“You didn’t change your name?”
The man laughed. “No, but if someone calls me Boot, I’ll answer to it. I don’t care what anyone calls me if they’re buying.”
“And you didn’t fix the sign?”
“No. Wanted to, but I guess it’s an institution now. People seem to figure it out. What can I do for you?”
Buck started making noise. Jack guessed he was uttering curses. Featherstone looked at the raider, but said nothing.
“I need a few supplies and a little information if it’s to be had.”
Featherstone motioned Jack to follow him. “Got supplies a’plenty and maybe some info,” he said over his shoulder. “Depending on what you want to know of course. Just speculating, but are you looking for your fellow Rangers?”
“That’s right.”
“Was here an hour and a half ago. Went south. Had some folks cuffed up, but not all rope and wrapped up like your guy out there. One of’em was a big gal. A Ranger, not a prisoner I mean. I’m partial to them myself… not Rangers, but big women… although a gal who’s a Ranger could be handy.” Featherstone paused and shook his head. “Never mind me. Anything else you wanted to know?”
“They say where they were headed?”
“No. Didn’t ask, but I heard them mention Camp Bushwhack. That’s farther south near the Red… that’s a river in case you were wondering. Kinda rough, but I imagine you’re used to dealing with that. You mentioned buying supplies?”
“That’s right.”
Featherstone spread both arms out wide. “Got a whooooole store here. Have at it. Bar’s off to the side there. Little early for drinking, but if you’ve a mind. I ain’t judging, but I’ll serve you if you want.”
“Just some provisions.”
Jack walked the rows of shelves and picked up a few things to replace the food he and Buck had consumed. He carried them to the counter and placed them there. As Featherstone tallied up the cost, Jack looked at a pile of comic books stacked in some metal bottle crates. One of them was titled Johnny Sureshot and his Rifle of Doom, Issue No.1, March 1957. Jack had never much cared for comics, except for the rare military oriented series he encountered as a child. If I’d seen these back then, maybe I would have been more interested.
Featherstone noticed. “There’s a bunch of those in there. Folks ‘round here like the superheroes. The westerns seem a bit too much like life in these parts I guess. You buy’em all, you pay half price.”
Jack found twenty-four issues. He placed them on the counter and sighed, slightly irked at his foray into whimsy.
“These for your kids?” Featherstone asked. “Maybe for yourself? It don’t bother me none. I figure they’re books like any other. Stories are stories. I ain’t judging. Better read than rotting, I say.”
Jack paid the man. Featherstone insisted on carrying the paper bag containing the purchases to Jack’s horse.
“Shelf to saddlebag service?” Jack said.
Featherstone laughed. “I’m using that. Call it stealing, but I’m using it.”
Jack laughed and pointed at the man. “Consider it yours.” He climbed aboard Jenny.
Featherstone pointed at Buck who was cursing into the gag once again. “Maybe your friend up there might have a better disposition if he wasn’t trussed up like that.”
“Trust me, he would not.”
“That bad a fella?”
“About as bad as they get.”
“Glad you crossed paths with him then. Safe travels and come again.” He waved and walked back inside.
“I’ll take the gag loose,” Jack said. “but you start spitting, it goes back in place.”
Buck glared, but nodded.
“You want some water?” Jack asked as he loosened the gag.
“Something stronger would be better.”
“Water is all I have.”
“Fine.”
. . . . .
As they rode south, Jack kept an eye on the road surface trying to find evidence of a group of horse tracks and gauge how far behind he trailed. After a while, the tracks became easier to discern and he felt confident he was on the right trail and was closing. By early afternoon he was sure they were drawing near.
They rounded a bend in the road and Jack saw a group of riders ahead. A look through his binoculars confirmed it. Five Rangers and four bound men on horseback. As he neared, the Ranger force ahead noticed him and stopped, turning their mounts sideways, rifles at the ready.
“Ho, Rangers,” Jack yelled as he drew within earshot. “It’s Ranger Traipse.”
“C’mon,” Chuck Harstens shouted with a wave of his arm.
Jim Barstow smiled as Jack slowed Jenny and Buck’s mount to a halt. “Jack,” he said with a raise of his head.
“You out solo?” asked Ranger Clarisse Bradshaw. Well known within the Freelands as the largest woman in the service at nearly six-feet tall and a hundred and sixty pounds, among those that actually wore the star, she was simply thought of as a top notch and formidable Ranger.
“That’s right.”
She smiled. “A rough proposition these days.”
Jack’s expression showed he agreed with her. “True enough. I was trying to catch up with you guys and came across this guy in Eastwood. He’s Buck Scuddie.”
Chuck Harstens gave Buck a hard look then spoke to Jack. “We have paper on him, but I assume you know that. We have several witness statements citing his acts in Tishomingo and Madill, most notably his part in the sexual assault and murder of Bonnie Flint.” He glared at Buck once again. “I knew her.”
Buck smirked. “Yeah? The redhead. So that was her name, not that it matters anymore.”
“Her father was Ray Flint, a fine carpenter and a better man than most. He died fighting for his family.”
