Crucible of Time

by James Axler

  Ryan grinned mirthlessly at the memory. "Most folks he asked questions got around to answering them."

  "Sometimes I wake in the small hours of the night and I'm crying." Wolfe reached up and touched the network of old scars that seamed his face around both eyes. "He used a needle, heated up white. Held it in thick gloves and threatened to blind me. Why'd he do that to me, Ryan?"

  "You got a strange memory, Wolfe. Kind of picks and chooses, doesn't it?"

  "How's that?"

  "You planned to murder everyone on War Wags One and Two."

  He turned toward J.B., his eye not moving from Wolfe. "We have Two in those days?"

  The Armorer sniffed. "Can't remember. Think so. Either way, it was a coldheart plan to butcher us all. Trader needed to know who was behind it. So, you ask the sec boss."

  "And I told him it was me." Wolfe took a long shuddering breath, his dark eyes closed. "He hurt me bad. Then, when I'd admitted what I'd done, he had me held fast and took a cleaver. Took it and swung it and hacked off my left hand, clean as whistling. And I swore I'd have revenge if I ever got the chance. And here you are. Both of you. Plucked chickens on my table. Delivered by the good Lord."

  Ryan had always known, in his heart, that it might end like this.

  The years with the Trader had been awash with blood. So many dead. So many left living, hearts filled with a bitter grudge against the Trader and the men who'd ridden with them.

  Deathlands wasn't big enough to expect to run and hide for all your life. In the end you'd bump into someone at the turning of a dark corridor, in a narrow alley in a frontier pesthole, at a desert watering hole, in the kitchens of a gaudy or on a mountain pass above tumbling meltwater.

  In a quasi-religious, military commune among the tall trees of the Sierras.

  "It's me and J.B. you want," Ryan said. "The others had nothing to do with Trader."

  Wolfe smiled at him. "Now then, One-Eye, I never thought to hear you talk stupe. We all know that you ride with someone, then you live and die with them. No division of that. Even the boy, who by the looks of him is your kin."

  "We take them out and let them have it, Brother Wolfe?" Owsley asked, licking his dry lips eagerly. "Or mebbe peddle them all to Mom?"

  Wolfe shook his head and sighed. "From that smoke we saw, I'd be astonished to find that Mom's Place is still functioning."

  He turned to Ryan. "No point in asking if you knew anything about that?" When there was no answer, he smiled his glacial smile again. "Now, why am I not surprised at that?"

  "Let's get on with it," J.B. said, half turning so that the Uzi pointed directly at the leader of the ville.

  Ryan sensed that a lot of the men of the Children of the Rock weren't comfortable at the standoff.

  There were enough of them, and they were well enough armed to be confident of massacring the handful of strangers. But unless they were blindly stupid, they had to have also realized that Ryan and the others wouldn't go on into the dark land alone and unprotesting.

  Wolfe stepped forward, holding up his mutilated hand in a kind of benediction. "No," he said.

  "No, what?" Ryan's hand rested flat on the butt of the SIG-Sauer.

  "It says in the Good Book that to err is human and that to forgive is to follow in the steps of Our Savior. It is truly to be divine."

  "So?"

  "So, my dear Ryan Cawdor. Long years ago you and others erred. Caused me great grief. But I wish for divinity. So I propose to forgive you. All of you. Both the guilty and those plagued with guilt by association."

  Ryan was ready to trust Wolfe just about as far as he could have thrown him. "So, what's that mean?"

  The first few words of the religious baron's reply were almost smothered by a fit of coughing from Doc. "It means that you are welcome here. If the testing goes well, as I am sure it will, then you will be accepted and may stay here, in total safety, under my personal protection, for as long as you wish."

  Chapter Twenty

  "So, what's testing?"

  Josiah Steele had been appointed by Joshua Wolfe to show the newcomers to their accommodation, a hut that smelled like it had been empty for several months, but was dry and spacious. There were seven single beds and a table and several upright chairs. A decent little kitchen was located out back, as was an outhouse at the bottom of the overgrown garden.

