Outrider

by Steven John

  The corporal began turning the crank as fast as he could. Hutton waited a moment, then popped the clutch out halfway, fed gas into the engine and jammed the key clockwise as hard as he could. Almost immediately the motor caught, coming to life with a sputtering cough but soon settling into its old rhythmic rumble. Hutton waved the young man aside and began to roll away.

  “Good job, son! Keep your chin up and barrel clear! Give ’em fuckin’ hell!”

  The Boss glanced back over his shoulder once as he eased into third gear. The soldier was already trekking back toward his outpost at a jog. Good to have men like that, Hutton nodded to himself, sticking the cigarette in the corner of his mouth and pulling his old weathered sunglasses from the glove compartment. We’re gonna need ’em all if we got even a snowball’s chance in hell.

  It was nearing one o’clock according to the outrider’s wristwatch. He checked the fuel gauge: a little over half. He could get two hours of constant driving out of that if needed, maybe three hours if he idled some and was careful with his speed. Then the jeep would be dead, likely forever. He had no reserves left in his jerry cans.

  Nor did Boss Hutton have a plan. He had let himself focus entirely on the problem at hand—the jeep—and delayed consideration of the situation, but now alone and rolling across the sands he felt the weight of reality bare down on him. The distant hills were bright beige in the sunshine and beyond them the brown mountains cut vivid patterns into the clear blue sky. Miles to the north, likely just outside the shade of the arrays, he spotted three horsemen and thought to turn and intercept them, but quickly dismissed the thought. What can I tell ’em? My boys know what to do as well as me. Shoot and ride and keep your fingers crossed.

  He tossed the cigarette butt over the side of the door and drove on. Suddenly, it occurred to Hutton that if indeed his assumption was correct and the sunfield was dead, he could turn and drive right through it, saving himself a precious hour as he headed back to the Outpost. The Boss slowed down to twenty miles an hour and eased the vehicle due north. He waited for the telltale warnings: the little hairs rising and the taste he got in the back of his throat. Nothing came as he drew to within two miles of the field.

  By the time Hutton was less than a mile away from the first line of QV pillars, he was convinced that it was safe to drive through. Or rather not safe, exactly, as the area was swarming with drainers, but not suicide as it would have been a mere two hours before. With mixed feelings, he jammed the stick into fourth and sped up.

  Something caught his eye and he glanced up and to the left. Maybe just a swooping bird or a bit of dust on his glasses. Whatever it was he had lost it. He drove on. Then, over the rumble of the engine, Hutton heard a strange whistling. In a heartbeat, the sunfield was alive with exploding fire.

  Greg White had been stumbling through dim corridors for what felt like hours. Maybe it was minutes, maybe it was tomorrow—there was no sense of time in this labyrinth of earthen walls and pale green haze. He had managed to stanch the bleeding from his worst wound, a gash right above his left hip, but he had lost much blood. His thoughts swam now and then and he was slowing down.

  Another intersection loomed before him through the gloom. He stepped into the new section of tunnel, looking left then right. The paths were identical: glowing chemical lanterns at evenly spaced intervals led off as far as he could see. White picked a direction at random and set off again, moving as quickly as he could. He gripped a long bladed knife in his right hand. It was his only weapon.

  The outrider came to a sudden halt as dust filled the narrow tunnel. It was shaking loose from the walls and ceiling and at first the haggard outrider was utterly confounded. A series of dull thuds echoed through the subterranean maze and more earth shook free, billowing into the air. Not again . . . Gregory sighed to himself, feeling more weary than upset at the certain carnage above.

  He began walking again. The thought did not completely form before Greg’s attention was grabbed by a ladder a dozen paces ahead, but he was vaguely aware that there was nothing left in the sky to fall to earth. He slowed down a few feet from the roughhewn wooden ladder and waited for a lull in the thundering bombardment above, louder now that he was near a shaft to the surface.

  As he caught his breath, he realized that through the din he could hear another sound: men’s voices. They were coming from above him.

  “I don’t know what it is! I don’t know!” The bearded drainer called from his position third down on the ladder. “It’s fucking impossible,” he said to himself, then raised his voice again, continuing, “Whoever is up top, stick your head out and take a look but be ready to get back down the hatch quick as hell!”

