“Floyd? You there?” I said.
“Affirmative,” his voice said from the dashboard speaker.
“The Dragon Riders are in town, they must have got ahead of us while we were in Compton’s Forge,” I said. “Hang back. Stash the truck somewhere out of sight if you can and stay with it.”
“Ten-Four,” he said. “I’ve got a minor glitch here that I need to have a look at.”
“What kind of glitch?”
“The technical kind. You wouldn’t understand.”
I sighed.
“This town looks nicer than the last one,” Harmony said. “Worst. Date. Ever.”
“Try not to blow this one up,” I said. “We’ll pick up some supplies and then move on. The Dragon Riders don’t know you, so it’s better if they don’t see us arrive together.”
“I’ll walk down from here,” she said.
Harmony got out of the Trekker and I slid across into the driver’s seat.
“Try and stay out of trouble,” she said. “You’re still banged up from the last fight.”
“If anyone messes with me, I’ll shoot them,” I said. She knew I was lying about that. “If you have any problems down there, call Floyd for back-up.”
“Ten-Four,” she said.
“Don’t you start that.”
I drove the Trekker slowly down to the town. The sign at the side of the road said ‘Welcome to Hope Springs.’ I turned onto the main street and kept glancing left and right, anticipating trouble. But none came. Maybe it was biker siesta time.
I parked the Trekker in front of the general store. Hope Springs consisted of a single street that came off the highway at about forty-five degrees. The street sloped upwards and there were some low hills beyond that. There were a few shops and some two-storey homes. The whole place looked immaculate and many of the buildings had window boxes filled with brightly coloured flowers. It looked like the kind of place you might come for a vacation.
At the end of the main street was another sign that pointed up towards the hills, which was apparently where you would find the ‘Springs’ themselves. I assumed these were water coming out of the ground rather than huge metal coils, but you can never be sure in these little towns. There wasn’t anyone out on the street. I hoped the Dragon Riders weren’t holding everyone hostage.
I was thinking that we could pick up some food and other essentials and move on before the Dragon Riders even knew we were there. It was perhaps naïve of me, but this place was called Hope Springs. I got out of the Trekker and stretched. Every part of me really did ache.
A bell tinkled above the door as I entered the store. A plump, grey-haired woman appeared through the bead-curtain at the back. She smiled, obviously happy to see a customer. She was wiping her hands on a dishtowel and there was a smudge of flour on one of her ruddy cheeks.
“Afternoon, ma’am,” I said.
“Good day to you.” She looked me up and down. “Are you the new sheriff?”
“No, ma’am, I’m just passing through.”
“I’m Martha Annis,” she said. “That’s Martha, not Mrs. Annis. Have a look around and give me a shout if there’s anything you can’t find,” she said. “If you want a fresh pie, they’ll be out of the oven in about five minutes.”
“What kind of pies are you baking?” I asked, picking up a basket and browsing the shelves.
“Why apple, of course.”
“Have you got fresh cream to go with a pie?” I asked.
“In the cooler at the back,” she said. Her smile said she knew she’d made a sale.
“You with those other young gentlemen?” she asked.
“The what? Oh, the bikers? No. I prefer four wheels to two,” I said. “They giving you any trouble?”
“Not all,” she said. “They’re just a bunch of big old teddy bears.”
“Huh?”
“They act tough but they’re not nearly as scary as they look. If you want wholemeal rolls they’re in the basket behind you. And the good cheese is in the cooler.”
“You know what I want better than I do,” I said. “Those motorcycles been here long?”
“Rolled in last night just before sunset. I don’t think Hap Jennings has had that kind of trade in years.”
“Hap owns the bar?”
“Yes, he does.”
I’d piled a lot more into the basket than I’d intended – and there was still the apple pie to come. It was a good thing Mister Flint was paying.
“If you need to recharge your vehicle, there are stations behind Hap’s place,” Martha said as she rang up my purchases. A bell chimed somewhere off-stage. “That’ll be the pies. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
I paid Martha – she insisted for a second time that I call her that – and took the food out to the Trekker. “You keep that pie flat now,” she called after me. Out in the street, an elderly couple were approaching arm in arm and they smiled and nodded in greeting.
“Excuse me,” the woman said, “are you the new sheriff?”
“No, ma’am, that’ll be my cousin, Bart,” I said.
They both nodded and continued on their way up the hill. I saw them stop and greet Harmony who was coming down the street towards me. She was eating an ice cream. Pistachio if I wasn’t mistaken.
“Did they ask you if you were the new sheriff in town?” I asked.
“Nope. They asked if I liked my ice cream. Apparently, Albert makes it himself.”
“Albert?”
“The nice old gentleman up at the café,” she said. “Any trouble from the Dragon Riders?”
“No sign of them. Martha, in the store, says they’re just a bunch of big ol’ teddy bears.”
“Perhaps they’re medicated,” Harmony said.
“We should get out of here,” I said. “We’re almost a half-day behind schedule and we need to make up those miles.”
