Outrider

by Steven John

  As if anticipating Scofield’s thoughts, the man raised his hands and took hold of the cloth of his hood, pausing briefly, his eyes looking out from shadow at the other’s eyes staring back into the shadow, and then he cast back the cowl.

  “Sebastian.” Scofield spoke the name as calmly as one identifies an item in a grocery store. He held the even gaze of the man he had last seen huddled behind iron bars. “Y’know, I thought that voice was familiar.”

  “Yeah. Well, here I am.”

  “Here I am too. Tables got a bit turned, seems.”

  Neither man said anything for a while. They avoided each other’s gazes, both looking about the cramped engine room for something to let their eyes fall upon other than eyes. In the steady light of the hanging lamp Scofield could now see the many gauges and toggles and handles that ran the train. It was like something out of a children’s book come to life, right down to the acrid stench of burning coal a young boy might imagine as he dreamt of steam trains conquering the long-gone frontier. Here, in fact, was the very essence of the epoch Scofield had often wished he’d been born into, but it was a tainted dream; nearer to a nightmare.

  The boiler let out a particularly loud belch of steam and both outrider and drainer balked involuntarily.

  “You never get used to some things,” Sebastian said quietly. Scofield looked up at his face then. He didn’t remember the man being so tall—back when he was just a leech and not a drainer; back almost a week ago before everything had changed. The pattern of fine veins was still there on his forehead and by his eyes, and his face was still drawn and gaunt but in the warm light of the flickering lantern Sebastian’s skin was not so pale. Not so sickly.

  “Where are we going?” Scofield asked through clenched teeth.

  “I can’t tell you. Yet.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “You’re not headed to the gallows, Scofield. There’s no need for you to presume the worst.”

  “I figured that—you bastards wanted me dead, I’d be cold by now.”

  “So why the grave look?”

  Scofield turned away, staring out through the little window into the black night. He dug in his vest pocket for his pack of smokes as he whispered, scarcely loud enough for Sebastian to hear: “My horse.”

  The drainer nodded solemnly, though Scofield wasn’t looking, then took a step closer, saying “Don’t worry about Reese. We know how much she means to you. She’s safe.”

  Scofield spun on his heels at hearing his horse’s name, hissing loudly “How do you know she’s safe? You made me leave her in the middle of nowhere!”

  Sebastian raised his hands in a motion of deference. “By now, she’s back in the stable. Your stable. Her stable.” He turned away, drawing a pocket watch from the folds of his robe.

  “I’m sure of it,” he said, looking down at the watch. He clicked it shut and looked up, his eyes losing focus as he thought. The watch slipped from his fingers, swaying on its silver chain. His lips were moving and he slowly cocked his head to one side, as if talking himself through some calculation. Suddenly Sebastian wheeled about and thrust his head out the window beside him.

  “What’s our timing?” He bellowed out into the night. Scofield could not make out the response. “We have seven minutes until a flyover!” Sebastian called back. “Can you get it rigged in that time?”

  The night air was suddenly filled with a chorus of voices, men shouting over one another. A slight tremor rocked the locomotive, accompanied by a loud bang and the clatter of falling metal. Someone just outside the window by Scofield cursed and as the outrider turned to peer out into the night he heard several pairs of feet running toward the back of the train. He stuck his head out the window. In the starlight, his night vision weakened by the lantern, Scofield could barely make out the silhouettes of a dozen men hurrying to and fro, some carrying heavy loads, two dragging a long cable, another seeming to direct them.

  The locomotive had come to a stop beside a QV pillar. Judging by the stars and the land and the intuition from years spent riding under the arrays, Scofield reckoned they were near the southwestern edge of the sunfield. There was a post not too far away. If he had figured the location correctly, it was one of the buildings equipped with a siren. Scofield was trying to figure the size of the window frame relative to his shoulder width when Sebastian’s words brought him back into the moment.

  “You read much history, Scofield?”

  The outrider turned around slowly. Sebastian was looking down, studying the coarse fingernails of his right hand.

  “More than some, less than others, I guess.”

