by James Axler
“Or find someplace to stay,” Doc countered, unwrapping a stick of gum from an MRE food pack. “Perhaps Vermont was not very badly damaged during skydark, and we know there are friendly villes in Virginia, Nevada, and New Mexico.” Starting to chew, Doc frowned. “Not many, but a few.”
“N’Orleans,” Jak added proudly, making it one word.
“Okay, four villes out of hundreds.” Mildred sighed, shaking her head.
“Better than naught, madam.”
“Sad, but true.”
“How to get there would be the next problem,” J.B. said, neatly sidestepping the whole issue of finding a permanent place to settle down. “This rolling heap of mismatched parts wouldn’t last for an hour in the desert, or trying to cross the Darks.”
“Horses,” Jak stated, as if that settled the matter.
“Horses,” Ryan said in somber agreement.
It was late in the afternoon when the companions stopped to take a break alongside a narrow brook. Getting out of the wag, they stretched cramped muscles, while Doc ambled off to relieve himself in the bushes.
“Hey, smell shine cooking,” Jak said, sniffing the air.
“There might be a ville nearby,” Krysty said hesitantly, resting a hand on her blaster.
“J.B. and I’ll go check it out,” Ryan said, getting the Steyr and hanging it over a shoulder. “Everybody else stay here, and be ready to run.”
“Sounds good to me,” Mildred said, rubbing her mouth with the back of her hand.
Following the pungent aroma of bubbling mash, the two men wandered through a forest of birch trees until coming to the swell of a low hillock.
A large log cabin stood across a woody glen, dark smoke spiraling from a stone chimney. A split-rail fence edged a vast expanse of neatly trimmed grass, where a small herd of sheep contentedly munched away. White vapors rose from a small hut near a cord of split wood, the breeze carrying the familiar smell of cooking shine.
Netting was draped over the front porch, and rocking in a chair was a busty teenage girl in torn pants, and a patched denim shirt tied under her breasts for some much needed support. She was smoking a pipe and carving something small out of a block of wood.
“Hello!” Ryan shouted through cupped hands, and then gave a friendly wave. “Mind if we come over to talk some biz?”
Laying aside the knife and wood, the young woman spoke to somebody inside the cabin, and a hulking man appeared at the front door. Dressed entirely in tanned leather, he was bald with a beard that went down to his belt. He held what appeared to be a remade predark Barrett .50 longblaster.
Instantly, Ryan and J.B. became alert, but kept their weapons pointed at the grass. A drawn blaster wasn’t the way to start a negotiation.
Bellowing something in an unknown language, the huge man swung up the Barrett and worked the arming lever. Diving for cover, Ryan and J.B. hit the grass just as the man cut loose, and a birch tree shook violently as a section blew off the trunk.
“Hey, we just want to talk!” J.B. yelled from behind a fallen log.
Peering between some weeds, Ryan saw a pair of adult women join the man on the porch, both also cradling longblasters, one of them working the lever to open the breech and insert a bullet. The teenager smoking the pipe appeared bored, and had started whittling on the piece of wood once more, as if this sort of thing occurred every day.
The three adults triggered their weapons in unison, and branches were blown off the birch trees, missing the companions by inches as they came crashing down.
“Mighty unfriendly folks,” J.B. observed, removing his hat and stuffing it inside his jacket.
The longblasters boomed again, the trio of concussions rolling across the grazing land to shake leaves off the trees.
“Bastard good shots, too,” Ryan added with a grimace. “They’re not even using the telescopic sights, but just firing from the hip. Not sure I could do that.”
The grim family fired another synchronized volley, the rounds slapping into the side of the hillock, throwing out puffs of dirt.
“These are warning shots,” Ryan snarled, pressing himself lower against the ground.
The ancient longblasters spoke again, and the log exploded, nearly breaking in two, loose chips and bit of bark flying everywhere.
“So I figured,” J.B. grunted, squinting through his glasses. “If they like blasters so much, what do you say we show them what we got, old buddy?”
“Fine by me,” Ryan replied. “On my count of three…two…one!”
