Geronimo inspected the paper. “A handwritten map. A dot in the lower right corner, marked with a TRF. A line running from the dot and joining another line. Where they meet, there’s a K written in. The second line runs at right angles to the first. Part way along it, just above, is a large circle.
What do you think it all means?”
“Place the paper on the table,” Blade directed, “with the dot facing south and the large circle toward the north.”
Geronimo did as instructed. Hickok leaned over to get a better view.
“Good. Now what if that dot in the lower right, with the TRF next to it, stands for Thief River Falls?” Blade reached over and ran his finger along the lines. “What if this first line is Highway 59? See this letter K, where the lines meet? Wasn’t it at Karlstad we found the junction of Highway 59
and 11? If I’m right, wouldn’t this second line stand for Highway 11? And if it is, what does that make the large circle?”
“The Home,” Hickok whistled. “I’m impressed.”
“I’m worried,” Blade confided.
“Think that guy on the cycle was deliberately keeping an eye on the Home?” Geronimo asked.
“It looks that way,” Blade admitted. “I suspect he was linked up, somehow, with the men here. The one called Joe showed a peculiar reaction when Joshua mentioned the motorcyclist.”
“Then the motorcyclist,” Hickok deduced, “was one of these guys. One of the Watchers.”
“Watching us,” Blade agreed.
“So what’s our next move?” Geronimo questioned. “Keep going to the Twin Cities or return to the Home?”
Blade leaned his chin on his right hand, his elbow on the table. “I’ve given the matter serious consideration today. These Watchers, so far, have not done anything that would lead me to believe an attack on the Home was imminent. They do exactly what their name implies. Watch. On the other hand, Plato made it perfectly clear the Family requires additional supplies. I say we continue on to the Twin Cities and stock up, then get back to the Family.”
“What about the things we’ve confiscated here?” Geronimo asked.
Blade sat back. “We’ll stash the weapons and the food and clothes in one of the other buildings, one that’s deserted and has been for a long time. If more of these Watchers come here while we’re in the Twin Cities, I doubt they would find the cache. We’ll pick it up on our way back to the Home.”
“What about that generator I found in the basement?” Hickok inquired. “And that music machine behind the bar counter?”
“I believe they were called stereos,” Blade stated. “We’ll dismantle the stereo from the bar, and carry the generator up from downstairs. We can hide them with the weapons and food. Plato had a generator on his list of supplies to obtain. This way, we won’t need to pick one up in the Twin Cities. We can bring one back, though, if we find one. Two generators would be ever better for the Family. Any objections or other points to raise?”
“I think you’ve pretty well covered everything, pard,” Hickok said.
“What about the girl?” Geronimo asked.
“She’s awake,” said a voice from the stairs.
They turned.
Joshua was standing on the third stair, his hands on the railing.
“Josh, I didn’t know you could move so quietly,” Hickok said, complimenting him. “We didn’t even hear you. Have you been taking sneaky lessons from this red savage?” He nodded toward Geronimo.
“Despite what you might think, Brother Hickok,” Joshua said, “there are a few things I do very well.”
“You said the girl is awake?” Blade demanded.
“Yes. She has an amazingly strong constitution. She’s apparently been beaten and tortured and sexually abused, but she hasn’t complained.”
Joshua paused, frowning. “She may be suffering delusions, though.”
“Why do you say that?” Blade rose from the chair.
“She keeps insisting on seeing someone called White Meat. I repeatedly told her there is no White Meat here.”
Hickok stood, grinning. “Well, well, well. Yes, Josh, there is a White Meat here.”
“You?”
“None other. I better go up and see her.” Hickok started for the stairs.
“Do you need any help?” Geronimo smirked.
Hickok bounded up the stairs, ignoring the barb.
“We’ll go up too,” Blade said to Joshua. “I have some questions that girl is going to answer. Geronimo, stay down here and keep an eye open. Never know when more of the Watchers may turn up.”
