Desolation Crossing

by James Axler

  Either way, the baron had noticed how close the two men had become, and although it hadn’t really entered Trader’s mind up to this point, he began to dwell on it as he and Abe made their way back to the convoy, dismissed by the sec men after the baron had passed out from drinking too much. He’d become used to having the quiet man around, and with his skills he’d forged for himself an invaluable place in the convoy. He’d be more than missed.

  On the other hand, they hadn’t seen that much of him for the few days they’d been in Hollowstar. In Luke, he’d found a kindred spirit. Maybe the ville would appeal to a man who had never put down roots. Not everyone was a natural nomad like Trader and the majority of his crew. He’d assumed that J.B. was one of them in that respect.

  What if he was wrong?

  “AND I’M TELLING YOU, if you machine tool the bore on something that old, you’re going to turn it into a piece of shit. Is that really what you want?”

  “I’m paying you to do a job, and I’m telling you—”

  “You’re telling me you don’t know your ass from your elbow, and you’re talking out of both.” Luke took off his battered baseball cap, which rarely left his head, scratched vigorously, and then jammed it back into place with a firmness that echoed his tone.

  “Listen, bub, you might think you’re the hottest piece of shit this side of a stickie’s turd, but I’m still giving you good jack to do a job, and I expect you to do it.”

  The man was small and fat, but he was quivering with rage. And he had a Smith & Wesson snubbie tucked into the waistband of his tattered pants, while Luke had nothing but the overwhelming force of his personality. Odd thing that J.B. had noticed about him—for a man who loved ordnance so much, Luke never actually carried any kind of blaster himself.

  So that was one hell of a lot of lead against nothing but harsh words. A few men were gathered in the old storefront, playing cards and drinking coffee-sub. They gathered there every morning, it seemed, and Luke let them stay even though they had no business for him, and he barely acknowledged their presence. Right now, they weren’t even watching the argument.

  The fat little man was flexing his fingers as he stared up, red-faced, into Luke’s impassive visage.

  Calmly, Luke almost whispered, “I don’t give a rat’s fuck about your stupe jack, Howie. You can stuff it up your ass for all I care. Might even stop you talking such shit all the time. I am not—repeat, am not—going to try and machine tool an old piece of hardware like that. It was made with loving care, hand-crafted by men who didn’t know there was shit like this on the horizon, and who just wanted to do the best job they could. They loved their work, and I respect that. I love my work, and I’m not going to sully my reputation by carrying out an order—that I know to be stupe and wrong—just because some asshole thinks he knows better. Why, Howie, why, if you know how this piece of work should be done, have you even bothered coming here in the first place? How fucking stupe is that?”

  The little fat man blustered. “You…you…you shit-stained piece of rag. You always talk to me like that—”

  “Yeah, and you always come back, asshole,” Luke interjected.

  “Fuck you. Just do the fucking job and give me my blaster back in working order, right now,” Howie yelped, his voice rising higher and higher as his anger grew.

  And as his hand crept closer and closer to the Smith & Wesson in his belt. J.B. noted that, and decided to take a hand himself.

  “Listen, Luke isn’t shitting you on this,” he said quietly, sliding himself between the two men and using the soft tone he always used to calm Hunnaker when she was going ballistic on everyone’s ass. He figured that any kind of anger that would make a man squeal like a woman was somewhere near the kind of rage he’d seen from her.

  Maybe he was right. Howie looked at him blankly, trying to comprehend what was being said to him, his face almost purple with rage but his eyes starting to get a puzzled light in them. Yeah, J.B. had seen this kind of thing before.

  More assured now, he continued. “Luke may be telling you bluntly, Howie, but he’s right, See, this is a nice blaster,” he continued, reaching out behind him and flexing his fingers for Luke to hand him the old rifle that was the bone of contention. An apt phrase, as the cool, dry metal felt like a bleached and fossilized bone in his grasp. “It’s a really nice piece of work. Think about it—it’s lasted more than a hundred years, through skydark to now, and it was made before men even had the machines to make blasters. This had to be done by hand. It’s a different kind of metal from blasters made by machine.”