Rising slightly, both men cut loose with their blasters, but the range was too great, and the hardball rounds only rustled the tall grass and startled the sheep, not even reaching halfway to the sharpshooters.
As she worked the bolt on her longblaster, the shirt of the younger woman got caught and ripped free. Uncaring, the topless woman fired the longblaster again, her full breasts jumping from the titanic recoil. Her face was sweaty and smiling, and now both of the companions understood that these were chill thrillers, crazies who liked to ace folks purely for the pleasure of taking a life. There would be no negotiations with these people, and since there was nothing the companions wanted except for some shine for the wag, it was pointless to expend any more brass.
“Time to go,” Ryan muttered, and crawled away until the natural curve of the hill took the log cabin out of sight.
Returning to the other companions, Ryan and J.B. brushed the leaves off their shirts, and tousled their hair to remove any lingering wood chips or bark.
“We heard blasters,” Krysty said, scanning behind them for any danger.
“What happened?” Doc asked, hefting the LeMat and looking around in a circle.
“We got a lesson in marksmanship,” J.B. snorted, climbing back into the wag.
“Let’s get moving,” Ryan said, squeezing in through the cage. “And if any topless women appear, shoot to chill.”
Hours later, the sun was nearing the horizon when the companions saw several columns of dark smoke on the horizon. They seemed to be rising from behind a long narrow band of tan stone. The regular pattern clearly showing it was a wall.
Driving closer, they could see that the surrounding land was laid out in neat squares of different colors—the dark green of some leafy vegetable, the tall golden shafts of wheat. There was even a barren field where nothing had been planted, to let the soil rest and recharge for a season.
“By the three Kennedys, that’s crop rotation!” Doc said in delight. “Clearly, these are not uneducated hillbillies such as those people you encountered!”
“Which only makes them that much more dangerous,” Ryan growled, pulling an object from his coat pocket about the size of a soup can.
Extending the antique Navy telescope to its full yard in length, he surveyed the place. “Can’t see much from this angle,” he muttered. “Just some wooden guard towers, a gallows and what looks like a brick water tower in the center of ville. No signs of a slave pen.”
“At least there are none in sight,” Mildred retorted.
Squeezing out of the cage, Krysty stepped away from the wag and drew in a deep lungful of air. “No smell of long pig, if that helps any,” she said softly, trying to sense anything unusual. Sometimes she could detect a trap, or an ambush, before it was sprung. But most of the time she couldn’t.
“Well, we can’t go much farther, anyway,” J.B. said, bending over to rap a fuel tank with a knuckle. It responded with a hollow boom. “This is the last of our juice, and it’s almost gone. Another fifty miles or so, and we start walking.”
“How far do you gauge it is to the ville?” Doc asked, testing the draw on his new revolver. The 6-shot .38 S&W felt unnaturally light in his grip, almost like a toy in comparison to the massive LeMat handcannon.
“Twenty miles or so,” Ryan said, collapsing the telescope. “That’s cutting it close, but this is our best chance to get some supplies.”
“We going to barter, or go for a nightcreep?” J.B. asked, stressing the first opti
on to clearly show his preference.
“I’d rather cut a deal with the local baron,” Ryan said gruffly, adjusting the Steyr to hang across his chest. “But if he’s not interested in doing some biz, we still need those supplies. Juice, horses, food, whatever they got.”
“Ain’t got much barter with,” Jak noted, starting forward.
Checking the magazine in his blaster, Ryan grunted. “Yeah, I know.”
Following the road down the hill, Jak steered around several potholes large enough to swallow the wag whole, one of them with a small tree growing from the depths.
As they drew closer, a gong began to sound from the ville, and there seemed to be a lot of activity along the top of the wall. Suddenly, dozens of previously unseen people poured out of the fields to race toward a large dark area set into the wall. As they approached, the dark area swung aside, revealing it was a gate. The farmers raced into the ville, and the gate closed immediately.
“That was professionally done,” Mildred said. “They’ve been attacked before.”
