc exclaimed wearily. “I remember some paintings that depicted hell. They were a little like last night.”
“I dunno what you’re talking about, but I’ll agree with you anyway.” Krysty sighed. “Gaia knows what that mad son of a bitch has got in store for us next.”
“Who knows? I just get the idea that all this is normal to them. Which does make me wonder,” Mildred pondered, “why we got a little bit of protection there. Do other outlanders get the same?”
“Buckley hasn’t said anything about other outlanders coming into the ville, so mebbe they don’t find many,” Ryan replied. “Can’t imagine many making it across the dust bowl.”
“Then what’s in the barn?” Jak questioned quietly, indicating the reinforced and moated building that loomed ominously to the rear of the ville.
“I figure we should have a recce around there as soon as we can,” Mildred whispered. Her tone suggested that although it was an imperative, a part of her was worried about what they might find contained within its walls.
Ryan nodded. “As for what Buckley wants now, he wants us to fight for him. I’ve been thinking about this convoy raid and I figure that we’re gonna be leading the charge. First in, first to buy the farm.”
“That’s a reassuring thought,” Krysty murmured. “What are our chances of getting out of here?”
“With Doc still hurt and me not a hundred percent? With no wag unless we can get one of their fucking mules to haul ass? With no idea of where we are exactly and where to head? With no supplies? With no sleep?” Ryan counted off on his fingers as he spoke.
“Yeah, okay, you’ve made your point,” Krysty conceded.
“The way I see it is that we just sit tight, see what Buckley’s exact plans are and then try to find a hole in there to wriggle out from under.”
Doc sighed and spoke slowly, “As plans go, it is not the most detailed that I have ever heard wrought, but in the circumstances it is all that one could concede.”
“I think he means yes,” Krysty said, managing a wry smile, “but I’m not totally sure. So what do we do for now?”
Ryan looked around. There were signs of life stirring in the town, and the chief had emerged from his ranch house.
“We keep triple frosty, act stupe and see what the fucker tells us,” he whispered as Buckley came over to them.
“Hey, y’all ready for some action today? I’m figgering that we plan our raid. See with y’all as fighters, I’s had this real great idea about getting some real good stuff—things that’ll keep us in food and jack for a long time to come. And it’s all ’cause y’all with us. So come eat and we’ll talk about it.”
Beckoning them to follow, he returned to the ranch house, limping and shuffling as fast as he could. It was obvious that some inspiration had really fired him up. The question was, what would that mean for the companions?
Inside the filthy hovel, there was more food on the table. It looked like the same slop as the night before, just heated once more on an open fire. The gnawing in their guts drove them to stomach some of the greasy, tepid mush, but it was almost as hard as trying to make out what Buckley was saying between his cleft palate and the mouthfuls of food that he spit over the table as he spoke. His guards were also there, having mysteriously reappeared after the night before, and Krysty noticed that their attention was focused on her—wondering if Buckley’s plans for her had borne fruit.
“See, I’s been doing some thinking and I’s sure that we can pull this off with y’all on our side. See, what I was gonna be proposing is that we’s all trap this convoy that’s coming on the way through, take the shit they’s carrying and bring a few back alive for good luck. But hell, I’s thinking that with y’all around, we’s can take it one step further.”
“What do you mean?” Ryan prompted when Buckley seemed to pause for them to congratulate him. The one-eyed man wanted to be sure of what Buckley meant. If it was what he suspected, then they were in big trouble.
But instead of answering, Buckley went off at a tan
gent, emphasizing his points by bringing his fist down hard on the table, making the stew slop across the already greasy surface.
“Duma people’s scum, always has been and always will be. They’s thinking that they’s so much better’n us and they’s always getting all the trading and all the jack that’s around. Every time we’ve tried to be at one with them they’s pushed us away. They’s call us dirty and inbreeds and muties and they’s want nothing to do with us. And all that shit when they ain’t even knowin’ the right way to do things. They don’t realize that we’s the only one’s knows the truth about what happened and why the world’s like it is. We’s was taught from an early age what this is all about. But do they listen, do they learn from us about the places of Nagasaki and Hiroshima and the cleansing powers of the nuke?”
