Outrider

by Steven John

  The drainer slumped over to one side, then slid slowly back down into his hideaway. He had taken shelter in an old leech burrow and was alone. No sooner had the man fallen, C. J. slid his pistol back into its holster and continued walking with no further thoughts of the incident. He let his legs do the work; his mind was somewhere far away.

  Wilton Kretch would have stayed put in the dry streambed for the whole fight if he’d been able. He would have holed up for days if need be. Shady had bucked him when the planes began falling and he had stumbled into the ditch while running blindly. Had not a drainer clambered in beside him to escape the maelstrom crashing down upon the sunfield, he would surely not have expended a single round that day. But when Kretch fired three shots into the back of the drainer’s skull, he had revealed his position to nearly a dozen enemies, hunkered down within a stone’s throw.

  It was his keen eyes that were keeping Kretch alive. The drainers were spread out before him in a rough crescent, the nearest about fifty yards away, the farthest twice that distance. A series of dry washes—most scarcely three feet deep—and countless ditches crisscrossed this western portion of the sunfield. The network of streambeds had been cut more deeply into the desert by the recent rains. There were still patches of darker, moist earth in some places. And in just the few days of rainfall followed by a few days of sun, already some of the dormant plants had grown larger, lusher, and were flowering.

  But though the plants could grow quickly, Kretch knew they could not move. Thus when a handful of sage bushes seemed to have drawn nearer after the outrider had briefly turned away from his assailants to check his back, he caught on to the drainers immediately. The camouflaged men had only moved a few feet closer, but Wilton spotted the change, raised his rifle and squeezed two rounds into the base of each displaced bush.

  One wail of agony confirmed his assumption and took a drainer out of the fight. Maybe he’d killed another outright. Or maybe two. Wilton began to run through his options, the exhilaration of his confirmed casualty and the process of working out a plan keeping his fear at bay for the moment.

  He fired another shot at nothing in particular then quickly dug a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. Kretch placed three cigarettes in his mouth and lit them all, then set two on the sand and pulled a few drags off the last. He slid down out of sight and jammed the butts of the cigarettes into the crumbling soil just below the crest of the streambed’s wall.

  Kretch pulled open the breech of his rifle and quickly loaded it back up to full complement, then set off crawling as fast as he could. When he figured he’d moved about twenty yards, he pulled off his hat and wiped moist soil across his brow to cut the glare of his sweaty forehead. Wilton slowly raised his head out of the dry wash, coming up behind a tall patch of desert grass. He flinched at the sound of gunfire but quickly realized it was distant. He gripped his rifle tightly and waited.

  The wait was a short one. Oh you dumb fuckers, Wilton sneered. Two men had just broken cover and were charging his previous position. The outrider rose out of the streambed, one foot on the ground, the other stabilizing him against the sloping earth, and drew a bead on the nearest runner. Too late the man saw his adversary, and was cut down by a single shot through the neck.

  Kretch took calm, deliberate aim at the second man and got off three rounds before the other drainers could return fire. Wilton took cover, then set off back the way he had come, running as fast as he could while keeping his head out of the field of fire. That’s four of you bastards. Maybe five. Come and get it. Ol’ Kretch is ready to serve it up hot. He sucked breaths and tried to force a smile; tried to keep his nerve up. But in the back of his mind, the outrider knew the odds were still soundly against him.

  “I need to get back to the city. I need to get in touch with Federal Central Command.” Dreg’s voice was barely audible. His mustache quivered and his fists were clenched so tightly his thick, yellowed nails drew blood from his palms.

  “Then you’d better start walking,” Engel said, not looking up from the map he was studying.

  “Excuse me, Major?”

  “If you want to get back to Vegas, sir, you’ll need to walk. Or take a horse from the stable. I doubt there’s anything functioning within a hundred miles.”

  “Well, can’t you get something functioning, goddammit!” The Mayor bellowed with such ferocity that his voice cracked on the curse.

