Wastelands 2: More Stories of the Apocalypse

by John Joseph Adams

  And of course ten spare rounds for his .38, small, blessed relics of industrial civilization.

  Back at the beginning, during the riots and the great starvation, it had seemed that the one thing in inexhaustible supply was ammunition. If only turn-of-the-century America had stockpiled and distributed food half so well as its citizens had cached mountains of bullets…

  Rough stones jabbed his throbbing left foot as Gordon gingerly hurried toward his former campsite. Clearly these half-shredded moccasins would get him nowhere. His torn clothes would be about as effective against freezing mountain autumn nights as his pleas had been against the bandits’ hard hearts.

  The small clearing where he had made camp only an hour or so ago was deserted now, but his worst fears were surpassed by the havoc he found there.

  His tent had been converted into a pile of nylon shreds, his sleeping bag a small blizzard of scattered goose down. All Gordon found intact was the slim longbow he had been carving from a cut sapling, and a line of experimental venison-gut strings.

  Probably thought it was a walking stick. Sixteen years after the last factory had burned, Gordon’s robbers had completely overlooked the potential value of the bow and strings, when the ammo finally ran out.

  He used the bow to poke through the wreckage, looking for anything else to salvage.

  I can’t believe it. They took my journal! That prig Septien probably looks forward to poring over it during the snowtime, chuckling over my adventures and my naiveté while my bones are being picked clean by cougars and buzzards.

  Of course the food was all gone: the jerky; the bag of split grains that a small Idaho village had let him have in exchange for a few songs and stories; the tiny hoard of rock candy he had found in the mechanical bowels of a looted vending machine.

  It’s just as well about the candy, Gordon thought as he plucked his trampled, ruined toothbrush out of the dust.

  Now why the hell did they have to do that?

  Late in the Three-Year Winter—while the remnants of his militia platoon still struggled to guard the soy silos of Wayne, Minnesota, for a government nobody had heard from in months—five of his comrades had died of raging oral infections. They were awful, inglorious deaths, and no one had even been sure if one of the war bugs was responsible, or the cold and hunger and near total lack of modern hygiene. All Gordon knew was that the specter of his teeth rotting in his head was his own personal phobia.

  Bastards, he thought as he flung the little brush aside.

  He kicked the rubbish one last time. There was nothing here to change his mind.

  You’re procrastinating. Go. Do it.

  Gordon started off a little stiffly. But soon he was moving downtrail as quickly and silently as he could, making time through the bone-dry forest.

  The burly outlaw leader had promised to eat him if they met again. Cannibalism had been common in the early days, and these mountain men might have acquired a taste for the “long pork.” Still, he had to persuade them that a man with nothing to lose must be reckoned with.

  Within half a mile or so, their tracks were familiar to him: two traces with the soft outlines of deer hide and three with prewar Vibram soles. They were moving at a leisurely pace, and it would be no trouble simply to catch up with his enemies.

  That was not his plan, however. Gordon tried to remember this morning’s climb up this same trail.

  The path drops in altitude as it winds north, along the east face of the mountain, before switching back south and east into the desert valley below.

  But what if I were to cut above the main trail, and traverse the slope higher up? I might be able to come down on them while it’s still light… while they’re still gloating and expecting nothing.

  If the shortcut is there…

  The trail wove gradually downhill toward the northeast, in the direction of the lengthening shadows, toward the deserts of eastern Oregon and Idaho. Gordon must have passed below the robbers’ sentinels yesterday or this morning, and they had taken their time following him until he was settled into camp. Their lair had to be somewhere off this same trail.

  Even limping, Gordon was able to move silently and quickly, the only advantage of camp moccasins over boots. Soon he heard faint sounds below and ahead.

  The raiding party. The men were laughing, joking together. It was painful to hear.

  It wasn’t so much that they were laughing over him. Callous cruelty was a part of life today, and if Gordon couldn’t reconcile himself to it, he at least recognized he was the Twentieth-Century oddball in today’s savage world.