He stood up and began to stride about the room, dragging his game leg as he ranted. The companions were unwilling to interrupt him. To start, he may turn hostile if his train of thought were broken, decide he didn’t want them around—he seemed unstable enough to chill them as soon as look at them. On the other hand, in the middle of this ranting he might reveal something that could be of use.
“See, we’s should be running these lands. We’s the chosen ones, as we’s was taught from when we’s was young. That’s why we were out here, waiting for the nukecaust. That’s why we survived it. That’s why we prospered.”
The companions exchanged glances. This squalor was his idea of a community that was prospering?
“And why others have falled by the wayside. Hell, it was why we’s was saved. And then these fuckers come and take what’s rightfully ours and we’s have to rely on snatching something back when we can, like dogs in the night. Well, fuck ’em, my friends, fuck ’em all. I’s was communing with the spirits of the past last night and it came to me.”
“I thought you said he was jerking off to those photographs,” Mildred managed to murmur to Krysty.
Now that he was in full rant, the short, fat man was striding the room as though he were a colossus.
“Y’all been sent to me and to us by destiny. We’s been waiting a long time to take our rightful place, but now we can do it. We can do it because of y’all.”
“Chief, you’ll have to make it clearer than that,” Ryan said gently. “Think of it like this—we’re not the chosen and we don’t have your insight. We’re not guided by the spirits and we need you to tell us exactly what you mean.”
“That, my friend, was beautifully phrased,” Doc said softly.
“Words—all means we in line for chilling.” Jak reminded him in an undertone.
Buckley ignored these asides, if indeed he heard them above the sounds of glory that were clamoring in his head now that his grand plan was clear to him. If only it had been clear to the companions, although each had his or her own idea about where the rant was going.
“Hell, I’s woulda thought it was real clear,” Buckley said with a look of surprise on his face. It would have been comical if the situation were not so serious. “We’s gonna take a wag and get ourselves onto the end of that convoy, not attack it. It’s gonna take us right into the cold heart of Duma and we’s gonna get us some serious action. We’s couldn’t do it on our own, but with y’all along for the ride….”
Ryan frowned. In the midst of the rambling, there was one fact that he’d managed to isolate. “What wag?” he asked, holding up a hand to stay Buckley in his ranting.
“Didn’t I say anything about that?” A sudden look of confusion, mixed with cunning, crossed Buckley’s face. He continued. “We’s gets things sometimes. Y’all ain’t the only ones who get to be wandering across the wastelands.”
“Hurry up, please, it’s time,” Doc murmured distractedly.
“And sometimes we’s gets to pick up those as is doing the wandering. Mebbe they can be a problem and mebbe not. Mebbe they want fit in and mebbe not.” He shrugged, becoming deliberately evasive. “Sometimes they move on and we’s get to keep some of the things they arrived with.”
Ryan fixed him with a glare. “I haven’t often heard of a solitary wag making its way across country.”
Buckley shrugged. “Mebbe it’s not the first time we’s been after a convoy, then.”
“I kinda guessed that. So what happened to the crew?”
“Oh, we’s didn’t chill them. Hell no, we looked after ’em good and they had some fun.”
A shudder ran through the assembled companions as they recalled Nagasaki’s idea of fun.
“Where are they now?” Ryan asked.
“They’s in the barn, being looked after okay, oh yes, they is,” Buckley asserted, a little too swiftly for Ryan’s liking. But the one-eyed man let it slide. There were other things to be assessed.
“Okay, we’re in,” he told the chief. “But we need to talk about who handles what—remember I’m still carrying wounds and Doc’s in a worse way. When do you plan on going?”
“’Fore the sun goes down tomorrow. Hear that the convoy should run by us about then,” Buckley affirmed.
It was a shock. Ryan had been counting on more than a day and a half in which to make plans. But if it was all they had, then they would have to work fast. It left them with another night to get through and not long to recce the ville properly without being tumbled.
“Okay, we’re in with you, but we need to talk among ourselves, get our own plans sorted. The injuries we’re carrying will change the way we do things,” Ryan told Buckley, hoping that the chief would buy the excuse for their need to be left alone.
