"Could be," he replied carefully.
Mildred pursed her lips. "A tribe where the women are the fighters—small, don't wear many clothes… beat the living shit out of men twice their size."
"Yeah, I'd be a liar if I said I didn't know who you were talking about," he answered, amused.
Mildred nodded. "We've come across them before. We were allies, but got separated. It'd be good to meet with them again, if we knew where they were camped…"
Hector shook his head. "I don't get out enough to know for sure, but I do hear they're in the more densely wooded parts, southwest of here. That's what I'm told."
"That's very interesting," Mildred said slowly. "Maybe we should check that out. One other thing. We were allies because of a group—real heavy blaster freaks—who lived underground. We got separated trying to follow them. I don't—"
Mildred stopped dead. Hector was looking at her with an expression that could only be described as fear.
"I don't— No, I know nothing about anyone like that. And if you don't want to find yourself having accidents in the middle of the night, I really wouldn't go around asking about things like that too widely."
With which the ville healer turned and walked away from Mildred rapidly, leaving her staring after him with a thoughtful gleam in her eye.
THE MIDDAY SUN was beating down on the plowed fields. Dean, Jak and the rest of the ville workers who toiled the lands had broken for food and drink, and were gathered in the shade afforded by the side of the stables housing the plow horses.
"Best part of the day," one of them said as he took a long drink of water before passing the canteen to Jak.
"Now then, I always figured that the best part of the day for you was when you spent your paycheck in the gaudies by night," commented an older, more weather beaten farmhand.
The first—a young man, little older than Jak or Dean, and as whip thin as the former—laughed. "That's the night," he said between bursts. "I was talking about the day."
The comment caused a general wave of good humor, and Jak gave Dean a swift glance. Was this the right time to raise the matter?
"Yeah, I hear it can get real wild here after dark," he said carefully. "My dad is on bar sec, and although he hasn't seen them yet, he's heard about these wild women that live outside and only come in to trade. Apparently they can stand up in a fight with any man and best them."
The young farmhand whistled. "Whoa, yeah. I seen them in action, all right. Real tiny, most of them. But they can chill any man that tries." He shook his head. "I heard they live down to the south somewhere, but—" he shrugged "—I'm just glad I don't have to deal with them!"
In the general good humor, Jak judged it was time for him to take things a stage further.
"Ryan and J.B. also tell us about fighters with weird shit clothes, wear helmets and fight with odd blasters. They hear these pass through—"
The good humor suddenly ceased, and a cold silence descended on the party. Slowly, all of the farmhands except Jak and Dean rose to their feet and headed off to their work without another word—with the exception of the young farmhand, who turned back for a second.
"Just a word, friend," he said to Jak. "You and your people shouldn't talk of that. There are those around here who would rather forget."
He left Dean and Jak to exchange glances and ponder the meaning of his cryptic words.
J.B. AND RYAN WERE ALSO finding it hard to get a reaction. On their sec duties along the strip of bars and gaudies that formed the main drag—and the main trade—of Crossroads, they had asked a few questions of both their fellow sec and also of passing trade convoy workers who had befriended them in the bars. So far, all they had asked about was the Gate, and the response had been the same as that received by their companions: the Gate tribe was looked on as an oddity, hard to best and fair to trade, but content to keep themselves to themselves. Consensus seemed to put their camp out to the south or southwest of the ville. But things had been different when they had tried to bring up the matter of the Illuminated Ones. Deliberately keeping their descriptions vague, they had both noticed that those who passed through either knew nothing, or had only heard a few wild rumors, and those who came from the ville were quick to shut up and claim to know nothing.
"One thing for sure," Ryan commented. "If we carry on and we rattle enough bars to find out something…"
He said it on the third night, as he and the Armorer were patrolling the main drag. Now trusted to fulfill their task without his assistance, the garrulous Yardie had given them free rein—-just when they could really have benefited from his inability to keep his mouth shut.
