“Uhh, Dad?” whispered Harper. “Got a little problem out here.”
“Whoa! Shit!” yelled Logan a second later.
The cat twitched, backing up a step when he shouted.
“Oh, he’s a big one,” said Ken. “Niiice kitty. Go on. No food for you here.”
“Do not run away. His instinct is to chase. Stare him down. Act intimidating.” Cliff pushed past a box, making his way to the back end of the truck. “They go for the necks of their prey. Stay upright. If it becomes aggressive, scream, make noise, fight back. Don’t show fear.”
Harper did not like being stuck straddling a bike with her back to a cougar. She kicked her left leg out, swung it over the bike, and spun to stand close to the truck bumper, hand on her .45. The clatter of the bike falling over made the cougar twitch again and back up. The cat made no move to lunge at her, so she allowed herself to calm somewhat. “I’m starting to be less scared of him and more hoping we don’t have to hurt him. He’s beautiful.”
“Okay, Maddie.” Cliff jumped down from the truck.
The cougar backed up a bit more.
“Maddie hates the idea of killing all animals. I don’t have a problem with it if there’s a good reason.” Harper stared the cat down. “We’re not food. Go find a raccoon or something smaller.”
Cliff drew his handgun, but didn’t point it at the cat yet. “If he doesn’t wander off in a minute, I’m going to start yelling. Loud noise usually gets ’em to run.”
Logan jumped down from the truck. He walked up on Harper’s right, standing partially in front of her, closest to the cat.
She grabbed his arm, tugging him back. “Careful.”
“He’s really giving us the eye.” Ken drew his Glock. “Hope he’s not used to eating people.”
“Uhh, maybe we just figured out why there’s no bodies in the parking lot,” said Logan.
“Ick.” Harper almost gagged. “You think?”
“Doubt cats would’ve dragged the bones away.” Ken shook his head.
Cliff stepped toward the cougar. “If he has tasted human, it’s more likely he’s stumbled across random dead bodies than attacked a live person.”
“Ugh.” She cringed. “Yeah, we left a few of them lying around when looking for you and Roy. Is that going to attract cougars?”
“Might.” Cliff waved in a shooing motion. “These guys don’t usually attack people. When they do, it’s little kids they can carry off easy. ’Course, who knows what they’ll be like now. Humans are kinda scarce compared to before.”
“This is their land, now,” said Logan.
“Least for the time being.” Cliff took another step toward the cat.
After a long few minutes, the mountain lion lost interest. It broke the staring contest and slinked off into the car wash port, out the other side, and across a gravel lot toward a bunch of small beige houses.
“Let’s get outta here before he changes his mind.” Logan nodded toward the bikes.
Harper got back on hers. “Yeah.”
“Ain’t dyin’ for a bunch of cheap junk made in… overseas.” Cliff slid his handgun back into its holster.
Ken laughed. “It’s fine. You can say it. All that crap was made in China. Not all cheap junk comes—or came—from China, but that particular cheap junk did. They’re not the only country to do everything for the lowest cost possible. We do—or did—it here in America, too… by offshoring manufacturing to China.”
Logan and Cliff chuckled.
“You think the last president will consider himself a champion of American jobs since nuclear destruction brought all the manufacturing back to the States?” Ken mounted his bike.
Cliff snickered. “It would be just like a politician to say something drop dead stupid like that and be serious.”
They continued riding along 285. Not far from the Conoco, a small green pickup had gone into the creek beside the highway. Both doors hung open, the seats empty—proof whoever had been in it got out alive.
Harper groaned mentally, already sick of riding a bike for hours nonstop. She couldn’t exactly quit, since going home required hours of riding. In fact, going home would take longer than simply finishing the trip to Fairplay. Despite wanting a break, she didn’t ask for one. The faster they got there, the faster they’d be home.
The trip isn’t going to feel as long when we’re on the way back.
Soon, the road curved into tree-covered hills again. Swaths of exposed rock peeked out of the dirt on the right. Ahead on the left, a small dark-brown wooden sign spelled out ‘Lynwood’ vertically beside a metal sign advertising trout fishing, B&B, and firewood.
