The Warlord w-1

by Jason Frost

  "Jesus, Eric-"

  "No," Rydell interrupted. "He's right. Makes perfect strategic sense." He held the T-shirt in front of him, gave Molly a wink. "I hope Ricky will remain irrepressible."

  He took a deep breath and started walking.

  Eric led the others to a vantage position where they could watch Rydell as he walked cautiously toward the cluster of cabins, waving the T-shirt over his head. When he was within a couple hundred yards of the homes, two men popped up from behind dirt embankments where they'd been hiding. From a distance, the dirt embank-ments had seemed like nothing more than little bumps in the terrain. Fortunately, Eric had investigated earlier.

  The two men pointed their weapons at Rydell, gesturing and shouting, though Eric couldn't hear the words. Rydell immediately dropped the T-shirt and clasped his hands on top of his head. Four other men and two women came running out of various cabins, each armed with a weapon of some kind. Axe, spear, revolver, pitchfork. They circled Rydell, their weapons raised.

  "They're going to kill him," Molly said frantically, scrambling to her feet. "We've got to help him."

  Eric snagged her shirt and yanked her back. "Wait."

  Her face was red, the tiny, slivered eyes smaller yet. "Wait for what? First blood?"

  "Look," Tag pointed.

  Rydell was talking animatedly, his hands churning and pointing toward Eric and the others. As he talked, those surrounding him slowly lowered their weapons, looked in the direction Rydell had pointed. One of them, a rugged-looking man about forty with an axe balanced against his shoulder, was talking to Rydell. Rydell nodded vigorously.

  The man scratched his head, spoke to the others. There was a minute of conversation among the group. One of the men stalked off to his cabin, dragging one of the younger women with him, and slammed the door behind him. The man with the axe said something to Rydell. Rydell turned to Eric's direction and waved for them all to come down.

  "Do we go?" Season asked.

  "Tracy and Molly and I will go. You and Tag keep watch, and I mean careful watch. We'll fill your canteens."

  "But what if it's a trap?"

  Eric stepped through the brush, fastening Tag and Season's canteens to his belt. "We'll take the chance."

  "Water," the man with the axe said, "makes strange bedfellows."

  "I thought it was politics that did that," Molly said.

  "These days water is politics." Joseph Baldwin hung his axe from the wooden pegs next to the cabin door. "You know how much water each person used to use before the quake? I mean daily."

  They all shook their heads.

  "Guess." Joseph Baldwin grinned slyly, enjoying this.

  "Ten or twenty gallons, I guess," Tracy said.

  "No," Molly said. "That's what I use to wash my hair."

  "Ha! Not even close. Mr. Grimme?"

  "Fifty?"

  "Better, but not close enough. How about you, Mr. Ravensmith?"

  "Maybe a hundred gallons a day."

  Joseph Baldwin seemed pleased with that answer. "Very close. The average was 110 gallons. Can you imagine? And that was just for personal use. That doesn't count what manufacturers used, or farmers. And remember, Southern California is really desert, so most of the water had to be brought in here via three aqueducts. Colorado River Aqueduct, 242 miles long through the Mojave Desert; California Aqueduct, bringing water 450 miles from the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta; and the Los Angeles Aqueduct, spitting water 338 miles from the Sierra Nevada." He shook his head in amazement as he pulled up a chair, sitting at the table between Eric and Tracy and across from Rydell and Molly. He smiled a full set of white teeth. "I probably sound like some old village coot to you, rattling on about water. All that's missing is me chewing tobacco and whittling on a sharp stick. That's what happens when you're isolated like this. Hard to believe I used to be a successful corporate lawyer in San Diego. Important comer in the Democratic party. A Big Brother. My wife and I even sponsored two South American kids through one of those charity organizations. You know the ads, a photograph of some dirty, naked kid with ribs like a xylophone and a caption that reads, 'Juan never has a good day.' " He stared at his hands a while, thick with calluses, as if noticing them for the first time. "You know whose hands these are? My father's. He worked as a farmer all his life in Iowa. Still there. I remember one May, I was about twelve, and he was wrapping Mom's Mother's Day gift. How clumsy those hands were. He could hardly fold the paper at the ends. Finally he asked me to do it because he kept tearing the paper. I'll never forget that. The wrapping paper was left over from Christmas, with little angels all over it." He looked at his hands again, shook his head. "Help yourself to as much water as you need. We've got plenty."