  Engel looked up, neatly folding the map and tucking it under one arm. He glanced back through the open doors of the Meeting Hall to make sure none of his men were listening, then took a few steps away from the building, off the concrete platform and onto the sand.

  “No, Mr. Mayor. I can’t. We can’t. A pulse like that doesn’t just turn things off, it destroys them. It will take months if not years to repair the damage to the infrastructure. Here, join me if you will.” Engel turned away from The Mayor and strolled toward the distant sunfield, glancing back to make sure Dreg was following.

  The two men walked about fifty paces wordlessly before Engel came to a halt and turned to face Dreg.

  “Take a good listen, Mayor Dreg.” He paused, his brown eyes staring directly into the beady black dots looking back at him. “Hear it? It’s silence. Breeze and nothing more.”

  “So what can we do?” There was a plaintive edge to Dreg’s voice.

  “I don’t know. Nothing works . . . we’re at square one.”

  Just then the staccato crack of distant gunfire echoed across the miles of sand between the men and the field.

  “Guns still work,” Dreg said quietly, looking south toward the horizon of pillars. His mind was beginning to churn. “Wait . . . shells. We have shells, right? The kind that . . . that you fire out of a tube and they go like this,” The Mayor described an arc with a one hand, then mimicked an explosion, pressing both palms together, then flinging his hands apart, fingers spread wide.

  “Mortars?”

  “Yes! That’s it! Mortars!”

  “Yes, sir. We have those. But we don’t have the scopes or aerial coverage to tell us where we need to lay down rounds. We’d be firing blind.”

  “We have maps, right? Coordinates of all the arrays and columns? You just need to avoid those!” Dreg was suddenly elated, back in control.

  “Mayor, our men are all over the field. And the Feds you ordered in and the horsemen. We’d risk killing as many of them as we would drainers.”

  “Some things can’t be replaced, Major, and some things can. You learn about life’s hard choices sometimes. Heavy sits the crown.” Already Dreg was walking back toward the Meeting Hall with swift steps. Engel looked back at the sunfield, biting down hard on his bottom lip.

  There was a soft knock at the door. Hale rose from the bed where he had been lying and staring up at the ceiling for the better part of an hour. Out of habit, he glanced at himself in the mirror, though he could see little in the diffuse light coming through the gray paint over the window panes. He looked tired and worn, that much was plainly evident.

  Bags hung under each eye, eyes which seemed to have receded back into his skull. His hair, usually preened and parted into military precision, looked like a windblown field of wheat. Timothy had given up any plot of escape. He had ceased trying to understand all that had happened or figure out what was coming next. He had merely been waiting, and now, perhaps, here was an answer at the door.

  “Well, I’m the one locked in. Go ahead and enter if you want.” He called out, standing in the middle of the room. The lock clicked and the knob turned. Though he could not make out features in the glare of sunlight that rushed in, Hale easily recognized the silhouette of Maria Rodrigues.

  “Hi, Tim.”

  He paused, then said in a casual voice: “Hey, Maria.”

  She stepped inside and looked around, then went to the counter beside the sink and helped herself to a bottle of water. A vaguely salty-sweet scent followed her across the room, like perfume applied hours ago and recent sweat. It was a pleasurable smell, and
one Hale would forever remember.

  “It’s so gloomy in here,” Maria said as she recapped the bottle. Again he was caught off guard by her Portuguese accent. “Let’s go outside, OK?”

  “Sure. Why not.” What choice do I have, Hale went on in his head. He sat down on the bed to put his shoes on, glancing up and realizing that Maria had picked up two more bottles of water. Aha. Nice long trip, then.

  It was warm outside for late November. Hale shivered awkwardly as his body adjusted to the sun on his bare arms and head and neck, leaving the cool, stale air of the motel behind. He wore a dark t-shirt and had his gray sweater cast over one shoulder. He stopped in the middle of the dusty street and, turning to face Maria, he was pleasantly surprised to find she was not wearing a beige cloak. She wore high, brown boots with tight gray slacks tucked into them at the knee. A loose black sweater, almost formless, hung low around her neck, revealing a snug white shirt with a plunging neckline. Forgetting himself for a moment, Timothy’s eyes flitted between Maria’s cleavage, her smooth, dark hair, the cherry colored lips, and finally to her coffee-colored eyes, which seemed to regard him with a hint of amusement.