  But the sounds reminded him of other laughter, the rough jokes of men who shared danger together.

  Drew Simms—freckle-faced pre-med with a floppy grin and deadly skill at chess or poker—the Holnists got him when they overran Wayne and burned the silos…

  Tiny Kielre—saved my life twice, and all he wanted when he was on his deathbed, the War Mumps tearing him apart, was for me to read him stories…

  Then there had been Lieutenant Van—their half-Vietnamese platoon leader. Gordon had never known until it was too late that the Lieutenant was cutting his own rations and giving them to his men. He asked, at the end, to be buried in an American flag.

  Gordon had been alone for so long. He missed the company of such men almost as much as the friendship of women.

  Watching the brush on his left, he came to an opening that seemed to promise a sloping track—a shortcut perhaps—to the north across the mountain face. The rust-dry scrub crackled as he left the path and broke his own trail. Gordon thought he remembered the perfect site for a bushwhack, a switchback that passed under a high, stony horseshoe. A sniper might find a place a little way above that rocky outcrop, within point-blank range of anyone hiking along the hairpin.

  If I can just get there first…

  He might pin them down by surprise and force them to negotiate. That was the advantage in being the one with nothing to lose. Any sane bandit would prefer to live and rob another day. He had to believe they would part with boots, a jacket, and some food, against the risk of losing one or two of their band.

  Gordon hoped he would not have to kill anybody.

  Oh grow up, please! His worst enemy, over the next few hours, could be his archaic scruples. Just this once, be ruthless.

  The voices on the trail faded as he cut across the slope of the mountain. Several times he had to detour around jagged gullies or scabrous patches of ugly bramble. Gordon concentrated on finding the quickest way toward his rocky ambuscade.

  Have I gone far enough?

  Grimly, he kept on. According to imperfect memory, the switchback he had in mind came only after a long sweep northward along the east face of the mountain.

  A narrow animal track let him hurry through the pine thickets, pausing frequently to check his compass. He faced a quandary. To stand a chance of catching his adversaries, he had to stay above them. Yet if he kept too high, he might go right past his target without knowing it.

  And twilight was not long away.

  A flock of wild turkeys scattered as he jogged into a small clearing. Of course the thinned human population probably had something to do with the return of wildlife, but it was also one more sign that he had come into better-watered country than the arid lands of Idaho. His bow might someday prove useful, should he live long enough to learn to use it.

  He angled downslope, beginning to get worried. Surely by now the main trail was quite a bit below him, if it hadn’t already switched back a few times. It was possible he had already gone too far north.

  At last Gordon realized the game path was turning inexorably westward. It appeared to be rising again as well, toward what looked like another gap in the mountains, shrouded in late afternoon mist.

  He stopped a moment to catch his breath and his bearings. Perhaps this was yet another pass through the cold, semi-arid Cascade Range, leading eventually into the Willamette River Valley and thence the Pacific Ocean. His map was gone but
he knew that at most a couple weeks’ walk in that direction ought to bring him to water, shelter, fishing streams, game to hunt, and maybe…

  And maybe some people trying to put something right in the world again. The sunlight through that high fringe of clouds was like a luminous halo, akin to the dimly remembered skyglow of city lights, a promise that had led him ever inward from the Midwest, searching. The dream—hopeless as he knew it was—simply would not go away.

  Gordon shook his head. For certain there would be snow in that range, and cougars, and starvation. There could be no turning away from his plan. Not if he wanted to live.

  He tried hard to cut downslope, but the narrow game paths kept forcing him north and westward. The switchback had to be behind him, by now. But the thick, dry undergrowth diverted him farther into the new pass.

  In his frustration Gordon almost missed the sound. But then he stopped suddenly, listening.

  Were those voices?

  A steep ravine opened up the forest just ahead. He hurried toward it until he could see the outlines of this mountain and others in the chain, wrapped in a thick haze, amber high on their westward flanks and darkening purple where the sun no longer shone.