  "Thanks," Eric said. "Didn't look like everybody here was as generous as you."

  "Oh, you saw Foster stomping off, huh? Don't pay any attention to him. He's afraid someone's going to steal his woman."

  "I see."

  "Do you?" Joseph asked, his voice suddenly very bitter. He raked his callused hands through his dusty, black hair. "Jim Foster lost his wife in the quake. Burned or drowned in downtown San Diego, he's not sure which. The woman he's living with is his younger sister, and they've been living as husband and wife ever since."

  "My God," Tracy said.

  "That shock you, young lady? It shouldn't. She can't have any kids, so we don't have to worry about that problem. They love and care for each other. And they aren't likely to find anybody else, not anymore. So what's the harm? You see how a little shift in the land can suddenly make incest okay?" He laughed. "Hell, my wife and I were planning a divorce when this whole thing happened. Now we're closer than we've ever been. Why is that? Is it because disaster brings out the best in people? No, she and I had been through two miscarriages together. In some ways they were worse disasters than the quakes." He looked around the table at each of them as if he were suddenly very tired. "Maybe you'd better just get your water and be leaving."

  Eric stood up, the others followed. "We appreciate your hospitality, Mr. Baldwin."

  "Sure," he nodded, distracted. "Sorry I bent your ear. But there's only a handful of us living here and we've heard everything about each other so much, we're a little starved for variety. We don't have much in common, except water. My wife and I were driving back from Vegas when the quake hit. We'd been visiting her father, deals blackjack at the MGM Grand. Our car was flipped a couple times, but we were okay. We wandered a bit until we found this cabin and the well. The old man who'd owned it was dead, heart attack I think. Soon Jim Foster and his sister stumbled in here, and then the others. Like I said, water makes strange bedfellows."

  "Anyone else come this way recently?" Eric asked.

  "Not for a month. That's when Evans Pierce and his son joined us. He used to be a rich contractor in San Diego, building fancy homes and apartment complexes. For the past month he's been helping us get these cabins right. They don't look like much, made out of scrap metal and wood and whatever else we can haul in here. But it's home." He smiled. "Home is where the water is, right?"

  Eric nodded.

  "Don't worry, Mr. Ravensmith, no more trivia about the amazing aqueduct system of California, or should I say former system. Actually, I memorized all that stuff from a magazine I found here in the old man's cabin. One of about a dozen magazines. Everybody here's read them all a couple times each, just for something to do. Too bad he didn't read books."

  "Aren't there any other camps around here like yours?" Rydell asked.

  "A couple," He pointed toward the east. "A bunch of Vietnamese live about ten miles that way. We trade with them sometimes. Eggs for nails. Milk for water. They're fair enough people, but pretty clannish."

  "Have you thought about asking them to join your group?" Molly said,

  Joseph shrugged. "Incest is one thing, but some attitudes don't change. Half of the people here are afraid of them, afraid they'll get their throats slit in the night. Gil Clyne lost his son in Vietnam and he's convinced
the others not to risk it. So we'll go on like this until we're so bored we'll take the chance."

  "Any other settlements?" Eric asked.

  "Well, there's one we heard about from a couple men passing through about six weeks ago. Place called Savvytown."

  "Savvytown," Tracy laughed.

  "Yeah, I know. But that's what they called it."

  "What do you know about it?" Eric asked.

  "Not much. Just that if you're smart, you'll stay away from it." Abruptly, Joseph pushed his chair back from the table and started toward the door. "Sorry we can't give you any food, but we're a little short there ourselves. Let's get those canteens filled."

  Foxworth nudged Toomey. "What do you think?"

  "I think there are more of them than there are of us."

  Foxworth thought about that. "Yeah. I thought Ravensmith was supposed to be alone."

  "Well he isn't," Toomey snapped.

  "What's eating you?"

