The Wanderer and the New West

by Adam Bender

  All four of the tires were completely flat. That bastard Martin must have shot them out sometime after locking him up.

  Okay, so maybe he could steal something. Not usually a legal thing to do, but this was an emergency. Whirling around, he was surprised to find a police car labeled Sheriff parked close to the station. Martin must have taken another vehicle to the mayor’s! Jack made a mad dash for the Ford Interceptor and pulled on the door handle. Jack cheered when it responded with a click, but held his nose when he smelled the stench of death inside. Peering into the back, he saw the seats were stained with dried blood. The red stuff had been baking in the sun for who knows how long.

  It was repulsive, and now he understood why the sheriff had taken a different vehicle to the mayor’s mansion. Jack was about to search for another option when he caught a couple of Red Stripers in his peripheral vision. They were pulling into the lot on motorcycles. He dove back into the car, shutting the door before they saw him. Willing himself to breathe, he searched the glove compartment and both of the sun visors, but couldn’t find a key to start the car.

  Something sharp in his front pocket was pressing into him, but he ignored the pain and continued to think. In the movies, a person in this situation would usually bust his hand through the dashboard, or maybe go outside and look for some colored wires under the front hood. But he couldn’t remember exactly what they did to start the car, and a lot of that was probably made up anyway.

  As the Red Stripers drew closer, Jack ducked his head down. It still didn’t look as though they’d seen him, and suddenly he realized they couldn’t because most of the windows were shaded black. To see him, they’d have to actually go around front and look through the windshield. And maybe they would, but at least it gave him more time to find a way to start the car.

  “Think, dammit, think!”

  The pointy thing in his pocket was still stabbing his leg, so he reached in and pulled everything out. When the key chain from the station came up in his hands, he nearly whooped. Jack flicked through the keys and found one with a Ford logo.

  The key slipped neatly into the ignition, but Jack waited to turn the car on. The gangsters had parked their bikes and were now walking casually by the sheriff’s car. He held his breath until they reached the top of the stairs to the police station and disappeared inside. Exhaling, he turned the key.

  He pulled out of the lot, opening all of the windows for sweet fresh air on the way out. He got on a backroads route to the hospital. He didn’t see any Red Stripers, but the road was still jammed with people evacuating town. He was about to unleash a fury of profanity when the driver in front of him stuck his hand out the window and waved him to pass. He couldn’t figure it out until he looked around him and realized what kind of car he was in.

  With a nod to a figure of Jesus stuck to the dash, Jack flicked on the police siren and lights, then pulled into the oncoming lane. There was no one there. The evacuees were maintaining a ridiculous level of order despite the crisis. Jack pulled up to the guy who’d waved him past and shouted out the window, “Wait a few seconds and then move into this lane. Make sure the other people follow. Everyone will get out a lot faster!”

  Soon, Jack had the Ford police car speeding along at more than one hundred miles per hour with a trail of cars not far behind.

  *

  The town of Liberty shrank into a smoky smudge in Ben Martin’s rearview mirror. The Red Stripers had long ago disappeared in the SUV’s dusty wake, and the sheriff was sure he had lost them.

  He’d barely had a breath when something caught onto the bottom of the Chevy, and the truck started dragging it. When Martin looked into the mirror to see if he could spot it, there were three bloodied corpses hanging off the back. Screaming, the sheriff slammed the brakes.

  He turned off the truck, but the engine continued to tick from heat exhaustion. Martin pushed open the door and jumped out.

  When he didn’t find any bodies behind the truck, he checked underneath and found the prickly arm of a cactus lodged in the undercarriage. Cursing, Martin decided to let the truck cool down for a while before proceeding any farther. He shooed a lizard off of a flat red rock and sat down.

  Those beers hadn’t done him any good, and now he was thirsty. Oh well, if he could just get to the next town, he’d be all right. He almost got up to look for his Army cap in the truck, but a sudden recollection of the hat soaking up his deputy’s blood kept him seated.