“I know,” Buck said with a mean smile. “I seen him. My friend Jazz is the guy that shot him. The man bled out on his own living room floor watching us drag his daughter away. The bitch tried to fight too, but we all know how that ended up.”
Harstens’ jaw worked and his eyes grew cold, but he said nothing. He looked at Jack once again. “You did well, Jack. Are you assuming command of the patrol?”
Jack shook his head. “You know this area far better than me. You have a lot more experience as well. I thought I might lend a hand and pick your brain about the area north of here.”
“North. Hardin? You going after him?”
“That’s right.”
“I’d be glad to help. Your uncle says your pa was on to something after all. Whatever it was, it wasn’t worth Hardin’s life. I’m glad it was at least worth something though.”
. . . . .
As evening came on, the group stopped in a clearing off the road. A deep running creek gurgled by not far away.
They pulled the prisoners down from their horses and tied them together, ankles to another prisoner’s waist. Two Rangers guarded the prisoners while the other four set up camp.
Jack carried water from the stream in collapsible cotton fiber buckets. Once the cotton fibers absorbed enough water, they swelled to create a watertight vessel.
Jack ran tests on the water and found no sign of radiation or chemical contaminants, so he simply treated the water for bacterial hazards with sodium hypochlorite tablets and ran the water through a filter medium. He watered the horses first, then brought water for human use. As he carried the last two buckets into the camp, Chuck walked beside him.
“Buck says you fought off an attempt to rescue him last night.”
Jack nodded. “Yes, they tried. Did he just volunteer the information?”
“Not exactly. Ranger Bradshaw looked at his injuries and asked how he received them. He told us what happened. Says there were twelve or more raiders you fought off. Said you butchered them all. Why didn’t you mention it?”
“I would have if it had some bearing on our situation. There were not twelve of them and some of them survived. Buck likes to elaborate. I’ll put it in
my report.”
“So will I. I’m betting your account will be brief and understated.”
“It needed doing and I had no other option. I’d bet most any Ranger would have done the same.”
“Maybe so, but most any Ranger didn’t do it. You did. You are a different sort, Jack. Like it or not, word will get out.”
Jack grimaced slightly. “I know… and I don’t like it.”
Chuck clapped him on the shoulder. “C’mon, Sergeant. Let’s get something to eat.”
The meal was a simple one, reconstituted soup with hard bread, but it was good and filling. The Rangers would maintain a two-person guard on the prisoners at all times. Harstens set up a schedule of two-hour watches through the night. He paired himself with Jack so he could talk to him about the Ravaged Lands.
“Gordon told me what happened to Hardin,” Chuck said when their first shift started. “I wonder how things might have gone if one of us had been with him.”
“Nobody can say. You got the wounded and the two kids back to Kings Town without losing anyone. One less Ranger in the group might have altered that.”
“True enough, I suppose. We lost a lot of good people on that mission and had a couple shot to hell. I said it before, I hope Hardin’s death meant something. When are you leaving?”
“Shortly after we get back to Kings Town.”
“All right. It’s a wild and rough area out there. Lots of brush and tree cover. Lots of rugged terrain. Not a lot of radioactive hazard compared to the Blastlands, but keep your meter handy anyway because it is out there. There’s some strange things you’ll come across. In some places, the trees have obliterated roadways. It’s like the road ends in a wall of green. How far north are you going?”
“The vicinity of Old Holdenville.”
“I hear they’ve taken to calling it Oldenville these days. I haven’t been up there for quite a spell. You’ll be well east of what was Oklahoma City then. That is one ugly scene. Pete Anders, Art Sierra, and I went up there maybe a dozen years ago. I never want to see it again. Radiation off the scale in some places. Heavy alien spawning where it’s not hot. The big ones too. Lots of shamblers and behemoths. Think twice before you go that far.”
Jack nodded.
“You going solo?”
“That’s what I had in mind.”
“Why’s that?”
“I don’t want to pull any Rangers away from the Kings Town area for something that might not be important.”
“I was under the impression it was important.”
“It’s possible the box my father stashed isn’t there anymore. Animals, weather, or somebody might have displaced it. I’d hate to pull a team of Rangers away to go look for an empty hole in the ground.”
“I can understand that. You think it’s wise, going alone?”
“Probably not, but I can be more stealthy by myself.”
“You plan on taking your mare?”
Jack shook his head.
“Smart. There’s enough bad ground out there to make it hard to find safe grazing. You’d need to take a lot of forage. Sounds like you’ve thought this through. I’ll go over the map with you when we get back.”
. . . . .
Sergeant Tucker and his team watched the Greater Good squad pull the two handcarts through the battered and decaying remnants of a residential area. The squad’s slow pace made it easy for the Rangers to follow.
“Are we going to try and talk with them?” Sean asked.
“No. They aren’t bringing explosives into the Freelands. If they keep going the direction they are now, they’ll be moving into the Blastlands soon enough. We’ll shadow them and see if that’s where they’re going.”
“If it is?”
“Then we head back to Geneva and figure out where we go from there.”
“Are we going into the Blastlands?”
“No. The situation would need to be desperate to get me out there.”