  The sounds seemed to be coming from below, to the east. And yes, they were voices. Gordon searched and made out the snakelike line of a trail on the mountain’s flank. Far off, he caught a brief flash of color moving slowly upward through the woods.

  The bandits! But why were they moving uphill again? They couldn’t be, unless…

  Unless Gordon was already far north of the trail he had taken the day before. He must have missed the ambush site altogether and come out above a side path. The bandits were climbing a fork he had failed to notice yesterday, one leading up into this pass rather than the one he had been caught in.

  This must be the way to their base!

  Gordon looked up the mountain. Yes, he could see how a small hollow could fit over to the west, on a shoulder near the lesser-used pass. It would be defensible and very hard to discover by chance.

  Gordon smiled grimly and turned west as well. The ambush was a lost opportunity, but if he hurried he could beat the bandits home, perhaps get a few minutes to steal what he needed—food, clothes, something to carry them in.

  And if the hideout wasn’t deserted?

  Well, maybe he could take their women hostage and try to cut a deal.

  Yeah, that’s lots better. Like holding a ticking bomb beats jogging with nitroglycerin.

  Frankly, he hated all of his alternatives.

  He started to run, ducking under branches and dodging withered stumps as he charged along the narrow game path. Soon Gordon felt a strange exuberance. He was committed, and none of his typical self-doubt would get in the way now. Battle adrenaline nearly made him high as his stride opened and small shrubs swept by in a blur. He stretched to leap over a toppled, decayed tree trunk, cleared it easily…

  Landing sent sharp pain lancing up his left leg as something stabbed him through the flimsy moccasins. He sprawled, face first, into the gravel of a dry stream bed.

  Gordon rolled over clutching his injury. Through wet, pain-diffracted eyes, he saw that he had tripped over a thick strand of looped, rusted steel cable, no doubt left over from some ancient prewar logging operation. Again, while his leg throbbed agonizingly, his surface thoughts were absurdly rational.

  Eighteen years since my last tetanus shot. Lovely.

  But no, it hadn’t cut him, only tripped him. That was bad enough, though. He held onto his thigh and clamped his mouth shut, trying to ride out a savage cramp.

  At last the tremors subsided and he dragged himself over to the toppled tree, gingerly hoisting himself into sitting position. He hissed through clenched teeth as the waves of agony slowly faded.

  Meanwhile he could hear the bandit party passing not far below, taking away the head start that had been his only advantage.

  So much for all those great plans to beat them to their hideout. He listened until their voices faded up the trail.

  At last Gordon used his bow as a staff and tried standing up. Letting weight settle slowly on his left leg, he found it would support him, though it still quivered tenderly.

  Ten years ago I could’ve taken a fall like that and been up and running without another thought. Face it. You’re obsolete, Gordon. Worn out. These days, thirty-four and alone is the same as being ready to die.

  There would be no ambush now. He couldn’t even chase the bandits, not all the way up to that notch in the mountain. It would be useless to try to track them on a moonless night.

  He took a few steps as the throbbing slowly subsided. Soon he was able to walk without leaning too hard on his makeshift staff.

  Fine, but where to? Perhaps he should spend the remaining daylight looking for a cave, a pile of pine needles, anything to give him a chance to live through the night.

  In the growing chill Gordon watched shadows climb higher above the desert valley floor, merging and darkening the flanks of the nearby mountains. The reddening sun probed through chinks in the range of snowy peaks to his left.

  He was facing north, unable quite yet to summon the energy to move, when his eye was caught by a sudden flash of light, a sharp glinting against the rolling forest green on the opposite flank of this narrow pass. Still favoring his tender foot, Gordon took a few steps forward. His brow furrowed.

