by Vance Huxley
“Or you, little brother. You’ve complained enough times about the new refugees leaving you alone.” Sharyn wasn’t joking at all as she continued. “I reckon there’s a serious contender now.”
“Yes there is, if I ever end up on my own with Mercedes.” Harold relaxed because he’d admitted it now, right out loud. “Now let it be because that’s freaking me out.”
“So that’s all settled. I move back into the room upstairs, everyone assumes I’m your wench, and you can have an apprentice.” Tessa high-fived Sharyn. “Now you can concentrate on finding a way to get Mercedes on her own.”
They were both havingtoo much fun now so Harold gave up, at least partly because everyone else would come to exactly that conclusion. “In that case you should have some respect.”
“What, like the other woman? I should bite you on the other side.” Harold smiled as Tessa moved forward, clicking her teeth in a mock bite. “Does that smile mean yes?”
“No!” Harold had to laugh. At least in here there wasn’t a gang of maniacs listening and hoping for blood. A bit of more sensible discussion settled the details. The move helped both women with child-minding and now Harold found out Tessa served the visitors to help keep them in line. She’d quickly realised that the gangsters stepped carefully round her in case Soldier Boy took offence. Better yet, she’d not been able to wear nice clothes for three years, butnow she could dress up a bit and nobody dare comment.
Harold found that part funny. “We should let Wamil serve a couple of times. An elbow in the Adam’s apple would teach respect just as well.” Tessa wanted to know why so Harold explained, admitting Wamil would flatten him hand to hand. Both Sharyn and Tessa decided his new apprentice should have lessons, just in case someone realised what she actually did in the workshop.
Harold went off to work on the guns, because he needed to sort out the quick and simple repairs. Caddi would push for them. The stripping and cleaning and oiling worked its magic on Harold’s peace of mind. A few hours of that and he’d got his head round it all. Harold could live with Tessa in the house, because she actually did know more about him than anyone here except Sharyn.
Thatevening, when Harold did his rounds,he met two new recruits. The young woman ran because her dad died, caught in crossfire, which left her and her younger brother alone. A woman living further up the street told her about Orchard Close, and advised her to run before the Hot Rods took over. Another woman told her the safest way to cross the border to the Barbies. Word must be spreading fast, and the new houses might not be enough.
*
A few days later Tessa turned up eager for her first gun lesson. Harold still found the work restful despite teaching someone new, up until Tessa left. “You’d better look happier than that when you leave.” With an impish smile, Tessa added, “Otherwise everyone will think I’m not up to the job. Not lively enough.” Harold spluttered a bit, but before he could answer the smiling young woman continued. “You’re lucky. You just have to look happy. I have to look happy, lively, and as if I’ve just had a mouthful of steak as well.” Tessa left still laughing at Harold’s expression, which more or less gave the right impression.
Harold thought about what Tessa said when he left, and found he was smiling as instructed. It was time to give up and go with the flow. Letting a good looking woman hang on his arm now and then wasn’t the hardest thing in the world. Better still, Harold liked Tessa andthey could tease each other without her expecting to go any further. Now he’d better fix some weapons, and have a proper look at that musket.
*
Two days later Harold had something much more serious to consider. He’d taken the old musket apart and fixing the problem turned out to be simplicity itself. After removing the load, which hadn’t been rammed, and after some fruitless inspection of the parts, he realised the flint had fallen off or been taken out. A quick inspection of the pouch and the bits of rock were flints, and fitted. Harold phoned to ask Veronica to look through the library for books about muskets, then inspected the dismantled weapon again. He bundled up the bits without the barrel or stock and went to see Liz.
“Open up or I’ll huff and puff.”
Harold heard the bar clank out of the way as Liz opened the door. “You’ll have no puff left after spending all that time with your new wench.”
“Don’t start. That’s for show so don’t give her grief.”
When Harold hopped up to sit on the bench, Liz started grinning. “One of those visits. Is she acting up already?”
Harold shook his head, and explained his non-love life. He spread out the bits of musket. “Can you make these? They look nearer to artwork than ironmongery, so you should enjoy it.”