  "Nothing. Nothing." But, of course, something was. At thirty-six, Scott Toomey was at least fifteen years older than Foxworth. He was a Vietnam veteran, though he'd never seen any actual combat there, and had always felt a bit ashamed of that fact. When he'd returned from his tour, friends and family were always asking him what it had been like. He'd give them all the same response, a distant look and a mumbled, "I'd rather not talk about it." They would all nod, sympathizing with his tortured memories.

  Actually, he had no experiences to tell them, except how many paper cuts he got from filing all day long in Saigon. It was the worst humiliation of Scott Toomey's life, to have gone off to war and yet never seen a single battle. When he'd heard a few months before the quake that Colonel Fallows was recruiting some men, he'd thought it was for some mercenary action somewhere in Africa. Finally, combat! He'd tossed in the apron with Toomey's Hardware stitched in red across the pocket and left his father's store for the last time. He'd never had a moment's regret, especially since the quakes. He'd done his share of killing, raping, looting. And it was everything he always hoped it would be. If he did have any regret it was that now that he finally had some real war stories to tell, all of his friends were back in New Jersey.

  Now he was crouching here with some punk kid who smelled of dog all the time. He still didn't know why he'd volunteered, he'd been around long enough to know better. But there was something about the way Fallows had looked at him… Well, it was done. This would be just another story to tell them back in Trenton.

  "I make out six of them. Two on guard over there, and four down getting water from that camp."

  Foxworth nodded. "Yeah, I get the same."

  Toomey snorted.

  "Well, what's our plan? There are six of them and two of us."

  "Yeah, but they don't know we're here. So we take 'em out one at a time. Hit and run. Starting with those two." He pointed toward Tag and Season.

  "Look at them tits, man. If we got the time, can I fuck her?"

  "Before or after we kill her?"

  Foxworth shrugged. "It don't matter."

  "Are we ever going to make it, you think?" Season asked.

  "Sure," Tag said. "We'll probably catch up to them in-"

  "I don't mean that kind of make it. I mean make it, as in make love. You and me."

  "Oh, well, I don't, uh, know. I hadn't really-"

  "You hadn't thought about it? Thanks a lot."

  "That's not what I meant. Sure, I've thought of it, but… Christ, what brought this up?"

  Season slipped her bandanna off her head, wadded it, wiped the sweat from her face and neck, and tied it back on. "Let's be realistic. We're human beings, regardless of how Eric treats us, and we have certain, you know, needs. Companionship, love, sex."

  "Right now our needs are limited to food and water."

  "Yeah, but we've been okay there. Hell, look at Molly and Rydell. They've been playing a little slap-and-tickle at night. They haven't actually done the dirty deed yet, but first time they've got five minutes alone they will." She smiled. "It's kind of nice. Romantic."

  "What's that have to do with us?"

  "Well, besides you, the only other available man for me right now, unless Rydell and Molly have a spat, is Eric. And that's not likely. Not that I wouldn't be interested, but he's too possessed right now. Too many demons in his head. Besides, Tracy's got her eye on him. Not that I couldn't give her a run for her money."

  Tag shook his head. "Tracy? You're nuts. She hasn't said a thing, done anything to suggest what you're implying."

  "Trust me, Tag," she said, patting his arm. "A woman can tell. Not that she'd do anything about it; she's got too much class for that. She's-"

  Tag held up his hand for silence. "Hear that?"

  Season tightened the grip on her bow, her fingers tugging slightly on the string. She hunched forward, swiveling her head to listen. Tag saw the intensity on her face, was reminded of African tribeswomen smeared with stripes of colored mud as they hunted, spear in hand. He felt a rush of desire flame down his chest, stomach, flickering through his groin.

  They stood without moving or breathing for a full minute, eyes darting through the desert brush, noses unconsciously sniffing for the smell of men. Finally, they looked at each other, shrugged, relaxed a hit.

  Tag pointed down at Eric and the others filling their canteens. "Looks like they were successful. That's the first oasis I've ever seen outside a movie. Somehow it doesn't look as real as in the movies."

  "It's got water. That's real enough."

  "I guess it's a good thing we've been traveling mostly at night. Rydell told me that we each need a gallon of water a day to survive in the desert, but that at night we can cover twice as much mileage on that gallon as during the day. Twenty miles as opposed to ten."