Brian West lowered his binoculars. “Hey, Sarge. Did you notice half their force is unarmed?”
“You sure about that?”
“He’s right, Tuck,” Lew Braden said. “It’s always the same five pulling the handcarts. Four pull while one rests. The one not pulling doesn’t have a weapon and I don’t see any weapons on any of the other pullers or the carts. The other five are always armed.”
“I should have noticed that. Maybe the men pulling the carts aren’t military types.”
“Maybe they’re techs or explosive experts?”
“Doubt we’ll figure it out. Let’s get moving.”
. . . . .
Ranger Harstens led his team south toward Camp Bushwhack, located in the ruins of a town situated within a large bend in the Red River. Across the river was what used to be Texas, and Camp Bushwhack provided a jumping off point for expeditions headed south; a temporary refuge for those escaping the lawlessness of the Wastes; or a place to lay low for those fleeing Rangers from the Freelands or rival raider forces from the surrounding area.
The team rode through the camp and it quickly became apparent word of their presence had reached Bushwhack before the Rangers themselves did. Hastily abandoned campsites and tracks leading to river fords or the lone bridge south told the Rangers they would have to pursue far and wide to catch any of those who took flight. They decided to ride back toward the Freelands and check a few other points along the way.
. . . . .
4
Trails of Death
. . . . .
Tucker and his Rangers watched the Greater Good squad from a distance. The squad was moving down a paved road into a gathering of buildings, a risky action given the area, but the Rangers speculated it was easier to roll the damaged cart on beat up pavement than over rough terrain.
The Greater Good squad moved out of sight around the corner of one of the buildings.
Sergeant Tucker lowered his binoculars. “Same drill as before. Give them a few minutes, then we’ll move up.”
After waiting, the Rangers rose and moved forward at Tucker’s signal. As they neared the building, a shot rang out from up the street, followed by a flurry of reports from rifles and pistols. The Rangers quickly realized the fire was not aimed at them.
“Move! To the building,” Tucker said with a point. The team sprinted for the structure, once a business of some sort. Ranger West was the first to reach it, and after dropping his rucksack to the ground, went prone and peeked around the corner of the concrete foundation.
He pulled back under cover as shots continued to sound. The other three Rangers were prone nearby.
“Looks like the GGs got ambushed by some bandits. The bandits are on the left shooting at something on our side of the street and that something is shooting back. I couldn’t see anything that might identify the ambushers as raiders. It’s hard to see everything. The right side is blind from here. Maybe across the street it’s better?”
“You think you can get across without getting dead?” Sergeant Tucker said.
“I sure hope so.”
“Lew, go with him.”
“I should go,” Sean said. “I’m faster.”
Lew smiled. “I won’t complain.”
Tucker chuckled. “Okay. Same goes for you, Trahearn. Don’t get dead.”
“Best advice I’ve received all day.”
Brian gave a wave of his arm. “Let’s go.”
The two Rangers ran for a building on the opposite side of the street. Midway across, West hissed in pain and came up lame, limping badly on his right leg. Sean was two steps behind and wrapped his left arm around Brian’s waist as he caught him. “Don’t stop,” he said as he half helped and half carried West to the shelter of the building.
“I’m hit,” Brian said as he slid to the ground. The sounds of the gunfight continued unabated.
Sean knelt next to him and looked at the wound. “The bullet went in and out clean. Let’s get that bandaged up.”
“I can get it. Eyeball the fight up
the street.”
Sean nodded and crawled to the corner of the building and looked across the street. Sergeant Tucker mouthed the words, “How is he?”
Sean signaled ‘okay’ and pointed up the street. He peeked around the edge and saw some from the Greater Good squad down beside the two handcarts on the right side of the street. The rest appeared to be in a nearby isolated building engaging the bandits.
The street curved to the right not far beyond the building from where the Greater Good members fought. A group of bandits ran into a building just beyond the curve, allowing them to place fire on the Greater Good from two sides.
Sean moved back into cover. He looked to Sergeant Tucker. “Can you hear me?” he said in a slightly raised voice.
“I hear you. What do you have?”
Sean detailed the situation.
“All right. Hang on.” Tucker and Braden spoke to one another for several seconds until both men nodded.
“I doubt we can extricate ourselves without getting hurt. We’re going to engage the bandits,” he said to Sean and Brian. “They are the larger threat. Maybe those TGG bastards will talk to us if we pull their tails out of the fire. Lew and I will move behind the building over here and get a better angle on the bandits across the street from the GGs. When you hear us fire, engage the bandits in the building at the curve.”
Sean and Brian nodded.
A few seconds later, Tucker and Braden moved out of sight behind the building.
Sean moved to a kneeling position and looked at Brian. “Can you fight?”
“As long as I don’t have to kick someone.”
“Why don’t you shoot prone. I’ll fire over you.”
“Good idea.”
The two Rangers positioned themselves to be ready when their teammates opened fire. They didn’t have long to wait. Within moments of hearing the reports of friendly weapons fire, West and Trahearn moved out just far enough to engage the bandits in the building two hundred meters distant and opened fire.
The Blastlands Saga Page 38