“Who hasn’t?” J.B. asked rhetorically, adjusting the meager contents of his munitions bag so that a length of fuse dangled in sight. It wasn’t attached to anything but the rest of the roll, but the mere fact that he owned a predark mil fuse would make smart folks think twice about trying something.
Suddenly alert, Krysty looked sharply about, feeling as if she was under direct observation, even though there was nobody in sight. Could the ville have a doomie? Just in case, she decided to keep her thoughts under tight control. Better safe than chilled.
Abruptly, the wild countryside ended at a split-rail fence that edged the cropland and followed along the road. The wood was old and splintery, but studded with jagged pieces of glass that sparkled like diamonds in the setting sun. Next came a wide band of punji sticks, wooden poles jammed into the earth, the ends sharpened like spears.
Cradling the empty Steyr, Ryan nodded in approval at the layered defense. It was a good design. The punji sticks would ace anything from trying to jump over the outer fence. Triple-smart. The baron here was clearly no feeb.
In passing, the companions could now spot a couple raised platforms set among the crops to offer the field workers somewhere to fall back to in case of an attack. The base of each also bristled with punji sticks, and every one possessed a brass bell of some kind.
“Those are warning bells,” Doc said, allowing himself a small smile. “They must have scavenged those from the ruins of a firehouse, or mayhap a school. This speaks well for the local baron. Clearly, he cares about his people.”
“On the other hand, Hitler loved the German people,” Mildred countered. “Only them and nobody else.”
Just then, the Hercules passed by a crucified scarecrow, its arms outstretched, the bleached bones of a grinning human skull perched on top of the sagging, rag doll body. Though they surreptitiously checked their weapons, nobody made a comment.
“May I suggest that we swap blasters, my dear Ryan?” Doc asked, proffering the S&W .38 revolver. “It would be unwise for us to demonstrate the unique acoustic properties of your SIG-Sauer at this early a stage of the negotiations.”
Passing over his blaster, whose built-in sound suppressor sometimes worked, Ryan said nothing as the exchange was made.
The farmland stopped at another set of fences, leaving a broad field of flat dirt that extended to the outer wall. That was pretty standard for any ville. This was a shatter zone, leaving invaders no place to hide or take cover, making them easier to chill. This close, the companions could clearly see the sec men stationed along the top of the wall. They were dressed in assorted clothing: flannel shirts, buckskins pants, leather jackets, fur hats and lots of faded denim. The only unifying item was a dark blue vest marked with a white star on the right side, and red stripes along the left. The companions easily identified that as a version of the American flag, which wasn’t a good sign or bad, just something to take into consideration. The founders of the ville might have been military personal who survived skydark. That would explain the orderly fields and multiple layers of defenses.
The wall was composed of large stone blocks, some neatly cut into precise rectangles, while others were lumpy and irregular, clearly replacements added to effect repairs. There were more punji sticks along the bottom, but also more along the top to discourage climbers. The gate proved to be a collection of sheet metal bolted together into an overlapping pattern. In spite of numerous dents and scratches, it was a formidable barrier.
“Dark night, we’d need a lot of grens to blow a hole in that,” J.B. muttered, covering his mouth with a hand just in case of the sec men on the wall could read lips.
Braking to a halt at the end of the road, Jak turned off each engine individually both to save gas and to demonstrate how well equipped the Hercules was. A lot of people had never seen a working engine of any kind before.
Holding their blasters and crossbow clearly in sight, but not actually pointing then at the companions, the sec men and women on the wall did nothing, and several minutes passed before a woman appeared, wearing dark green fatigues. Her blond hair was tied back in a long ponytail, and a puckered scar crossed her face, ending at a badly broken nose. Blasters rested on each hip, and her battered leather gun belt was shiny with polish, the loops full of brass. A pinkie was missing from her left hand, and she wore a decorative bracelet on the right wrist, the wood covered with intricate scrollwork. A white scarf was tied around her throat, one end tucked into her shirt, the other blowing free in the wind.
Instantly, Ryan identified that as a wind marker to aid the other sec men in shooting. His respect for the woman increased. Obviously, this was the sec chief for the ville. He had a gut feeling that whoever gave her that scar was breathing dirt, and had been about a split second after her nose was broken.