It had been a quiet night, with only a few drunks shooting off their mouths with nothing to back it up to trouble them, and they were looking forward to getting off shift and getting some sleep as the sun began to rise. So they were surprised when Yardie came barreling toward them, his dreadlocks swinging free in time with his fat man's walk.
"Why do you think he's here?" Ryan asked J.B. The Armorer smiled. "Mebbe he's come to practice his famous fighting skills on those too drunk to throw a straight punch…or mebbe he just wants to talk."
"Which mebbe is just what we need," Ryan murmured, adding in a louder voice, "Hey, Yardie— what's happening?"
"Nothing much, by the looks of it," the sec chief grumbled.
"So why do we need the company?" Ryan asked.
The fat sec man looked the one-eyed man up and down, as though appraising him. "Y'know, I wouldn't have put you down as the stupe type," he said casually.
"Me?" Ryan queried.
"Yeah, you and your friends. You all ask a lot of questions."
Ryan shrugged. "Just a healthy curiosity about the area."
Yardie smiled without humor. "Yeah, sure. Trouble is, you ask the wrong sort of questions."
"Which are?"
"About people who pass through here, or people who don't."
There was something in the fat man's tone of voice that made both Ryan and J.B. get that tingling up the spine, the subtle raising of the hairs at the back of the neck that presaged some kind of danger.
Both immediately went for their blasters—Ryan the SIG-Sauer and J.B. his trusted Uzi—but were cut short by a gesture from the fat sec chief. Looking around, Ryan could see that they had been surrounded by bar sec, appearing from the insides of buildings all around them.
Ryan and the Armorer knew when they were out maneuvered, and dropped their hands.
Yardie nodded in satisfaction. "Good move, Ryan. I really wouldn't have wanted anything to happen to you. Now you'll be good and follow me. The baron wants a word with you."
With which the sec man turned and headed toward the end of the ville where Robertson had his quarters. Ryan and J.B. exchanged looks, shrugged and followed. What other option had they at this stage?
No words were exchanged on the short walk, and neither Ryan nor J.B. was surprised to see that the rest of their companions were already in the baron's presence when they entered his villa. Robertson himself was seated on what passed as a throne, looking as laconic as ever. He dismissed Yardie and the sec men, despite the fat man's protestation, and waited until he was alone with the companions before speaking.
"I've been hearing things…things I don't like to hear," he stated.
"Such as?" Ryan queried.
"Well, you must have realized by now that I don't mind you asking questions about Crossroads—hell, it helps if you know a little about a place, as I figure it. But sometimes you can go too far."
"Like asking about the Illuminated Ones?" Ryan asked.
"That's what I like about you, Ryan," Robertson drawled. "You're sharp…sharp enough to cut yourself. And just mebbe that's what you're doing here."
"Is it?" the one-eyed man asked. "All we did was ask about a bunch of coldhearts we've come up against."
"Coldhearts is right," Robertson said bitterly, a shocking animation betraying a sudden depth of feeling.
"Something
we should know?" Mildred asked gently.
Robertson looked at her. "Yeah. See, we'd heard about these bastards you call the Illuminated Ones, but they'd never come near us…not until one day when they rode in at sunrise in those armored wags of theirs, used those motherfucking weird shit blasters and took some of our people. Haven't seen them since."
"What about your people?" Ryan asked.
Robertson shrugged. "Don't really know. Yardie lost them out in the forest, and we never saw them again, which is why we don't like to talk of it." He stopped for a moment, as though considering whether to go on, before reaching a decision.
"There is one thing, though. Whatever happened, one of ours came back. A girl. She couldn't remember a damn thing, and she was the first to develop that weird shit disease."
"And the first to die from it," Krysty added in measured tones.
Robertson nodded. "And we don't talk of it for one simple reason."
"Which is?" Ryan questioned.
Robertson looked at him with a steady gaze that belied his usual manner.
"Because she was my only daughter," he said simply.