  How the fuck could they still have aircraft bombing us up there? he fumed. Something went wrong . . . something went badly fucking wrong. Above him, sunlight poured into the shaft as one of his men pushed the trapdoor open.

  “Afternoon, motherfucker,” Joseph Bay hissed as he wrapped an arm around the neck of the drainer emerging from the tunnel. He pressed his gun barrel into the hapless man’s ribs and fired two shots. The body was already limp as he wrenched it from the hole and then stood over the opening, peering down into the darkness.

  Wide eyes stared up from the shaft and Bay opened fire, emptying his .45. The man fell away. Alive with fire, the desert thundered and heaved around him as Joe unslung his rifle and began shooting blind into the tunnel, the veins in his neck threatening to burst forth as he howled like a rabid beast.

  At the sound of gunshots from above, Greg White wheeled to run from the surface shaft. Too late he realized a man had been sneaking up from behind him, a pistol leveled. The drainer pumped two rounds into White, one through the left shoulder, one low in his abdomen. Greg fell onto his assailant, driving his slender, long-bladed knife down into the drainer’s neck. Cold steel slid between clavicle and spine. The drainer was weighed down by a heavy spool of cable draped across his chest and immediately toppled to the ground beneath the added weight of the wounded outrider.

  White tore the knife from the drainer’s torso and lifted it to stab again, but already the man was coughing blood. Already his eyes were rolling back. Greg pulled the pistol from the hands of a man already dead. He began to rise, but crumpled as he put weight on his left leg. Looking down to figure out why he could no longer stand, he saw a pool of blood spreading near his waist. And another from his left shoulder. Dumbfounded, he tried to move his arm, finding it useless. There was not much pain. But he knew this meant nothing. I’m on the goddamn clock, he sighed, shaking his head.

  From up the tunnel shaft came more gunfire. White managed to roll onto his stomach. A dead drainer lay at the foot of the ladder, fallen from above. His robe was stained with patches of blood. They were black in the green glow of the chemical lights. Greg pulled himself toward the base of the ladder using his right arm and right leg. When he was only a few yards from reaching the bottom rung, a second body fell from the unseen murk above, landing in a twisted pile beside his fallen companion. The outrider stopped crawling beneath the ladder and looked up. Far above, a bright disc of sunlight shown down. There were robed men above him on the ladder. With a groan, he raised the pistol and began firing.

  Haskell had just regained his feet after being knocked to the ground by a sudden blast. All around the sunfield, blooms of fire burst to life, tearing craters into the desert floor and sending sand and shrapnel flying.

  “Not my day . . . exactly,” C. J. managed to stammer aloud. His head had just been clearing and logical thought—along with a bit of his hearing—returning when an inferno had again rained down on the land. There had been a strange whistling, and then he was in the air and then on the ground, the breath sucked from his lungs by the concussive blasts.

  Not my week, exactly.

  The outrider got to his knees and wiped dust from the eye not swollen shut, squinting to take stock of his surroundings and ready at any second to be blown apart. He was again rendered deaf. Through the patchwork
of black smoke and living fire, he spotted a squad of Civil Defense soldiers running due west a few hundred yards from him. They were firing sporadically at something but the shattered hulk of a downed helicopter and a toppled QV pillar blocked most of the engagement.

  Haskell stood shakily. The sun beat down on his forehead and cheeks. The cord of his hat cut into his flesh and he slid bloodstained fingers under it, pulling the Stetson back onto his sweaty, sandy head. It was hot for this close to winter. And still. No breeze stirred the land. Through the columns of rising smoke, distant mirages rippled above the beige loam. Haskell stood still, staring ahead, filled with both awe and sorrow by the ruined field surrounding him. His body ached everywhere, from throbbing toes to cracked ribs to a pounding headache. There were patches of crimson on his jeans and torn gray jacket. His five-day beard was singed.

