“Did they flee east?” Bardwell asked, drawing closer to the man. “Did they ride off for the New Mexico territory?”
The seated gentleman nodded his agreement. Bardwell raised his piece firing over the seated gentleman’s shoulder into another of Craft’s mutants. That man’s head exploded from the soft lead .38 bullet.
Bardwell looked to his partner, nodding. His eyes were drawn close in two horizontal slits. Curtis wondered how his boss could see when he took this expression.
As the lawman exited the rusting steel door, Curtis held the fuse of one of the red sticks Stewart’s men had given him to his cigar and tossed it to the gathered crowd before pulling the steel door closed behind.
The blast blew the door off its hinges as Curtis leaned hard against the graffiti covered wall outside. Bardwell was across the street with his guns blazing. Some of Craft’s mutant militia had doubled back on the town’s center.
Curtis fired the Winchester from behind a pile of rubble and what had once been a city bus. Decades of acid rain had eaten away at the remains of the vehicle. The young lawman reckoned that he could kick clean through the steel if he had to.
Bardwell waved Curtis across, laying down a cover fire with both pistols. Curtis looked down the street and ran for the protection Bardwell afforded behind a broken wall. Anything resembling glass had long since been blown out of the city’s crumbling buildings.
“Hold ‘em while I reload,” Bardwell barked, as Curtis slid in behind.
Curtis fired each of the Peacemakers with a cool determination and deadly effect. The militia withered under a methodical onslaught of flying lead.
“Your turn,” Bardwell said, letting the militia draw in close. Curtis sat in the dirt loading both Colts and the long gun for another go of it.
“You got any more of that dynamite, Son?” Bardwell asked, not daring to take his eyes from the evil horde drawing closer in the filth of the city streets.
“Yes, Sir,” Curtis said, smiling.
Bardwell ducked behind the wall. “Then you might want to think about using one of them?” he said.
Curtis smiled, reaching for another of the red sticks. The young lawman drew hard on his smoke and touched the fuse to the orange fire burning two inches from his face.
Standing for a look, Curtis tossed the explosive down the street before he ducked for the protection of the crumbling wall.
“Fuck,” he said, as the blast reverberated up and down the street. Whole body parts from the blast flew overhead through the glassless window, some landing nearby. “Why didn’t you tell me they were that close, man?”
“That’s part of the fun, ain’t it?” Bardwell said, standing to fire at the few lucky enough to survive the blast.
“You’re going to get my ass killed,” Curtis said, smiling.
“Well,” Bardwell said. “That could be?”
The lawmen continued to fight their way to the perimeter of the city and its more or less useless defensive wall. Stewart and his men were busy diverting attention by fighting on the outskirts of town.
To the north, a blast toppled a small building. Closer still, a large stretch of the city wall imploded in a cloud of dust.
Chapter Seven
Towering clouds of black mingled with bellowing white blocking out the rapidly setting, late day sun. The former, from the oil Craft kept burning to screen his on goings and the second from lightning-sparked grass fires in the highlands just west of the fortress city.
An acrid, foul-tasting rain settled the dust but did little to quench the dry valleys thirst after a hundred years of drought.
Curtis pointed west toward the break in Craft’s defenses where he and Bardwell had gained entrance. “Stewart and his men?” he asked.
Jeb Stewart led a mounted charge of men—into this lightly defended part of the city known by all as Los Angeles—with their sabers drawn.
Bardwell and Curtis kept up a heavy fire, thus keeping a motley disorganized company of the defenders nearby pinned down as the hastily gathered cavalry made its heroic charge.
“The zombies ain’t no match for those riders,” Curtis said, dropping to the dirty concrete to reload the lever action rifle.
Curtis was correct in what it was that he’d said. When the alarm had gone up, this part of the city was only lightly defended by a ragged bunch of junkies, whores, and addicts. Most weighed no more than seven or eight stones and could hardly shoulder their arms, let alone make much of a stand against a half dozen well-trained cavalrymen with the razor-sharp sabers of their ancestors.