“Welcome to Alton!” she bellowed, through cupped hands. “What are ya looking for, outlanders?”
“Trade!” Ryan replied, lifting both hands from the Steyr before stepping from the wag. Then he added, “Although I wouldn’t mind a cool summer rain if ya got one!”
Although she clearly tried not to, she grinned at the joke, as did most of the other guards.
“Sorry, used the last one yesterday to wash the dog!” she replied, hooking both thumbs into the gun belt. “Anything else you need? We got some food to barter. But no room in the barracks. We’re full up on gaudy sluts, and we don’t got no slaves!”
“Glad to hear it!” Ryan said, taking a single step forward. “The name is Ryan Cawdor. We’re looking for juice.”
“Abigail Ralhoun, sec chief for Alton ville,” she yelled back, then tilted her head to the side. “And this is Sergeant Constantine Hohner.”
Standing next to the sec boss, the big man lifted his chin in a silent greeting. Heavily muscled, Hohner had a tattoo of an American bald eagle on his face, and stars on the back of both hands. A .22 longblaster was slung across his back, and holstered at his waist was a Webley .445 handblaster in good shape, the grip covered with notches.
His boots crunching on the loose dirt, Ryan walked to the edge of the punji sticks, and Ralhoun squatted to bring them closer together. Immobile, Hohner stayed off to the side, his hands splayed, poised and ready for a fight.
“Okay, Cawdor, we got some juice. Good stuff, too. What do you have for trade?” Ralhoun asked. “Always could use more brass, and you boys have enough blasters showing to start a major war, and that’s the honest truth of the eagle god.” She squinted. “Or are they empty?”
Moving slowly, Ryan drew the borrowed .38 revolver and fired a single round into the air. The bang echoed off the stone wall and out into the fields.
“Now, that might have been your last,” Ralhoun said, rubbing a finger along her scar. “But I don’t think so.” She turned. “Stand down, boys! We’re talking biz!”
Relaxing their stance, several of the sec men rested their longblasters on a shoulder, and the archers eased the tension on their cross
bows. Only Hohner didn’t move. There was no visible sign of life except for the subtle rise and fall of his wide chest.
“So, a wag like that must have a mighty thirst. What ya got to trade for the juice?” Ralhoun asked, smiling widely.
“The wag,” Ryan said, jerking a thumb in that direction.
That seemed to catch her totally by surprise. “Ya wanna barter the wag…for juice?” she asked in confusion.
“Nope,” Ryan answered. “We’ll trade the wag for six horses, tack and saddles, food for a week.”
“Horses and tack? Then what the nuke did you ask about juice for?”
“To see if you could run a wag.”
Slowly, Ralhoun smiled. “Triple-smart, there, Blackie.” Shielding her face with a hand, she looked at the wag. “She’s battered some, but I heard all three of those engines running, and she got here, sure enough. But I don’t know…?.”
Grandly, Ryan gestured toward the fields. “Add on a plow, and with a gallon of shine you can plow more dirt in a hour than a hundred people in a day.”
“Turn a war wag…into a field plow?”
“Triple the yield, easy.”
“Mebbe yes, mebbe no,” Ralhoun said warily. “But I prefer horses. Never yet seen a wag that could make more wags.” Standing, she dusted off her pants. “Sorry, no deal.”
“You sure? Lots of uses for engines,” Ryan continued doggedly, wondering how the deal went sour so fast. “Pumping water from a deep well, moving that bastard big gate…and, of course, with this many engines, you could take the wag apart and make three smaller war wags. Or one big war wag covered with lots of armor.”
“No, not interested,” Ralhoun said, hitching up her gun belt.
“We can still barter brass for food—” Ryan started.
“Better move along, outlander,” Ralhoun said with a scowl, resting a hand on the grip of a blaster.
Instantly, the companions swung their weapons around, and the sec men did the same, with Hohner in the lead, the pitted barrel of the Webley looking as big as a tunnel entrance. A long minute passed slowly, the tension in the air almost palpable.