  “Well you know what Marx said, at least, yes? About history?”

  Scofield nodded. Outside, a man was yelling: “Will someone get the fucking braces!”

  “Do you think we can afford much more repetition? Much more of the same all-consuming scourge we’ve worked ourselves into?” The drainer’s eyes were afire when he raised them, fixed them on Scofield.

  “Gotta get that cable . . . locked . . . the rig will . . . !” More shouting.

  “I guess you gotta to be conscious of the past but there ain’t a roadmap it painted us. Nothing’s categorical. Seems you people feel that way. It’s OK to fuck with people if it’s working toward some end you see fit. OK to kill, even.”

  “You couldn’t be more wrong.”

  “Five minutes! Can . . . fuckin’ lock it down in that time? We . . .”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “I’m going to. Or rather we are. She is, I should say, really.”

  “Who’s ‘she?’”

  “More hands! All of you get . . . drop this goddamn thing we’re . . . !”

  “You keep asking questions you’ll have answered soon. Patience. By sunrise I promise there will be many answers.”

  “How long has this been going on? Can you tell me that?”

  “Yes, I think I can.”

  “Secure that shit! Who . . . wrangle that cable . . .”

  “It’s been going on for years, ever since the motives of the ‘Haves’ truly changed.”

  “Well that’s fucking illuminating, Sebastian. Thanks for the clarity.”

  “If you hadn’t been out here for so many years . . .”

  “. . . of time, boys. Flat out. We. . . .”

  “. . . had you been paying any attention to those you served . . .”

  “No good! We’re out of time! Tarps and hoses!”

  “We goin’ dark?”

  “Tarp it up! Soak the burner!”

  Sebastian cursed under his breath and turned away, leaning out the window again. “No way to lock it down? The last goddamn one? Eighty seven goddamn rigs and we can’t do this last—”

  “No time left, man. We’d never get far enough.” Scofield recognized the engineer’s voice as he interrupted. “We gotta douse the boiler and cover up.”

  Sebastian nodded, then drew back from the window. He swore again, this time aloud, checking his watch. A new sound now came from outside. It was a mix of rustling and cracking, as a loose sail makes in the breeze. Men’s voices still murmured in the night but the urgent shouts of a minute before were gone. In their place, Scofield heard a low rhythmic chant: “Pull one two three pull one two three . . .”

  Suddenly the voices were just outside and Scofield turned as a heavy cloth was dragged across the window, blotting out the stars and dampening all sound. Sebastian was lowering the flame of the kerosene lantern. Then he stepped before the fire grate, his head lowered, eyes again on the watch. The glow of the burning coal painted his face a flickering canvas of orange highlights and deep shadowed valleys. Finally, Sebastian put the pocket watch away and looked up. He took hold of a heavy iron handle and pulled it downward roughly. A sheet of steel slammed home behind the grate, sealing the engine room off from the fire and boiler.

  “You may want to cover your ears,” Sebastian said over his shoulder. Then he leaned out the window beside him, pushing the heavy canvas tarp ou
t a bit.

  “Burner’s closed up. Go ahead and douse it.” The drainer leaned back into the engine room and slid his hood halfway over his head. He glanced over at Scofield, then slid the cloth down farther until his face was lost in shadow. “Let me say it once more: cover your ears. And let’s stand over here.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Flyover in a few minutes. We’re going dark and cold, as they say; we don’t want any of your friends to drop in on the party. We have a quantum refraction tarp over the top of us, and now it’s time to soak the engine. Last chance to move.” Sebastian moved away from the sealed boiler and leaned against the instrument panel on the opposing wall. Not fully comprehending why, Scofield followed suit, loosely cupping his hands over his ears and turning his back to the boiler. Just as his palms met his head, a deafening roar filled the tiny space. In a matter of seconds the engine room was choked with steam and an angry, seething hiss filled iron chamber. Scofield crumpled to his knees, gasping and coughing in the searing heat, blinded, both ears popping as the breath was sucked from his chest.