Ugh. This is taking forever. So glad we didn’t walk.
Hours later, they approached a metal pedestrian bridge spanning the road.
It connected what appeared to be a high school on the right to an odd brick wall on the left side. A small structure resembling the sort of little trailer offices they used at construction sites at the top of the odd wall bore the words ‘Platte Canyon.’ Beyond it lay a track around a football field, probably for the high school.
Harper gazed up at the elevated walkway as they rode under it, thinking it pretty cool to have something like it connecting the school to an athletic field on the other side of a highway. Of course, she thought of a few morons in her class who always caused trouble. How many idiots tried to drop stuff on passing cars? Seeing a high school made her nostalgic for hers, a little angry at the world for not letting her finish it, and a bit jealous at this school for having a cool pedestrian bridge.
Guess if you’re stuck living out here in the middle of freakin’ nowhere, a neat bridge is a small consolation prize.
She twisted to look back out of curiosity. Once they’d gone a little bit down the road, it became clear the ‘brick wall’ the bridge connected to was the back end of the bleachers facing the football field/track. The ‘office trailer’ at the top appeared to be an open-faced covered enclosure, probably containing the controls for the scoreboard and PA system.
The next few hours, they rode mostly surrounded by rolling meadows. Harper had enjoyed looking at the mountainous terrain they’d left behind, but miles of open view on all sides eliminated any fear of ambush.
Madison’s never going to believe I almost got killed by a mountain lion over a truck full of cheap dollar-store toys. She smiled. Probably shouldn’t put it that way. ‘We saw a mountain lion.’
25
Fairplay
Harper rode along Route 285 surrounded by wide-open fields for hours.
Here and there, signs of former farms or ranches popped up in the distance, the odd barn or house, big equipment, fences, loose cows, goats, and other animals. By late afternoon, more mountains came into view way off in the distance up ahead to the right. She’d lost track of how long ago the road shrank from a four-lane highway to a two-lane rural road. Cliff didn’t show any hesitation in direction, so she trusted they remained on Route 285.
Soon after they passed a huge pond (or small lake) on the right, they reached a green highway sign reading, ‘Fairplay city limit elev 9953 ft.’ Behind it, another sign bid visitors to ‘visit historic 1880s town’ with a photo of a wooden archway straight out of the Old West marked ‘South Park City.’
A red, rectangular building a short distance off the road to the right appeared deserted. Not far past it, children kicked a ball around a fenced-in parking lot in front of another building. A small sign near the highway identified it as the Park County Animal Hospital. The kids all appeared to be from eight to twelve years old and dressed in clothes that looked like someone tore up a bunch of prewar T-shirts, jeans, and other garments then re-sewed them back into kid-sized dresses, shirts, and pants. One boy suffered the terrible misfortune of having a Shrek face (from a printed T-shirt) in the crotch of his pants.
The kids looked a bit on the dirty side, but happy. They paused to watch Harper, Cliff, Logan, and Ken ride by on bikes with no more astonished a reaction tha
n neighborhood kids pausing a game of stickball to let a car go past.
Adjacent to the animal hospital, a self-storage garage had been converted into tiny apartments. Sheep and goats wandered randomly around along with some chickens. Cliff continued following Route 285 for a little while before veering right where a sign indicated Main Street. Harper steered after him around the curve, leaving Route 285 behind and riding into downtown Fairplay.
Except for a TBK Bank on the left the locals repurposed into some manner of storage facility, the remainder of the buildings ahead all bore various modifications. The town showed no signs of having suffered direct damage from nuclear attack. Nothing looked scorched or melted, yet for some reason, the locals had added large oil-burning lamps here and there, put up hand painted signs indicating a general store, liquors, eats, tailor, undertaker, and so forth like an Old West town. A small yellow building on the right styled like an old-fashioned Mexican adobe hut—formerly the Java Moose Coffee House—had been renamed the ‘Drunken Moose,’ as indicated by another hand-painted sign.