Chapter Four
It was a matter of biding their time, although time was the last thing they had to their advantage. On being sent back to their shack, none would speak of what had happened by a tacit agreement, in case they should be heard by any spying sec placed by Baron Robertson. It wasn't certain he would do that, but in order to carry out any plans they may have, it was necessary to make the baron and his sec men think that they were keeping their heads down and doing as requested.
But for all of them, the uppermost thought in their minds was when they would have a chance to discuss a course of action, and, more importantly, to take that course.
It made for a difficult couple of days, avoiding all mention of the Gate or the Illuminated Ones. In each of their allotted tasks, they carried on as usual, letting up on the question. For Ryan and J.B. it was easy, as on the bar sec patrols they were mostly on their own, and they kept the level of any conversations during the night at little more than passing banter. Likewise, out in the fields the only time that Jak and Dean had to converse with their fellow farmhands was during mealtimes, and then it was easy to keep the talk light, touching on nothing that could be misconstrued.
For Mildred, Doc and Krysty it was harder. In the med building, they were in the same environment as the ville women and Hector for most of the time, and at close quarters. But the ville healer, after being a little suspicious after the first inquiries, had taken their subsequent continuing silence on the matter as a lack of interest rather than a warning off. If he knew anything about their being taken in front of the baron, he neglected to mention it to any of them.
Besides which, both he and the companions had something more pressing to think about: the pox was spreading, and now six people had died. Every bed in the med building was now full, and Hector had others brought into the building from hotels along the drag. Without more staff, those he had were working overtime just to keep the patients comfortable; there was no time to think about searching for some kind of antidote or inoculation. Anyway, as Hector said to Mildred at the end of a long night, as he sat with his head in his hands, "Even if I had time, I'd have no idea how to go about it. I've heard that before the nukecaust they could do this, and things you've said have made me think this was possible… but I only know the little that I know. I'm the healer here because there isn't anyone else, and my mother was the healer before me. Doesn't mean that I really know anything."
"You're not doing so badly," Mildred said sympathetically. She could see in his drawn, pallid face and dark ringed eyes a man who cared about what he did and felt helpless in the face of what seemed almost insurmountable odds. She could sympathize because she knew how he felt, and she knew that he would soon be left to cope alone. But it was the only way they could even hope to get to the root of the evil and destroy it—for evil was what she felt it to be. Since awakening to the vastly changed world of the Deathlands, Mildred had almost forgotten about such simplistic notions as good and evil…but this was another matter entirely. She could almost taste the evil behind this revival of a disease thought wiped out in another era.
Hector looked up at her as this went through her mind.
"But it's not enough," he stated flatly. "Just not enough."
They were words that stayed with her as she, Krysty and Doc returned to their shack.
Krysty, who knew what Mildred was thinking, was the first to verbalize what had concerned them all for some days.
"When we head off, Hector's going to have problems coping with this on his own. It's growing, and we've got to go soon."
"By the Three Kennedy's," Doc said sighing, seating himself wearily. "It's not a pleasant prospect, but something that must be done. And yet we have not talked of it yet. I fear we must go soon, or this will become an epidemic."
"I'm not so sure that it isn't already," Mildred said. "So far it's only people from Crossroads who've succumbed. But as soon as someone from outside starts to show symptoms…" She shrugged. "Then it gets really serious. If it travels—"
"Then there'll be nowhere left to hide," Krysty finished.
FATE WAS CONSPIRING to force their hand.
Ryan and J.B. were on patrol along the main drag of Crossroads, the dark night beyond banished by the glare of neon signs powered by generators, and the oil lamps from within the darkened bars and gaudies spilling out through open doorways.
It was a busy night as a new convoy had hit town, coming from the northeast and the coastal regions. It was led by a trader called Conroy, a tall, rangy man with a beard that was plaited halfway down his chest, old aviator style shades and leather pants that creaked as he walked. His sec force was hired mercies, and his staff of driver, accountant and quartermaster were regulars who had been with him for some time. He used the East Coast trade routes frequently, which brought him through the ville of Crossroads on a regular basis.