I moved out of the way to let a woman pass to go into the store. She wore a floral headscarf and a serious expression. She pursed her wrinkled lips and put her head on one side.
“Are you the new sheriff?” she asked. “We were expecting someone a little more – mature.”
“No, ma’am, I’m just visiting.”
Without another word, the woman disappeared into the store. She probably wanted to get an apple pie before they sold out.
“Did she just call me immature?” I asked.
“I know,” Harmony said. “And she only just met you. Uncanny.”
I opened up the trunk and made some space for the box of groceries.
“You should put the perishables in the cool box,” Harmony said. She finished her ice cream and licked her fingers.
“There’s a cool box in here?” I asked.
She reached in and flipped open a lid. “Runs off the solar.”
“I thought that was for wet boots,” I said.
A couple of old gentlemen walked arm-in-arm on the other side of the road. They raised their hats in cheerful greeting.
“What’s wrong with this picture?” I said.
“There are no children,” Harmony said.
“There’s no one under the age of eighty,” I said.
“What do you think happened to all the young people?”
“Maybe they eat them,” I said.
“Or maybe there’s a virus that makes people age really quickly,” Harmony said. “Is that a new grey hair?” She reached for my head but I slapped her hand away. I did have a new grey hair, but it wasn’t on my head.”
“This place could be like an elephant’s graveyard,” I said. “People come up here to die.”
“It’s something in the water,” said a voice behind us. We turned. It was one of the Dragon Riders, dressed head to toe in black leather with an old red bandanna tied over his hair. He was leaning against the Trekker, eating a liquorice and blackcurrant ice cream. I looked around but he seemed to be alone.
“What?” I said.
“The water,” he repeated. “Hot springs, up
in the hills. That’s why the old folks all move up here.”
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Rooster,” he said. “Mother wants to buy you a drink.”
“Hemlock?” I asked.
“I don’t think they have that on tap,” he said. “Come on.” He set off towards Hap’s bar.
“It must be a trap,” Harmony warned.
“Yeah,” I said. “But on the other hand – a free drink...” I shrugged and went after Rooster.
“Are you insane?” Harmony asked.
I stopped and looked back. “If they wanted to attack, they’d have done it by now,” I said. “I’m going to see what he wants. Stay with the Trekker.”
Chapter Twenty
I stepped into the bar expecting it to be dark but it wasn’t. I guess you have to turn up the lighting when most of your patrons don’t see so well. Half of the people in the place were seniors and the rest were Dragon Riders. The odd thing was that the two groups were mingling and chatting happily.
Over at the dartboard, an old man was pretending to have shaky hands before he threw his arrow. I knew he was faking it because the scoreboard showed he was trouncing his biker opponent. There was a pool table in use at the back and a game of poker was underway at one of the larger tables. I watched for a few seconds and saw that the white-haired guy on the left had all the moves of a professional card-sharp. He saw me watching and winked.
Mother was holding court at another table, his injured foot propped up on a low stool. The tartan slipper looked like it had been through the wars.
“Is this where old bikers come to retire?” I asked, sitting down at his table.
“You’re the one that’s gonna be retired.” He sneered at me. It was a good sneer. You could tell it had years of practice behind it. He signalled for the bartender – Hap, I presumed – to bring another pitcher of beer.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Having a drink and waiting for you,” Mother said.
Hap brought the jug of beer and a fresh glass for me.
“Watch my foot!” Mother snapped as the old man leaned over to set down the beer.
“You should get yourself up to the springs,” Hap said. “The water did wonders for my gout.”
“I don’t have gout,” Mother said. “Some old bird shot me in the foot.”
“It wasn’t Maisie Barron, was it?” Hap asked. “She’s a hellcat. But sexy with it. Makes you want to risk trying it on in case she lets you. You’re only young once, right?”
“Not in this town,” Mother muttered.
“Say,” Hap said, turning to me. “Are you the new sheriff? I was expecting someone bigger.”
“They couldn’t afford anyone taller,” I said.
Hap went away nodding as if this made sense.
“This is a nice town,” Mother said. He poured more beer into his glass. “Full of old folks.”
“I noticed that,” I said.
“It wouldn’t be right to make trouble here,” he said. “So I’m proposing a truce.”
“I’ll drink to that,” I said, filling my glass.
“Don’t go mistaking my meaning,” Mother said. “Things ain’t right between us. You dishonoured the Dragon Riders and we can’t just let that go. We will have retribution. But not here.”
“I understand,” I said.
“As soon as you leave town and get back on the highway, me and my boys are coming after you.”
I nodded. “But in the meantime, a truce.” I raised my glass in a toast and then drank it down. It was very weak. I got to my feet. “Until we meet again.”
Outside, the Trekker was still where I’d left it but there was no sign of Harmony.
The woman with the sour face and the headscarf poked her head out of the store. “If you’re looking for that young slip of a thing, she borrowed a towel and went up to the springs,” she said. “She took one for you too, so you’d better get along up there.” She disappeared back inside. There was no doubting who was in charge in her household.
I looked at my watch and then tapped my earbud.