  A harsh croak turned his attention to a black vulture perched maybe thirty feet away in the brush. The creature had blood on its beak, but whatever it was eating was well hidden by the vegetation. Martin had a raw feeling that it was the corpse of the bank robber whom he and Dougie had left. But that was crazy. That spot was far from here, wasn’t it?

  He got up to have a look. When he was nearly halfway there, something in the brush reached up and grabbed him. The sharp pain sent a shock wave up his leg and in a flash of white light he thought he saw Father James wearing the disapproving look that was frozen on his face when he died.

  “No!” cried Martin.

  Stumbling to a clear spot of desert sand, he saw what had bit him was still there — a fuzzy mass of jumping cholla, a tubular cactus in a fur coat of sticky needles. That was a relief anyway. He thought it might have been a rattler. Carefully, he grabbed a dry twig and used it to push the spiny segment off his ankle. When he was done, he glanced back at the vulture and caught its red eyes staring back. Only now the bird’s bald head belonged to the mayor.

  Martin reached for the Breck 17 in his hip holster and fired, but he missed wide. The bird took off into the sky.

  Shaking, Martin returned to the truck with the words of the Wanderer echoing through his head like a curse: “The world’s changed, Martin. You keep thinking the way you do, and it’ll be your undoing someday.”

  He was right. Martin had thought himself protector, but what he’d actually done was lay a bloody red carpet into his hometown. Now, Liberty was going to be a Red Stripe town.

  And so there it was — the Wanderer had killed him, after all.

  No. Martin had killed himself.

  Calmly, the sheriff opened the door of the SUV and pulled his Pilgrim off the seat. With his back against the door, he held the barrel of the shotgun firmly against his throat and slipped his thumb through the trigger guard. Gazing skyward, he noticed the familiar dark shape of a vulture circling the sun.

  *

  A pair of armed guards in black uniforms stopped Jack at the hospital entrance. They were thick-chested men armed with Yossarian assault rifles. Well, that was certainly new. He’d never seen these guys before in his life.

  He didn’t wait for them to approach. He rolled down a window and shouted, “My son is in there. I need to see him!”

  Astonishingly, that seemed to be enough. They waved him through.

  “Good luck, officer,” one of the guards said as he passed.

  Jack smiled. So it wasn’t the decency of human beings he had to thank after all. They just thought he was a cop.

  Besides the increased presence of security, he was surprised to find the hospital operating normally. There was no evacuation here, seemingly no panic at all. Jack pulled up to the front, parked his car in the drop-off space, and rushed inside. He didn’t bother to sign in at reception, just ran straight to the elevator.

  When the doors opened, he recognized Pablo’s nurse talking to a doctor.

  “Mr. Veras!” exclaimed Mary.

  “I’m here to take Pablo! I have to get him out of here!”

  He tried to rush by her, but she stood in his way. “Slow down. You can’t just —”

  “The Red Stripe Gang is taking over Liberty. It’s not safe for him to be here. It’s not safe for any of us to stay! We have to leave immediately!”

  A security guard took notice and joined Mary in blocking Jack’s path to his son. The guard was a short woman with an angry demeanor. “Sir, you have to calm down right now!”


  Mary smiled apologetically for the intrusion. “We’re aware of the situation in Liberty, Mr. Veras. But you need to stop and think about what you’re doing. Pablo is in no condition to be moved, certainly not without a medical vehicle.”

  “We’ve secured the hospital,” added the security guard.

  “What, you mean those guys standing by the road? You think that’s enough to —”

  “Yes, them. And we have snipers on the roof. You can be sure this place is now a fortress. The Gang’s not getting in here without a fight. And frankly, we don’t expect them to try. They wouldn’t know what to do with a hospital.”

  Jack’s shoulders drooped as he realized they were right. This was the safest place for Pablo. He was risking his son’s life if he tried to move him. But he couldn’t abandon his son. Not like Elaine did.

  No, there was no choice at all. He would have to stay in Liberty.

  Mary seemed to understand without him saying. “I’m afraid we don’t have room for guests to stay here, but you can stay with him a little while. Just until things calm down out there.”