Locals, some riding horses, made faces at Harper and the others as if seeing time travelers. Despite it only having been a year, they reacted as if they’d never seen mountain bikes before. Most men wore cowboy hats. All but three people in sight sported gun belts and revolvers. Their clothing didn’t look as piecemeal as the kids’ apparel, in fact, all the adults’ outfits appeared to have been made recently. While not an attempt to recreate 1800s fashion on purpose, the slightly odd design of the handmade clothing lent a strange air to everything, making Harper feel as if they’d not only traveled to a different town, but an alternate reality.
“Wow, are they taking the Old West theme a bit too far or have they gone nuts?” whispered Harper. “It’s like we’ve gone to Universal Studios and the actors are staring at the tourists pretending to be baffled by modern clothes.”
“Guys…” Ken pointed. “Check out that sign.”
Harper glanced left. In front of a small white and teal building with blinding hazard orange doors stood a free-standing sandwich board style sign. Painted lettering spelled out a warning that anyone discharging a firearm inside the city of Fairplay would be shot dead unless they were defending themselves from someone trying to kill them—or shooting someone for breaking the law.
Oh, crap. What kind of horrible situation is Luisa in? She tensed, expecting getting Logan’s sister out of here would be a dangerous chore. Get a grip. The letter said she didn’t leave because she was afraid of being alone. But… if someone kept her prisoner, she probably couldn’t admit it in writing. Duh. If someone kept her captive, why would they let her write a response at all? She exhaled. No. Relax. You’ve watched too many damn movies.
“Noted,” said Cliff. “Not the friendliest town, then.”
“At least if someone shoots us, we’ll be avenged.” Logan chuckled.
“Why would they all be carrying revolvers?” asked Harper. “I mean, carrying guns, sure. Lots of people back home carry handguns… but all revolvers? Takes effort. Think they’re following a theme, or is it what they happened to have?”
“Who knows? Maybe they did it on purpose to encourage people not to blow through ammo. I can’t imagine they have any more bullets than we do.” Cliff coasted to a stop in the middle of Main Street, and leaned on the handlebars, looking around. “Unless they’ve got a sulfur mine hidden somewhere, no one’s making any new gunpowder.”
Harper shrugged. “They had gunpowder in the Old West, right? Where’d they get their sulfur from?”
“Back east, I reckon,” said Cliff in an overacted accent. “Iron horse brought it in twice a month.”
She laughed.
“If the Express spreads out enough, maybe someone, somewhere will start making and trading for gunpowder.” Logan waved in greeting at a passing group of men. “Excuse me. Do you know where I can find Luisa? She’s my sister.”
The men stopped, had a short but pleasant conversation, ultimately admitting they had no clue about anyone named Luisa here. They did, however, suggest asking at the saloon, town hall, or the Express office as ‘those folks tend ta know where people are.’
“Thanks.” Logan shook hands with the three men.
One grabbed his lapels, nodding in greeting at Harper. “Ma’am.”
What the hell? She smiled at him despite feeling freaked the heck out. Once the men walked too far away to overhear her, she whispered, “This is too weird.”
“Seriously.” Logan exhaled.
“It’s one way to cope with technology sliding back two hundred years.” Ken chuckled. “Dive in headfirst.”
Harper scrunched her nose. “Yeah, but are they acting or nuts?”
“Don’t much matter,” said Cliff, still doing the ‘cowboy’ voice. “We ain’t fixin’ ta be in these here parts for long.”
She smirked at him. “Please tell me you’re kidding and this town doesn’t have a mind control device turning everyone into character actors from Westworld.”
Cliff grinned. “Merely trying to fit in.”
They walked up Main Street, past houses, shops, and a quaint little real estate office—the tiniest ‘house’ Harper had ever seen. Similar signs, essentially warning of a death penalty for anyone firing a gun in town—seemed to be everywhere. Most didn’t specify exemptions beyond ‘self-defense’ while some of the signs specifically mentioned defense against being shot at.
Would people here blow someone away for shooting at a charging bear because it didn’t fire a gun first?