“Floyd?”
“You’re not dead then?” he said.
“No. The Dragon Riders and I have agreed on a temporary truce,” I said. “It ends as soon as we leave here.”
“What’s the plan?”
“Why don’t you set off again. Get as many miles from here as you can. Me and Harmony will catch up with you in a couple of hours.”
“You planning a romantic interlude?” Floyd asked.
“If it doesn’t happen in Hope Springs, it won’t happen anywhere,” I said. “Keep an eye out for that Highway Patrolman and stay in touch.”
“Ten-Four.”
“You heading up to the springs?” asked a voice. I looked around. It was the two gentlemen I had seen earlier. “We’ll show you the way.”
They were Hank and Davey, I learned, and the two of them had been married for longer than I’d been alive.
“We both played the field,” Hank told me, “but in the end, we decided that we needed each other more than we needed the hook-ups. Once you’re used to someone’s habits, well, strangers are more trouble than they’re worth.”
“But we both still look around,” Davey said. “Can’t blame a man for looking. We’re not dead yet.”
“Anything worth looking at up at the springs?” I asked.
“There might be today,” Davey said and winked at me.
Hank looked at his husband and shook his head. I got the impression he did a lot of that.
“Do I understand right – that you’re not the new sheriff?” Hank asked. Word got around fast.
“I don’t know,” I said. “How much does it pay?”
They laughed at that, which was nice of them. The road got steeper as we got further along it and we slowed down a little.
“How long have you lived here?” I asked.
“Five years, almost six,” Davey said. “We used to live in the city. But down there you see young people all over the place and in comparison, you feel old. Up here you look like everyone else so you don’t feel so bad.”
“People here don’t complain about what they can’t do,” Hank said, “they just celebrate what they can do.”
“Me and Hank try and celebrate at least once a month, if you know what I mean,” Davey said.
“And sometimes he stays awake right to the end,” Hank said.
I don’t think I was the first person to hear this shtick. As we walked past the end of the street and onto a path that wound up into the hills, we saw more people heading in the same direction. Soon there was a small procession. Some carried their towels and others were wearing them like togas. It looked like some kind of ritualistic gathering and for a moment I worried that I’d been tricked into attending a ceremony where they sacrificed the young.
“Almost there,” Davey said, “you can see the steam.”
“Nudity doesn’t bother you, does it?” Hank asked. “Up here no one’s ashamed to show what they’ve got.”
We turned the last corner and I saw that what most of them had got was liver spots and skin that looked like it belonged to a much larger person.
There was a large communal pool with a heavy mist swirling over it and then further up the hill were smaller pools where people bathed in twos and threes.
“We’re going to stay down here with the others and gossip,” Hank said. “Your friend is up the hill in one of the private pools.”
I waved farewell. The couple were already helping each other out of their clothes. I walked up the path and soon spotted Harmony’s red hair.
“What are you doing up here?” I asked.
“Enjoying myself,” she said. “You should try it sometime.”
I bent and dipped my hand in the water – it was much warmer than I’d expected.
“We’re behind schedule,” I said.
“We didn’t become outlaws so we could have schedules,” she said. “Try
it. It’ll soothe your aches and pains.”
“It smells funny,” I said.
“It’s mostly magnesium sulfate,” she said. “Or is it magnesium hydroxide? One of those.”
“Is it good for you?”
“If you swallow it it cures trapped wind,” she said.
“And I thought those bubbles were coming out of the ground.”
“It won’t make you live forever but it helps you enjoy the time you’ve got left – Albert told me that,” she said. “Get in the water.”
I hesitated a moment longer and then stripped off my clothes.
“Did you just flash that old guy down there?” Harmony asked.
“Davey,” I said. “He told me he was hoping to get a look.”
Harmony looked me up and down as I stepped into the pool. “Are you the new sheriff?” she said. “I was expecting someone bigger.”
“Give me a minute,” I said.
“Don’t you dare,” she said, “people are watching.”
I lay in the pool with the hot water up to my chin and it felt wonderful. If I live to be ninety, I’ll move to a place like this.
Hank and Davey were waiting for us when we came back down the path.
“Maybe they want a private viewing,” Harmony said. “They probably couldn’t see it properly.”
“I bet they’re waiting for the towels, to make sure we don’t steal them,” I said.
We were both wrong.
“We’ve discussed it with the others and we’re all going to help you,” Hank said. “The whole town.”
“You are?” I said. “Help us do what?”
“Escape!” Davey said. “From the Dragon Riders.”
“How?” Harmony asked.
“We’ll distract them,” Hank said. “But we’ll need you to do something for us first.”
“I think that’s your department,” Harmony said, raising an eyebrow and nodding towards my groin.
“You have to show us how to hotwire a motorcycle,” Hank said.
“What?” Harmony said.
“Do you know how many folk in this town have ‘ride a motorcycle’ on their bucket list?” Davey said.
“While we’re doing that, you can sneak away,” Hank said. “We all want to see you deliver that whiskey to New Grimsby.”
Road Rage Page 12