  She looked cautiously to the guard for approval.

  “Just until things calm down out there,” repeated the guard with a stern look of warning.

  Jack nodded gratefully. “Yes, I understand.”

  The guard plucked a radio from her belt and walked away. Mary stepped aside to let Jack through, but he lingered to say thanks.

  “Of course, Mr. Veras.”

  “It’s Jack,” he said, holding the nurse’s gaze just long enough to make her blush.

  Putting on a smile, Jack went to see his boy.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Make Sure He’s Dead.

  The view from the Breck skyscraper revealed the true urban madness of Vegas. Here was a city of fools trapped in the barren desert, spitting toward the sun through oversized fountains. Even the boardroom would be a greenhouse if not for the air conditioning being pumped into the room twenty-four hours a day. The glass bubble extended from the edge of the skyscraper where the Wanderer stood to about the midsection of the building. On the other side, there was a large, flat area where a helicopter could land, but today the pad was empty.

  The Wanderer looked out over his city, waiting for something to happen. It was high noon, and Gerard was a no-show.

  “You might think you have a nice view up there, but I’ll tell you what, man,” buzzed a voice in his ear, “there are some fine ladies out today! Damn fine!”

  Irrationally, the Wanderer peered down at the park, as if he thought he might spot Kid Hunter among the dots of colors crawling around the green. He was down there, but by virtue of the Wanderer’s eyepiece, he had an eye in the boardroom. It was the Kid’s own idea, and the Wanderer agreed it was safer than having him up here, just in case Gerard were to try something. He trusted that Kid Hunter was an expert enough hacker to help him from far away if he needed it. But this was a dispute between stepbrothers, and the Wanderer hoped to keep it that way.

  “I thought you had a lady now,” the Wanderer whispered so the board members wouldn’t hear him talking.

  The Kid laughed. “Doesn’t mean I can’t look. Wait, does it?”

  The Wanderer gazed from face to face around the room. The board members did not appear bothered by his stepbrother’s tardiness. Corny Boone was demonstrating his golf stance to Anil Kumar, while Sally Gomes played a game on her phone, and Joe Watts snoozed peacefully in his chair. The Wanderer circled the table until he was clear on the other side of the boardroom, looking out at the helipad. Gerard was nearly fifteen minutes late, now. Where was he?

  “In any case,” continued Charlie, “I don’t think that particular relationship is going to work out.”

  A sudden high-pitched smash whirled the Wanderer around on the balls of his feet. A rainstorm of broken glass filled his vision while the chug of a distant automatic weapon boxed his ears. He ducked under the table at the same moment as the glass wall behind him fell away. Then the ceiling shattered and came down, too. The Wanderer shielded his face with his Stetson, but a few broken shards bounced off the floor and stuck painfully into the legs of his jeans.

  Everything went quiet. While reaching to remove one of the glass daggers, he spied Corny and Kumar lying dead on the floor. With the fallen glass, it looked as though they were covered in ice. He could also see the legs of Gomes and Watts — they were still sitting in their chairs.

  Kid Hunter yelled, “Wanderer! You all right? What happened?”

  Errol crawled carefully out from under the table, making sure he didn’t cut his hands. Lifting his head just inches over the table, he peeked in the direction of the gunfire, half-expecting to see Gerard with a Yossarian. Instead, he saw Gomes holding her phone but missing her head. A few seats away, Watts seemed to maintain a peaceful slumber, only now he was frosted with glass and riddled with bullets.

  “Incoming!” screamed Kid Hunter.

  The Wanderer ducked as more bullets flew over his head. “Where? Did you see the shooter?”

  “Didn’t you see the helicopter? Must be a Montag to shoot at that distance, though there’d have to be about fifteen of them to get that many shots in!”

  “It’s not a Montag,” said the Wanderer, grimacing in realization. He leaped into a forward roll as the next barrage of bullets cut the heavy wood table in half.