  As soon as it had come the onslaught ended. The engine room was suddenly silent but for the fading whisper of a dying fire. It was oppressively hot and humid, though. Sebastian stood back up to his full height and untied the lanyard around his neck, letting the beige robe fall to the floor. Scofield slowly rose, half-expecting another rush of heat and sound and pressure. Once a few seconds had passed and he returned to a state capable of rational assessment, he noted first that Sebastian wore beneath his robes a casual outfit of blue jeans and a white long-john shirt. Second he realized that there was no longer any noise at all coming from the train: no crackle of burning coal, no belch of steam, and no grinding of gears or clicks from the gauges.

  The last thing the outrider noticed before Sebastian began speaking was that, as in the engine room, the world at large seemed totally silent.

  “Well, it looks like we have some time to talk suddenly,” Sebastian said as he folded his robe over one arm then sat down on the little bench beside him.

  “Well by Golly, that’s great news,” Scofield replied just above a whisper. “I sure didn’t get enough of talking to you last week.”

  “Jesus, was that just a week ago?” Sebastian said, casually dismissing the outrider’s sarcasm. “It was, wasn’t it? A week less one day, maybe.”

  “How’s your arm healing up? Scarred yet or still scabs?”

  “Don’t be an asshole, Scofield. Don’t try to be some tough guy asshole. It suits you wrong. Hell, if it suited you right, there’s no way you’d be here. Listen, man: I know you think right now you’re in a bad spot, but if you can keep yourself as objective as I know you’re capable, if you can ready your mind for something new . . . you may just have a . . . let’s call it a sunrise on your horizon. Something vague now, but brighter soon.”

  “Am I even supposed to respond to that?” Scofield snorted out a little laugh, looking down as he drew the pack of smokes from his vest. He put a cigarette between his lips and took matches from his pocket, pausing briefly before striking one, his gaze unfocused as he thought.

  “So much for all that shit about doing you one last favor, huh?”

  Sebastian looked askance at him, confusion on his face.

  “About wanting to die so badly. Back there in the desert. You begged me to kill you. I guess you thought you were just calling a bluff.”

  “No, actually. I didn’t think that. At all. I didn’t know a thing about you then. I know now that you’d never taken a life until yesterday, but I didn’t know that then.”

  “How—what makes you think that?” Scofield’s face flushed hot as he pictured the dying Australian; as he remembered the blood spattered all about the other man. When the drainer made no reply, he shook his head, taking a long drag off the cigarette. He eased himself down onto the iron bench. It was growing colder in the engine room. The hiss of the dying fire was gone, replaced by the occasional rustle of the canvas tarp stirred by evening breeze.

  “How much of what you said was true?”

  “All of it.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “It was all true. I was an accountant. I have cancer and it’s going to kill me. It’s spreading and I’m dying. ‘Metastasizing’ is the word. Every day I feel new aches, find new scabs. I get migraines. I can’t sleep some nights; can’t keep food down some mornings.”

  Scofield looked away. “And yet here you are. You appear to be a man of some regard among these boys. A man of some esteem, no?”

  “I’ve . . . I worked my way up, I guess you could say.”

  “Yet you were ready to toss it all.”

  “Instead of dying a pathetic death, yes, I think. Better to die fast. I’m fully devoted. That’s why they listen—people respect devotion here. As they do in all places.”

  “What’s here, Sebastian? Why? You’ve got me, dammit. Why’d you bastards hang Tripp? The fuck ain’t you shot me yet? I got nothing to offer you and nothing to gain. You already got me so why don’t you just fucking explain!” The outrider shouted these last words so loudly even he was surprised by his vitriol. He had half risen from the bench, but let himself slump back down onto it.

  “You’ll know everything soon. You can’t imagine how much you have to learn.” Sebastian sat and pulled out the pocket watch again. He looked down at the watch for a moment, counting the seconds under his breath. “I’m sorry about your friend. I wasn’t there for that and I . . . it will be dealt with.” He raised his head.

  “Here it comes . . .” Sebastian whispered to himself.