The lawmen alternated their fire keeping the nearby company of defenders looking in two directions. Bardwell fired as the young officer reloaded. When both of Bardwell’s cylinders ran dry, Curtis would stand doing the same with deadlier accuracy.
Two of Stewart’s horsemen dismounted, running to the base of a nearby building. In the flat, nuclear gray of the dwindling afternoon, fuses could be seen as they ran the traces. Dark silhouettes of the pair ran for cover. A blast shook the building, spraying its guts of broken concrete and twisted steel across a nearby side street.
Sirens and alarms wailed throughout the fortified city now. Craft’s soldiers would be marching toward west side.
“We’ve got to go, man,” Curtis said, chambering a round. It was no more than a hundred paces to the gate from where they now stood.
Bardwell nodded crouching low as he started around the half wall with a Colt pistol—hot to the touch—in each hand.
The lawmen ran along the wall of a pockmarked and crumbling structure the ancients had called LOS ANGELES CONVENTION CENTER.
Heavy gunfire erupted into a wide lane heading due south, I-10 a rusting green sign announced. Spent lead tore at the crumbling concrete a few paces behind where the lawmen now were.
Stewart’s mounted men were no match for guns of the defenders. The horsemen melted back toward the unprotected west entrance.
The lawmen were within a few paces of the discarded junk and rubble wall that in good times would keep most at a safe distance and well away from the inner workings of the fortress city.
Electric lights flickered and dimmed in the gathering darkness as power was rerouted from the city to the towering structures every hundred or so paces along this part of the defenses.
Sulfur rain mixed with dirt in the wide lane as the lawmen cleared the fences and started for the waiting mounts that would carry them to the heights of Hollywood. Stewart’s clan had dismounted to add confusion to the oncoming fortress defenses.
One of the clansmen held both of the lawmen’s horses. As Bardwell and Curtis swung a leg over, he waved them forward.
“Where are the others?” Curtis asked, applying spur to the flank of his gray mount.
“They’ll be along,” The mounted rider said. “For now, we ride.”
The trio galloped clear of a rifle shot and reined in to allow the horses comfort. The sulfur rain did neither man nor animal good. Pale yellow, a late day sun sped toward a dirty western horizon.
Blasts from behind caused all three riders to turn back for the view. Stewart’s clan spurred away from the gates as a great ghost of an abandoned structure toppled over sealing that avenue of exit for a time. Clouds of dust boiled and swirled, threatening to capture the fleeing riders as they made their way north and slightly west to the safety of the hills just outside of the fortified city.
“Good work, gentlemen,” Bardwell said. “My partner and I appreciate what you have done for us and we could never repay you in a hundred calendars.”
“We are brothers here,” one of the riders answered from behind. The mounted group sent a yell up to the heavens. “We are brothers.”
“Did you get what you were after, Lawman?” Stewart asked in a voice hoarse from the recent yelling.
“No,” Bardwell answered, also in the coarse voice of a man who had been tested recently by fire. “Word is that the gentlemen that we trail have skedaddled to the east over the mountains in
that direction.”
“The New Mexico territories,” Stewart said, looking at the damp earth his mount negotiated.
“The desert settlements of the New Mexican town Arroyo de las Vegas,” another of the mounted riders said. “The iron horse has been known to travel to that place.”
“Wait,” Bardwell said, slowing to ride next to the gentleman. “The iron rails depart from this place?”
“Yes, Sir,” the rider said. “My boys and I had trekked out that way a few calendars past, just curious mostly.”
“And the iron horse travels this path, you say?” the lawman asked, for clarification.
“Yes, Sir.”
A great flying machine of the ancients departed the fortress city followed closely by two more of smaller size. Their rotating wings thumped at the air clawing into the damp night sky. All trailed a heavy black smoke.