  “But metal is metal,” Howie blurted. He was still mad, but there was an uncertain edge to his voice, now. The Armorer’s calm tones and love of the craft was beginning to soothe him.

  “No, Howie, that’s a mistake a lot of people make. The metals used in blasters changed from time to time, as the process of making them changed. See, if you look inside the barrel of this beauty, you can see that the bore markings aren’t as exact as those on a machine-tooled blaster of the same type. Now, if you put it in a machine like the ones Luke has out back and try to rebore it, you’ll do nothing more than ruin what’s there and probably screw up the true line of the barrel, as the metal is softer than that the machines are made for. You see what I’m saying, Howie?”

  The little fat man looked at him with an odd mix of awe and complete lack of understanding on his face. He nodded, though he didn’t know why. J.B.’s tone had been both comforting, soothing and authoritative at the same time. Anyone from Trader’s convoy other than Hunn would have been astounded to hear the Armorer wax lyrical, and at such length. He was known as a man of few words. Yet, once he was on his favorite subject, it was sometimes hard to shut him up. The same was true of Luke, and no one who had heard them over the last few days and had prior knowledge of their personalities would have believed what they were hearing.

  But what the hell. It had worked on Howie, who said, “Well…well why didn’t Luke just say that in the first place?”

  “He was trying to,” J.B. said. That was a bare-faced lie, and the Armorer barely kept the grin off his face. “Anyway, the only way he can do this blaster by hand, which means you’ll have to leave it here. Can’t be done while you wait. Long job,” he added, just to make sure the little man got the point.

  Howie sniffed, peered over J.B.’s shoulder at Luke, who glowered at him.

  “Well, if some people would just say what they mean in the first place. I’ll call for it tomorrow. That okay?”

  Luke gave the briefest and most condescending of nods. Howie sniffed hard again, returned the nod and left the old storefront. J.B. turned to Luke, the blaster still in his hand and a quizzical look on his face.

  “Dude, you spoiled my fun,” Luke said gently.

  “Mad little fucker looked like he was about to chill you,” J.B. murmured.

  Luke’s face split into a grin. “Howie? Hell, no…I just like riding the little shit is all. He likes it, too. Gets his kicks from arguing with me.”

  “His hand was getting a little too close to that Smith & Wesson.”

  “Always does. Howie hasn’t so much as shot a mutie rabbit in years. He runs the dry-goods store across the road, and his wife does all the shooting if anyone tries to get away without paying. Oh, man, she’s the scary one. Twice his size up and half across. Face like an ax that’s been splintering redwoods all season. You know, that’s why he comes in here. Gets rid of all his aggression and anger. I’ve argued with him and rebored that rifle at least five times. Doesn’t really need it. You look.”

  J.B. examined the blaster in greater detail. Luke was right. The bore showed signs of manual reworking, and with great dexterity. Recent, too. J.B. switched his attention to Luke, who was still grinning. Even when they had been deep in discussion about ordnance, it was rare that the big man’s face had cracked. Now, it was like watching someone else in Luke’s face.

  Catching J.B.’s thoughts from his expression, Luke shrugged. “So I
supply a public service, dude. It’s not only about the hardware, just mostly. And besides, it livens up the day sometimes.”

  With which he turned and walked past the tattered drape and into the back room, leaving J.B. with the ancient but rebored rifle in his hand. Looking around, he saw that old guys playing cards had completely ignored the exchanges that had just taken place. Maybe it was just that it was all part of the order of the ville. Everyone knew about, but didn’t feel the need to explain unless an outsider tried to intervene.

  He shrugged. Maybe most villes worked this way, and he’d just never noticed it before. Reading people as well as he could read blasters was something he felt he needed to improve upon. Maybe Luke was good at it, as he’d obviously been around. The big man had never talked about where he had come from, just as he had never asked J.B. about himself. But it was clear he didn’t come from around here. The reference to chopping redwoods gave it away. J.B. had heard of the giant trees, knew that there were some left still standing after the nuke winters of skydark, but they were on the other side of the continent. Luke had referred to them in the casual manner of someone who knew from experience what he was talking about.