  The outrider had just drawn a breath to ask what “it” was when a new sound crept through the heavy tarps. Quiet at first, deep, bass and distant, the rumble grew. In a matter of seconds it was a throaty engine roar, suddenly deafening and just as quickly lower pitched and receding. Sebastian’s eyes were raised, locked onto the ceiling as if he could see through it to the sky above. His mouth hung slightly open.

  “Those were jets. Imaging. Now for thermal, I’m sure.” The drainer looked down at Scofield and nodded, his thin lips drawing into a tight line.

  Sure enough, not a half minute later another noise was audible and growing steadily. This time it was the staccato chop of rotor blades, the din reverberating off the desert floor as the unseen helicopters drew near. Son of a bitch did his homework, Scofield thought. The night thundered as a trio of heavy aircraft made their way down the sunfield’s perimeter, lumbering along just above their safe operating height of sixteen thousand feet. It seemed like they hovered above the train for ages.

  Then, slowly, the echo of the choppers began to diminish. Within minutes the night was quiet again.

  “Thought they had us for a second,” Sebastian said through a forced smile. Just as he began to rise, the narrow door beside him clicked open. The engineer stuck his head into the compartment, a broad grin turning up his ruddy cheeks.

  “That was close, huh?”

  “Far too much so, yes.” Sebastian stood, stretching his legs. “I’ll go see to the rig. How long until you can get us moving again?”

  “Ten minutes. Maybe fifteen.”

  Sebastian nodded and put his robe back on, raising the hood back over his head. He stepped past the engineer and was just bending to leave when Scofield’s voice stopped him.

  “Not everything you said was true, Sebastian.”

  “No? Where did I err?”

  “You said you always worked alone.”

  “You’re right. I did say that and it was a lie.” He paused, stooped to exit the chamber. Then, slowly, he turned his head to look at the outrider. His face was lost in the shadow of his cowl. “I’m sorry. I hate dishonesty and I lied.”

  “And you said you wanted to die. Then and there.”

  “I did want to die then and there. With all my heart. Now I don’t.”

  “What changed?”

  “The terms.”

  “You men wait here,” said Mayor Dreg,
his voice grave. “I think it best I enter the command center alone,” he added in an explanatory tone as if anyone in the security detail had made any sort of protest. Dreg turned away from the three officers wearing matching black uniforms and squinted to get a look at his surroundings, shielding his eyes from the garish halogen glow of the pod station.

  It was shortly after one a.m. and there was not another soul in sight. Dreg had not been to the Outpost—to the end of the line—in many years. The few buildings all looked as he remembered them, and the tavern, he noted, seemed to be open, its sign and windows aglow. But he had the sensation of surveying a scene he knew only from a movie or photographs. True, he had never been to the Outpost at night, but there was something more than that. It took The Mayor a while to put his finger on it.

  Silence.

  That was it. Or near silence, anyway—the only sounds were an occasional breeze and the electric hum of the lights above. Mayor Dreg shivered involuntarily, wrapping a fist around the lapels of his heavy gray overcoat. He stepped off the cement of the platform and balked as his loafers sank into the dusty soil. Dreary goddamn place if I’ve ever seen one, he thought, shaking his head with a rueful smile. Dreg pulled a leather case from his pocket and drew out a slender Dominican cigar while walking toward the large meeting hall some two hundred yards away.

  While he knew he had several armed men watching over him, and while he knew that there were several thousand troops fanning out across the surrounding desert, Dreg was nonetheless gripped by a chilling fear as he left the pod station’s pool of light. He quickened his pace. It was not that some unseen predator lurked out of sight; it wasn’t that the enormity of the situation descended into his conscience. It was just so dark. So dark and quiet out here. Ghastly fucking place.

  The Mayor meant several times to pause and light the cigar, but found his legs carrying him ever more quickly. The matchbox was in his hands but the hands and the legs were not working together. Only once within the glow of the Meeting Hall’s light, which spilled out of a bank of windows and from bright bulbs above the doors, did Franklin Dreg feel his confidence and swagger return. Here, after all, was Ground Zero. Here was the very nexus of his virility; the concentrated martial might of New Las Vegas, and he the man atop it all.