“Got it.” Geronimo picked up his Browning and walked to the front door.
Blade led the way up the stairs, Joshua following, to the room the woman was in. Joshua carried his medicine bag in his left hand, the buckskin bag containing the medical supplies, the ointments and herbs and other organic remedies and aids prepared by the Family Healers.
The woman was laughing when they entered the room.
“Hey, honky,” she said to Blade as he came in, “this bozo is something else! Know what I mean?”
“Now if we could just figure out what,” Blade said, joking with her.
The woman was clothed with pants and a flannel shirt from the other room. Joshua had washed her, dressed her, and tended to her numerous wounds during the day. He’d also placed a blanket over her to keep her warm.
“How are you feeling?” Joshua asked her.
“Better,” she admitted. “White Meat tells me I have you to thank for that.”
“It was nothing,” Joshua said modestly.
“Sure was, honey.” She looked down at the blanket. “Most folks nowadays would have killed me outright, or put me to other uses, if you get my drift.” She grinned. “Can’t hardly believe my luck! Finding out there still are some nice people in this world. Men too! Don’t that beat all!
Even the Horns ain’t as nice as you been to me.”
“Can any man or woman do less when a brother and sister is in dire need?” Joshua asked. “We are all children of the Spirit. We must never forget this truth.”
“Hey, you sure you ain’t one of the Horns?”
“What is a Horn?” Joshua asked her.
“You never heard of the Horns?” She rose on her elbows, surprised.
“No.”
“How about the Porns?”
Joshua shook his head.
“Where are you guys from anyhow?”
“We’ll get to that in a moment,” Blade interjected. “Are you hungry?”
“I could eat a whole dog,” she conceded.
“I’ll prepare some soup,” Joshua offered. “We have canned food taken from the Watchers. Would that be okay?”
“It beats what they was feeding me.”
“Which was?”
“Nothin’,” she replied. “Unless you count what they was poking between my legs.”
“I’ll get that soup,” Joshua said, blushing.
The woman laughed. “Look at him! He’s turning red! I don’t believe it!”
Joshua quickly departed.
The girl laid back down. “Whew! I’m dizzy! Better not push myself just yet.”
“You take it easy,” Hickok told her. “You’ve nothing to worry about with us around.”
She gazed up at him, her eyes soft in the light from a single bulb burning in a socket directly overhead.
“I’m sorry to do this.” Blade sat down next to her. “We need to ask you some questions.”
“I can handle it,” she assured him. “Besides, I owe you. You saved my life.”
“What’s your name?” Blade began his questioning.
“Called Bertha. Most of my friends call me Big Bertha, on account of my boobs.”
Hickok chuckled.
“Where are you from?” Blade asked her.
“From the Twins.”
“The Twin Cities?” Blade inquired, excited.
“Some still call it that. Used to be called some other wei
rd name before the War. Long, long time ago. Don’t remember what it was.”
“How’d you get here?” came from Hickok.
“Dumb luck, I guess.” Bertha pouted, her lips forming a small o. “Z wanted me to scout west of the Twins…”
“Who is Z?” Blade broke in.
“Zahner. Our leader. We all just call him Z for short. He wanted someone to see if the Watchers cover every exit from the Twins. You see, everyone knows the Watchers are there. No one knows where they come from. They block every road out of the city, and they kill everyone who tries to get out. Don’t know why. No one’s tried to get past them in years.”
“If you want to leave the city,” Hickok said thoughtfully, “Why don’t you just go overland, avoid the highways, and cut across country?”
Bertha snickered. “You crazy, White Meat? The Uglies will get you sure as I’m lying here!”
“Uglies?” Blade reflected a moment. “Could she mean the mutates?”
“Why don’t you just shoot the Uglies?” Hickok asked her.
“Wish to hell I could! But guns in the Twins are scarce, and ammo even rarer. The Horns have a few, the Porns even more, and we got three. We need ’em to preserve our turf. Can’t allow any guns to leave the Twins.