“Apache,” Stewart asked, sitting his mount watching as the flying machines rose higher above the fortress city.
“And a Jet Ranger,” one of his men replied riding closer.
All of the mounted riders watched in awe of the airborne crafts.
Great white beams of electric light flooded the area underneath as the craft searched for the departing intruders that had recently been raising hell within their walls.
“I’ll be damned,” Curtis said, watching as one of the flying ships drew closer. “Have you seen these before?”
“Only in the picture books of the elders,” Bardwell said, watching. The horses unaccustomed to the flying machines overhead were understandably nervous. Their ears twitched and each pranced refusing to stand still.
“This way,” Stewart yelled loud enough for all to hear. His mounted men followed closely along an animal trail leading deep into the gorge below. Further and further the horsemen traveled along the narrow, darkened path under a canopy of foliage that concealed them from the airborne predators above.
Bardwell dismounted, tying his horse to one of the trees here in the bottom of the canyon. He started for the edge of a clearing to watch as the night flyers scanned the sparse vegetation of the nearby hills with their white-hot, electric light.
“Where are you going?” Curtis asked. The young officer of the law followed along with Stewart’s clan.
“To watch,” Bardwell said, careful to remain in the shadows of the trees.
The larger of the flying ships hovered high above as the two smaller vehicles slid in close to the treetops of the nearby range startling a herd of mutant antelope from their rest and stampeding them across the high desert prairie. Gunners inside, let loose a burst of rounds—deafening to the ear—scattering the animals with traces of orange.
White-hot light from the flying ships was soon overhead lighting the foliage in a hot white/green. All of the dismounted riders were careful to remain still against the base of a tree.
“They can’t see us under here,” Stewart said to the lawmen standing close by.
“Fuck,” Curtis said. “I hope not.”
Heavy downward blasts from the rotating wings above stirred dead leaves that littered the forest floor startling the nervous animals.
“No worries mate,” one of Stewart’s clan said, for reassurance.
“They have us pinned down here,” Bardwell said, looking first to Stewart and then to the others gathered nearby.
“There’s good water here for the horses,” Stewart said. “From a spring fed creek further up the hills. We will remain safe here for now.”
“Yeah,” another of the dismounted riders said, laughing. “They’ll be needing fuel for those ugly birds before too long.”
As quickly as it appeared, the electric white light blazed a nearby hilltop. The pair of smaller flying machines cast off long bullets billowing smoke as white as summer cumulus. In seconds, the great bullets of the flying men impacted rock and stone, throwing dirt and gravel high into the night.
Curtis looked to one of Stewart’s clan close by with a raised eyebrow.
“Seventy millimeter rockets,” the dismounted gentleman said. “They sure play hell with ground troops.”
“Fuck they do,” the young lawman responded, still watching the destructive force the ancient flying machines packed.
One of the smaller ships peeled away, back toward the brightly lit, fortified city of Los Angeles. It’s partner skimmed low to the ground in its retreat from the hills with the larger craft still searching the perimeter with a shaft of electric light.
With gunships only a distant memory now, Stewart grabbed up his reins and started leading his men up the narrow pathway and further still from the city and its evil flying machines.
“We can mount up now,” Stewart said, climbing aboard as they emerged from a sparse covering of canyon foliage. Up here in the hills of Hollywood, the rains had stopped for the time.
Bardwell stopped to look back one last time at the fortified city of Los Angeles. Most of the electric lights were down now along the perimeter fences. Craft would know that he’d been there if he were nearby. The lawman knew that he’d need to travel to the east and soon if he were to dole out justice for the three men that he trailed, but he’d have to be careful and allow the city a wide berth in doing so.
Stewart and his clan rode ahead. It was no more than a rod or so to the adobe village that they called home.
“So what do we do now?” Curtis asked, riding alongside his superior. An artificial star—a satellite—fell through the atmosphere, burning itself out over five hundred rods of the dark night sky. “You see that?” he asked pointing at the wayward antiquated satellite.