  C. J. rested his hand on the grip of his pistol, trying in vain to focus; to weigh his few options. He could hear nothing but a constant ringing, and could see only half of the world he was used to through his one good eye. Thus he did not see the two robed men who had crept from behind a fallen array; who had thrown back their beige cowls and were working quickly to load a fifty caliber machine gun pointed at the young outrider’s back.

  But Scofield did.

  Scofield gripped Reese tightly between his thighs and wrapped the lead rope of the colt galloping beside them around the saddle horn. He raised his rifle and sighted down the barrel, wincing as another shell landed nearby, sending a shockwave and debris through the air. The outrider drew in a deep breath, keeping firm hold of the rifle and setting his finger gently on its trigger. He would be able to get off only a few shots before the drainers would hear the reports and the horses through the echoing explosions. Or before they shot C. J. Haskell dead.

  Haskell still stood unmoving, staring out across the sands, hearing nothing but a constant ring and the faint pulsing of blood in his ears, though now a familiar sensation stirred the air about him. The air seemed to be vibrating; alive, even.

  Scofield had only planned to see; he had not planned to fight when he rode into the field that morning. He had not planned to kill. He was no longer sure who out here, if anyone, even, deserved to die. But there was no doubt that young C. J. Haskell deserved to live.

  All the years Scofield had given to the field, every single sight, every memory of every experience, from the cold night air to the sunrises and sunsets and every time he had felt his horse under him and felt the trigger beneath his finger collapsed into one moment: he fired true.

  The first drainer fell, shot dead through the back of the skull. Scofield’s next shot winged the second man, who spun to face him, spraying bullets wildly from the huge, unwieldy machine gun. Scofield returned fire as fast as he could, emptying his rifle. He tossed it aside just as the drainer abandoned the heavy .50 cal and reached for the sidearm at his waist. Scofield rode hard, not bothering to draw his revolver, knowing a pistol was near useless at a gallop. The drainer got his weapon out and cocked in a matter of seconds, but it was too late. He lifted his eyes to find a mighty horse, deep brown with wild eyes and a foaming mouth, mere inches away. The last thing he saw was a calm-faced man with a gray hat looking down at him, and then he was crushed beneath charging hooves.

  Scofield reined Reese to the left, toward Haskell. The young man had just turned around when Scofield was upon him, leaning down off his mare to wrap a powerful arm around his comrade. Scarcely aware of what was happening, Haskell found himself wrenched over double and flying off the ground, and then just as suddenly he was draped across a saddle. The familiar scent of horseflesh filled his nostrils.

  He craned his neck to the right, looking up to find Scofield looking back down at him. Scof was shouting something.

  “I can’t hear, Scof! I can’t hear!” C. J. yelled over and over again until he could tell Scofield had understood. The older outrider was mouthing something. He repeated it slowly, several times, and finally Haskell understood: Can you ride?

  C. J. nodded, shouting: “I think so!”

  Scofield tapped Reese twice with his right heel and shouted a command to the black colt beside him. The horses slowed to a trot, and Scofield drew the trailing mount close beside his girl. He wrapped both arms around C. J.’s waist, and helped the young man lunge onto the colt. Haskell slumped over the front of the horse, but wrapped his arms around the mount’s neck and held on.

  Still more shells were falling on the field, but they had shifted to the east and were growing more distant. Scofield watched the flashes over his shoulder, then checked to make sure he had the colt’s lead secured tightly to Reese’s bridle. He glanced back once more, taking a long look at the sunfield, then set his eyes on the rolling desert ahead. The outrider directed his horse northwest at a gallop.

  “That’s two shells on every quadrant. Every fucking bit of the grid. Are you quite satisfied yet, Mayor? Are you impressed with yourself yet?” Major Engel glared at The Mayor, hardly flinching as mortars fired behind him with loud, dull thumps.

  “I’m not sure I like your tone, major.” Dreg replied calmly.

  “Who the fuck cares about my tone! You’re ripping my men apart, goddammit!”

  Dreg shook his large head slowly from side to side. “Insubordination bothers me, Engel. I’ve had men sacked for milder speech than you just used.”

  “Mayor Dreg . . . we have to stop the firing. Now.”