  Krysty had run her finger across the table, holding up the gray smudge of dirt. Steele had sniffed, promising to get some women in to scrub and clean it, as well as provide them with some fresh-laundered bedding.

  He had also told them a midday meal would be served up, communally, around one in the afternoon, and supper would be at seven.

  Now he stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the late-morning sun, his shadow spilling across the dusty planks.

  "What is testing?" Jak asked.

  The sec man shrugged. "Nothing to worry about for the likes of you."

  "Cemeteries are full of folks who thought there was nothing to worry about," Mildred objected.

  Steele turned toward her. "Could be that you've got… No, can't say that. Just that the Children of the Rock always welcome strangers, as long as they measure up and fit in. Best Brother Wolfe tells you more over the noon meal."

  "Noon or one?" Krysty asked.

  "At one. But it's always been called the noon meal. Kind of tradition."

  He turned, ready to leave, when Ryan called him back. "One last question, Brother Steele."

  "Yeah, Brother Cawdor?"

  Ryan touched the tiny rad counter fixed to the lapel of his coat, seeing that it still showed high orange close toward the top-risk red.

  "What's the hot spot?"

  Steele's jaw dropped, like he'd been gut shot. "Who's told you? Where did you get that?"

  "The rad counter? Been carrying it more years than I can remember. If my memory serves, we found a stack of them near Topeka. That it, J.B.?"

  The Armorer was sitting on one of the beds, polishing his glasses on a linen kerchief. "Topeka? Yeah, that's where we got them."

  Steele had recovered his balance. "I guess that we're so used to it that it doesn't bother us."

  "What is it?"

  "Hot spot. Not so bad as those little gizmos show. Doubt it's anywhere near to red."

  "Near enough," J.B. said. "How far away from the ville is it?"

  "Two, three miles. Brother Wolfe found it when he was picking this place for the home of the Children of the Rock. Lies north and east." He cleared his throat. "It's an old complex, built just before skydark. Earth-shift exposed some part of the central nuke core. Leaks."

  Ryan sat on one of the beds, testing the mattress for springiness, looking at the man disbelievingly. "He knew there was a rad spot that close? And he still picked this for the ville. And you've all been here for all that time. I just find that real hard to—"

  "There must be some side effects from the radiation," Mildred said. "Skin problems. Fertility…" She stopped as a thought struck her. "Hey, I haven't seen many children around this place. Not for the numbers of men and women. Should be more."

  Steele didn't reply, half turning to stare out through the open doorway.

  Ryan pressed him. "I've seen about four or five little ones since we arrived. There's no school…nothing like that. Is there, Steele?"

  "No. No school. Not for years. Not enough children to make it worthwhile."

  Doc cleared his throat, coughed and tried again. "Might I be permitted a small observation, ladies and gentlemen? On the subject of infants."

  "Go ahead, Doc."

  A half bow of the leonine head. "My thanks, Master Cawdor, for your courtesy. It is just that I have a great affection for children, having so tragically lost my own two dear little doves. They were so tender and so…but let that pass. The milk is spilled and spilled forever. You cannot ever go back, when you are always moving on. They were only cities, but they're—"

  "Doc!"

  The old man jumped at Mildred's interruption. "I
was wandering, was I not?"

  "You was. I mean, you were, Doc. You'd been talking about children…"

  "Yes. Have any of you noticed that the majority of inhabitants of the settlement are what one might once have called white Anglo-Saxon Protestants?"

  "Sure are," Steele said, not hiding his irritation. "Where's this leading to, Doc?"

  "The children all looked remarkably to me as though they came originally from Native American stock." He sneezed violently. "Bless me!"

  Ryan blinked. "Fireblast! That's right, Doc."

  "Mescalero." Jak punched his right fist into his left palm.

  "Is that right?" Krysty took half a dozen steps across the cabin to confront Steele. "Gaia! That's it, isn't it? You're all sterile from the rad hot spot. You can't have your own little ones, so you steal them!"

  Without a word the sec man stalked quickly out of the cabin, vanishing into the heart of the ville.

  BEFORE GOING OUT to share the noon meal with the rest of the Children of the Rock, Ryan and friends had a long discussion about their situation.