Trader Conroy was a man who worked hard and liked to play hard. He had completed a successful trip, and he was ready to enjoy himself. To this end, he had immediately hired the sluts of two houses, and paid well to take over one complete bar on the strip for himself and his men. He had also invited Ryan and J.B. in to join himself and his men.
"Buy you a drink, boys—mebbe a woman if you want one," he told them as they entered the bar. "See, I can tell you boys are a little suspicious, and that's fine. You ain't been here long, and you don't know how I operate."
"That's not our concern, as long as there's no trouble," Ryan replied in a neutral tone.
Conroy slapped his thigh and laughed heartily. "That's a damn fine answer, but that's it, dontcha see? My boys have worked hard and deserve some fun, and mebbe they'll be a little high spirited. Hell, if they get too boisterous, then you crack on them. I don't want to piss Robertson off, man, 'cause this ville is damn good to me. But—" he wagged a finger at them in a way J.B. found particularly annoying "—I don't want to get off on the wrong foot with you boys. Yardie's boys have never minded a drink or two, so why should you? After all, I give a little, you give a little…right?"
The Armorer turned to go, before he gave in to the temptation to smack the trader in the mouth, but Ryan stayed him with a hand on the arm.
"Won't do any harm, J.B.," he said quietly.
The Armorer shrugged. "Okay."
The barman gave them two measures of the potent brew in which the ville specialized. J.B. took his and wandered away, leaving Ryan with the trader.
"Your friend don't like me much," Conroy observed, indicating the departing J.B.
Ryan shrugged. "Mebbe he's just got things on his mind."
Conroy screwed up his face. "Yeah, right. I heard you call him J.B." And when Ryan assented, he added, "That would be J. B. Dix, would it?"
"That depends on who wants to know," Ryan answered.
Conroy laughed once more. "Right. A one-eyed man and a guy with glasses ca
lled J.B. You Ryan Cawdor? You must be," he added, answering his own question.
"And if I am?"
"If you are, then I've heard a lot about you. You wanna leave this place, go back to what you know?"
"And that would be?"
"You know…I reckon as every trader on the road has probably heard stories of Trader and his crew. The richest, smartest there was until he disappeared. And what a crew—the one-eyed man who was the meanest and smartest fighter in the whole of the wastes, and the guy with glasses, J.B., the one they called the Armorer, who supposedly knew more about blasters, plas-ex and grens than any man who ever lived. Hell, than any two men who ever lived."
"You've given us a good buildup." Ryan smiled.
"Only the truth as I heard it," Conroy replied. All trace of previous humor had gone from his voice, and he was now deadly serious. "Listen, Ryan Cawdor, you must know that I hire from trip to trip. That's because I've never found anyone I can trust to handle sec and keep their shit together. Just look at these guys." He indicated the drunken revelers around them. "Fuck it, they deserve to party hard after this trip, but they're just mercies. Never found any yet that I could keep on between trips and trust not to try and rip me off or get themselves chilled. These are good boys for action if you pay them, but basically they're scum, right?"
"And me and J.B. aren't?"
"You're class of a different kind," Conroy said, leaning forward. "We leave tomorrow. Come with us, you and the Armorer. I know he ain't taken to me, but I don't give a shit about popularity contests."
"It won't bother him any, either," Ryan said slowly. "Mebbe we will, at that. I'll talk to J.B., and we'll see you tomorrow."
"I'll take a drink to that." Conroy smiled, ordering more of the spirit for himself and his companion.
Ryan took the drink from the trader. He had no intention of making the rendezvous, but it could be useful cover. If the baron and Yardie thought they were leaving with Conroy, then their absence wouldn't be put down to trying to find the Gate, and they should be left well alone.
Axler, James - Deathlands 60 - Destiny's Truth Page 6