After lookingthem oververy carefully,the smith smiled happily. “No problem, and they won’t even cost much charcoal. So give, what are they for?”
“Repairing a musket. A bloody great honest-to-god baby cannon.” Harold explained muskets and Caddi. “The Murphies have more, allegedly. Well, definitely, because the sound and fury are distinctive, according to Dodge. There’ll be more to repair because Caddi is winning.”
That bombshell warranted another close inspection, and a discussion about the workings of a flintlock. The mechanism basically consisted of a bit of twangy steel, a hammer and an anvil, with a simple catch and a trigger to release it. “There’s all sorts of thin steel plate still out there to make these, but it’ll probably be rusty.” Liz frowned. “There’s springs in all sorts, or just springy steel I can adapt, and the trigger is the same as a crude crossbow. How hard does this thing need to smack down?”
“Enough to make a spark.” Harold rolled his eyes. “You can explain the scavenge list to Patty. She’ll be unhappy because the damn things are too big for her to handle.”
“Bernie deals with most of the scavenging these days. Patty won’t care about muskets because she’s got her secret poser baby to play with, though she’d be happier if you could find more ammo.” After thinking about the scavenge list, Liz sobered, because the state of the nearby housing meant most thin metal plate would be badly corroded. Her first suggestion, nipping over the border to raid someone else’s ruins, ones that hadn’t been shelled, wasn’t practical. The other gangs only scavenged for their own personal luxuries, but they’d object to anyone else searching their property.
“I heard the GOFS have let their tenants extend their scavenging, so they don’t have to buy any more kettles and furniture from us. I’ll bet the Barbies have as well, after the heap we sold them. Maybe they’ll flog us some thin metal, if we can find a reason for wanting it?” Liz looked over the bits again. “Steel tube might be a problem. How likely is it that a barrel will be damaged?”
“Likely, but they’ll straighten. They aren’t rifled or even a tight fit. Can you make a couple of sets up so I can give Caddi these back?” Harold left after promising to get even more charcoal.
*
Harold headed straight for his lesson with Wamil. He arrived early, expecting to have to wait until her pupil had finished leaping about the front room. Instead, Harold found Wamil alone and she seemed flustered. “I can come back later?”
“No need, I have been practicing on my own but I can finish some other time.”
Harold followed her into the front room, cleared for the less public practice. His attention immediately fastened on two strange objects shaped like fancy knife blades, laid on the small table under the window. “What are they?”
Wamil hesitated a moment before answering. “They are practice weapons, knives. My brother taught others to fight with many different blades but I only learned these, the Katari. Not with real knives, just with these.”
“Those are fighting knives?” Harold eyed them. “I can see that those are blades if sharpened, but the two bars make a very wide and clumsy hilt.”
Wamil smiled, picking up the two practice weapons. “Not held like this.” Harold inspected them closer now, because Wamil slipped her hands between the bars and gri
pped the crosspiece. Now she held them as if ready to punch, with the blades jutting out in front of her knuckles.
“Punch daggers? I’d have thought they’d be shorter, broader?” Wamil moved, slashing and punching thin air, and Harold reassessed bloody quickly. “So they slash?”
“This one, the slimmer one with curves, is for punching through armour and should be sharpened to slash as well. The broader one can hack and stab, and take a solid blow from even a sword. I learned them because this discipline sharpens reflexes.” Wamil turned one to show a notch. “If the opportunity occurs, this can catch an unwary blade and twist it out of an opponent’s hand. Then?” Wamil punched air with the blade and Harold winced.
“Even a smallish person could get a lot of power behind a punch like that. You’ve never used them, fought with them?” Wamil shook her head. “What happened to your brother’s weapons?”
“He is in the west of the city, across the motorway. I came here with my husband-to-be, but he died when the Murphies came. He defied them and they shot him down like a dog.” For a moment, Harold thought the usually calm woman would spit. “The gangsters are not warriors, true fighters. I hope my brother met them with all his weapons, with bow and sword, and taught them some respect.”