  “Did Candice explain any of it to you? Of what’s next?”

  “Not really. She just took me on the grand tour, as it were.”

  “Do you . . .” she looked at him severely, taking in a breath and starting over. “Do you understand now?”

  “I understand less now than I did yesterday. Less now than two days ago. Two weeks ago. On and on. I don’t know what I think anymore.”

  “It can take time.” She turned and began to walk slowly up the street, away from the Town Hall, on the steps of which a few men were locked in a tense conversation. One was waving his arms in the air as if in frustration, another clearly trying to calm him. Hale watched the group for a moment, then took a few quick steps after Maria, falling in beside her.

  “I thought I could hear explosions not long ago? They were distant. It was maybe an hour—right when the lights went out. What was that?”

  “The sky was falling,” she replied, barely above a whisper.

  “What?”

  Maria shook her head gently, dismissing the question. Then she asked “If we let you go right now, Tim, what would you do? Honestly.”

  “I guess I’d . . . just go to the office to check in, providing the goddamn Mayor hasn’t officially fired me and would let me back in the building. Or no—honestly? I’d go home and take a shower. Maybe then—”

  “No one’s taking a hot shower in that city for a long time, Tim,” she interrupted. “No power left. No water pumps. No nice cool air piped down the streets in summer or warm air in winter or endless power for the rich and connected and steep rates for the ragged. Going back to New Las Vegas is pointless. The city will be a mess for years to come, Tim. It will take millions of man-hours just to get the power back on. Then to clear the trash and rubble that will have collected. Then rebuild what’s fallen apart. In some ways, maybe we did to your city what your city has done to so many others . . . but at least now it’s been stopped.”

  Maria sighed, avoiding Hale’s sidelong glances. “It was the hardest choice I’ve ever made, Tim, joining up. Now they’re my people—now I know it was right, but it wasn’t easy. You need to know that.” Finally she looked over and met his gaze. “I was in Madrid when the field there was destroyed a decade ago. I was a student. I was as shocked and horrified and angry as everyone else. Until I learned why. It was worse there than here. Towns and cities bombed, burned, and paved over. And all in the name of what? Consolidation and fucking progress!” She spat the last words out as though they burned her tongue.

  Hale made no reply—he had no idea what to say—and simply walked beside her with his head slightly bowed. The silence lasted for several minutes, before Timothy suddenly raised his head and looked around. They had passed the last building of the little town and were now entering the first foothills of the desert beyond.

  “Where are we going, Maria?” When she did not immediately answer, he repeated her name, his voice involuntarily rising an octave. “Maria?”

  Hearing the touch of fear mounting in Hale’s voice, Maria smiled warmly, looking over at him. “Far away. I won’t tell you where, just yet, but I’ll tell you that the first leg of the journey will be by train, and the second by boat. You’ll have a nice view out the windows this time, at least.”

  “Why are you taking me? Am . . . am I a hostage?”

  “For now, yes, I suppose we have to use that word. Someday soon maybe one of us. If not, you’ll have a story to tell when you’re an old man. We won’t hurt you. I won’t let them.” She stepped closer to him and reached out, gently placing a hand on his right elbow. “I promise. I always knew you were a good man, Tim. You just fell onto the wrong side of history.”

  “Almost got it! Keep going, young man!” The elderly lady shouted, smiling at the twenty-something as he landed another powerful kick against the window of the commuter pod.

  “I can take it back over a while, if you’re tired,” called out a middle-aged businessman, down to his shirtsleeves and still dripping with sweat. The handful of able bodied men aboard the train had been working to break the dozen-odd passengers free for an hour now.