  "Yeah, I saw Beau Geste too. Only trouble is, so did Fallows, and he's been covering the same ground. More, because his men are in better shape."

  Tag nodded, fell silent. He tried to catch a glimpse of Season out of the corner of his eye, see if she was still looking at him. He'd never had much trouble finding girls, but this one overwhelmed him. All the qualities he had to push himself to have-courage, humor, forth-rightness-she displayed easily. "You know, Season, uh, about what you said before-"

  "You understand the Dewey Decimal System?"

  "Huh?"

  "All those ridiculous numbers. You understand them?"

  "Yeah. It's based on a classification formulated by W.T. Harris for the St. Louis Public Library. Melvil Dewey devised it in 1873 for the Amherst College Library. In it, all knowledge is divided into ten groups, with each group assigned a hundred numbers. Then-"

  "Okay, okay. I didn't understand it before and you're not making it any easier. I just figure we should get to know each other a bit better since we're kind of like the last two people at a singles bar. Eventually we're going to go home together, so we might as well enjoy each other's company. Make sense?"

  He nodded. "Sure, I guess."

  "Great!" she smiled and pecked him on the cheek. "At least now it's out in the open. We don't have to kid each other."

  Tag turned to say something to her, he wasn't sure what exactly, just something nice. He hoped the words would, for once, spring naturally and unarmored from his mouth. "I-"

  He heard a funny sound. A zipper closing too fast. Where had he heard that sound before? There was a nudge at his chest, the distant sound of screaming. Season's.

  "Jesus God, no!"

  Lazily he followed her eyes to his chest, saw the green stick of wood, the yellow feathers bunched like a bouquet at one end. The shaft was wedged into his chest. How'd that get there? he wondered, started to reach for it to pluck it out. But his arms wouldn't move. His hand uncurled from the bow, it dropped on his foot. He didn't feel it. Slowly, so slowly, he felt his legs melting under him.

  Like a vivid dream, it all seemed to take hours to Tag. But for Season, from the time she saw him hit to the time he dropped to the ground was a matter of a second or two.
>
  She'd screamed from shock, but had recovered quickly, dropping to one knee and firing off an arrow in the direction the crossbow bolt had come from. The arrow rustled through the brush, but didn't hit anything solid. She flipped another arrow from quiver to bow and drew. The bow's system of pulleys allowed her to keep it drawn without arm fatigue as she swept it in a fanning motion from brush to brush.

  Zzziipp.

  Another bolt sizzled by her, embedded itself in Tag's exposed back. She pivoted in the direction it had come from, fired her arrow. It too was swallowed by the brush. She reached for another arrow.

  Zzziipp.

  The bolt's razor-edged tip punctured her right forearm, slicing through flesh and muscle like a ship's prow through water. Instantly it poked through the back of her forearm dripping blood onto her fine wheat-colored hairs.

  Zzziipp.

  Zzziipp.

  Two more bolts flashed toward her, one whooshing over her right shoulder, the other chipping a splinter from her bow before being deflected to the ground.

  Unable to either see the enemy or fire her bow with her injured arm, Season dropped the bow and did what her body was trained to do best. She ran.

  Eric gave the cap of the canteen an extra twist. "That about does it. Again, thanks for the help."

  Joseph Baldwin smiled, shook Eric's hand. "No problem. It's the least I could do after bending all your ears so much. Hope you find whoever you're tracking."

  Eric's face hardened.

  "No, don't worry, none of you let anything slip. You forget, I was a lawyer. Had a stint as a public defender for a couple years. I know the look." He gave them a grim smile. "But from judging the kind of people you seem to be, I'd say whoever it is has it coming."

  'Thanks for the water," Eric said again, nodding to the others to move out,

  "Jesus God, no!" Season's scream cracked the air like a gunshot.

  Eric led them as they scrambled up the sandy incline. They ran clumsily through the shifting sand, their feet slogging as if buried in mud. Only Eric seemed to move easily, his feet slapping ahead of the others as if he were on pavement. His crossbow was cocked, the bolt snug against the string, waiting for that 150 pounds of tension to snap it through the air.