  *

  Kid Hunter put down the screen showing the Wanderer’s point of view and began typing frantically on another tablet. A crowd of people had assembled not far from his park bench, but they were too busy bending their necks back to pay him much attention. They’d been coming ever since glass started raining down from the black, clip-shaped skyscraper.

  “Too far away,” the Wanderer huffed in his ear. “I’ll never reach him with either of my guns.”

  “I’m on it, I’m on it!” shouted Kid Hunter. “Just shut up a second and be safe!”

  The thumping chopper increased gradually in volume.

  “He’s circling around now,” reported the Wanderer. “Still too far for me to get a shot.”

  Kid Hunter whooped as a wireframe image of the helicopter popped onto his screen.

  “What happened?”

  He grinned. “Sit tight, Wandy. I got this bastard.”

  *

  The green crosshair seemed almost to move on its own as Gerard scanned the broken boardroom through the sights of his Breck 100X. Saliva dribbled down his chin as the automatic rifle throbbed, ready to fire another 160 rounds in less than ten seconds.

  Just as he was about to squeeze the trigger, the helicopter swiveled, and the gun pulsed to signify he had moved off-target. Annoyed, Gerard took aim again but felt suddenly off-balance. Lifting his eye from the long-range sight, he noticed the city streets slowly filling up the view out the open door of the aircraft. With sudden panic, he lunged for one of the safety bars to keep from falling, which made him lose hold of the super-gun. Gerard watched, horrified, as gravity dragged the Breck 100X out the open door. The helicopter righted itself the instant after the gun fell.

  Gerard stormed toward the cockpit. Into the mic of his headset, he screamed at the pilot, “What the fuck do you think you doing?”

  Spinning around in his chair, the Breck employee stammered, “I d-didn’t do anything! It’s m-moving on its own! I don’t have c-control!”

  “How is that possible?”

  “I don’t know! Someone must have hacked into it. But our security —”

  “Kid Hunter.” Gerard sighed heavily. “Well, I lost my gun. So give me yours.”

  Nodding more times than seemed necessary, the pilot took a Breck 17 from his shoulder holster and held it out.

  Flipping the gun into his right hand, Gerard said, “You know, I guess if someone else is flying this chopper, I don’t need you anymore.”

  He fired into the pilot’s chest, then took a few steps back as the dying man fell forward from his chair. There was a satisfying static pop in his ears as the
microphone piece of his headset slammed into the floor.

  Gerard felt a little better after that and moseyed back into the passenger area to sit down. Whipping out his phone, Gerard tapped out a quick message to Elza.

  Going to be home late. Don’t wait up.

  *

  The Wanderer felt a hot breeze against his face as he followed the path of the helicopter. With the boardroom reduced to broken concrete, splintered wood and jagged glass teeth, he’d moved onto the relatively clean helipad to stand waiting.

  “Sure this is what you want?” asked Kid Hunter.

  “It is.”

  “Bringing him to you now.”

  The Wanderer added, “Do me a favor and don’t land on me.”

  The Kid laughed. “Don’t worry, I know just where to drop that bastard.”

  The Wanderer held his hands up by his two hip holsters and shook out his hands. The helicopter flew straight toward him, turning sideways when it reached the opposite side of the roof. Through the aircraft’s open doorway, he could see his stepbrother sitting passively. To the Wanderer’s amusement, he appeared to be wearing a three-piece suit. Gerard always was a flashy dresser.

  Gerard tore off his headset and stepped cautiously to the edge of the helicopter. He held up his hands and shouted something, but Errol couldn’t make out a word with the helicopter still going. Figuring it was something about not shooting until he got down, the Wanderer lifted up his hands to show he wouldn’t shoot. In the end, the exchange of signs didn’t matter. The helicopter tipped, dumping Gerard into the rubble.

  Kid Hunter cackled over the radio.

  “Heh,” replied the Wanderer. “Now send it away.”

  “Roger that!”

  The helicopter floated off the roof, descending out of sight. While Gerard struggled to his feet, the sun hid behind the clouds and the day turned dark. A gust of wind sent a piece of loose insulation rolling through the wide space in between them.