Salvation Road

by James Axler

  And then the explosion came from behind the tank. For one moment, the area was illuminated by the light of the explosion, and in the strange shadows cast on the side of the tank he was approaching, Ryan was able to see the two saboteurs outlined against the tank. They were both stunned by the explosion, exchanging shocked glances. The ferocity of the explosion, and its appearance out of nowhere, had momentarily stopped then dead in their tracks.

  Ryan was startled by the explosion, but he kept bearing down on them, taking the opportunity to straighten his mount's path for a second and take a proper aim at the two saboteurs. He had been expecting some diversionary action from Dean, although that wasn't quite what he had expected.

  The one-eyed man squeezed off a shot from the Steyr, and it ate into the ground between the two saboteurs. Leave it to the others to maybe capture a saboteur and question them. Right now it was chill or be chilled.

  The bullet from the Steyr hit the small package of plas-ex between the two saboteurs, and they disappeared from view in the middle of an explosion that knocked Ryan back and off his mount. The horse whinnied in fright and bolted off into the desert night.

  The package had been heavier than Ryan could have supposed, and it scored heavily into the metal side of the tank, driving a huge crate into the ground and obliterating all traces of the two saboteurs.

  As he pulled himself to his feet, he was aware that if he had caused some damage to be done to the storage tank, then it was a terrible error on his part. However, as he pulled himself to his feet and began to run, still deafened by the blast, toward the tanks, he could see that the side of the tank was scored and dented, but not ruptured. This was some kind of a relief, but it would be even more of a relief if he could find his son. He didn't bother to yell, as he figured that Dean would be as deafened by the blast as himself.

  Deans ears felt as if they were bleeding, but when he put his fingers to one of them, there was no blood. He had just been heading around the tank when the second explosion had knocked him from his feet. As he scrambled up again, with the Browning Hi-Power ready to fire, he was thinking only of one thing— was his father okay?

  Both the younger and older Cawdor had their blasters ready as they came into each other's view. But the razor-sharp reflexes passed from father to son prevented them from firing as each saw the other. Instead, there was a sense of relief. Both were alive, and knowing the other's capabilities, they knew that their enemies had been routed here.

  But what of the third attack?

  KRYSTY, MILDRED AND DOC were approaching the refinery buildings from their different positions, and found themselves converging at the same point. But they still used the handsets to communicate, as it was difficult to be heard over the pounding of the horses hooves and the roar of the wag.

  "How are we going to tackle this?" Mildred yelled over the static.

  "I would suggest taking each building in turn," Doc replied. "I think we should stick together to avoid confusion."

  Krysty shook her head as she shouted into her handset, her hair now tight to her scalp. "No, we can't risk them having spread out over the two buildings and caused damage. We'll have to split up."

  "Yeah, I can see that," Mildred agreed. "There are three buildings, two of them linked by that walkway. I say we take one each."

  "Very well," Doc yelled back, "I fear I am not the quickest among us, so I should take the nearest."

  "Yeah, good idea," Mildred said. "I'll take the far one. You take the middle, Krysty."

  "Okay," the woman agreed. "But stay alert, because this doesn't feel good."

  Mildred nodded and spurred her horse, heading off to the far building, hoping that the saboteurs would be too busy to provide each other with covering fire. For she was sure the assumption that there would be at least one saboteur in each building would prove correct.

  Krysty headed for the middle, taking her mount in a counterclockwise direction to achieve her goal, as opposed to Mildred's clockwise direction. If they had already been spotted, then at least they would divide enemy fire.

  Which left Doc to take the straight course down the middle. Doc wasn't an easily frightened man, particularly not after the things he had seen and endured, but in his more lucid moments he was painfully aware of his shortcomings. And he knew that he was the weakest member, physically and in terms of sanity, of the companions. He also knew that he was the poorest horseman of them all. So he was glad that he had the shortest journey to the point of trouble, but also aware that even then it still made him an easy target.