Have you ever tried to stop an Ugly with a club or a knife? Ain’t done, bro.
The Uglies stay out of the city, and we stay out of the country.”
“So this Z sent you to find a road that might be clear?” Blade goaded her.
Bertha sighed. “Yeah. Z thought that maybe, just maybe, the Watchers weren’t covering all the roads. I went out ’bout two weeks ago on one of the small roads. Got twenty miles from the Twins and was caught by a Watcher patrol. They had their fun with me, and then passed me to another group of watchers. They got their jollies, and I was passed to this group in Thief River Falls. They weren’t able to get their rocks off before you guys showed up.” She reached out and placed her hand on Hickok’s.
“Thanks, White Meat. Sooner or later they was going to waste poor Bertha.”
“Piece of cake,” Hickok told her.
“Why did this Z want to find a way out of the city?” Blade inquired.
“Because we’re tired of all the fighting.”
“Fighting?”
“Yeah. The Porns attack the Horns, and the Horns go after the Porns, and they both try and get us whenever they can.”
“Does your group have a name?”
“We’re mainly called the Nomads, ’cause we don’t give our allegiance to the Porns or the Horns. Then, of course, there’s also the Lone Wolves, the ones that keep to themselves and prey on everybody else. That leaves only the Wacks.”
“The Wacks?” Blade was striving to make some sense from all this information Bertha was supplying.
“The crazies, man, the crazies! You never want to get caught by the Wacks! They’d eat you alive.”
“They’re cannibals?” Hickok said, shocked.
“What’s a cannibal?” she asked him.
“A cannibal is a person who eats other people,” Blade answered her.
“Yep. Some of the Wacks have been known to munch on their captives.
Just thinking about ’em gives me the creeps!”
“Do these groups,” Blade inquired, trying to sort the facts, “fight among themselves all over the city?”
Bertha yawned. “No, man, no. The Porns, the Horns, and us all got our own turf we protect. The Wacks and the Lone Wolves attack you anywhere. The Wacks just pop up from the underground.”
“Underground?”
“Yeah, They come up out of the manholes at night, lookin’ for food and such.”
Blade bit his lower lip, reflecting. All of this was completely alien to any of his past experience. What was he to make of it? How should it affect their trip to the Twin Cities?
“What’s turf?” Hickok wanted to know.
Bertha studied him, perplexed. “You don’t know what turf is? Where are you boys from, White Meat? Turf is our territory. The Porns have the western part of the Twins. The Wacks are based in the south. The Horns have the eastern part, and some of the north. Mainly, though, we hold most of the north. It’s the smallest turf, but then they got more soldiers than we do.”
“Soldiers?” Blade repeated, surprised. “You have armies?”
“Not the way I think you mean, man,” Bertha answered. “A soldier is anyone who does fightin’ for their side. Get it? I’m a soldier for the Nomads. One of their topnotch soldiers,” she proudly boasted.
“I knew it.” Hickok grinned.
“What do you fight about?” Blade asked her.
“Just about anything, honey.” Bertha laughed. “We fight to protect our turf, and we fight to attack theirs, and we fight because we don’t much like one another, and because we’re all different. We don’t believe in the same things.”
“That’s a reason for killing one another?” Blade placed his hands behind him and leaned back.
“Can you think of any better?”
“I’m sorry, Bertha,” Blade told her. “I really don’t understand any of this. I’m trying. I really am. But it doesn’t make much sense. Can you comprehend any of this?” he asked Hickok.
“I wish. I see that these people are all trying to be top dog in the Twin Cities, but I don’t know the reason they’re fighting. Does anyone know?”
He turned to Bertha. “Is there anyone who knows when and why all of this started?”
Bertha was thinking. “There might be one man. He’s the oldest Nomad.
Almost forty years old.”
“That’s old?” Hickok glanced at Blade. “Are you dying off early because of advanced senility?”