  The pod had been cruising along as usual, carrying travelers from a suburb into New Las Vegas proper for shopping, meetings or early lunches, when suddenly it had shuddered and then come to an abrupt halt. The lights were dark, the ventilation system dead, and the doors utterly impossible to pry. Now finally, after thousands of heels smashed against it, one of the thick windows was starting to give.

  “No, I got this,” the young man coughed out, sucking in a huge breath. He peeled off his damp t-shirt and, bare-chested, exhausted but determined, took three running steps and pounded a sidekick into the corner of the window. The thick four by six foot sheet of Plexiglas finally gave, popping out of its frame along the bottom. One more kick and the entire sheet fell free from the car.

  A cheer went up within the pod, all the men shaking hands and blushing at praise from the women. The young man leaped out first and began assisting others down to the tracks.

  As he helped a heavy-set, middle aged woman clutching a large cloth satchel get to the ground, something occurred to the youth.

  “You OK?” he asked the woman once she was on her feet. She nodded and he jogged a few feet away from the tracks. Sure enough, there was an eerie silence over all the land. No sounds of the city, though it was scarcely two miles distant; no noise from the factories just across the tracks. Nothing. A half mile away, the young man could see another commuter pod dead on the tracks.

  He turned in a slow circle, incredulous and confused, and was just about to walk back to the pod to confer with his fellow passengers, when he did hear a sound, a most unusual one. From the distance came the sound of pounding hooves. Sure enough, seconds later some twenty galloping horses came into view, riding roughly parallel to the tracks. They were lashed into two longs trains and led by a few riders clad in the black uniforms of the Civil Defense Forces.

  The strange caravan, like something out of an old movie to the young man’s mind, was pulling several carts, atop which were lashed several bulky objects hidden beneath gray tarps. The horses sped past the stranded travelers heading due west.

  26

  “You know what, I’ll be seventy before you’re twenty-five, why the fuck am I crankin’ this thing?” Boss Hutton straightened up then leaned backward, fists pressed against his aching lower back. “Come on down here, young man.”

  Hutton leaned against the hood of his jeep as the young soldier, twenty-one if he was a day, by Hutton’s reckoning, climbed out of the ancient vehicle and joined The Boss. Hutton had left the sirenhouse, hopped in his jeep, and keyed the ignition. The old engine had turned over once, then locked up. Seconds later all hell had broken loose, every aircraft for miles dropping like flies and taking a good bit of the sunfield with them. The Boss had shelte
red back in the squat concrete building until it let up.

  As soon as he’d realized what must have happened, he set off walking toward the Civil Defense outpost he had passed earlier. The two mile walk had been rough on the old man, the return journey doubly so. But he’d found this young soldier to help him.

  “So you just grab this part here,” Hutton pointed to the short section of the L-shaped rod inserted into the engine through the jeep’s grill, “and you . . . wait, what was your name again, son?”

  “Corporal Alterman, sir.”

  “Don’t call me sir and I ain’t gonna call you corporal. What’s your first name?”

  “Um it’s . . .” the young man seemed flummoxed by the question. “It’s Marc.”

  “OK, Marc. Call me Hut.” He clapped the soldier on the shoulder. There was fear in his eyes, so Hutton dropped the business at hand for a second. “Listen, this here is a real bad situation, got it? I’m not gonna sugar it up. We don’t know their numbers, their plans, none of it. And I sure as shit didn’t think these fuckers would have had the capabilities they clearly got. But you know what we got? We got guns and men. We got a damn sight more guns and men than they got, and we’re gonna win this thing, planes and helos or no, OK?”

  “Yes sir—er . . . Hut. Yeah, I’m sure we will.”

  “OK then. You just grab that crank and turn it like hell. Once we get this ol’ girl’s engine turned over I’m gonna have to set off right quick and not stop or she’ll die on me. So don’t take it for lack of gratitude when I race away and leave you here.” Hutton extended his hand and the young man shook it.

  The Boss pulled himself up into the driver’s seat with a groan. He lit a cigarette and pulled off his hat. “OK, start spinning it, Marc!”