“It’s one of the elder’s,” Bardwell said, nodding. “Placed up there by our ancestors in a day long past.”
Curtis looked across to his elder. “In school,” he said. “They told us that only a few remain and will be down within a calendar or two due to earth’s current elliptical rotation?”
“There was once a great lunar neighbor, in the night sky,” Bardwell said. “When the elders did what it was that they did, the orbiting neighbor went in search of a greener pasture over time.”
“Did you ever see it?” Curtis asked.
Bardwell smiled. “No, Son,” he said. “That was fifty calendars before my time or better? My grand folks spoke of it to me though and of course, like you, I’ve seen it in the picture books of our elders.”
“Thirty-four thousand rods,” Curtis said. Coyotes yipped and howled in the distance, too far to be of any trouble tonight.
“The elders placed a man on the lunar neighbor several times in fact and brought them home safely,” Bardwell said, remembering his schoolhouse lessons of a youth long past.
“Maybe someday…?” Curtis said in a low voice.
“Yeah,” Bardwell agreed. “Someday…?”
“Tonight,” Stewart said, with his clan gathered at a fork in the path. In the dim starlight, the lawmen could see one path starting up into the hills to the north—the trail that they had more or less ridden to get here—and another of smaller size leading into the hills west of north.
“Tonight,” he continued. “You will remain with us as you have done before. We will rest ourselves and our horses. On the morrow, we will plan your journey.”
Too tired to argue, the lawmen agreed following the band of men to their low adobe huts and homes for the rest of the cool nighttime hours.
The horses unsaddled and cared for, the lawmen were led to an unused room where blankets of woven wool waited for them.
Curtis said nothing, instead choosing to give in to his nocturnal desires. Bardwell lay awake wondering what the morrow would bring for him and his young partner. Already they had come more than a hundred rods and for what, to be shot at escaping from the fortified city?
Chapter Eight
The sun rose to a painted, purple morning sky to the north and east as the lawmen slept off the night’s adventures. Nine bells found the lawmen still in slumber.
Before ten, Bardwell stirred from a fitful
sleep. He sat up chasing away a dream that had haunted him for years. Slipping into the tall boots of a cavalryman, the lawman stepped outside for a look around.
Stewart and some of the men who had joined them on the journey into the city sat around a long table under the shade of a tree.
“Good day, Sir,” Stewart said, reaching out with a ceramic cup of steaming coffee in Bardwell’s direction. One of the men got up to allow the lawman a place to sit. “Eat friend,” Stewart continued. “You will need it where your journey will take you.”
A plate of fried meat waited, near biscuits, and a great bowl of gravy. Fresh juices and coffee were plentiful.
Bardwell ate more than he had in days. The coffee was good, but the juice squeezed from oranges was better. The lawman had been five or six days now on hard bread and dried beef.
After the table was cleared away, Bardwell bit off a plug of tobacco and sat back relaxing in the shade, listening to Stewart and his clan.
Curtis stirred in the closest adobe. Stewart’s woman fussed about the boy, seeing that he was fed well before allowing him out of the house.
Stewart unfurled another large map on the recently cleared table. The gathered clan leaned in close for a look as Stewart ran his finger along a line of mountains.
“It’s five or six rods at most to the far side of the valley,” he questioned. “Would you agree, Sam?”
“Yes, yes,” the man replied. “No more than six.”
“You will want to descend from here to the valley floor and travel along the base of the low mountain range,” Stewart continued. “Stray too far out onto the valley floor and you may alert some of the city defenders?”
Bardwell nodded in agreement.
“At five or six rods,” Stewart said. “You will want to head east by southeast remaining as close to the mountains as you can. I can spare three men from here to escort the two of you to where the iron horse is known to run.”
“We’ll need bullets to replace those used last night,” Bardwell said. “And supplies to keep us up?”
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