  The wag had long since ceased to roar, and in the darkness and shadow around the nearest refinery building, Doc couldn't tell if it was empty of if there lurked danger in the shape of a saboteur.

  Knowing his limitations, Doc suddenly pulled up his horse and dismounted, going the rest of the way on foot. It would take longer, but he would feel more confident of taking evasive or offensive action without having to worry about staying on his mount. In fact, he could use the beast as a diversionary measure. A smile crept over Doc's face as he directed the animal toward the blockhouse refinery building and slapped its rump so hard that it made his palm sting. The pained and affronted creature ran toward the blockhouse, while Doc checked that his LeMat pistol was loaded. There were two charges.

  Doc's use of the horse as a diversion was good judgment. Several shots rang out from the interior of the blockhouse—all from the one blaster by the sound of them, which suggested just the one enemy inside. Doc started to run toward the building, low to the ground.

  The shots found their mark, and the horse screeched in pain, falling heavily to the ground as it was hit in several places. Doc followed behind, and used the chilled animal as cover. There was a moment of tense silence before Doc's opponent emerged from the blockhouse. A short, fat man with a handblaster clutched in his fist, he came out of a doorway in a crouch and, seeing the felled animal, took one tentative step toward it.

  That was all Doc needed. It was a distance of just about 150 yards, and the man had stepped from complete darkness into a relative light from the pale moon. A light strong enough by contrast for Doc to sight him and pull the trigger on the LeMat. With a loud booming that seemed to resound in the sudden silence, the load of shot was expelled at high speed from the old blaster.

  The red-hot grapeshot hit the fat saboteur full in the face and upper chest, the pellets of hot metal ripping his skin and flesh. His scream was gargled and stopped by the blood rising in his throat as he was propelled backward into the doorway.

  He lay still, and Doc waited for return fire from inside. There was nothing. He waited a few seconds, then moved from around the chilled horse and made his way toward the blockhouse, moving close to the ground. He stepped over the chilled saboteur and looked inside, ready to discharge the ball charge at anything that moved.

  But nothing did. One man down…

  MILDRED HAD REACHED the far building and could see the empty wag. She crouched over the horse's neck, hoping that even if her mount was big enough to hit, she could make herself small enough to miss. However, there was no fire directed against her. She swung herself over the horse, keeping her body on the blind side of the wag and refinery building. She slowed the horse so that she was able to touch the ground with her foot and hit the earth running, keeping pace with the creature in order to provide cover.

  As she guided the horse nearer the wag, she could see that it was empty, and she slapped the horse's flank in order to drive it away. Keeping low, Mildred moved over to the wag. Using it as cover, she surveyed the refinery building. There was no sign of activity, but because the wag was empty of anything approaching arms and ammo, she was sure that someone had to be inside. They obviously hadn't seen her, so now she was faced with getting across from the wag to the building without being seen. And as it was an empty space with no cover, there was little she could do.

  It was then fate played a hand. Fate in the shape of Krysty Wroth.

  The Titian-haired beauty
had made her way to the back of the refinery building that was part of the first complex, joined to its fellow building by the covered walkway. She knew that she was plainly visible, but felt there was little point worrying about that as it was inevitable. If it left her open to fire, the only thing she could do was take evasive action.

  Which was exactly what happened. The shots came from the rear of the building and whistled about her head and body. She leaned low over her mount and pulled the animal around so that it was heading straight for the back of the building but head-on, so it presented a narrower target.

  She had her blaster in her hand, and while she gripped the horse's mane tightly in one hand she took aim at the empty window in the back of the building… empty except for the occasional explosion and flash of light in the blackness as a blaster was discharged in her direction. She was dimly aware of the discharge of Doc's LeMat in the distance, a different quality of sound to the other blasters that were being fired in profusion, and somehow this spurred her on, reminding her that it was more than just her against whoever these saboteurs were.