She whistled to herself. For a town obsessed with telling everyone how fast they’d die for shooting off a gun, the place had no shortage of people carrying firearms. Only a year from the end of civilization, they probably still had a fair amount of ammunition left. Depending on the stock taken from local gun stores, this town might outlast the Evergreen militia in terms of ammo reserves. Following the discussion of the ‘sulfur problem’ back in Evergreen, Harper asked Cliff if she was correct about bullets going bad if they sat too long. According to him, properly stored ammunition could theoretically remain usable forever when kept protected from moisture. If humanity headed toward a future where no one had guns anymore, it probably wouldn’t get there for at least a few years. Also, unless places like Australia, Africa, and various Third World countries unlikely to have been targeted by nuclear superpowers somehow ended up destroyed as well, someone, somewhere would have a reliable source of ammo, even technology. Question being, would it ever show up in the USA or would countries that remained intact cut off all contact with irradiated zones? Better question: had any countries remained intact?
Heh. More likely we’ll use the ammo up before it rots. Damn, I hope the Lawless are a one-off and not the norm… though we’ve seen two sets of prison escapees and both groups became violent gangs.
She bit her lip, not exactly sure how to feel about convicts. On one hand, leaving them to starve in prison after the collapse of society was cruel and wrong. On the other, setting them loose on unsuspecting victims also sounded like a scary idea. Then again, Deacon had been in prison for bank robbery and she considered him one of the nicest men she’d ever met. Granted, he hadn’t stormed in the door waving a gun around. He’d gone in at night when the building had been empty.
Guess it’s a reset button. The ones who aren’t bad people have a second chance. The rest get shot. Just feel bad for their victims.
Harper glanced at a group of women hanging out in front of a large grey building on the left, distant corner of the next cross street. They all wore ruffled, gaudy dresses baring far too much skin for mid-September at nine-thousand feet above sea level. Merely looking at them made her shiver. The women arranged themselves in two groups on either side of the main entrance, a double-door set in the blunted corner of the building facing the intersection. Above a wraparound awning, another hand-painted sign read ‘The Mushroom Cloud Saloon’ along with a crude rendition of a mushroom cloud. Beneath it, the bottom edge of a
normal sign bore the word ‘Sports.’ To the right, a long green, white-lettered sign advertised ‘ski and snowboard rentals.’
“The heck are they supposed to be?” asked Harper.
“Either Las Vegas dancers, prostitutes, or Fairplay is infested with a bizarrely aggressive species of moth.” Cliff raised an eyebrow. “I suppose this is what happens when someone hires Luc Besson to do the costume design for an Old West movie.”
“None of them are blue.” Logan chuckled.
Harper blinked. “I’m not even going to pretend to understand what you mean.”
“Fifth Element?” Logan nudged her. “He directed it. Blue alien woman singing that weird opera?”
“Ohhh.” She eyed the six women. “Yeah, pretty sure we’re not on a movie set.”
“Aww man,” muttered Ken.
Harper looked over at him.
A sizable wad of horse poo lay cut in half on either side of his front bike tire.
“Dammit. Didn’t even see that.” Ken grumbled. “Great. Now I’m going to smell horse crap the whole ride back tomorrow.”
“We’re going to have to start learning to keep our eyes on the road. Got horses in town now.” Logan gestured at the street ahead of them. “A manure minefield is inevitable.”
Cliff patted him on the arm. “Look on the bright side. You didn’t step in it.”
“True.” Ken smiled. “Shall we check the saloon then, uhh, pard-ner?”
“You guys are so lame.” Harper dismounted her bike and walked it over the red-painted railing.
Cliff grinned in the way he did whenever he thought something funny, but not quite worth a laugh. “Another potential source of fuel, though I wouldn’t suggest using dried-out horse manure for cooking fires. Lends a rather unusual flavor to food.”
Harper gagged.
The prostitutes largely ignored her, openly discussing how cute they thought Cliff, Ken, and Logan were. They sounded fake as hell, clearly trying to sell themselves. Blushing, Harper refused to look at them as she chained her bike to the railing. Logan secured his bike to the right of hers, Cliff on the left, Ken beside him. Evergreen had a pronounced lack of traditional bike locks, so they made do with lengths of tow chain and padlocks. The men collected their rifles from the bikes, obviously not trusting them to still be there later if left unattended.
Evergreen (Book 5): The Nuclear Frontier Page 23