  The first problem to face up to was Brother Joshua Wolfe. Could he be trusted?

  "Mebbe we should just up and get out," J.B. said. "Out of sight's out of range."

  Ryan was in favor of staying. "Keep our eyes open. Course. But I reckon that if Wolfe had wanted us chilled, he could have simply raised his hand and that would have been it. I'm kind of interested in the setup here."

  "How about the rad hot spot?" Mildred shook her head, the beaded plaits chinking against one another. "Remember that guy, Owsley, with his skin? Nasty complexion. More spots than a leopard. I would lay money that it's a lupus-linked condition. Got its roots in a rad cancer. I wouldn't want to stay here longer than two or three days."

  At that moment there was a hesitant knock on the door. Jak was nearest and opened it, revealing a couple of women holding buckets, brushes and mops.

  "Can we come and clean?" asked the older of the pair, a skinny woman with sparse gray hair.

  "Sure. We'll move out of your way." Ryan got up from the bed where he'd been resting, leading the way from the cabin. Doc was the only one who didn't move. He had suffered another dreadful coughing fit that had racked his body. Now he slept, uneasily, tossing and turning, muttering to himself, hands opening and closing like claws.

  "Can leave him there," said the other woman, a pretty, washed-out blonde, who looked painfully anemic. "Won't bother us none. Need to rest up for testing."

  Ryan nodded. "Sure. Not long until the meal. Rouse him for that."

  Krysty paused in the doorway. "How long since there was a child born here in the ville?" she asked.

  "Child?" The women looked at each other doubtfully. "Born here?"

  The older one wiped the back of her hand across her face. "You mean a norm?"

  "Sure. Why? You had some mutie births?"

  "Don't say anything," the younger one urged. "Brother Wolfe doesn't like blabbing."

  "No, won't hurt none. Not a secret, is it? Half the folk of the Sierras know about our problem."

  Doc coughed and stirred in his sleep, rolling over onto his right side.

  "Go on," Krysty prompted.

  The woman hesitated, reluctantly proceeding as though the words had been drawn from her heart. "Last natural-born baby here was a good four years back, and that was a weak sideling. Lived a scant brace of months. Been others." She pulled a grimace of disgust. "Been others."

  "Others? Muties?"

  "Worse than that." Her eyes had narrowed, and her voice dropped. Her companion looked nervously out the door, as if she feared their being overheard. "Sickly, ailing creatures. Devil's spawn. Head and legs. Body like a girt spider. Another with claws, like a crab, but with a cluster of eyes across its little forehead."

  Her friend crossed herself. "Poor wee mites. That one with a tangle of arms from its tiny chest. And the one with kind of feathers all over its misshapen skull."

  "The goat child."

  "Aye, Jesus save it."

  "And the one that bit a finger clean off Goodwife Biddy at its birthing."

  "By the saints! That was one of the worst of them all. Took three bullets to dispatch its hideous scaly body all the way to Paradise."

  "Hopeville to Paradise."

  She addressed Krysty again. "Rightly said, outlander. This is a poor, blighted place for raising children."

  "Why not move from the hot spot?" Mildred asked. "You'd have been spared much of this."

  "No," they said in chorus. The older one wrung out her mop to indicate that the conversation was almost over. "Brother Wolfe says that it's all a part of our suffering. Suffering like He suffered. Our own cross to bear."

  Doc had jerked awake from sleep, lying still, listening to the women talking. "Golgotha!" he said, very loudly. "Not Hopeville. Golgotha, the place of the skull."

  "Stay loose, Doc." Ryan had come back from the sunshine to stand next to Krysty. "How many of the Mescalero children have been taken?"

  "Can't rightly say, Brother Cawdor." The older woman shook her head. "Not our place to say. But I'd figure the answer is close on twenty."

  "They still living?" Ryan asked.

  "Some. Most of them don't take to our ways and food and all. Some get sick. Sores around the eyes and mouth. Shittin' disease. Piss blood. Only about four or five actually what you might call left living. The Apaches take it hard."

  The other woman nodded eagerly. "That's true, Sister Helen. Like bein' at war, it is."

  Jak reappeared. "Food near ready," he said.