“So do I.” Harold hoped that when her brother saw the guns the gangsters carried, he’d hidden his bows and bladesrather than challenge them. He spent a few minutes inspecting the blades, to give Wamil a chance to calm down again. “Could you show those to Liz, and explain what you just said? No, hang on, will you spar with me?”
Wamil looked worried, backing away a little. “You can’t use these, or not properly. I might hurt you.”
“I want you to fight against a machete. I’ll pad it of course, and those, and I’d rather you didn’t cripple or kill me.” Harold grinned, winning a small smile from Wamil. “But strike hard enough so I’ll know you got me.” Five very energetic and sweaty minutes later Harold nursed his bruises, as did Wamil, and both wore big smiles.
“The last time I did that, sparred properly, I fought my brother. He won of course.” Wamil’s smile faltered. “Did I strike too hard?”
Harold stopped rubbing his ribs. “Hard enough so a sharp blade, or even that one without the padding, would have done the job properly. Are you all right?”
“The padding on the machete is thick enough. My brother would strike me as hard as that, and blame me for being slow. He said it served me right for pestering him until he taught me.” An imp of mischief showed in her eyes. “You didn’t hit me very often.”
“Too true I didn’t, and I took a blow every time I actually got through. Next time I’ll have a second weapon as well. May I?” Harold held out his hand for one of the weapons. He hefted it to judge the weight then tried it out, punching and slashing. “That feels strange after a sword, er, machete. I think you should train people who have never fought with machetes, once there are more weapons.” Harold held her eyes. “Will you, please?”
Wamil still seemed fired up by the sparring and nodded without hesitation. “How will you find more Katari?”
“Hopefully you will talk to Liz and show her these. She’ll shout cripes at me and demand charcoal, but you’ll end up with a few more practice versions. Then she’ll make the real thing.” Harold assessed the weapons again. “She’ll be annoyed, because this will be yet another job that eats up her charcoal.”
As expected, Liz shouted cripes and stupid soldier and wimp because she’d barely finished making her first sabres, then settled down to talk properly. The smith had two old trailer springs, discovered when the heap of bricks that used to be a house wall were cleared to create more gardens. According to Liz the springs were still tempered, and she wanted to make some real weaponry with them. First on her list were a couple of the sabre type weapons for the Demons. They could practice while she made more from damaged machetes.
Nobody paid much attention to practice, mainly because the Demons were always training with both machetes and crossbows. Patty had already passed on some of her stabbing lessons from Harold, but the skills didn’t transfer properly. The pointed machetes the other Demons had were still clumsy weapons. Patty’s brand new custom-built blade only emphasised that, and the select few of the Demons who saw it wanted one, now please.
Harold wanted to get as much charcoal as he could, because Liz swore she had almost perfected her tempering. Once she did, there were sabres and now Wamil’s blades to make, both lethal surprises with just a bit of luck.
*
Meanwhile, Trev continued with his visits to the Mansion, much keener after the first two passed without incident. After the fifth,he finally announced his verdict on Caddi’s radio ambitions. A large part of the partial transmitter might be repaired, if the Geeks had enough parts in their electrical warehouse. The repairable part still wouldn’t actually transmit, but with a few new parts it might fix Barbie Radio. That depended on whoever did it having a bucket full of fuses, connectors and… about then Harold lost track. The last part got Harold’s full attention. The radio man had come to one definite conclusion, someone had deliberately blown up Barbie Radio. A crucial part of the transmitter had been more or less obliterated, so Trev couldn’t fix Barbie radiowithout the parts from Caddi.
The next time he saw Caddi, Harold told him the first part, that Hot Rod Radio would never work. He suggested Caddi did a deal with the Barbies,which was how Harold found out why Caddi never dealt with the feisty women. “I can’t. They won’t deal with me even if I tried, and I won’t try.” Caddi’s face showed real anger but not at Harold. “Not after what they did to Porsche.”
“I heard they got Porsche, but no details.” After what the Barbies had done to the raiders, Harold didn’t want details.