  Guiding the horse at a slight angle so that she could get a clear shot, she fired three times at the window. The first shot cannoned off the outside brickwork. The second shot went through and hit someone, as she heard a scream of pain. The third shot was the most deadly, as she heard it ricochet off the metal of the refinery pipes. A fraction of a second later she was thrown from her mount as the night erupted into light. The ricochet had hit the plas-ex that the saboteur was planting and had ignited it. The refinery building was ripped apart by the explosion, the wall nearest Krysty being blown out and scattering debris across the immediate area. She was thankful that her horse had thrown her, for the animal acted as a shield, taking hits from several chunks of brickwork that would otherwise have chilled her.

  The explosion startled Mildred, but not as much as it startled the two saboteurs who were working inside the building just in front of her. Scared and thinking only of getting the hell out, the two men rushed from the doorway of the building, presenting Mildred with the easiest of moving targets.

  She sighted with her Czech-made ZKR, the very model of target pistol she had used in competition.

  She very rarely missed, and never at such a range as this.

  The first shot caught her target between the eyes, puncturing his forehead with a neat, precise hole that dribbled blood as the slug pierced his frontal lobes. Before he had even begun to fall, she had sighted and fired on the second man, who took his bullet in the chest, shattering his breastbone and stopping his heart while bone shards ripped into his lungs. He hit the ground a fraction of a second after his companion, and Mildred waited a few seconds for anyone else to emerge from the building before leaving her cover to check it out. She then moved over to join Doc, who had run to Krysty's aid when the explosion sounded. Fortunately, her horse had taken the brunt of the blast, and the woman had only a few contusions to show for her part in the explosion.

  And so it was over. The saboteurs were routed, and only one of the attempts to destroy parts of the well and refinery had succeeded—albeit by accident.

  But still it gave no clue as to why or who.

  Chapter Seventeen

  It took several hours for Ryan and his people to gather their surviving horses and the chilled corpses of the saboteurs before they were ready to travel back to the sec camp. By that time it was daylight, and as the procession made its way across the empty desert between the camp and the works complex, it encountered the party of workers, tramping across the dusty earth to the well and refinery. The sight of the companions, Mildred and Dean on foot, Doc and J.B. leading horses loaded with corpses, and Jak, Ryan and Krysty still on horseback, caused the line—and the sec men guarding them— to come to a straggling halt. Ryan's chest had been bandaged by Mildred, and although the bullet wound had been no more than a scratch, now that he was tired and the adrenaline had worn off, it felt sore and stiff beneath his arm. So the one-eyed man wasn't in the best of moods when one of the sec guards approached him.

  "Heard the commotion last night," he said flatly.

  Mildred grimaced. "Give that boy a medal for understatement."

  "Reckon you could hear that all the way back to Salvation," Ryan replied. "Didn't get any backup," he added pointedly.

  The sec man shook his head. "Myall had us all out at the camp. All these fuckers thought each other was responsible and damn near tried to chill each other. If we get a decent day's work out of them it'll be a miracle."

  Ryan nodded. "Well, let's see if we can get a reaction from them now," he said, moving his horse toward the crowd.

  "Gather around," he yelled at the workers, beckoning them forth. As they started to move, he gestured for Doc and J.B. to unload the corpses from the backs of the horses. Dean and Mildred stepped forward to assist, and soon the chilled corpses of the six saboteurs—there being nothing left of two after the explosions—were laid out on the ground. Two of them were mangled and mutilated beyond any real recognition, but the others were still recognizable.

  "Any of you know these?" Ryan yelled over the top of the workers' startled conversation. He waited for the buzz of conversation to subside and some suggestions to come. But there was none. "You sure you don't know them?" he added.

  There was a general silence. The companions exchanged glances. They would talk of this later, but from the looks they swapped they were all sure that they agreed on one thing: the workers weren't hiding anything here. At the very least, they would have expected them to try to blame men from another ville. But there was no such attempt. It was looking more and more likely that J.B.'s theory of an outside sabotage mission was correct.