  IT WAS A CASUAL MEAL, no tables, with the food served on an assortment of home-fired dishes and wooden platters. Big bowls of food sat on one trestle, to be taken away and eaten while sitting on the cropped grass around the huts.

  Wolfe was in a jovial mood, ladling out venison stew, reassuring them this was better-quality meat than what they'd eaten back at Mom's Place. He told them that sec scouts had gone back along the trail and found the smoldering ruins of the eatery and a charred skeleton in the glowing ashes.

  "And a stench of kerosene," he said, grinning broadly, the smile puckering his scars. "Looks like she disagreed with someone who ate there."

  Ryan figured that the leader of the Children of the Rock strongly suspected their involvement in the slaying and arson, but didn't seem to be particularly worried by that, letting it pass, unchallenged.

  Which was fine with him.

  But it was another good reason to keep checking over his shoulder.

  The rich stew came with an assortment of fresh vegetables, well cooked and flavored with a mix of local herbs and spices. Josiah Steele had brought them straight to the head of the self-service line, where Wolfe was already waiting for them, holding a rough-cut goblet of reconstituted glass filled to the brim with spring water.

  He had greeted them cheerily and joined them when they had all loaded their plates and sat down to eat.

  Doc was the only one whose platter didn't groan under the weight of food. He had selected a few tender pieces of venison for himself and a small spoonful of the buttered, whipped potatoes, picking at his food between noisy snuffles and outbreaks of phlegmy coughing.

  Ryan noticed that the old man looked pallid and was sweating profusely, though the temperature under the shadowing mammoth trees couldn't have been much above seventy.

  "Tell us about this testing," J.B. said to Brother Joshua.

  "Nothing for anyone to be concerned about," the leader of the ville replied.

  "Who gets tested and how?"

  "All of you, Brother Cawdor," he replied. "All of you, by all of us."

  There was a snicker of laughter from somewhere along to their left, a sound that seemed to come from the general direction of Jim Owsley.

  Joshua Wolfe ignored it and carried on speaking. "Nothing for anyone to worry about. If they are pure of heart and fine of spirit, then the Blessed Jesus Christ, Our Savior, will stand at their shoulder and guide them through the gins and sna
res laid down by the Evil One."

  "Blessed is the light of the world," called a shrill woman's voice.

  "Amen," in a scattered chorus from all around the center of the ville.

  "Verily, amen to that." Wolfe put his head to one side, like a quizzical crow. "Enjoy your repast, and give thanks to the Almighty for its preparation."

  "When testing start?" Jak asked, helping himself to another two sourdough rolls.

  "This very afternoon, if we can arrange it. I can see that you and the boy will have skills to offer to us. Young men, Brother Lauren and Brother Cawdor, agile and lithe. And I have no doubt that having walked the walk with Brother Ryan Cawdor and Brother Dix will have set you both up for their sort of living."

  Ryan had finished his meal and given the empty plate to one of the women. He felt comfortably full and relaxed, though a little concerned about the state of Doc's health, which seemed to be still deteriorating.

  At least they were in what seemed a snug and secure ville, with warm fires and food and stout walls. If Doc was going to be ill, then there were lots of worse places.

  Weren't there?

  Chapter Twenty-One

  "Brothers and sisters!"

  Joshua Wolfe clapped his right hand against his thigh, drawing everyone's attention. "After that wonderful meal, provided by the kindness of the Almighty, prepared by the sisterhood, it is time for a short service to welcome the newcomers into our midst."

  Ryan glanced at the others to see if anyone had any obvious objections to the idea of participating in a religious service. Personally he had no sort of belief in any kind of orthodox faith. Trust yourself a lot and your friends a little, and nobody else at all— It was the creed according to the Trader, and Ryan went along with that.

  The heavy shutters that had been covering the windows of the squat church of Hopeville had all been thrown back, revealing some surprisingly beautiful stained glass, its bright, rich colors glistening in the early-afternoon sunshine.

  Gradually, like fall leaves carried on a light wind, most of the inhabitants of the settlement made their way toward the heavy building, the shadow of its tower stretching across the trodden turf to welcome them.