“They sent me pictures of what they did, then what the Pink Panther fucking perverts did to him.” Caddi glared, his fists white-knuckled. “That went way past revenge, the bitches.”
“Revenge for what?” Harold had thought the treatment would be gross, but wondered why the Barbies had gone thatfar with a local gang captive. As far as he knew, Porsche hadn’t been raiding them.
“While we were first settling boundaries, we caught a couple of the women before they were the Barbies. When they reckoned their gang were all women I thought I’d teach them a lesson, take the piss. We fitted them with thick dog collars and kept them on chains, with a mattress so the blokes could show them what women were really for.” Caddi stopped and shook his head. “I misjudged the crazy bitches.They took all the beatings and fucking without even fighting back. One of the blokes must have been careless, or thought they were tamed. Theykilled him with his own blade and cut the collars. One made it out alive and got home to the Barbies. I thought they’d left it at that but suddenly, out of the blue, thebitches sucked Porsche into a trap. He had three others with him but the bodies were carved up, not shot, so the Barbies paid in blood to get Porsche alive.”
Caddi stayed silent for a long time until Harold prompted him. “I heard about the ones who attacked Beth’s, what the Barbies did to them.”
“Porsche would have preferred that. They gave us five phones,one at a time. Each one full of pictures and video clips of what they did,with all the Barbies and their civvieswatching because he was in one of the big shop windows. Porsche lasted nearly a fortnight.The bitches took turns to work on him. In between they gave the fucking Pink Panthers free use, didn’t even rent him.” Caddi punched the chair arm, hard. “Bitches! Fucking a woman is naturalwhether she’s willing or not, but chaining a man down to be fucked is wrong!” Harold thought he might have just found out why Caddi had a real hate on for gay blokes.
The Barbies probably didn’t see much difference between raping a woman or a man. Harold didn’t. He wouldn’t react quite the same as the Barbies, but he’d sure as hell kill the scroat.
Cadditook a big breath, letting some of the tension go. “Our territories don’t actually meet, or didn’t until I invaded the Murphies, bu
t I tore down a wide strip of houses along ournearest border.They did the same, and we both keep sentries there. If I sent out a white flag, they’d kill whoever carried it.”
Harold could understand the Barbies’ attitude, but there was another way to fix the transmitter. “Will you sell them that heap of electrics through me?”After the outburst, he thought Caddi would rather burn it out of spite. For once the urbane pose had gone, and Caddi wasn’t hiding how he felt.
Caddi kept quiet for a long time, fighting an internal battle. “I have to, if it’ll get that fucking radio working.My men will go fucking ape if they find out I could have fixed it and didn’t.” Even so, it took a couple of attempts before Caddi forced himself to make the offer. “So what are you offering for the electrics? After all, you trade with the bitches and they actually visit your place.”
“Fixing that heap of wires will cost me, then I’ll be paying the GOFS to send something that valuable through their territory.” Worse still, Harold couldn’t be sure Trev’s fix would work and Caddi wouldn’t give a refund.
“You can get through the GOFS once without them stopping you. Those bitches do it all the time.” Caddi settled down to trade.Despite Caddi’s objections, Harold insisted on taking into account a cut for theGOFS. He could avoid paying once, but had no intention of screwing up a good relationship even if Caddi would no doubt like that. At least he knew that this time Caddi had to trade, because his men expected it, though Caddi held out for more thanhe’d paid out for Trev’s work. After all, as Caddi pointed out, Trev’s cleaning and testing now benefitted Orchard Close so he shouldn’t be paying for it.
*
Harold sent messages to both the GOFS and Geeks asking for a trading meeting. He sent a hint with the GOFS message, to make sure whoever attended could make decisions about through trade and selling housing.Selling territory would be as much a favour as it would be business so Harold asked Roy,still standing sentry on the border with the General, how the GOFS seemed to feel about Orchard Close.If they were getting annoyed about the number of Barbies coming through, the trading wouldn’t go well. Roy confirmed that they still treated him well, even if the four Orchard Close men weren’t actually doing much.All the news and rumours agreed the General’s men were busy the other side of his territory, and had conquered several gangs over there.