  The forest fires that had seared so much of the dry Cascades had spared the thick forests on that part of the mountainside. And yes, something across the way was catching the sunlight like a mirror. From the folds in the hillsides, he guessed that the reflection could only be seen from this very spot, and only in the late afternoon.

  So he had guessed wrong. The bandits’ roost wasn’t in that hollow higher up in the pass to the west after all, but much closer. Only a stroke of luck had given it away.

  So you’re giving me clues, now? Now? he accused the world. I don’t have enough troubles as it is, without being offered straws to grasp at?

  Hope was an addiction. It had driven him westward for half his life. Moments after all but giving up, Gordon found himself piecing together the outlines of a new plan.

  Could he try to rob a cabin filled with armed men? He pictured himself, kicking in the door to their wide-eyed astonishment, holding them all at bay with the pistol in one hand, while he tied them all up with the other!

  Why not? They might be drunk, and he was desperate enough to try. Could he take hostages? Hell, even a milk goat would be more valuable to them than his boots! A captured woman should bring more in trade than that.

  The idea was a sour taste in his mouth. It depended on the bandit leader behaving rationally for one thing. Would the bastard recognize the secret power of a desperate man, and let him go with what he needed?

  Gordon had seen pride make men do stupid things. More often than not. If it comes down to a chase, I’m cooked. I couldn’t outrun a badger, right now.

  He eyed the reflection across the pass, and decided he had very little choice, after all.

  * * *

  It was slow going from the first. His leg still ached and he had to stop every hundred feet or so to scan merging and crisscrossing trails for his enemy’s spoor. He also found he was checking shadows as potential ambushes, and made himself quit. These men weren’t Holnists. Indeed, they seemed lazy. Gordon guessed that their pickets would be close to home, if they maintained any at all.

  As the light faded, the footprints were lost in the gravelly soil. But Gordon knew where he was going. The glinting reflection could no longer be seen, but the ravine on the opposite shoulder of the mountain saddle was a dark, tree-lined V silhouette. He chose a likely path and hurried ahead.

  It was growing dark quickly. A stiff, cold breeze blew damply off the misty heights. Gordon limped up a dry stream bed and leaned on his staff as he climbed a set of switchbacks. Then, when he guessed he was within a quarter mile of his goal, the path suddenly failed.

  He ke
pt his forearms up to protect his face while he tried to move quietly through the dry undergrowth. He fought down a lingering, threatening urge to sneeze in the floating dust.

  Chilly night fog was flowing down the mountainsides. Soon the ground would shimmer with faintly luminous ground frost. Still, Gordon shivered less from the cold than from nerves. He knew he was getting close. One way or another, he was about to have an encounter with death.

  In his youth he had read about heroes, historical and fictional. Nearly all of them, when the time came for action, seemed able to push aside their personal burdens of worry, confusion, angst, for at least the time when action impended. But Gordon’s mind didn’t seem to work that way. Instead it just filled with more and more complexities, a turmoil of regrets.

  It wasn’t that he had doubts about what had to be done. By every standard he lived by, this was the right thing to do. Survival demanded it. And anyway, if he was to be a dead man, at least he could make the mountains a little safer for the next wayfarer by taking a few of the bastards with him.

  Still, the nearer he drew to the confrontation, the more he realized that he hadn’t wanted his dharma to come to this. He did not really wish to kill any of these men.

  It had been this way even as, with Lieutenant Van’s little platoon, he had struggled to help maintain a peace—and a fragment of a nation—that had already died.

  And afterward, he had chosen the life of a minstrel, a traveling actor and laborer—partly in order to keep moving, searching for a light, somewhere.

  A few of the surviving postwar communities were known to accept outsiders as new members. Women were always welcome, of course, but some accepted new men. And yet there was so often a catch. A new male frequently had to duel—kill for the right to sit at a communal table, or bring back a scalp from a feuding clan to prove his prowess. There were few real Holnists anymore in the plains and Rockies. But many survivor outposts he had encountered nevertheless demanded rituals of which Gordon wanted no part.