  So maybe he had some buried secrets. Maybe he was even more like the Armorer than either man suspected.

  J.B. was somehow warmed by the thought.

  EVEN J.B. HAD TO DO SOME work for Trader at some time during their stay. It had been several days stretching toward a week since they had arrived. Usually, the convoy was only in Hollowstar for a couple of days each side of their trek into the desolate lands beyond. Time enough to do a little trade and lessen the cost of the toll raised by the baron for using the only road to the east. Time enough for the crew of the convoy to have some downtime: drink brew, go to gaudy houses, rest up and have some fun before the arduous wastes that lay in wait for them.

  This time was different. Trader kept only Abe and Poet in close counsel with him. For the rest of the crew he had a policy of strictly need-to-know. When things became relevant, that was the time to be open. They were loyal to him; many of them had traveled with him since their formative years, and Trader had a good eye for character. But it was also because of this that he knew he couldn’t tell them everything all the time. People were fallible. They got drunk and said too much, sometimes without realizing it. Enemies didn’t always need intelligence laid out on a plate in front of them. A sober, alert crew knew that. When drunk, the lines of judgment became blurred. The same was true of what a man or woman said in the throes of lust. Hell, Trader knew that he couldn’t trust himself one hundred percent, let alone anyone else. Poet and Abe had to know shit, in case something happened to Trader. But even then, it was still a risk.

  So he had stayed silent to all except his two trusted lieutenants about the manner in which Baron Emmerton had been cagey about tolls and trade, delaying decisions and asking questions in and around the subject of Luke and J.B. It was starting to irritate Trader. He wished the fat bastard would just come out and say what he meant, so that they could deal with it. Trader wanted J.B. to stay with him and had no designs on Luke. But he figured that wasn’t what Emmerton thought. And he was pretty sure he knew what Emmerton wanted, the more he pondered it. Well, the greasy bastard wasn’t going to get it.

  Which would mean nothing but trouble. Meantime, all that he could do was keep his people occupied, stop them getting into too many fights, and hope that Emmerton would come out into the open pretty damn quick.

  “DARK NIGHT, how many more times are you going to have me doing this?” J.B. mumbled and grumbled as Trader took him through an inventory of every piece of ordnance carried by the convoy, both for their own use and for use as trade.

  “As many time as I want, son. I’m the boss here, remember?”

  J.B. shrugged. “I know, but I haven’t seen you this itchy before, and I’m figuring there’s a reason.”

  Trader weighed up the slight, bespectacled figure in front of him. J.B. was shrewd, and he’d figure it out, more or less, if given time. Best to take a calculated risk and let him know at least part of the story.

  “You’re no stupe, J.B. You must have realized from what the others have said that we don’t usually spend that long here before moving out.” When J.B. nodded, he continued. “Truth of the matter is that I’m having trouble with Emmerton over the tolls this time out. I’m not sure why, but the fucker is being cagier than a pen full of mutie pumas. So we’re stuck here, and you know what some of us are like when we get cabin fever, or too much time and too much jack to spend.”

  J.B. nodded once more. From the look on his face, it hadn’t occurred to him that Trader could have meant the Armorer himself. More likely he was thinking of Hunnaker, who had the capacity to go triple crazy with little or no provocation. It was a fair enough guess, as Trader did have some concerns in that corner. Nonetheless…

  “Okay, well, you know the best way to stop that happening is to keep people busy. Keep them somewhere that they can’t raise hell and get themselves blasted from here to the farm, and leave us in the shit.”

  J.B. shrugged. “Guess so,” he said in a slow drawl, “but shit, all I was gonna do was spend some more time with Luke. Could learn a lot off a man like that. And there won’t be that much time, as we’ll be on our way soon enough,” he added.

  Trader was glad to hear that last sentiment, but he masked his satisfaction well. “True enough. But I got something else I need you to do for me, J.B. Y’all got some downtime tonight, and I know that Hunn is going to want to go and get wasted on the local brew. She always does it when we’re here, tries to fuck anything that’ll have her, and gets real feisty if something or someone gets in her way.”