“What do all of them words mean?”
“Old age?”
“Naw. No one lives to old age anymore. Most of us are killed by the time we’re thirty.”
“None of this makes any sense,” Blade repeated. “I need to do some serious contemplating. We’ll have a conference in the morning and consider our options.”
“Don’t strain your brain.” Hickok grinned.
“Hey! Wait a minute!” Bertha said to Blade as he stood. “I’ve got a heap of questions of my own. Who’s going to answer them?”
“I’ll let Hickok handle the task.” Blade smiled. “Joshua should be up here soon with your soup. You rest. We won’t be leaving until you’re fit to travel.”
“Travel?”
“We need you to take us to the Twin Cities,” Blade informed her.
“I don’t know about that, honky.” Bertha shook her head. “I’m finally free of that mess, and I’m not sure I want to go back. You can’t know how bad it is there.”
Blade walked to the doorway. “If you don’t want to go, you don’t have to. We won’t force you to come with us. But it would make it easier on us if we had someone who knew their way around the Twin Cities.”
“Why do you want to go there anyway?”
“Hickok can fill you in. I’m going to check our perimeter and insure the SEAL is secure. See you in the morning.” Blade walked off.
“I like him,” Bertha said to Hickok. “He’s got a way about him.”
“That he does,” Hickok agreed.
Bertha rolled on her left side, facing Hickok. “I like you, too, White Meat.”
“You certainly don’t beat around the bush none, do you, girl?” Hickok admired her finely chiseled features.
“Life’s too damn short to beat around the bush,” she said sadly. “You gotta grab what you want, when you want it!”
“That’s some philosophy.”
“Tell me about yourself,” she urged him. “I want to hear everything about you, and the others here with you, and where you come from, and what you’re doing here, and why you want to go to the Twins.”
“Anything else you want to know?” He grinned.
“You got a woman?” she bluntly demanded.
Hickok hesitated.
“
Well, you got a woman or not? A simple yes or no will do just fine.”
“No,” Hickok said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I don’t have a woman.”
“Hmmmm.” Bertha frowned. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
Joshua came into the room, carrying a steaming bowl of soup and a handful of jerky.
“Food!” Bertha struggled to sit up. Hickok assisted her. “I could eat a horse!”
“You’re hungrier than when I left.” Joshua placed the soup and jerky on the floor next to her legs. “I hope you enjoy this repast. I tried my best.”
“Honey,” she said, grabbing a stick of jerky, “this could be week-old dead skunk and I’d still gulp it down.”
“I don’t know if I could cook week-old dead skunk,” Joshua said seriously.
Bertha smiled. “I like you too, beefcake! I like all of you.”
“There’s one of us you haven’t met,” Hickok told her.
“Oh? What’s he like?”
“Ever heard of a book called The Last of the Mohicans?”
Chapter Seven
The Alpha Triad and Joshua met for a conference early the next morning, sitting around the card table. During the night the lights had flickered several times, and finally the entire building had plunged into darkness.
Blade had made a torch using a piece of cloth and a board, and they had ventured downstairs. He had studied the generator and found a cap on top of a tank, a cap similar to one on the SEAL, and had recalled watching Plato remove that cap and place an oil additive into the engine. Blade had twisted the generator’s cap off, and had placed his nose over the hole. He could smell a strong, acrid odor. A metal container had rested on the floor.
Acting on a hunch, Blade had opened the container and discovered a liquid with the same scent as the generator tank. Joshua had held the torch to one side as Blade poured some of the liquid into the tank. He had placed the cap back in position and examined the front of the generator.
Three black buttons were situated to the front. Arranged vertically, the top button was labeled START, the center button STOP, and the third something called CHOKE. Blade had pushed the START button several times, and the generator had coughed and sputtered. He had stabbed the CHOKE button twice, had hit the START button, and had been delighted when the generator caught. The lights had come back on.
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