Buckley’s faith in their fighting skills and his belief that they had been sent by fate left him in no position to do anything other than concede. He had his two-man guard show them to the room where they had first stayed on their arrival. Once the door was closed and Jak had checked that the guards had returned to Buckley, Ryan turned to them.
“Fireblast, this is stupe, really stupe. Buckley hates this ville Duma and is willing to sacrifice everyone involved to make some stupe point by making a raid inside it. Outside we could go along with, but going into a ville, hitting a convoy and trying to get out again? Shit, the man really is a fucking stupe.”
“Given that Buckley is holding all the aces, I fail to see how we can avoid this,” Doc mused. “In fact, it may perhaps be better to go along with this and be chilled swiftly and relatively painlessly. I cannot see a better fate awaiting us here. After all, where, I dread to think, are the missing convoy members who manned the captured wag?”
“He said in that barn,” Mildred spit. “What they do to them in there I wouldn’t like to think.”
“People not so stupe as we think,” Jak interjected. “Look like no guards, but barn difficult to get in and out…and always someone hanging around end of ville.”
“A low, native cunning rather than an intelligence,” Doc mused. “Perhaps all the more dangerous because of that. But I fail to see why we are not, also, being held in that barn. No matter what Buckley thinks sent us to him.”
“The way I see it, Buckley figures we’re his only hope of pulling off this raid and getting away with it. We’ve seen his people. A shitload of them against the five of us, on territory they know, and they can get us cornered. And mebbe if they can isolate and overrun a wag, then they can pull it off. Sure they can keep this place safe, but then who the fuck would want to come here? No, the truth of it is that he needs us as much as we need him. Hell, the only reason we’re still alive after last night is because they don’t dare go against him.”
“Yeah, the looks we were getting from some of them…” Krysty shuddered. “We were just meat to them, something to play with.”
“And that’s what we’ll be when this raid is over with,” Mildred said coldly.
“Exactly. So we need to cover as many of the bases as possible between now and tomorrow,” Ryan added.
Given time, they were able to work out a plan of action that would, if nothing else, leave them prepared for the next day. All they had to do w
as wait for nightfall before it could be put into operation.
But first, they were to learn that Buckley had a little surprise of his own in store for them. They had been resting up in the cramped, shuttered room, glad of the peace after the necessity of staying awake all night, when they could hear an already familiar shuffling gait come toward them from the corridor beyond the flimsy wooden door. Buckley flung open the door so that it slammed against the wall, raising a cloud of plaster dust.
“Hey, you people, how’s y’all doing? Hope y’all resting up good, ’cause we’s got a lot of work tomorrow to get ready for the raid and we’s planning to have some fun and get ready for it. I’s had a real good idea about tomorrow and I’s thinking that y’all gonna like it. See, I’m figgering that if ole Doc here is still really in a bad way, it don’t make no sense for him to go on the raid. So I’s thinking that he can stay here, and ole red here can stay with him and make sure he’s okay,” Buckley added, indicating Krysty. “The way I sees it, we’s gotta keep this simple, otherwise we’s all gonna get confused about what’s going on. We pack the wag full of my people, with One-eye, and Whitey, hell, y’all the best fighters in my book, right? And meantimes, we got a couple of y’all back here to help clean up when y’all get back. Figure y’all be glad to see each other then and everyone’s happy.”
“What about the rest of the plan?” Ryan questioned, playing for time, trying to think of a way in which he could argue the chief around so that the companions weren’t split up by the raid.
“What rest of the plan? We’s tag on, we’s go in, we’s kick ass, we’s come out. What more of a plan do you think there’s gotta be, Ryan boy?” Buckley grinned his hideous leer and shrugged. “Seems kinda obvious to me. Listen, y’all get some rest, ’cause tonight we party.”
With which Buckley turned and left the room, pulling the door shut behind him and leaving the companions stunned. Not only did there seem no way in which they could avoid the separation—thus ruining any chance of making a run for it when they were outside of Nagasaki—but there was no coherent plan apart from the vaguest kind of hit and run.