  Trader let the last words die away without feeling the need to elaborate. From the look on J.B.’s face—a slowly dawning, pained expression—he knew that the Armorer had drawn the conclusion he wanted.

  “Shit, no. I’ve got to bodyguard her all night and make sure nothing happens and no one buys the farm?”

  Trader grinned. “Got it in one.”

  “Fuck. I’ll do anything. Take the whole armory apart, grease it and reassemble it. Clean the shit off all the latrines. Hell, I’ll even let Abe try to explain the comm system to me again. But not that…”

  Trader clapped a hand on J.B.’s shoulder. “I knew you’d understand, J.B. You and her get on better than anyone. Shit, I know enough to know that no fucker on the face of this rad-blasted earth can control her, but you’ve got a better chance of keeping her under wraps than anyone else on the convoy. It’s the shitty end of the stick, but sometimes that’s all there is to grab hold of and haul yourself out.”

  “And that’s supposed to make me feel better?” J.B. mused.

  Trader shook his head. “Tell you what. It sure as hell makes me feel better.”

  As J.B. went back to his task, cursing under his breath for what he knew was to follow that evening, Trader congratulated himself on his double score. Not only had he kept Luke and J.B. apart for a while, to give Emmerton something to think about, he had also got the ever-present problem of Hunnaker under control for the moment.

  It seemed such a simple solution. How could it go wrong?

  “F UCK’S SAKE, I don’t need to be wet-nursed like a baby,” Hunn grumbled as she entered the bar with J.B. at her elbow.

  “Who says it’s that?” J.B. queried in reply. “Mebbe I just want to have a few brews with—”

  “Aw, bullshit, J.B.,” Hunn interrupted. “How many kinds of stupe d’you think I am? If you had your way, you’d be boring about bore with that lump of rock, Luke.”

  “He didn’t want to fuck you, eh?” J.B. asked with a fleeting smile.

  She waved dismissively as they approached the bar. “I didn’t want the big lunk anyway. Only thing that’d get him hard is a kind of blaster he hasn’t seen before…Not,” she added hastily, “that I’m saying the same thing about you, but—”

  “I didn’t think you were,” J.B. replied, “at
least, not until you mentioned it. Just for that, it’s your jack on the bar tonight.”

  Even though it was still daylight outside, the bar was already in a twilight gloom. Like most of the storefronts that surrounded the sparse green of the ville square, it was lit by tallow lamps. Fuel for generators was always at a premium, and carefully conserved. Unlike most of the storefronts, the bar had a smoked glass that had been fitted where the others had clear. It had originally been taken from a building with a much smaller window space, as the frame of the front window had been extended by boarding to house the glass. From what he’d been told, the smoked glass had been in place for some time and had never yet been cracked or broken in any way. So he could only assume that the inhabitants of Hollowstar had some serious sec enforcement when it came to their bars. And that Hunn had never yet run amok.

  Hunnaker and the Armorer seated themselves at the old bar stools that were metal framed and bolted to the floor. Looking around, J.B. could see that the tables and seats in the rest of the bar had been taken from an old predark diner, and were similarly bolted down. Well, that explained at least in part why the glass had stayed in place so long.

  The bar was more or less empty. It was still early, and most of the people in Hollowstar were going about their business. Everyone in Hollowstar had business—manufacture and repair of small goods, small holdings on the edge of the ville, education in trades for the children. The only people who had any kind of excuse to be in the bar at this time of day were those whose work kept them busy at night. Now was their time to take some rest and recuperation, before beginning the evening and night-shifts that ensured the ville worked 24/7. Emmerton and his predecessors had instilled in the community a strong work ethic.

  Some may have asked why a community should work itself so hard for seemingly so little reward. Riches were not there to be had this far east, but, by the same token, a crushing poverty that could have wiped out the community was only a spit away. The work ethic, and the organization that it brought to the community, were what kept them afloat. The price of their freedom—of their very lives—was eternal diligence.