  "Okay, load them up," Ryan directed when he was sure there was to be no response. Doc, J.B., Mildred and Dean lifted the corpses back onto the horses, and they were ready to roll.

  "By the way," the sec man said, staying Ryan with a hand on his arm, "there's something back at sec camp that Myall wants you to see."

  "What?" Ryan queried with a furrowing brow.

  The sec man grimaced uncomfortably. "I'd rather not say—" he made a motion toward the still stunned workers "—but I think you'll find it a hell of a lot more interesting than I can let on."

  With this cryptic remark the sec man returned to his duty, and the procession of workers started again for the well and refinery, leaving Ryan and his companions to ponder on what they were about to find.

  WHEN THEY REACHED the sec camp, they were greeted by Myall and McVie, who were both looking more solemn than any of the companions had seen in the short time that they had known them. The companions rode and led their horses into the compound and dumped the corpses on the ground.

  "Take a look at them," Ryan said as the sec chief and his second in command approached. "Recognize any of them?"

  Both men looked over the corpses.

  "None of them look familiar to me," McVie murmured, "but then again I doubt if their own old ladies'd recognize these two," he added, indicating the mangled corpses.

  "I didn't think you would," Ryan said softly. "They've been using wags—and good ones—to get to and from the well and the refinery. I don't reckon they come from the camp—"

  "You could be right at that," Myall interrupted. "Come with me. Leave the chilled there," he added as he turned and led the companions to one of the sleeping tents dotted near the mess building.

  "What's going on?" J.B. queried.

  "Sure as hell what we'd like to know," McVie replied in a tone that encouraged no answer.

  They walked the rest of the way in silence, and when they reached the tent, Myall drew the tent flap to one side. "He's mebbe starting to smell, so be careful," he said mysteriously.

  The companions followed the sec chief into the tent.

  "Dark night," J.B. whispered. "What happened to him?"

  For on the ground, laid out in death, was Crow. The Native American was barely recognizable apart from his giant frame and te
aklike skin, for he had been beaten to death. There were no stab wounds or bullet holes on his body, but his flesh was a puffy mass of contusions and welts. His skull was misshapen where it had been fractured, his cheekbones beaten out of shape and his jaw at an unnatural angle where it had been dislocated. His clothes were ripped and torn, covered in blood, and it looked as though he had been dragged behind a wag for some distance, as ragged strips of flesh had been torn from his arms and legs.

  "The patrol out on the blacktop found him at first light," Myall stated simply. "Figure he's already been dead for some time. Probably happened some time during the night. Another thing—we found a shit load of plas-ex on him, a timing device and a heavy-duty handblaster. A Colt Python like yours, Jak."

  "That's weird," Dean said, "I never saw him with a blaster before."

  "Neither did I," Myall replied, "but that doesn't mean that he wouldn't have carried one when… when he was on a mission." The sec chief spit out the last phrase, as though he couldn't quite believe it himself.

  "So you think he was with those?" Ryan asked, jerking a thumb behind him to indicate the chilled saboteurs who were lying in the morning sun.

  Myall shrugged. "With all that stuff, on the blacktop that leads to the well and refinery? What am I supposed to think?"

  "Exactly what you are, my dear boy," Doc murmured. "A most carefully laid trail, but not without one glaring error."

  "Eh?" Myall looked at Doc with a puzzled expression.

  "So simple that it is obvious," Doc said slowly. "If he was one of the saboteurs out there, then how, pray tell, did he end up being chilled on the road…before they actually reached the well and refinery?"

  "Mebbe it happened on the way back, a falling-out of some kind 'cause it all went wrong," McVie began.

  Krysty cut him short. "We chilled them all. Their wags are still at the site. If they chilled Crow, then it was on the way."