  Still fixated on the soldier’s perceived impudence, but aware that he needed his martial expertise, Dreg decided to exact revenge on the rest of the troops. So some may fall, yes, but his enemies too would be cut down by the onslaught. A righteous trade. A thin smile formed beneath Franklin’s thick mustache, and his great brows dipped lower over his eyes. He could feel the gaze of the dozen Civil Defense men on him. The whole firing base, a makeshift affair of mortar tubes, a tarp held up by a slender posts, a few nervous horses, and the soldiers Engel had found in hailing distance, seemed to be hanging off the tip of The Mayor’s next words. He savored the moment; savagely savored the bass report of the shells as they fired off into the air and the awful rumbling from afar as they landed.

  “We’ll stop soon, Mr. Engel.” Dreg raised the binoculars he had taken from a sergeant earlier that day, scanning the sunfield, neither looking for nor seeing anything in particular. He took a few steps across the now defunct glowline—they had established the makeshift post here solely because there was a concrete slab on which to position weaponry—and glanced down, brushing sand from his lapel peevishly.

  “Just drop a few more rounds over on the eastern perimeter. Say . . . twenty shells. I seem to recall Strayer saying something about a build up there, poor fellow. Who’s to take that man’s place?” Dreg turned away from the field and glanced back at Major Engel. “You know, I keep meaning to ask you: what kind of name is Engel for a . . . um . . .”

  “A black man,” Engel finished his thought for him, incredulous that The Mayor could be asking such a thing at such a time. He shook his head slowly, looking back out over the smoky field. “I’m a quarter German,” Engel finished, speaking scarcely above a whisper.

  Dreg laughed aloud, nodding and looking away. “Well, that figures. Just a few more rounds, Major.”

  27

  Kretch was screaming, sobbing. He wrapped his arms around his head, rolling back and forth in fetal position, praying for the onslaught to end. It took more than two minutes of pathetic moans and shrieks for him to realize that it had.

  Wilton was back on his feet in an instant, his right hand wrapped around the grip of his rifle, his left reaching across his body for the pistol. He crouched low beneath the rim of the streambed, fearful that at any second another shell would land. But though the desert was still alive with the awful roar of exploding rounds, the blasts were undeniably moving away from him.

  He chanced a look out of the dry wash and found himself surrounded by a veritable moonscape. The sands were blackened all around, pocked with deep
craters, and smoke and dust hung heavy in the air. He counted three fresh corpses in the handful of seconds he spent upright. Just before Kretch dropped back down into the ditch, he spotted a horseman leading two mounts. They were distant but riding toward him.

  Greg White reached the top of the ladder after an agonizing climb. His left leg and arm were both useless, and he had hauled his large, ruined body up one rung at a time, leaving bloody fingerprints on every bit of wood he touched. Now he was just inches beneath the narrow mouth of the shaft, bathed in sunlight and close to fainting.

  White got himself halfway out of the shaft and collapsed, his legs dangling below. Through swimming vision he took stock of the field: it seemed like half the pillars had toppled or were sagging, sure to collapse eventually. Shattered arrays and ruined aircraft littered the sands and countless craters were carved into the desert floor, many of which were still sending smoke up into the cerulean sky.

  With a groan, Greg pulled himself free of the tunnel, wearily rolling onto his back. It was then that he saw the burly, bearded man leaning over Joseph Bay. The drainer had stripped off his beige robe and wore a simple cotton shirt, stained with blood. Spittle flew from his dark beard as he raged, his voice low, his hands wrapped around fistfuls of the fallen Bay’s vest, his face held less than a foot from the prone outrider. Bay looked dead, but for his blinking eyes. There were three beige-robed corpses lying within a few feet of the men, and others still farther out in the field.

  The drainer had not seen Greg White, so intent was he on the man lying beneath him. Greg sucked in a long breath, let it out as a sigh, and set his jaw. One last thing to do, you ol’ bastard. Get it done and then get on with it.

  Mustering every ounce of strength he had left, White managed to slither across the fifteen feet of sand between him and the drainer in seconds. The man heard him coming, of course, and rose, pulling a .45 from his holster. He fired just as Greg reached him. The bullet tore through White’s liver but still he raised his blade and jammed it home into the drainer’s thigh.